Thursday, August 30, 2007
Vigil To End The War
I attended a vigil against the war in Iran (and the coming one with Iran) this past week. It was my first act of political free speech and assembly since I applied for my Security Clearance. I'm not saying I got my clearance. I'm not stupid enough to talk about that on my blog. I'm just saying I went to an anti-war protest. And it was decidedly anti-war. It was not "Anti-War, but a bunch of pro-impeachment people showed up and took over. Or, Anti-War, but a bunch of Universal Health Care people came and took over." Just anti-war folk.
A Gulf War Vet spoke. Beforehand we were bullshitting about what candidates we like. Its funny because all of the candidates that receive media play like Hillary, Edwards, Ron Paul, etc, are pretty much either completely unelectable (e.g. they're populists, but aren't considered 'serious' candidates by the MSM) or they're more of the same (Hilldog, Obama, Guiliani). This election feels like we're just going to swish the same shitty taste from the right cheek to the left, and I'm left with the feeling that nothing is going to change.
They've been trying for Universal Health Care for almost 20 years. Nixon didn't like it. And now the health care lobby has more than 600 lobbyists under its employ. That's more than 1 lobbyist per elected representative in both House and Senate combined. Big money triumphs over little people. Our system is built upon the two words: Money Talks.
So yeah, I'm a little cynical, and I probably wasn't the best person to be giving 18 year olds who're going to be voting on their first presidential election in 08 voting advice.
We did one thing at the Vigil that I both liked and disliked. We read the casualty timeline. It read like, "On such and such a day, 4 US soldiers were killed. They were from Anchorage, AK, Someplace, PA, such and such, KY, bumblescum, SC." It was kinda long and tedious, and felt a little past the line where I wanted to go in terms of political expression. However, at the same time, I felt it was necessary. The war has been out sourced to a professional class that middle america has almost no contact with, and middle america has no real stake in this war. Most of us just want to "win" for some unfounded reason like like it would be better for the iraqi people (unlikely) or to prevent America from dealing with the same shame it felt after losing Vietnam.
(Just listen to anyone running their mouth about how we could've won that conflict. We dropped more bombs than we did in WWII. We were there for 16 years. Our best estimates put the civilian dead at 2.5 million. Its nothing but a lie born of revisionism -- brought on by the shame that military might cannot and willnot end cultural differences of a foreign culture.)
So we read the timeline. It omits the names of the fallen, so that their names aren't used in any political purpose. (As opposed to their deaths, which at this point I think it is nakedly obvious is for nothing but a political purpose.)
One army guy was 'disgusted' by what we were doing. It was a waste of time to tell him that we were not his enemy. Trying to educate those who don't really think/feel/care about the war is one thing, but those that have a personal stake in it, those that believe in it, and that could be going into a shooting war in the next 6 months, the truth is those are the ones that you feel the worst for -- they're already gone.
Anyway, it was decent.
A Gulf War Vet spoke. Beforehand we were bullshitting about what candidates we like. Its funny because all of the candidates that receive media play like Hillary, Edwards, Ron Paul, etc, are pretty much either completely unelectable (e.g. they're populists, but aren't considered 'serious' candidates by the MSM) or they're more of the same (Hilldog, Obama, Guiliani). This election feels like we're just going to swish the same shitty taste from the right cheek to the left, and I'm left with the feeling that nothing is going to change.
They've been trying for Universal Health Care for almost 20 years. Nixon didn't like it. And now the health care lobby has more than 600 lobbyists under its employ. That's more than 1 lobbyist per elected representative in both House and Senate combined. Big money triumphs over little people. Our system is built upon the two words: Money Talks.
So yeah, I'm a little cynical, and I probably wasn't the best person to be giving 18 year olds who're going to be voting on their first presidential election in 08 voting advice.
We did one thing at the Vigil that I both liked and disliked. We read the casualty timeline. It read like, "On such and such a day, 4 US soldiers were killed. They were from Anchorage, AK, Someplace, PA, such and such, KY, bumblescum, SC." It was kinda long and tedious, and felt a little past the line where I wanted to go in terms of political expression. However, at the same time, I felt it was necessary. The war has been out sourced to a professional class that middle america has almost no contact with, and middle america has no real stake in this war. Most of us just want to "win" for some unfounded reason like like it would be better for the iraqi people (unlikely) or to prevent America from dealing with the same shame it felt after losing Vietnam.
(Just listen to anyone running their mouth about how we could've won that conflict. We dropped more bombs than we did in WWII. We were there for 16 years. Our best estimates put the civilian dead at 2.5 million. Its nothing but a lie born of revisionism -- brought on by the shame that military might cannot and willnot end cultural differences of a foreign culture.)
So we read the timeline. It omits the names of the fallen, so that their names aren't used in any political purpose. (As opposed to their deaths, which at this point I think it is nakedly obvious is for nothing but a political purpose.)
One army guy was 'disgusted' by what we were doing. It was a waste of time to tell him that we were not his enemy. Trying to educate those who don't really think/feel/care about the war is one thing, but those that have a personal stake in it, those that believe in it, and that could be going into a shooting war in the next 6 months, the truth is those are the ones that you feel the worst for -- they're already gone.
Anyway, it was decent.
