resolve for the sake of being resolute is not necessarily an admirable quality. it just means you're either too dumb or too slow to know when to change directions or reevaluate your situation. if we believe in human fallibility we must believe at some point that not all decisions will always be correct, for the context surrounding those decisions (both at the time and afterward) will change.
but here we are, at the mercy of an administration that will create:
'a central line of attack against Democrats from now through the midterm elections: that the withdrawal being advocated by Democrats would mean thousands of troops would have died for nothing, would give extremists a launching pad from which to build an Islamo-fascist empire and would hand the United States its must humiliating defeat since Vietnam.'
i guess some GOP self-awareness would be a little too much to ask. perhaps it is entirely outside the realm of reality that someone on their side stand up, raise their hand and say, 'hey, guys. guess what? these thousands of troops have died for nothing - really. and it's funny you mention vietnam...'
but i guess what we're seeing is the power of mythology - the mythology of democracy (apparently, we, the most democratic of nations just can't fuck up the course of democracy faster), the mythology of american moral superiority and even the myth of american strategery. in religious parlance i guess you could describe this historical moment as The Moment Our Government Began to Name it & Claim it. if you're not familiar, name it & claim it is the spiritual voodoo that says the reality you create is the reality on the ground; name your desire, claim it in the name of jesus and see your blessings follow. to my non-theological brain, it's the low-rent version of Providence.
it's also a neat religious trick but when you're actually naming/claiming off the bodies of dead soldiers and civilians, it's just a little gross.
...
a couple of nights ago, on the daily show, they showed a clip from the debates on the non-binding resolution to 'support our troops.' i remember most clearly a representative saying that he was glad that Murtha hadn't been involved in the vote to intervene in the second world war or we'd all be speaking german or japanese right now.these are the people who are making global, life/death decisions for us, the american people. these are the ignorant blowhards who have the power to make this 'war' on terror a perpetual state of existence for us, until it no longer registers and becomes a low hum in the background of our lives. (it already has become so, hasn't it?)
at least they have family values.
8 comments:
Ah yes, good ole 'Murican values:
-Write discrimination into The Constitution, can't let them queers destroy marriage!
-Use tax dollars to fund religion (faith-based initiatives).
-Wire tapping w/o warrants.
-Invade Iraq under false premises.
Let's see, so far that would include lying, promoting prejudice/discrimination, and invading privacy. Yes, them Republicans hold the copyright on family values.
unfortunately, the dem leaders don't seem to be doing much to stop them. while i think of myself as unapologetically lib'rul, i wonder at our commitment to change.
i keep thinking of a scene from battlestar galactica. (bear with me; it'll be relevant!) it's the season two finale and Chief Tyrol says:
'There comes a time when you realize that the engine you built with your blood and your sweat and your tears is being used for something so foul, so... perverted, that it makes you sick in your heart. And it's then that you must throw your body on the gears, and on the levers, and on the machine itself, and make it stop! And you have to show the people who run it, the people who control it, that unless we're free, that machine will be prevented from working at all!'
it would be nice if some democratic leader actually had the balls to say something like that - and the rest of the party could follow.
The Dems have traded in their spines for complacency. Both parties disgust me. I haven't even registered to vote in this county since the move and I'm not going to bother to do so either. Sure, I could vote my conscience w/the Libertarian party but why bother.
I can understand why conservatives don't want to "cut and run" for whatever democracy-spreading, terror-stopping reasons they think this is about. But this is also bankrupting the country. We're more than $8 trillion in debt already. And they say liberals like spending money and that they like big government. Hmmm.
i'd honestly like to know how what we're doing there is spreading democracy. and i guess that's what's killing me about all of this.
what exactly are the metrics for spreading democracy and fighting the war on terror?
if no one can tell us that then what the hell are we doing there?
Well, considering the past two elections in our country have been fraudulent...
ding, the battlestar galactica quote your talking about is actually a paraphrase of an actual speech by Mario Savio during the Berkely Free Speech movement of 1964.
His actual words were: "There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!"
Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcx9BJRadfw
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