alexist

I keep feeling I should give more of a shit about the war on Iraq. The problem is that I think the division of assholes on this one is about even. Bush wanted war and Chirac handed him the opportunity on a silver platter. Many of the protesters are completely naive at best. Really, how do you deal with a war that's being fought for the wrong reasons, but may be good in the end? The pacifist left doesn't have an answer for that. It's never had an answer for things that don't come within the nice orderly world it's laid out, where people act logically. Irrationality, much less evil like the 9/11 bombers, doesn't fit into this.

The anti-war group still has no real answer, and the Iraqis saying "thank you for liberating us" don't make their case much better. (I read that in the Guardian, by the way, not a US paper.) They can't even get it through their heads that it isn't just a huge plot to get Iraqi oil.

I believe that people do have the ability to change things. Fatalism doesn't work for me. But I'm no starry-eyed student activist. What good will marching in the streets do? None. All it does is get hijacked by the people with the loudest mouths. (Side note: I've discovered that the British Stop the War coalition is trying to keep "on message"--it's the USA ANSWER group that's got a viciously anti-Israel agenda.) I did some work with NYPIRG in college, so I know something of how you actually get things done. All marches do is draw public attention to your cause. If you want to get the government to do something about it, you can scream in the street all you like and it won't make a damn bit of difference. You need to get to people who matter, and you have to be coherent, prepared, and able to show that it'll make a difference at the next election. Sure, people are angry now. But politicians are betting that by the time the next general election rolls around, this will all be a distant memory.

In the meantime, can we stop running the damn footage 24/7?

Now the radio's starting "land of the free, home of the brave, we support our troops" propaganda garbage. I don't like being asked to "support our troops". I guess I support them on an individual basis, because regardless of whether this war is right or not, it's certainly not the fault of some kid in the Army who just got shipped out. But I don't like this kind of coordinated patriotism. I think I'm too contrary-minded. (I thought yellow ribbons were stupid during Gulf War I.)

And reading comments on BBC News is just too depressing. What do you do if you're American, think Dubya's a little short in the brains department, but don't think your country's the next member of the Axis of Evil? I don't feel ashamed to live in the USA, or that we've got Idiot-Boy for president. Annoyed, yeah, but why ashamed? Should I ask the French to be ashamed they had a choice of a criminal or a racist? Or the Italians for electing Berlusconi, or Australia for returning Howard to office despite his inhumane refugee policy? There isn't a perfect country anywhere. Even good old neutral Switzerland helped the Nazis, and Canada (#1 on the Human Development Index) has trouble holding itself together!