A “peace process” that involves increased power and gains for the Israelis and compromise and frustration for the Palestinians is not realistic and will only lead to more strife and death. Only when both parties realize that they are pawns in a larger, more global game – and they start thinking as humans as opposed to self-righteous zealots – will peace truly visit the Middle East.
This country is getting so sickeningly polarized that you can’t even say “Where’s the bathroom?” without someone vehemently agreeing or disagreeing with you. It was insane factionalization of thought like this that allowed freaks like Hitler to take over. And, I don’t mean just Bush. It’s the whole aura of fascism (be it the “conservatives” or the “liberals” – freakin’ giant misnomers, if you ask me) our society has begun to surround itself with. Makes me ill.
No, this was never the answer, but as long as guys with small dicks and equally large brains run this planet, violence will always be the only answer within reach. “Oh, he kicked my sand castle down, so I’m going to show him.” Bullies in sandboxes.
Unfortunately, our people and their people are dying, while these fat idiots “support our troops.” I say that if you are willing for death to result because of what you believe in, you go and die for it yourself, instead of having someone else do your dirty work for you. That’s the only answer I have for the people who want to stay here, watch cable tv, buy capri pants, and endorse this war, while some poor 20 year old schmuck is having his brain blown out all over some desert floor. Whomever wants war, be he American or Iraqi or Al-Qaida, should be willing to die themselves. If you want this war, you go fight in it! In that regard and many others, Bush, Saddam, and Osama are the same person to me. Equally belligerent and equally inane. They are all terrorists in my book.
I, for one, did not become an American to see this bullshit happen. I’m very disappointed in what my generation has to witness and truly disappointed in the future I thought I was going to have as an adult. I will continue to fight for what I believe is right, however. For that means a lot, in its own way.
In Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut’s non-human Tralfamadoreans see all time at once like a mountain range and just look along it; their viewpoint is contrasted with that of the human protagonist, Billy Pilgrim. Vonnegut’s handling of the difficulties humans have overcoming their time-bound senses may be suggestive in this instance.
Well, you have to go if only for the cool, but completely gratuitous, special effects of whole cities being demolished by volcanic upheavals and earthquakes. Never mind that more than 90% of the world is severely underpopulated and underwater; geologic catastrophes of the celluloid variety always seem to pick New York City and Tokyo in some strange prescient fashion.
I am boycotting the movie for obvious reasons. As I did Earthquake, Volcano, Anaconda, and Lake Placid. Speaking of Lake Placid, this reminds me of Oliver Platt’s line from the movie, “I’m sure you didn’t know that. They hide information like that in books.” Sorry, natural phenomena just don’t have personal vendettas against human beings … but should. “Bovine Invasion” or “Attack of the 50 foot Kudzus” would have been more exciting movies to watch, if Hollywood were to create such features.
Thought Hilary Swank was smarter than this movie, too.
MSH says:
Before you let the notion of “maybe this invasion was a good thing after all” get to you …
I’ve been watching and listening to all the propaganda being pushed into our alimentary canals by the media — but no one at all has mentioned just how tiny all that crowd actually was. I can’t say there were even all that many tens of people to call them hundreds. The total was probably over 100, less than 200, yet the thing is being compared to the half million people who were involved in bringing down the Berlin Wall, and it was obvious THOSE people didn’t need the help of tanks from the US Army to make such images.
It should be noted that Wilfred Owen, friend of Robert Graves, and Sasson, died weeks before the WWI Armistice in combat. Such was the slaughter that ¼ of the male poplulation of Britain and Northern Ireland were killed (hence, the lost generation).
Dulce et Decorum est
by Wilfred Owen
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines* that dropped behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, -
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
(Latin for “Sweet and appropriate it is to die for one’s fatherland,” this saying adorns many walls in England)
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