Buying the War

"The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823. ME 15:491

Just watched Bill Moyers' latest, which you can watch by clicking here. It's a great watch, well-made, and it's got me really thinking about just how fragile our nation is.

The video examines how the Washington press-corps, in the lead-up to the Iraq war, failed in their most important responsibility: finding, and communicating, the truth. It wasn't clear to me just how absolutely critical the press is in maintaining our freedom, in enabling us to make informed decisions. Imagine if it were like China or Russia or another one of these fucked up places, and all our news was state-run. How could you ever make an informed decision? You only have the word of these people to go on. If they fail, democracy fails.

It seems almost quaint now to hear Bush and his people make the case for the war, almost embarrassing to see how they made constant connections to 9/11. It's like making a video of yourself at age 16 in which you declare all the things you take as absolutes about life and love and then watching it twenty years later, realizing the stunning amount of ignorance in which you lived. It would be comical if people weren't still dying for it, weren't still giving their lives towards the effort.

I remember once, in the lead-up to the war, I posted something on a forum in defense of Michael Moore. Moore had just delivered his "fictitious war" speech at the Oscars, something for which history will remember him, in my opinion, as a minor hero of free-speech, and within minutes someone posted about how I was a "typical liberal" who would rather have Saddam Hussein in power and how much I hated America. It's funny, I still kinda get pissed just thinking about it, and I think it is because, even then, I knew I was being policed, being branded a minor-traitor just because I called people on their blatant character-assassination. It scared me how powerful this person's vitriol was, how palpable his anger was, and it's little comfort knowing just how wrong he was, just how embarrassed I would be if I were him, to have put my heart into some knowledge only to be shown repeatedly by the last four years just how wrong I was, and how tragic my certainty had proven.

Now, am I sad that Hussein is out of power? Nope. Dude was a douchebag, a whorehound of Hell, and he deserved a dog's death. He deserved death long before we gave it to him.

But we were lied to. I was lied to. My mom was lied to. I know some of you might still have some faith left in Bush, even some faith in this war, and I guess it's hard for me to communicate how much I wanted to like Bush, how much I wanted to believe that it was a righteous war. Is it bad to confess how exciting it was to see the green footage of Baghdad in those early days, the way our bombs lit up the night sky, to feel the might of America throb and pulse and pound, a beating heart spilling blood and destruction in the name of justice?

But you were lied to. The fear that we all had after 9/11, the righteous anger, the trembling fury that shook in our fists as we saw the buildings collapse, all of that was taken, twisted, manipulated and deformed into a misguided fervor. Like an abused child, we all thought we were doing the right thing, that what we were doing wasn't hurting anyone, and now I just feel dirty. Tainted. I'm mad that my generation inherits a world that went from "Tout les Americains" to "Freedom Fries" in the span of a year. I'm mad that our credibility in the world is shot. (I'm also mad at people like Richard Gere, who astound me by being horrible, horrible ambassadors... I mean really, Dick, what the fuck. This kind of thing would make us uncomfortable in America, let alone freaking India).

Anyways. I haven't gotten political on this blog for one reason only, and that is that politics divide people. My whole point here is to connect, to brighten your day, to share my stories in the hope that you find the strength to share your own. I am just so sad about this whole Iraq situation. I don't know how long it will take to undo the damage done. I remember reading once in an editorial that perhaps the only way to win in Iraq was to lose (or feign-death, for the WoW peeps who read this). You know, take a fall and let the little guy feel like he's won. America leaving could be great motivation for Iraqis to feel good about themselves.

Anti-American? Nope. I want to win, goddammit, and if winning the freedom of these frigging people halfway across the globe means sucking up some of our pride, consolidating our armies, refortifying, and strengthening up for the next battle, then so be it (how awesome is Risk? seriously, people, sometimes you have to let the Middle East go in order to pwn Africa).

I hope you're well. Watch the Moyers thing. Some guy on YouTube called him an "aging Marxist," and I've found that the people who get labeled are usually the ones with something interesting to say. Also, the internet makes me fear for the future of humanity, YouTube comments in particular. Sheesh.

always,
m