May 22, 2008 7:53 AM

Don't feel bad...I'm sure you can always slap another magnetic ribbon on your SUV

Landing in Seattle after a long flight from Texas, I was about to join the exit scrum when the pilot informed us there were five soldiers on board, ending a three-day odyssey home from Iraq. Could we let them pass? What followed was prolonged applause by all, and a startling reminder to some - oh, are we still at war?.... Yet, for its prolonged clutch on our treasury and blood, no war as been so out-of-sight, so stage-managed to be painless and invisible. We're supposed to shop, to spend our stimulus checks, to carry on as if nothing has happened -- or is happening. Every now and then we get to rise at a stadium or pause on an airplane. Some sacrifice. It would have been more fitting for us on that plane to stand aside while a flag-draped coffin was unloaded. At least then, we would get a moment to wonder what it's like to put a 19-year-old son in a grave, to lose a sister, a spouse, to see war as something more than a parlor game of neo-cons. In a democracy, wars should be felt by the decision makers -- all of us. It starts at the top.

I grew seeing body counts on the six o'clock news. The Vietnam War was a reality in my living room every night, just as the war in Iraq should be for today's generation. You'd think that, with information being so much more readily and easily accessible thanduring my childhood, that we'd see a level of anti-war activism similar to the '60s and '70s. Yeah, you might think that, but what seems to have happened instead is that the avalanche of information has simply numbed us to the reality that young Americans are still returning home in flag-draped boxes. We see an American in uniform in an airport departure lounge, and the general reaction is "Oh, yeah...there's a war going on...." As long as someone else's child or loved one is doing the fighting and dying, eh??

We've stood mutely by while a President who wasn't legally elected to begin with lied and propagandized this country into an illegal war that has now lasted longer than our involvement in WWII. (Yeah, Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © lied...but at least he didn't get a blowjob in the Oval Office. The Worst President EVER © is, after all, a resolute man of God who clearly was chosen by the Almighty as a tough leader for tough times.) What's worst is that we as a nation seem not to give a damn...just as long as someone else's child or loved one is doing the fighting and dying.

At the end of WWII, when Allied forces liberated Nazi concentration camps, they sometimes force-marched the locals through the camps to show them what sorts of atrocities their willful ignorance had made them complicit in. (Sure, they could smell the burning human flesh from the ovens when the wind shifted, but it's not like they were the ones murdering Jews...right??) Sometimes I can't help but wonder if the same sort of tough love shouldn't be applied to those who voted for The Decider © and then stood mutely by while he and his neoConservative thugs raped and pillaged our civil rights while at the same time invading and occupying a sovereign nation that had NOTHING to do with the war on terror (while ignoring the war in the country that actually DOE has something to do with promoting terrorism). None of this would have happened if not for those of y'all who voted for Commander Codpiece © and then were magically struck mute, dumb, and obediently fearful for the past eight years.

More than 4,000 Americans will never experience another Christmas because you couldn't be bothered to take a good look at what atrocities were being (and continue to be) done in your name. So how does it feel having blood on your hands?

Nice going, America; we have exactly the quality of leadership we deserve...because it was WAY too easy to unquestioningly swallow the propaganda than actually THINK. When you begin looking for where to cast the blame for the past eight years of incompetence and ineptitude, you might want to take a good, long look in the mirror.

NOW CAN WE IMPEACH THE LYING, MURDERING BASTARD...AND HIS MERRY BAND OF NEOCON THUGS??

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on May 22, 2008 7:53 AM.

Apparently, we had a guest in town while I was in Cleveland?? was the previous entry in this blog.

Still glad you voted Republican? Don't you wish everyone would?? is the next entry in this blog.

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