(no subject)
Some thoughts, now that the balloon's gone up.
I feel really, really disheartened. Even though there were so many people, not only in the US but all over the world, who opposed this war, the government and the hawks went ahead with it anyway. And I'm left here feeling like my opinion doesn't count for anything anymore. I'm left feeling like more people were seduced by signifiers of waving-flags and Saddam-the-evil-menace and our-brave-soldiers, which outweighed the people who wanted to step back and actually consider the issues for themselves.
No, I didn't support the last war in Iraq. And I'm damn sure not going to support this one. I mean, what the fuck are we going to get out of it? Reassurance that Big Bad Saddam won't use his Infamous Weapons of Mass Destruction (tm) on us? Dude, he could've done so any time during the last twelve years. If Saddam really wanted to gas us or poison us or nuke us, it would've been the easiest thing in the world for him to do it during the Clinton administration when nobody paid attention to him anymore. And now, I'm left thinking that we're only going after Saddam because we've got Osama to stand in for our new Villian du Jour.
You know what? Ever since the end of World War Two, the United States hasn't had a foreign policy--instead, we just find some wog with a funny name and bomb/invade his country. In the late '40s, we had Mao Tse-Tung. In the 50's, Kim Il-Sung, Josef Stalin, and Nikita Kruschev. In the 60's, Ho Chi Minh. In the 70's, the Ayatollah Khomeni. In the 80's, Moammar Kaddhafi. In the 90's, Saddam Hussein. And now in the Oughts, we've got Osama bin Laden, and Hussein again--back by popular demand, I suppose. Meet the new enemy, same as the old enemy.
I've also been thinking about Todd Beamer, and how he's on the same line leading back to Roland and El Cid--a noble Christian warrior, facing single combat against the Islamic hordes and dying in noble battle to live forever. But I don't know nearly enough about medieval lit to take this much further, so I guess I'll stop it right here. Pity, I'm sure someone will be able to run with this idea some more...
At the beginning of the term, I had a student who was a Reservist (if I remember correctly), who wrote his papers about how much he looked forward to being deployed overseas so he could face combat and be rightfully called a veteran. He's no longer on the official roster for my class, so he's definitely dropped...but I wonder if he dropped because he was called up. Well. If that's indeed the case, if he did get called up like he was hoping so fervently in the papers he wrote, I hope he's over there now, and I hope he's really happy about it. Because, after all, it would so suck if it turned out that he hated living in a combat zone, or if he ended up getting maimed or killed as a result.
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori--and, I suppose, if you don't agree, then you're just part of the Axis of Weasel. And to those of you brave enough to continue reading to this point, I just want to say: Be careful of people who tell you that your opinions "don't matter," or who just seek to reduce you to an image instead of responding to your points of view logically. The hallmark of Fascism is that it aestheticizes politics--it turns ideas into images, presented for mass consumption, all smooth and cool and homogenous.
War does damage to people, vehicles, cities, countries--this is well-known. What's less well-known is that war does horrendous damage to things like irony, heterodoxy, critical thinking, and wit. Things, in other words, that make living in a free country worth it. In times of war, civic virtues (ask questions, inquire freely, do what you think is best for the good of the community, both as a whole and concerning yourself) are replaced by military virtues (be quiet, don't speak until spoken to, do what you're told, don't be different).
I have nothing more to say. And I'm sure I've incriminated myself several times over when They come swooping down to haul me off to some military Detention Facility where they'll put all the other dissidents, intellectuals, antisocials...
I feel really, really disheartened. Even though there were so many people, not only in the US but all over the world, who opposed this war, the government and the hawks went ahead with it anyway. And I'm left here feeling like my opinion doesn't count for anything anymore. I'm left feeling like more people were seduced by signifiers of waving-flags and Saddam-the-evil-menace and our-brave-soldiers, which outweighed the people who wanted to step back and actually consider the issues for themselves.
No, I didn't support the last war in Iraq. And I'm damn sure not going to support this one. I mean, what the fuck are we going to get out of it? Reassurance that Big Bad Saddam won't use his Infamous Weapons of Mass Destruction (tm) on us? Dude, he could've done so any time during the last twelve years. If Saddam really wanted to gas us or poison us or nuke us, it would've been the easiest thing in the world for him to do it during the Clinton administration when nobody paid attention to him anymore. And now, I'm left thinking that we're only going after Saddam because we've got Osama to stand in for our new Villian du Jour.
You know what? Ever since the end of World War Two, the United States hasn't had a foreign policy--instead, we just find some wog with a funny name and bomb/invade his country. In the late '40s, we had Mao Tse-Tung. In the 50's, Kim Il-Sung, Josef Stalin, and Nikita Kruschev. In the 60's, Ho Chi Minh. In the 70's, the Ayatollah Khomeni. In the 80's, Moammar Kaddhafi. In the 90's, Saddam Hussein. And now in the Oughts, we've got Osama bin Laden, and Hussein again--back by popular demand, I suppose. Meet the new enemy, same as the old enemy.
I've also been thinking about Todd Beamer, and how he's on the same line leading back to Roland and El Cid--a noble Christian warrior, facing single combat against the Islamic hordes and dying in noble battle to live forever. But I don't know nearly enough about medieval lit to take this much further, so I guess I'll stop it right here. Pity, I'm sure someone will be able to run with this idea some more...
At the beginning of the term, I had a student who was a Reservist (if I remember correctly), who wrote his papers about how much he looked forward to being deployed overseas so he could face combat and be rightfully called a veteran. He's no longer on the official roster for my class, so he's definitely dropped...but I wonder if he dropped because he was called up. Well. If that's indeed the case, if he did get called up like he was hoping so fervently in the papers he wrote, I hope he's over there now, and I hope he's really happy about it. Because, after all, it would so suck if it turned out that he hated living in a combat zone, or if he ended up getting maimed or killed as a result.
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori--and, I suppose, if you don't agree, then you're just part of the Axis of Weasel. And to those of you brave enough to continue reading to this point, I just want to say: Be careful of people who tell you that your opinions "don't matter," or who just seek to reduce you to an image instead of responding to your points of view logically. The hallmark of Fascism is that it aestheticizes politics--it turns ideas into images, presented for mass consumption, all smooth and cool and homogenous.
War does damage to people, vehicles, cities, countries--this is well-known. What's less well-known is that war does horrendous damage to things like irony, heterodoxy, critical thinking, and wit. Things, in other words, that make living in a free country worth it. In times of war, civic virtues (ask questions, inquire freely, do what you think is best for the good of the community, both as a whole and concerning yourself) are replaced by military virtues (be quiet, don't speak until spoken to, do what you're told, don't be different).
I have nothing more to say. And I'm sure I've incriminated myself several times over when They come swooping down to haul me off to some military Detention Facility where they'll put all the other dissidents, intellectuals, antisocials...