Yesterday's Papers

Crusin' the Web

This modern technology is a wonderful thing. Thanks to any number of inventive and driven software writers and hardware makers, even the idiotic and illiterate can spew their spittle all over the world. I refer, or course, to the amazingly ignorant and misspelled posts that one finds in reply to blogs and other web sites offering anti-war (and to a surprising amount, merely factual) sentiments concerning our involvement in Iraq. A few minutes cruising the Web and reading posts/replies finds just a staggering amount of vitriol, hate, anal language and threats. Most of the posts read as if they are written by teenagers, although a few, particularly ones from persons claiming to be vets, seem to be merely victims of bad education and poor judgment. Now and then, a pro-war writer tries to be coherent, but it reads to me like an uphill battle for these authors.

Yes, I am an elitist

Of course, I speak from an elitist viewpoint, having graduated from high school. I am also a vet, from the Vietnam era with fourteen of my high school classmates dead as a result of that war, so I may be a tad prejudiced when it comes to thinking about any war, theirs or ours. But not all vets are supporting the war, of course. To think otherwise would be silly. Damn few soldiers, when in the thick of it, if offered a choice right now between shooting one more foreigner or going home, would choose to endure one more minute of the unremitting hell which is combat. They would choose to go home and screw the war. Bet on it.

Yes, here I am, safe behind the lines, feeling righteous about having done my bit and feeling safe to criticize our government's policies. That is my job, after all; I am a citizen. So I do support our troops, and I say bring them home. Screw Iraq, forget the oil, Halliburton is a fancy briefcase, Cheny isn't dead yet but tomorrow never knows, let's get the hell out of there.

Bad loser

To the world outside America, I won't say I'm sorry, but I am pissed off. Our democracy was hijacked fair and square by some pretty sharp guys. The Democratic party is burnt out as a voice of the working man, the Greens haven't found the vocabulary, the Libertarians can't endure realpolitik and the baby boomers as a group (and I speak as one) got lost in the suburbs, leaving the body politic to illiterate bubbas and corporate swine. But we did organize and get out the vote and supported our man and we registered everybody in sight! I hear you, you were magnificent. You did a great job with what you had. But what you had was not good enough. For the future, I might suggest you get somebody to run who actually stands for something. Dean as the chair of the DNC might be a good start. And while we're on the subject, how in the hell did you advisors and planners let him get trashed in Ohio? Remind me not to hire you to organize my birthday party.