|
Dissolve into Evergreens
|
||||
|
Photography and the World Cup in Spanish I Might Name This Denver Building? Tribal Conflict Fuels the Immigration "Debate" Learning in Denver Get Called a Name The Way it Seems/Is I Know Funny Not Fair The Federal Credit Card Justin Oldham - Politics and Patriotism
Wilco The Flaming Lips The New Radicals John Mayer Zero 7 Dream Theater Radiohead Death Cab for Cutie The Notwist O.S.I. Ani Difranco The Shins Elliott Smith Badly Drawn Boy Chroma Key Coheed and Cambria The Streets Andrew Bird Sufjan Stevens Atom Site Feed 
|
5.29.2006
Today being Memorial day, as well as my Birthday, we hear politicians talking their silly little heads off about people dying for the sake of liberty and freedom, and me, I can't help but think that its rarely about such things. It might be from time to time. I don't discount the notion that occasionally a threat might come along. I just think that the majority of the time the reasons we fight wars are to advance the interests of the elites. Take this so-called War on Terror. In my opinion, it is nothing more than a blanket excuse to advance our interests in the Middle East (or world) and to redistribute large sums of money to well connected corporate interests. Its because of these reasons that we have a POSITIVE opinion on war. Here in America, people that speak negatively of war are considered unpatriotic. We see war, and the deaths of poor people in the service of the rich as a good thing. So for that reason its NOT considered in poor taste for the president to push the continuation of the debacle in Iraq in this time where we recognize the people who have died at the hands of something we should all struggle to avoid. I tend to view war as a negative thing. But here in America I get the strange sense that there are some who view it as an opportunity. Its seen as a chance to use our greatest asset yet again: violence. During the runup to the Iraq invasion I couldn't help but notice that many of the people pushing for the war seemed to view it as "this generation's war". As if every son or daughter is now expected to engage in a conflict against others. It has become a tradition in our society. That is a not a good thing. So that when another few years rolls around we will be expected to send yet another batch of people out to die for some "cause", whether it be justified or not. We've long past gone beyond the point where we see war as the last resort. It has moved up the list. We now prefer the death of war to any other option. We take it lightly and as a consequence I think we take the people who are maimed, killed and injured in war lightly as well. We no longer see people that have served in conflict as special and worth anything. Because we now view war as just another inevitablity, we now see people that have suffered because of war as just another by-product of our society. War has become beneficial. It has served us well in the past. It has given us new lands to inhabit, new resources to use, and it has given us greater standing in the world. Its a bargain in the eyes of the rich that they only need to pay a little lip service to the notion of "service to country" every once in a while. Frankly, I think a pat on the back is a pittance compared to putting one's life in jeopardy, and compared to what the rich get out of war, its a joke. | |
About Me
Any Box 
|
||
|
Dissolve into Evergreens
|
||||
