Posted on 11/11/2002 7:52:51 AM PST by Jakarta ex-pat
In a glass factory in central Bohemia, they've started producing crystal salt and peppershakers emblazoned with, of all things, the Stars and Stripes. I'd thought the market for flag merchandise went the way of the NASDAQ after last Christmas' shopping season, but knick-knack producers around the world have decided that the impending attacks in Iraq will open up as yet un-penetrated markets for patriotic consumer crap.
No matter how disgusting you might find the flag (I see it as a symbol of murder, exploitation, blind conformity, and unrealized dreams.), it's pretty hard to blame the world's junk marketeers for what is shaping up to be another shitty morning under ye olde and dead Yule tree.
Nor can I bitch too much at my parents, who are, once again, likely going to spend their hard-earned cash purchasing me stuff that's gonna be about as useful (and aesthetically pleasing) as a portfolio full of Enron.
After all, how much responsibility can they bear for the Big-Ass Cars (I hope saying that doesn't violate trademark law)?
They fill-up as reverently as a Christian Republican prays for Arab blood?
I doubt it would do any good, when the propaganda they get "live at 5" and 6 and 9 and 10 assaults them ad nauseum with the promise that bombing the hell out of Iraqi civilian centers is the only way to ensure that some madman miles away doesn't attack us, or our business interests, with any of the technology the Reagan and Bush administrations happily sold him for use against his Iranian neighbors.
Well, actually the newsman seldom utters any of those last 24 words, but hey, he's got time restraints AND a war to sell.
Would I even want to enter into that discussion with Mom again?
On Sept. 11, 2001, I landed in Prague, Czech Republic, totally unaware that "everything had changed."
When I heard the news, I instantly called my parents to let them know I wasn't one of the unfortunate thousands killed on the East Coast that day. A couple of days later, I remember, the sabre-rattling was clearly audible and hella scary, even in central Europe.
I recall telling my Mom how sick the thought of heaping more senseless violence on an impoverished people seemed to me, especially if we wanted to stop pure disgust from being rammed into anymore American skyscrapers.
I remember her sobbing over a scratchy phone line that she trusted our fearless leaders to protect us and that she hadn't raised me to hate America, and that I disappointed her.
Having been raised in a family where I'd known only love and never fear, those were probably the most hurtful words I'd ever had directed at me.
I don't think she bought my teary explanation that I loved America, and that demanding less oil usage and fewer military interventions for capitalist (and undemocratic) interests abroad would not only be best for the world, but also best for your average infidel, er, I mean American.
Shortly after, I decided her support for Bush II and the war wasn't because she was a bloodthirsty maniac, but just due to the fact that she saw things differently.
She must have reached some similar conclusion about me, 'cos after a couple weeks we cautiously started talking again, and we've since pretty much gotten around our differences - we don't go "there."
Judging by European news and commentary I was reading and some from American papers I saw on the Net, saying she saw things differently is more than a mild understatement. I should have said she saw different things.
No, I think I'll leave Mom alone.
I'm not even gonna scream at people who commute (solo!) to their office jobs in SUV's.
I'll try to keep my cool with the American activists, who went to all the trouble of trying to understand the intrinsic relationship between capitalism and violence, who were well on the road to building a formidable opposition to the sick system we find ourselves stuck in, and then who fell silent when dissent was no longer chic.
And against my better judgment, I might even leave Dan Rather alone, that so-called objective journalist who said on a late night talk show that the President only had to tell him "where to line up."
No, the people I'm gonna hold responsible for every kitschy flag-themed piece of shit I open this Christmas, are those who could really do something to make the world safer, but would rather get richer.
The oil barons, billionaires who've padded their bank accounts selling this toxic energy when they've got it, and buying governments who'll kill for access to it, when they don't.
And I don't just mean Dick Cheney of Haliburton, but all of 'em, even the Saudi Arabian royals the veep and crew are working overtime to prop-up.
And also the CEO's of Lockheed-Martin, GE, and other makers of killing machines. Those to whom drums of war sound exactly like the ringing of gold-plated cash tills.
Yeah, from now on, I'm gonna try to reserve my anger for those who tell me that we can't live a meaningful life without smart bombs, when they really mean they can't get any richer without war, those are the people for whom I'm saving my wrath.
Oh yeah and by the way, Mom, if you're reading this and thinking you won't be able to separate the Christmas consumer spirit and screams for blood, if you really feel like you have to buy me something with the flag motif, well I guess I could use a new Speedo.
Actually, that's how I saw the flag of the USSR, SASHA
If a liberal must take a sabbatical, they should go somewhere worthwhile rather than just sticking their heads up their rectums like they usually do. They might learn something.
me thinks this one had too many bean sprouts stuffed with too much demRat philosophy overlaid with envirowhacko spread and a sprinkling of stalinist propaganda,,,
you gotta know mom is very proud>>>> may God help her,,
God Bless Our Vets,,,
vsm
It's time to grow up to see reality as it is rather than how the Dem Socialists want you to think it is.
To the author: Leave.
Walt
Walt
This is the most pitiful thing I think I have ever read. I'm just flabbergasted that America's youth can grow up and not feel any responsibility to those who have made their lives possible. If only there were a way to exchange this person for a dead veteran, or a victum of the World Trade Center, or just simply a person who died thinking America was the greatest country on Earth.
I wish I could generate as much hate towards this person that he/she has for us, but I don't think that is possible.
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