A very dark menace has gripped this country.

[democrank]

Something has prevented my fingers from typing anything here about the latest conflict in the Middle East. I`ve wanted to bend in half and cry over all the destruction, the raw grief. I`ve imagined how horrible it must be to dig what`s left of your child out of a pile of steaming rubble. I`ve imagined the shock of seeing a crater where family photos once were. I`ve imagined the horror of waking up under crushed concrete, wondering where my other arm went. It`s so sad to think that the repulsive results of war are not enough to deter some from calling for more blood. Yet, a half hour of call-ins on Washington Journal is time enough to learn the ugly truth. Many, many Americans just can`t get enough war. History matters as little as empathy. They just can`t get enough war.

Maybe it`s a Jimmy Carter moment, a time begging us to reject revenge. Sure, we`d have to endure a few barbs, slung mostly by safe-and-secure chickenhawks, but we wouldn`t have blood under our nails.
Sure, we`d have to endure endless hours of corporate media`s PlayStation war graphics....unless we hit the OFF button and wrote a letter to the editor instead.

Perhaps I`m wrong. Maybe The Rapture is coming. Maybe all bearded people ARE terrorists. Maybe God really did give George W. Bush the thumbs-up on blowing up half the world. Maybe the caskets piling up here at home WILL make us safer. Maybe civilian casualties AREN`T such a big deal. Maybe I`m in the grips of some silly idealism....way out in left field....laughingstock material. I do know one thing....the star of hope, which was once epitomized America`s ideals, has grown very dim. The quest for Empire is killing it.

[mmonk]

1. That star is a black hole now.

I've come to grips with it. I wish people could ban together that understand the current madness that's going on and send a petition or message to the EU that we choose them to be the star now because time is too short. Use their economic clout to tell everyone it's time to get out of the pool and be human beings with better natures again.

[BelgianMadCow]

4. That's the (at least) 2nd time you suggest that

and I think it's worthwile.

I am going to ponder the idea and see what we can do to weigh on that.

I'll get back to you later today.

[mmonk]

9. Thanks

I've suggested it before and have had positive pm responses to the idea. I'm ready to hear from anyone who wants to seek such an avenue.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

2. We despair together

When will the people rise up?

[Armstead]

3. I don't know if most Americans WANT war.-- They just dont think it through

Over the last few decades, we've come top see war in sanitized terms. Send a few planes over, drop a few bombs, and everything is resolved. So Americans developed a reflexive reaction that war is simply a tool.

Remember Gulf War 1. We never saw bodies, just exciting graphiucs of things being Blown up from above. Hardly any Americans died. And within a few weeks, problem solved.

Compare that to Iraq War 2. At first it was another sanitized 30 day wonder. No deaths on either side -- at leasdt not according to the media. And the deaths of Iraqis was just called "softening the battlefield." Just Americans driving through the sand to get to Bagdad.

Then the real deal started. And Americans have slowly turned against the war, asd the reality has sunk in. Not just the reality of the violence, but the political reality.

Hopefully as that awareness of the realities of war contuinue to sink in, more and more Americans will wake up from the trance....Maybe. At least that's that's the hope I cling to in order to get throuigh this mess.

[Jackpine Radical]

5. The military machine earned a lot of lessons in Vietnam.

The biggest one was that you need to manage the images.
Make it all look like a video game. Little explosions on a green night-vision screen.
Don't show the bodies.
Don't show caskets.
Keep the cameras out of the hospitals.
Make it look like fun.

Yeah. We learned a lot from Vietnam.

[Ron Green]

6. As long as war over there = comfort over here, Americans want it.

Our "way of life" is unsustainable without cheap oil. That's pretty much a fact, but not allowed into the public discourse. We are not citizens, we're consumers, and that's the plan. It's the new slavery: addiction to stuff.

And as long as we have the "all-volunteer army" to do the dirty work for us, we'll continue to put our fingers in our ears and say "na-na-na-na" all the way to Wal*Mart.

[ananda]

7. It's called Bush's shadow..

..

[specimenfred1984]

8. Brainwashed are given a choice: hate Jews or hate Muslims

Most people don't even question it, hence they are brainwashed by the ever-present gov't and corporate propaganda.

The 1st step to turning it around is to get dems in power so we can start holding some American war criminals responsible, i.e. jail. The Nov. "election" is huge.

[mmonk]

10. For real solutions

:kick: