I reserve the right...

(Originally posted on MySpace on Sunday, January 07, 2007)

The main reason I started this blog was to talk about my road stories. Many people have asked me about them over the years and I've got so many that I decided it was time to try to compile them all together. I'll get to them eventually, sooner rather than later, but bare with me for the time being as I need to get some things off my chest. I was originally going to talk about my recent trip to Cape Town in South Africa but something else has caught my attention and I really need to talk about it.

This last week I watched two movies from 2006. Those two movies are "United 93" and "World Trade Center". I had been avoiding watching them because I was afraid I'd be offended. Not offended by what happened that day. I've come to accept those tragic events as inevitable. But I was afraid the movies would be one sided, pro-Americana bullcrap. Turns out I was wrong and I'm very glad I saw these movies. In fact, "United 93" will probably be on my favorite movies of 2006 list. Both movies presented their stories with no editorializing, relying solely on the drama of the situation to propel the action. There was none of the "look how bad Muslims are" (although what THOSE Muslims did on THAT day was a terrible thing) or "pity the poor guiltless Americans" kind of things we got so much from the press and television. But in the case of both films, especially "United 93", they still managed to piss me off royally.

And what, dare tell, pissed me off about these movies. Well, its something that's been gnawing at me since the start of this "war on terror" that this country has entered into. A war that's every bit as unwinable as the "war on drugs", "the war on Christmas", "the war to protect marriage" or any of the other so-called moral wars we seemed to quagmire ourselves into. (By the way, maybe its time to retire the words "war on..." starting this year.)

I was all for Bush invading Afghanistan when it happened. We needed to answer back for the atrocity leveled at us and that country was where all the "bad guys" were. But as soon as Bush started sniffing around Iraq, I knew we were doomed. It pissed me off at the time that the people of this country just rolled over and accepted the lies our suspiciously elected President were telling, especially when anyone could tell they were lies with the barest minimum of research. Of course, the American people have long preferred being told what to think instead of actually finding out how to think for themselves. So it was no surprise, but it still pissed me off. And I was saying from the beginning that this war was a bad thing, doomed to failure, and that Bush would eventually go down in history as the worst President this country has ever had. Now, it’s not over yet, but it sure seems to be heading that way.

But let's jump ahead a few years. Ignore the fact that the people of this country once again voted for a liar and a cheat. After all, I can't completely blame them when all they had as a viable second choice was John Kerry, who just needed big, floppy shows and a red nose to complete the picture. But I can't ignore that shortly after re-electing the monkey in, they started whining about the direction the country was headed in. And it finally reached a level that couldn't be ignored with our recent election. Its about time that happened, but the outcry is still too little.

It’s now apparent that the Bush administration lied through its teeth to get us to invade a country that had nothing to do with the Sept 11 attacks and wasn't even that much of a threat to us. His lies have weakened us and left us open to real threats like North Korea and Iran, not to mention the real, original threats, Al-Qaeda. He has ruined the future economy of this country. Your children will be paying for his out of control national debt. And he is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans and possibly hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, many more people than were killed by the 9/11 attacks and Sadam Hussein together. And he still insists there have been no mistakes and he wants to send more soldiers to fight an unwinable war, while he hasn't even finished the original job in Afghanistan. How many more thousands have to die before the people of this country finally speak up and say enough is enough?

All it took was a blow job to get the American people riled up against Clinton. After what Bush has done to this country, I'd expect the American people to take to the streets, storm the White House and lynch the lying bastard. Instead, we get a mass yawn and a tepid warning by the election of a few Democrats to Congress. And the Bush administration keeps doing what the Bush administration does best, lying and fear mongering because they know the American public really won't do anything except whine.

So that's what pissed me off while watching both of those great movies. I got pissed off at the people who allowed stuff like this to happen in the first place. People who used this horrible event to further their own agenda and who bent the truth to make it look like their agenda was related to this crime. And I got pissed off that the American people have preferred burying their head in the sand than to take the effort to really find out what is going on and to speak their minds about the horror and insanity of it all.

And to get off on a different, but related tangent, I'm really pissed off at the military leaders who are now calling for the end of "don't ask, don't tell". Am I glad they're probably going to finally end that ridiculous policy? Of course. But it makes me want to scream in anger that the only real reason is because the military is stretched so thin and they need more people who can die in this foolish war. So suddenly all their moral posturing goes out the door and they start pointing at all the proof that was ignored originally as reasons why gays should be allowed to serve openly in the military. When these asswipes tell me that I can finally legally get married, then I'll believe that they've done a moral about face. Until then, they can blow me!

Whew! Next week I promise to lighten up. Of course, I reserve the right to change my mind. Thanks for reading and I'm open to any and all comments. –ML