War
As of this
writing, the war in Iraq is
scheduled to premier tomorrow
night at 8:00 P.M. E.S.T. (three
hours earlier for viewers on the
West Coast). My wife is
positively plugged-in to CNN for
the trailers, not because she's
fascinated by international
geopolitics, but because this
will be the Mother of All Reality
Shows, and it's about to start!
Tentatively
entitled "Death 'N
Destruction", it will be
"Star Wars Bounty
Hunter" meets
"Survivor", and will
feature everything from monster
micro-waves to poison gas. What a
concept! Bigger than the Oscars,
more powerful than the NCAA
playoffs, able to pre-empt Major
League Baseball's opening day at
a single bound. This should be a
killer show! At least, that's
what the producers are hoping.
Personally, I think it will
mostly entail lots of footage
from missile nose-cams and
steaming desert video of Iraqi
soldiers surrendering en masse to
American, British and Australian
journalists. It will be canceled
and off the air within a few
weeks.
But
at the moment, it's hard to think
of much else, as this impending
conflict concentrates the mind
and has everyone holding his
breath. Last night my wife and I
suddenly realized, upon sober
reflection, that most of the
furniture in our home was, at one
time or another, pulled out of
the trash. Other peoples' refuse;
Unwanted rubbish. Now this is not
ordinarily the type of
information that most people
would want trumpeted across the
pages of a major metropolitan
newspaper, but I'm not ashamed.
On the contrary, it attests to
our resourcefulness in converting
the discarded into the useful
(recycling), as well as being a
statement of my social and
political values
(Bohemian/Socialist). And though
I don't necessarily advocate a
life of Spartan self-denial,
neither do I have a need to
appear in "Better Homes and
Gardens". Material modesty
is an admirable trait in this age
of gross materialism, and I'm
pleased to serve as a dissenting
voice regarding the pretensions
and arrogance of the
ultra-consumerist lifestyle. It's
a cultural statement, and I
proclaim it proudly. We're so
poor, we receive food packages
from Ethiopia. Our clothes are
donated by the homeless.
Panhandlers give me money!
It's called living by your
convictions, and it's an
honorable life, uncluttered by
ringing cell phones, chocolate
martinis and all the other
trappings of the insecure
Bourgeoisie.
Our
country's brand of scorched-earth
Capitalism seems to infuriate
much of the rest of the world,
instilling not emulation but
contempt, and is one of the
reasons we're going to war. Our
values appear empty and difficult
to justify, yet we're compelled
to fight to defend them against
those who find us haughty and
wasteful; plunderers of the
planet's resources to feed a
culture of gross entitlement. The
"Ugly American" is
getting uglier, and one day it's
going to catch up to us. When it
does, at least I won't have much
to lose in the way of furniture.
War
is the absence of reason; an
admission that, technological
wizardry notwithstanding, our
species is still politically
primitive, killing each other
when we disagree. You know
there's something wrong with
humanity when the French appear
reasonable! Wisdom is borne of
experience, and you would think
that after 4500 years of
civilization, mankind would have
learned how to settle disputes
without resorting to bloodshed.
But it's not to be, at least not
yet. Maybe if everyone procured
their furniture from the trash,
the resultant change in values
would more closely mirror the
"better angels of our
nature", as humility
replaces mortal hubris. But maybe
not. In any event, war is about
to begin. I think I'll make
popcorn.
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