Sat, 08 May 2004
Bus to Ohio.
It's really late. Not really from the perspective of when I usually go to sleep but this bus ride seems far different than all the others. Too bad I don't have a camera because this trip to the midwest is going to be a whole lot different, I can fucking feel it. It kicked off yesterday, actually, when I saw a screening of a documentary called
Off To War about a National Guard regiment in Arkansas that got shipped to Iraq to
defend freedom. The families were so, so, so very devastated about losing their husbands, fathers and sons (there were no women in this particular regiment) which made up for their lack of perspective on why
The War is a bad idea and unknowingly investigated that topic just by speaking honestly about their family members going away for what could very likely be forever.
So this sets the tone for the new era of America. Four years later. Working
class midwesterners are getting family members coming home in body bags, the
president is ignoring them (he hasn't attended any of the hundreds of dead
soldier's funerals) and a bunch of mothers, daughters and teenage sons who are
pissed off their dad or brother died for no reason (no to mention the fat
wallets of oil families). I read a
Vice
Magazine Don'ts submission of a plump redneck looking guy with a shirt on that said "Hasta La Vista Bin Laden" with a drawing of a anthropomorphized dog standing in front of an American flag eating a hot dog bun with a fretting turban'd brown man inside. Then I go into this TA truck stop in some dark spot in PA and go pee. To my glee, I find bathroom graffiti asking us to "fuck sand niggers" and claiming "alah sucks."
Is any of this that surprising? Well yes. Two years ago I went to the midwest and it was mostly
I'm Proud To Be An American playing in the truck stop snack store and an abundance of American flags on interstate overpasses. This time it's war. The patriotic, patient and dutiful sentiment has long but worn off and it's time for some good old racism, hate and religious intolerance. Fuck yeah! That'll help the Arkansas convoys in Iraq that are driving American trucks from WWII that just broke down and now they are getting ambushed with Kalishnakovs and rocket propelled grenades. Go team! Good thing I play video games enough to know exactly what a Kalishnakov looks like so I can spot one when an angry Jihadi takes a stroll into my subway stop next week.
Then I open up the New York Post and flip past the front page news of Jennifer Aniston guiltily kissing her unmemorable former cast member from
Friends, I find a tiny article in the middle reporting on a Republican representative who foresees a national draft being called to fill the absence of troops in Iraq. Politely mentioning this may have something to do with them either dying or other "coalition" forces pulling out when they realized they don't have a fucking chance. Go team!
I can't believe among all of the amazing things that have happened to me in the last four years I will always remember this era as "the years of heavy drinking and hopelessness." It seems the industries that are doing well now involve vice, political dissent, petroleum (go figure) and getting the fuck out of America (if that is an industry, although I hear "entertainment" is doing pretty good too...ummm can anyone pronounce UFA correctly for a free tour of the Reichstag?)
So there's a chance I'm could get drafted. It's entirely un-funny. I don't know what to do. Canada? Lame (although Montreal sounds really cool these days, but that's all Frenchy n'shit). Iceland? Sounded good when I was a scrub. It's cold there. Germany? Damn, furious German women are hot in Fasbinder's movies but that's not exactly a good reason to go to a country. Spain? Perhaps, they're all Socialist now and they just pulled out of Iraq so they get Cojones Grandes points, and Spanish women are hot and the Basques blow shit up like al-Qaida. Scandinavia? They make really fucking intense depressing movies, have a stable society and created the best computer operating system in existence. But it's fucking cold and dark so I'd probably just get all h4x0r death metal and lose touch with all my friends.
Nope, America I will stay. Clawing at the ground and biting the feet of whatever armed forces fuck face who is trying to drag me into his convoy. They will lose if they ask me to join them.
posted at: 00:00 | path:
/war |
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