On a better-late-than-never
reading of history, a nation
we all favour commends war
to us routinely, and has en-
trapped three generations of
our people in a neurotic re-
flex. Well, with so many such
dependencies - Wall Street,
the South, the sugar lobby -
it seems discriminatory to
isolate an amiable national
chum, for corrupting our pol-
itics and tethering us as its
own judas goat.
War is different from subsid-
ies and tax breaks, deregula-
tion and rigged elections. We
indulge such habits because
our oligarchs insist. But war
takes youth who are gone from
us, when they are gone. That
vile choice is for the humble
to deliberate. It would be
more in the interest of this
nation to see such people in
office again, than to do an-
other dependent the favour of
a war.
But we have our own nemeses
to thank for being friends
like these, who think nothing
of donating our youth to be
chopped up in these charitable
cauldrons, and yet blanch at
ceding a crumb from our table
in economic assistance. Even
they, however, would have no
platform for debauching our de-
bates without that galaxy of
warmongering columnists clus-
tered at The Washington Post,
outriders of a decadently im-
perious editorial board, who
speculate openly and weekly
on whose society to punish,
whose to destabilise, thwart,
toy with, as Caligula teased
his beasts. As Connie Corleone
warned Kay, O, read the papers,
read the papers!
Who can doubt, how absolute-
ly normal this can seem, by
now, to be suspended in an
isometric pump of hegemony
because of the power to de-
fine the terms. We have met
that country, and it is us.
But we have our own nemeses
to thank for being friends
like these, who think nothing
of donating our youth to be
chopped up in these charitable
cauldrons, and yet blanch at
ceding a crumb from our table
in economic assistance. Even
they, however, would have no
platform for debauching our de-
bates without that galaxy of
warmongering columnists clus-
tered at The Washington Post,
outriders of a decadently im-
perious editorial board, who
speculate openly and weekly
on whose society to punish,
whose to destabilise, thwart,
toy with, as Caligula teased
his beasts. As Connie Corleone
warned Kay, O, read the papers,
read the papers!
Who can doubt, how absolute-
ly normal this can seem, by
now, to be suspended in an
isometric pump of hegemony
because of the power to de-
fine the terms. We have met
that country, and it is us.
Just sayin'.
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