I teared up. Actually, fuck that, I cried. I just started crying in my car. It's so depressing when you think about. A guitar-player's song. A band that I learned to play guitar with. Even when they acted like idiots about napster, it could never ruin their old stuff. They taught me to love music when I was 13. This song of theirs that made me want to learn how to play guitar--just to be able to play this song. Me and a couple million other guys my age.
Sitting in my car, crying about this stupid song. I had heard it hundreds of times, but I never really listened. The song was a feat of hammer-off, trill-picked glory to me for years. The words were just dark imagery. Good accompaniment and context for the blistering, anthemic licks, plus the pounding drums and chugging bass. For a while I thought it was about Vietnam, then later learned about Johnny Get Your Gun. Whatever. Vietnam. Land mines. Years ago. Just imagery. Metallica wanted a manly cause--POW/MIA. Doesn't mean anything to a 13 year-old kid besides "dark" and "tough." Just good words to shout and snarl.
And now. Thousands dead. Tens of thousands more maimed and traumatized. Walter Reed. These thousands upon thousands of kids, and how many grew up listening to this song. Rocking out to this song. Belting it out. Learning how to play guitar to be able to play this song. How many, like me, never really stopped to think about the words. What it would be like. What it would feel like. "Absolute horror" "Left me with life in hell." For Bush to please his oil buddies and work out his daddy issues. For Cheney's stock options to go up 3500%. PTSD. No fucking kidding.
It's like they've played this cruel joke on us. And the sad part is that it isn't a national "loss of innocence" moment. That's what I feel, that's what I'd guess that a lot of those kids feel, like we were duped or naive. But there are a TON of fucking people who have seen this show before. There are people who were old enough to know better. There are more of them than us. Most of them have some money, decent jobs, decent houses, and most of us don't. And some of them even run the federal government. But, oh, surprise, surprise. They got to skip out on going to war. 5 deferments. TANG and flight school and drunk driving. Fucking Assholes. FUCKING ASSHOLES. PTSD. NO FUCKING KIDDING.
So for me this war is about Gen Y learning that your elders will fuck you in in the ass if they think they can make a buck while doing it. That war isn't a political platform or a boost for the economy, it's hell. That it's nothing but a zero-sum game between us and them, at least as far as they're concerned. That we were stupid to ever trust anyone over 30 to have our best interests at heart, let alone anyone over 30 and patently sociopathic like Cheney and Rumsfeld. And that our elders knew all of this, but they made sure we didn't find out. "No, no, this is a new and different kind of war." "9/11 changed everything." Not to mention: "Iraq will have the bomb in six months." And I'd like to believe that we'll make sure, one way or another, that the people who got these kids maimed and killed for no reason will be brought to justice. 2006 elections are looking better every day, and please God let Fitzgerald lock up every last one of them.
But then I have a day when I can't even turn on the radio in my car anymore. And it seems so hopeless. They've already won. Mission Accomplished. They've made their money, and if they have to enter a plea, resign, they will do it. And lay low for a few decades, then come back and do it again. How can you look at this situation, where they cheated and stole, and nobody stopped them, without wanting to just say "fuck it" and go have a drink or 12. Spark a bowl. Eat a bunch of cookies. Obsess over your fantasy football team. Whatever gives you that seratonin release, distracts you, helps you cope/forget/not care.
And then after another moment I say, who the fuck am I to feel sorry for myself. I have no clue about the pain that hundreds of thousands of others feel. And how can the solution to this be more doing nothing? And even if there is no solution, how can I live with myself if I just give up? What kind of person does that make me?
So I guess my point is this: we need to bury them. Their disgrace is our standard of victory. 51% won't cut it. They must be run out on a rail. Not for the Democrats. Not for any other progressive cause. Not because Freepers are so stupid, or Mullah James Dobson and Radical Cleric Pat Robertson are a pair frightening stooges with a disturbingly high level of input in our federal policies. We must bury them to make sure that thay can't ever do this again. To re-awaken the part of America's soul that won't stand for this lying, torture, facist propaganda and persecution of dissent, this perversion of democracy.
After Vietnam, there was much more to overcome. Boomers had to wash away the 50s entirely, more or less. Gender, race, poverty, civil liberities, sex, drugs, art, clothes--all of it had to change. And while there is still progress to b made in most if not all of those areas, we aren't in a "counter culture" moment. Instead, we can train public attention on the moral debate: our side's basic, undeniable moral logic versus their side's record of lies, crime, and torture. We have the advantage of focus on this war and its horrors that we must put to use. The names Bush, Cheney, Rove, Libby, and Miller must be synonymous in the history books with the dismantling of the military-industrial complex. In its place we must create a system that values peace, liberty and human rights and dignity as the basis for our society, and the only good reasons for a government to do anything, let alone fight a war.
If we come up short, even if eek out wins next November, we have failed. The only way to avenge the suffering is to create a sea change. This is why we are fighting Dems. We put aside our more minor differences and spend every waking moment dreaming of and working toward their demise. Every dollar we donate, every flyer we hand out, neighbor we convince, all of them specs of dirt to cover their political and ideological carcass. We really do the work and refuse to let up or back down and they can't win the peace--it's not about "cutting and running" it's about right and wrong, and what makes America safer, more peaceful and free, enabling the better nature of mankind. And this must become our shared national vision and identity. That is how we define success.
And of course I have no idea how to go about doing this, but I feel obligated to throw out two ideas. 1) We can't act like people are inferior because they trusted the Administration. We have to help this country understand its own victimization by these pieces of shit. We have to make our anger go mainstream. 2) We must learn from the 60s and 70s and simplify our message. The war is wrong. The war is hurting our country and the world. The war only happened because they lied us into it, and they are going to jail as direct consequence. The path to peace, freedom, security and human dignity is to end the war. Not "it's all about Israel" or "they won't let soldiers have abortions" or even "Halliburton stole, those evil motherfuckers." Those are all secondary and tertiary levels of analysis. We need to create a message that 70+% of the country can easily understand and agree with, and which focuses the public on their ultimate sin and their malignant hearts. It's got to be as simple as "the war is wrong, only happened b/c they lied, we're safer, more free and peaceful, and better human beings the sooner we end it."