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Trying to find the other path
Mar. 15th, 2002 11:11 pmI got back from London a few days ago. The return flight was completely uneventful, as flights should be. I have several pages of a notebook filled with notes that are destined to end up in this journal, and it is proof of my lameness that I have not put them in yet. I expect that I'm going to start on it tomorrow, and just work on it until I'm done.
Observation: Meatballs is a really fun movie, but it is really dated. I just saw it for the first time in about 15 years. Scary.
Rant: Dubyah was very proud of himself when he said (to paraphrase) "Before 9/11, the theme of this country was 'Do what feels good'. After 9/11, it's 'Let's Roll'". Besides the obvious annoyance at co-opting the last words of a doomed man for political gain (which is entirely too common anyway), there's something much bigger. The general spin is that "we were all lazy slackers, and now we should gird our loins and stand up to the task."
One question..... what task?
Sure, there's a lot of macho strutting about how we should stand up for our country and fight for what's right and roll up our sleeves and do stuff, but it's really quite unclear what, aside from the mealy-mouthed talk of "volunteerism", with no movement toward a structure to help it take root. 'Let's Roll' seems to mean a return to the cold-war ethos of having an enemy to point at, going to a wartime stance, and making sure a few big defense contractors have something to do.
I'm also bothered by the false dichotomy. A lot of the people who are part of the "slacker generation" that Dubyah blames for this country's ills grew up seeing Iran-Contra and the Gulf War. We saw the 'Let's Roll' alternative ten years ago, and found that it looked pretty grim. We knew who it benefited in the end, and we knew that we were being played for pawns. I can't really blame us for turning our back on some flimsy, hard-to-grasp "patriotic ideal" about the USA, especially seeing the way things are playing out now. Follow the money, but not too close; it stinks over there.
So where does that leave us now? We can't go back to the past (and I wouldn't want to), and the government-generated meme-of-the-day rings pretty hollow. I guess the Other Path has something to do with doing the things that would actually help the situation. For example, reducing dependency on foreign oil by driving less or writing a letter to one's congresscritter regarding car fuel-efficiency legislation; little stupid things that don't have anything to do with Fighting For The American Way.
Posit: I guess the Other Path has something to do with thinking really hard about what the Right Thing is, and then doing it.
This should not be some fascinating revelation to me, but I guess in some ways it is. I'm glad I got here. I'm sad that it took so long.
Observation: Meatballs is a really fun movie, but it is really dated. I just saw it for the first time in about 15 years. Scary.
Rant: Dubyah was very proud of himself when he said (to paraphrase) "Before 9/11, the theme of this country was 'Do what feels good'. After 9/11, it's 'Let's Roll'". Besides the obvious annoyance at co-opting the last words of a doomed man for political gain (which is entirely too common anyway), there's something much bigger. The general spin is that "we were all lazy slackers, and now we should gird our loins and stand up to the task."
One question..... what task?
Sure, there's a lot of macho strutting about how we should stand up for our country and fight for what's right and roll up our sleeves and do stuff, but it's really quite unclear what, aside from the mealy-mouthed talk of "volunteerism", with no movement toward a structure to help it take root. 'Let's Roll' seems to mean a return to the cold-war ethos of having an enemy to point at, going to a wartime stance, and making sure a few big defense contractors have something to do.
I'm also bothered by the false dichotomy. A lot of the people who are part of the "slacker generation" that Dubyah blames for this country's ills grew up seeing Iran-Contra and the Gulf War. We saw the 'Let's Roll' alternative ten years ago, and found that it looked pretty grim. We knew who it benefited in the end, and we knew that we were being played for pawns. I can't really blame us for turning our back on some flimsy, hard-to-grasp "patriotic ideal" about the USA, especially seeing the way things are playing out now. Follow the money, but not too close; it stinks over there.
So where does that leave us now? We can't go back to the past (and I wouldn't want to), and the government-generated meme-of-the-day rings pretty hollow. I guess the Other Path has something to do with doing the things that would actually help the situation. For example, reducing dependency on foreign oil by driving less or writing a letter to one's congresscritter regarding car fuel-efficiency legislation; little stupid things that don't have anything to do with Fighting For The American Way.
Posit: I guess the Other Path has something to do with thinking really hard about what the Right Thing is, and then doing it.
This should not be some fascinating revelation to me, but I guess in some ways it is. I'm glad I got here. I'm sad that it took so long.
