In the early '90s, as we the electorate were dumping Bush the First and bringing in Clinton the New and Shiny, I remember thinking that now there might be an end to America going to war, that someday in the lifetime of not the next generation but maybe the one after that there might be a Memorial Day when nobody alive to celebrate could recall war or any of the people being honored who had given and taken life for freedom sometimes, and for politics and other people's money all too frequently.
When I started this blog, more than a decade had passed, and we had already been at war again for awhile, a fact which had enraged and disgusted me before it even began to be true, a fact against the mere possibility of which I protested in demonstrations, with calls and letters to elected representatives, and in passionate discourse with other citizens, for naught of course, but better than not at all.
Two years ago I posted about how that Memorial Day I was grateful not to be an amputee because of war, or because of myriad other terrible circumstances which beset humans as a result of war, of the deadly trash and other misery left behind by war, and of myriad other reasons on top of that which are all still unimaginable to me in my comfy little suburb where the worst violence is performed among birds and squirrels, fisher cats and raccoons, where poverty means state-subsidized housing and regular trips to the food bank, and it still sucks, but not like being homeless in a war zone or having your limbs hacked off so you can make someone else a portion of a living begging in the street. You can still visit that post, or my righthand sidebar, to learn a few things you can do about all those things.
I didn't do a Memorial Day post last year.
This is the third Memorial Day since I started this blog, and we are still at war, and I am still enraged and disgusted. We are still killing and being killed, amputating and maiming and being maimed and amputated, and other than the arrogance, ignorance, vanity and venality of a few, and the possibility that our technology has so far outstripped our biology that if we don't stir up trouble we just don't know what to do with ourselves, I still don't know why, not really. And I could rant and rant about this, but I am no warrior, just a cook and a gardener, and a painter of strange pictures, and I shall have to I leave all that to the legions of more eloquent and better educated people who are also far more practiced in the art of verbal swordplay.
Instead, I refer you to a little piece of audio I happened upon by chance while looking for something to listen to while I clean. It's a snippet from the virtual cutting room floor over at This American Life, an interview with Eli Takesian, a chaplain in the U. S. Marine Corps.
Click here to listen. You can also hear the program this didn't make it into, but which ended up containing another interview with Lyn Brown, a U. S. Army Reserve chaplain, here.
(No, I'm not a Christian, never was, and I don't even believe in god(s) of any recognizable kind anymore. I'm still sending you to church, sort of, to understand the whole thing about killing, if you don't already, and to be moved and supported if you do.
Yeah, it does seem paradoxical. What's your point?)
You're not so bad at verbal swordplay yourself. My favorite line:
We are still killing and being killed, amputating and maiming and being maimed and amputated, and other than the arrogance, ignorance, vanity and venality of a few, and the possibility that our technology has so far outstripped our biology that if we don't stir up trouble we just don't know what to do with ourselves, I still don't know why, not really.
Posted by: sognatrice | May 28, 2007 at 02:12 PM