4: March 2003 Archives

The world seems to be getting tenser with each passing day, like a giant spring wound tighter and tighter and tighter. I have this mounting dread that it's going to pop someday soon.

An acquaintance, pro-war before last week, has suddenly realized that the Iraqis don't trust us to liberate them. And why should they? We've carpet-bombed their nation, killed their civilians, and shut off the water supply to at least one major city. This, of course, is following the 12-year economic sanctions we've levied against them.

CY jokingly dared me to write a poll question for the system I develop at work, along the lines of, "If a Muslim army were to invade the United States with the intent to overthrow George W. Bush, what would you do?" Needless to say, the poll question for next week has something to do with academic advising, and nothing at all to do with Muslim armies invading the U.S. It's a bad economy, after all, and I need to keep my job.

Yeah.

In a gesture that more than made up for her trying to get me fired with a controversial poll question, CY pointed me to a New York Times op-ed article by Paul Krugman, called Delusions of Power that actually clarified (indirectly) how Americans and other members of the "coalition" have convinced themselves that this war would be largely unopposed, wildly successful, and mercifully brief.

That first night, I wanted to write about everything but didn't know where to start. It's three days later, and I haven't posted anything yet -- I guess I still don't know where to start, and I'm less eager to document it all now.

I don't write a lot about my political beliefs here, although I address them in a roundabout way fairly often. There are a couple of reasons for this, I guess. First, I'm not particularly interested in prostletizing. My beliefs are my own, and just as I don't expect to be able to convince all my readers to agree with my opinion, I don't particularly want flak in return. Second, I don't believe in absolutism. I think that my position is reasonable, but I know that people have reasonable opinions that differ from mine. I'm not anti-American or unpatriotic, and those who don't agree with me aren't (necessarily) fascist. Life doesn't run in binary.

I'll attempt to tell this story as objectively as I can, but I offer the ever-present caveat that there is no such thing as truly objective journalism.

Needless to say, it's far too late for me to provide the full story this evening, but I've posted a couple of photographs to whet my readers' appetites. It has been an interesting evening, to say the least. I'll post the entire story tomorrow. Honest.

Pablo Neruda wrote a poem called "Cierto Cansancio" -- "A Certain Weariness" -- where he described all the things he was weary of.

He wrote,
Estoy cansada del mar duro
y de la tiera misteriosa
(I am weary of the strong sea
and of the mysterious earth)
and
Estoy cansada de las gallinas:
nunca supimos lo que piensan,
y nos miran con ojos secos
sin concedernos importancia.
(I am weary of chickens:
no one knows what they're thinking,
and they look at us with dry eyes
and consider us unimportant.)

As Greg Brown points out, it's true -- they do, and we are. But it's hard to take that from a damn chicken.

As for me, I'm weary of war, even before it has been declared.

I'm weary of mourning. I've been mourning for years now -- or perhaps for months or for centuries. I've lost track. The process of protest has become routine: meet at the Capitol, listen to people speak eloquently and inspirationally, and then walk down Congress Avenue to the bridge, blocking traffic the entire way, pissing off drivers who had no idea they were being caught in a political statement.

I'm weary of marching. I continue to march because I have no other option. I feel as though I've been screaming and screaming and no one is listening to me. Over my protests, my country is embarking on a war in my name.

The weather has been beautiful in Texas the last few days, and as I've soaked in the sunshine, I've found myself wondering what the weather is like in Iraq right now, and how life is for the people living there today, a scant 48 hours before my military bombs it into oblivion and lets loose the chemical weaponry.

I'm weary of people drawing sides, naming us as the good guys, the cowboys in white hats entering to save damsels in distress from the evil sheiks who hold them hostage.

I'm weary of it all.