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FACTOID OF THE DAY:
It is estimated that 600,000 Iraqis have died in our war for their freedom. Yes, died in OUR war for THEIR freedom. 600,000. That's over 2% of the population. Which is as if 6 million Americans were killed . You have to ask yourself: Are there any circumstances under which we would find that kind of a loss acceptable or justifiable? Any?
Just take a moment to really think about that.
It is a reminder of this administration's deadly combination of blind faith, colossal arrogance and willful ignorance. That these criminals are still able to sleep at night is as mystifying to me as the continuing celebrity of Howie Mandel.
MEDIA COMMENT OF THE DAY:
Republicans--in sheer desperation--are running ads that show Bin Laden promising to have bigger and more devastating attacks and reminding people "This is what's on the line. This is no time to cut and run. Vote Republican." The irony of course is that ads showing Osama Bin Laden could much more effectively (and credibly) be used by the Democratic party. They could talk about how by even American intelligence estimates, the Iraq War has sent anti-American sentiment and Al Qaeda jihadist recruitment numbers sky rocketing. And how a vote for continuing the policies of this administration is, in essence, a vote for Osama Bin Laden. As I think I suggested earlier, it could end with a shot of Bin Laden wearing a Vote Republican button on his caftan. I wish I were a little more competent with Photoshop and iMovie so I could work up a prototype for all of your amusement (and, no doubt, for the Democratic Party's glory and gain!). And James Carville and Bob Schram: In case you're reading this: I'm just kidding about that idea, guys. Let's not go out there and blow it at the 11th hour.
PHENOMENON IN NEED OF NAME OF THE DAY:
When you're going into the subway and your card swipe doesn't work and your delicate parts get crushed against the locked turnstile. Winner gets a free swipe on my Metro Card.
OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:
Aaron Sorkin is a Schmaltz-a-holic. But in a delightful way. His television world is like porn for smart, nice people. Every honorable act is rewarded with deep respect and every tender heart with the balm of true love.
LETTER OF THE DAY:
Pat Tillman --an NFL star player--bravely and honorably heeded the call to fight the people who attacked us on 9/11--and abandoned his ridiculously lucrative NFL career in order to help in what he felt to be an urgent and honorable effort. Tillman, you may know, ended up being killed in what turned out to have been a tragic friendly-fire incident but was initially reported as a heroic war casualty. (A representative instance of the government's absolute commitment to replacing inconvenient truths with ennobling fictions.) It took a resolute and relentless investigation on the part of the family for the government to finally acknowledge its cover-up and explain the true, horrible circumstances of Pat Tillman's death. Upon the revelation of the true cause of death--about 9 months after the initial, fictionalized account--Pat Tillman's father excoriated the government for its mendacity and memorably said that they didn't want to acknowledge the ugly truth that they'd "blown up their poster boy."
Pat Tillman's brother, Kevin, also volunteered to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yesterday, he finally broke his silence and spoke out on the death of his brother and the folly of the Iraq War. I have quoted this letter in its entirety below because it is sickeningly good. That is, good in a way that truly makes you sick. It was particularly compelling for me because it was not just another indictment of the Iraq War and the administration's policies from the perspective of one who (like myself and most of my friends) has been highly critical of both from the outset, but rather of someone brave and trusting who risked everything in order to do what he felt was the right thing and ended up feeling terribly wronged. It is a powerful reminder of all the brave and honorable impulses that were exploited and betrayed by a cowardly and dishonorable administration. And unlike your basic lefty rant, it is spoken from a position of genuine moral and experiential authority. So many honorable actions, impulses and lives wasted.
((BTW: Also thought about the administration's exploitation, hijacking and betrayal of honorable impulses when I read a long profile of Christopher Hitchens in last week's New Yorker. More on that, perhaps, some other time.)
Anyhow, without any further ado, a letter from Kevin Tillman on the occasion of his dead brother's birthday:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200601019_after_pats_birthday
After Pat’s Birthday
Courtesy the Tillman Family
Pat Tillman (left) and his brother Kevin stand in front of a Chinook helicopter in Saudi Arabia before their tour of duty as Army Rangers in Iraq in 2003.
By Kevin Tillman
Editor’s note: Kevin Tillman joined the Army with his brother Pat in 2002, and they served together in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. Kevin, who was discharged in 2005, has written a powerful, must-read document.
It is Pat’s birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after. It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice… until we got out.
Much has happened since we handed over our voice:
Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can’t be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.
Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.
Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few “bad apples” in the military.
Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It’s interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.
Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.
Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.
Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.
Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.
Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.
Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.
Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.
Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.
Somehow torture is tolerated.
Somehow lying is tolerated.
Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.
Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.
Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.
Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.
Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.
Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.
Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.
Somehow this is tolerated.
Somehow nobody is accountable for this.
In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that “somehow” was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.
Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat’s birthday.
Brother and Friend of Pat Tillman,
Kevin Tillman
ANTICIPATED DARKLY COMEDIC RHETORICAL MANEUVER OF THE DAY:
That the Bush administration--shameless to its hollow core--having lied about the case for war in Iraq, having lied about the circumstances of this truly heroic volunteer's horrible death--will have the sheer, unmitigated audacity (bet you thought I was going to say gall!), not to respond to the content of the letter, but rather to question its timing. I can picture Administration Spokesanus Tony Snow saying, " We have nothing to say about the man's opinions--as everyone is entitled to his or her opinion--we just question the timing of this letter--and just think it is unfortunate--and sort of dishonors the memory of his brother--who died tragically and heroically--to use his death in such a politically motivated way. As the President says the proper way to honor the heroically fallen is to stay the course in the cause they died for."
I started writing this up as a joke but now realize it's ACTUALLY plausible that they would do something like this. Too many absurd ironies and hypocrisies embedded in there to bother to try to make explicit. I have to move on cause...my... brain...is...about...to...explode,
SUGGESTED PRE- ELECTION DAY BUMPER STICKER OF THE DAY:
Support our troops. Vote Democratic.
FOLLOW-UP OF THE DAY:
Remember the "Chevy" commercial with all the images of Katrina and Ground Zero that I wrote about in my last posting? Well, I have been truly shocked to learn that while I had been reading it as a piece of shameless corporate/conservative propaganda, it has actually been reviled by many people on the right as liberal garbage. Fascinating. Evidently--and I gathered this from reading the opinion postings on some websites--lots of red-blooded, red-state Chevy-driving Americans are incensed at the intrusion of unpleasant, controversial imagery into the American consumer tapestry and have claimed that they will stop buying Chevy trucks in protest of this betrayal. It is absolutely fascinating to me that where I was offended by the way that these images were used, they were offended by the FACT that they were used.
Indeed, the very inclusion of disturbing realities in the commercial triggered accusations of liberal, lefty bias--even though these images were clearly being subsumed under the broader feel good we're-all-in-it-together-let's-stay-the-course sentiment. It reminded me of nothing so much as the administration's refusal to publicly acknowledge the war dead or to allow the reproduction of images of their coffins. Evidently in many Republican psyches, acknowledgement of difficulty is already defeat. Denial is operative at a level most of us can't even fathom. The people who are offended by these ads (not in the way that "godless" liberal armchair critics like myself are offended by them) cannot tolerate the messiness and conflict and imperfection and double-sidedness of things that most Democrats take for granted. Are these the kind of people --like my former boss who, incidently, wrote the "Morning in America" ads for Ronald Reagan--who cannot deal with loss or death and so instantly replace a long beloved family dog with a lookalike from his species with the exact same name (Fetch, Doppelganger, fetch, fetch. Good Doppelganger.) the day after he dies? I think it is a fascinating window into the psyche of certain parts of the red state, chevy-driving electorate--a glimpe into the powerful alliance of denial and belief.
AFTERTHOUGHT OF THE DAY:
Maybe I should have had the guy name his dog Clonie instead of Doppelganger. "Stay, Clonie. Good Clonie. Now sit. Good Clonie! Good boy."
CELEBRITY SIGHTINGS OF THE DAY:
In the last week, I have seen both the Lilliputian Paul Simon and the diminutive Dustin Hoffman within 2 blocks of my apartment. At 5'8 1/2" (and note how only the short and the young insist on the half unit of measure), I am suddenly feeling like the giant Jew of my neighborhood!
ANECDOTE OF THE DAY:
A bible-toting, gospel-quoting apocalyptician on my subway car is invoking the imminent eschaton as a compelling reason to repent and accept the divinity of Jesus Christ--or face the prospect of burning in hell for eternity. A glib, nattily attired young fellow with a British accent says to his lady friend--in an obvious dual attempt to charm her and to register his unease with the evangelical oratory--"My goodness, I don't think I could speak that long on ANY topic!" As is often the case, I am equally alienated from the two options before me.
Which suggests an idea of the day: A new theme for the blog: I don't know which I'm alienated by more _________ or _________ (its dialectical opposite.) Hmm. I'll have to think about this as a regular feature.
IRAQ GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY:
Because electricity is intermittent at best throughout the country and reality is fairly constant, the population has not yet become fully addicted to reality TV shows.
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Posted on 10/22/2006
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