That we have come to accept a politics that offers no choice save between our acquisition of abusive power or our submission to it speaks only to the depths of our delusion; it says nothing about that which is possible. — Sam Smith
Given all the destruction along the Gulf Coast and subsequent neglect by those whose hands actuate the money valve, I was moved most by the scene at the memorial, when you describe your fallen comrades and the men and women fighting today’s wars as “children”. I don’t know if you ever watch “This Week At War”, but each week, out of the ten-or-so faces of recently deceased soldiers, on average, I have outlived seven or eight of them, and I’m only twenty-seven. Some of the faces I have seen were of boys aged nineteen and twenty. My sister is twenty years old; I can remember playing with her as a baby and walking her home from kindergarten as if they happened yesterday. My brother will be sixteen next month: two years from combat age. Our Prime Minister is saying our soldiers need to remain in Afghanistan until at least 2011, allowing folks my brother’s age to get at least a few months under their respective belts, assuming, of course, they’re being brought home by that time (at this point, I’m placing my chips on “no”). What kind of people are we to send our children off to kill each other? Shit.
G.:
Given all the destruction along the Gulf Coast and subsequent neglect by those whose hands actuate the money valve, I was moved most by the scene at the memorial, when you describe your fallen comrades and the men and women fighting today’s wars as “children”. I don’t know if you ever watch “This Week At War”, but each week, out of the ten-or-so faces of recently deceased soldiers, on average, I have outlived seven or eight of them, and I’m only twenty-seven. Some of the faces I have seen were of boys aged nineteen and twenty. My sister is twenty years old; I can remember playing with her as a baby and walking her home from kindergarten as if they happened yesterday. My brother will be sixteen next month: two years from combat age. Our Prime Minister is saying our soldiers need to remain in Afghanistan until at least 2011, allowing folks my brother’s age to get at least a few months under their respective belts, assuming, of course, they’re being brought home by that time (at this point, I’m placing my chips on “no”). What kind of people are we to send our children off to kill each other? Shit.
7 December 2007, 1:46 am