Five Awful Years

Does anyone look back at these five years and realize just the godawful disgusting truth of what's happened?

I honestly believe that with 170,000+ American troops and thousands more from the Coalition of the Willing still occupying the less-than-sovereign nation of Iraq, we as objective intelligent observers do not have the hindsight nor the chronlogical distance to comprehend the psychosis of the times.

A President and his administration walk free, furthering lies that have been disproven years prior, while the blood-stained truth is splattered across television screens, computer monitors and the sands and streets of Iraq.

Worse, we have a media that refuses to cover a war that rages on, thereby implicitly promoting the idea amongst average people that Iraq is either not a problem anymore, or that the war is over. Neither of which are true, of course.

Instead, we are force-fed 24 hour coverage of blowhard know-nothings ranting about superdelegates, poll numbers and speculation about a contest that won't matter to the thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of soldiers who will die between now and November 4 (Election Day, in case nobody told you), let alone January 21, 2009 (Inauguration Day).

So what is there to do except sit around and regret, write whiny blogposts from the comfort of one's home and go about our daily lives? For the dead, there is nothing we can do, except pray. For the living, I don't presume to tell you how to express yourselves in regards to the war. The options are out there, some simple and practical; some not quite so.

I choose the easy, practical method because I am no soldier, no mujahideen, no Iraqi and no rich, influential member of the world elite. Nor am I even an active member of any so-called peace group, not that the international peace movement has accomplished anything at all with regards to Iraq. In fact, this war and the five years it has dragged on is the biggest stain of failure for the peace movement. With all your protests, flyers, documentaries and books, all you have accomplished is for naught and the dead are still dying.

Besides myself and my generation, I choose to pick another target of my scorn and hate.

American people, I blame you. Sure, now you may be out waving Obama signs around or donating your meagre non-foreclosed savings to Hillary. And shit, you say you voted Gore and Kerry in the last two elections.

But whether you voted for W or not, he is your President.

The Congress that approved hundreds of billions of dollars of blood money is yours. The media that pulled the biggest lie in history is yours. The arms manufacturers, multinational corporations and impotent peace groups are all yours.

You say you have a democracy, whereby representatives are elected to represent the will of the people. The oft-repeated quote from President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address "A government of the People, by the People and for the People," is testament to this. Yet you refuse to recognize that this is a two-way street. You say that you are a democracy, and yet when your government invades another state, you throw your hands up and plead "It's not us, it's the government."

No...it's not "the government," ladies and gentlemen, as if it's some kind of foreign entity. It is *your* government.

Look, I understand that you're all drugged with sex and TV and celebrities and school, work and money. Traffic. Mortgages. Babysitters. Walking the dog. A lot of shit gets in the way of you being able to do something. But if you, American people, really wanted to kill this war, you would have done it by now. But you don't. And the more this thing drags on, the dirtier your faces are, the less respectable your voices seem and the bloodier your hands become.

Take responsibility. Replace your leaders. Prosecute the war profiteers and murderers. Fight the hawks and neocons. And for the love of all things holy and sacred: leave the Middle East and never come back.

I implore you, do something, or someone far more insane and angry than I will.

=//Turnquest