Why We Remember

Well, it’s time for another blog entry and with Memorial Day upon us, I thought I’d provide my usual unusual spin on usual events.  Memorial Day is supposed to be a day to remember all those who have fallen in battle defending our…wait a doggone minute.  What were they defending?  I suppose it depends on who you ask and what, specifically, you ask them about.  Inevitably, we’re talking about war here.

People die in battle because someone started a war.  Yes, I said “some-one” started a war.  It’s always one asshole whose mother didn’t love him enough when he was a child that gets things rolling.  Okay, I confess that I’m no expert on war, but I’ve been in lots of meetings.  Meetings are where wars get started.  A bunch of men (and maybe one or two women) get in a room and try to answer the question, “what are we going to do about those bastards?”  Their choices:

1. Wait them out

2. Talk to them some more
3. Try to isolate them and make their lives painful
4. Kill them

Sometimes, the men have tried 1-3 and they haven’t worked...yet.  They could go back and try this “diplomatic crap” some more or they could adopt the posture of the ornery buzzard who said, “patience my ass, I’m gonna kill something.”  Usually, there’s one MF in the room that is lobbying hard for option #4.  He’s the one with the bad mother.  I’ve never met Dick Cheney’s mom, but she should be ashamed of herself.  She and Donald Rumsfeld’s mom must have shared a lot of notes.

So, I think we should remember the fallen on Memorial Day.  We should remember the fallen moms and dads whose wonderful offspring decided it was a good idea to send other parents’ offspring to some foreign country to die.  The other parents went to all the trouble to raise up dutiful good little sheep, only to have them led by bad wolves to an untimely death.

Sometimes a bad actor gets control of a war machine and the rest of us need to stop him.  But, sadly, we get the government we deserve, so any country that allows a bad actor like that come to power, probably deserves to have their cities destroyed.  We elected Cheney and we were fortunate enough to escape with the loss of only three buildings.  Sad as the event was, it probably could have been worse.  Actually, it’s not really over yet, so maybe it will be worse.  They’re still killing our people on account of the events of 9/11.

I know what you’re thinking.  “Tom, how can you possibly blame US (take it any way you want) for that?”  Answer:  our enemies hate us.  They need us to be evil in order to show their allies that we must be stopped.  When a couple evil dudes like Cheney and Rumsfeld (not to mention Rove, Crystal and Wolf) come to power, it’s like ringing the war dinner bell.  Any fool with a plan knows that any provocation is going to be responded to with plenty of bombs and troupe movements.  I’m no soothsayer, but when Cheney got elected, my very first thought was, “okay, when’s the war?”  You had to know there’d be one.  These guys live for it.

Clinton was a pot smoking hippy.  He actually stopped a war that two other madmen were waging.  If you ask me, we could use a few more pot smoking hippies in power.  Or, women.  Have you ever heard of a woman starting a war?  I’m not saying that a few didn’t get talked into it by their male advisors.  Imagine this scene:  a room full of men and one woman.  She happens to be the one in charge.  We’ll call her Margret.  All the men are saying, “Maggie, don’t do this, we haven’t exhausted all diplomatic measures yet.  Give it more time.”

Maggie: “Fuck time.  I want those sons ‘o bitches dead! Now go start a war.”

I doubt it.  Oh well, until the world is run by hippies and women, we’ll probably have plenty of new heroes to remember next year and next year and next…

Enjoy the cookout!