Strawberries

Our absurd, illegitimate bizarro President made a speech to the VFW comparing Vietnam to Iraq. Apparently if we leave Iraq there will be chaos and bloodshed. This argument assumes that you’re ignorant enough not to know that chaos and bloodshed reached obscene levels in Iraq some time ago.

Bush making a speech at the VFW is nothing new. He appears publicly only at military events, where the audience isn’t allowed to boo, or at meetings of the VFW, American Legion, Raving Wingnuts for Christ, Stupid Sons-of-Bitches of America, and other patriotic groups. Next week, President Queeg will be addressing the United Spooks Against the Rest of Us on the subject of the strawberries. Yes, you laughed at him and made jokes, but he will prove beyond the shadow of a doubt, and with geometric logic, that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox did exist.

The armchair killers still want to believe that Vietnam was just about winning. There’s no admission, no mention at all that maybe napalming the shit out of people, and wiping out men, women and children on a daily basis might have been wrong. When it comes to war, there is no right or wrong any more, just the prestige of victory or the shame of defeat. This is Kissinger’s old idea. If only the people weren’t such wusses, if only they were tough like us, we could have won, but you see, they lacked resolve. It wasn’t the fault of those clever men who sent 60,000 Americans down the pipeline to their deaths, it was our fault for saying we’d had enough.

Now we see the same attitude about Iraq. Do they really believe that if Iraq was really a threat to our security, and the citizens of this country knew that they were fighting in defense of our land, that we wouldn’t support the war? The country’s sick of the war because we know that it was founded on lies, that we’re not fighting to protect our country (in fact the war continues to make us less safe) and that the people running it are greedy, incompetent fools whose every move creates further destruction. Bush pretends to stand “firm” against the opinion of the majority of the citizens of this country, as if he were principled and we’re just a bunch of idiots scared by images on our TV. Faint-hearted and impatient, we don’t have what it takes, we don’t have the far-ranging vision to see that the war is good and noble, and by God the surge is succeeding.

The real problem is that Americans aren’t dumb enough to be fooled by anything these evil clowns say anymore. It’s only the 25-30% who still support Bush who are still shitting on cue when the Commander says the code word “terrorist.” We are left with the saving remnant of old farts at the VFW who still applaud the ravings of this little psychopath.

The perpetual drumbeat of fear can only work for so long before people get tired. You can’t base an entire nation on a single event (9/11) or on the constant dread of an over-inflated enemy. That’s why we have a Constitution. That’s why we have laws. Mad dictators just don’t have staying power in America, if only because people need some kind of stability in their lives, and the neo-conmen only know how to exploit instability.

The utter and complete failure of the neoconservative movement is inevitable. The only question is whether they’ll take the rest of us down with them. Let’s not be shy. Speak out while we still can.