You Have To Learn How To Die

I'm glad to see that Jesus' General, in typically perverse fashion, has called upon Tom Delay and the rest of the war trumpeters to put up or shut up. This is something that has really been rankling me lately. How many of the folks "who demanded this war" have made any sort of even cursory sacrifice in its name. How many have lost limbs, mental capacity, friends, relatives-- their lives? I'm fairly certain that the very same crowd of racist, fear-mongering, homophobic micro-genitiliites who protested Nightline's hour-long tribute to the American fallen are the last people who would look at these pictures with even an ounce of sympathy-- not to mention guilt. Why should they? They're as removed from anything that happens on the ground in Iraq as they are from appreciating a painting by Francis Bacon, a play by Tony Kushner, an essay by Susan Sontag, a poem by Amira Barraka... or their very own complex biologies, hormonal makeups, desires, urges, compulsions... or the California coastline with its tremendous cliffs, coastal redwoods, coral and seabirds (it's all so much seagull shit to them)... or the heroism of the Stonewall rioters, the "theorizing" of Charles Darwin, the stunning architecture of Frank Ghery, the cryptic brilliance of David Lynch, the hilarious and hammering prose of Phillip Roth, the thundering voice of PJ Harvey, the delicacy of Gong Li's features, the sublime bite of Lagavulin, the revolutionary zeal of the Marquis de Sade, the intoxicant that is love, the scientific method... or dead American soldiers... or dead Iraqis... And on... And on... And on....

These people understand power-- raw power-- and power only, and I've had just about enough of it. I say to these warmongering pussies (and here I'm paraphrasing Axl rose): Get in the fucking ring! Put your life on the line! Put your son's life on the line! Put your daughter's life on the line! This was your stupid fucking war! You die for it! I'm sure the gun will feel good in your hands-- it will make you feel all tingly inside. Strap it on, cocksure closet cases, and be gone with you! I'm sick to death of the lot of you.