This morning a verse to “Spirits in the Material World” by the Police kept running through my head:
Our so-called leaders speak
With words they try to jail ya
They subjugate the meek
But it’s the rhetoric of failure
I think it’s a response to last night’s speech from W. (Notice how he’s stopped being W. and started being President Bush to everyone?) Lisa expressed concern that we’re escalating to a state conflict with Afghanistan and the Taliban too quickly–that Bush left them no room to save face. The thing I worry about is this: Is giving an ultimatum to the Taliban ‘the rhetoric of failure’? There’s no way to hit the people who were directly responsible. Bringing “justice” to the Taliban is at best a distraction–bringing the real parties responsible to justice will be a much longer and less dramatic process.
A good page at the Urban Legends Reference, dedicated to helping you sort through truth and fiction in the aftermath of the disasters. One example–the thing about lighting candles outside so that “a satellite photo can be taken” is a hoax. But George W. Bush really did say, “I’m not gonna fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the ass.”
And Jerry Falwell really did say
I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way – all of them who have tried to secularize America – I point the finger in their face and say “you helped this happen.”
I need something to celebrate. I don’t need anyone else to blame.