The woman behind the counter asked if I had survived the holidays. I told her I was glad they were over. Then she started to blather about Dick Clark still being where ever Dick Clark is and whatever he does on New Year’s Eve of which I am blithely and thankfully ignorant of. She told me how positive he was, I suppose a retort to my being glad the holidays were over. The only thing I know regarding Dick Clark is that he never ages which I suppose is due to plastic surgery and hair die or whatever so I asked her if Clark still looked the same. The conversation seemed to stumble. I thanked her and left having better things to do than reminiscing over Dick Clark and the America he supposedly distills like Wally and the Beave, or Father Knows Best. As far as I can determine it seems clear that that America has never existed except in some fantastical alternate universe which is just beyond that sign post up ahead announcing you are entering the Twilight Zone and the pit of man’s fear or some such thing.
This led me to ponder over how much people invent their reality. Can you blame them? Yes you can because it isn’t terribly helpful. People laughed at the neocon who blasted out that we make our own reality now as if this had never been true before. It’s always been true, actually, at least for a lot of people and not just Americans. Obama is a wonderful example of this phenomenon. Loyal Democrats cannot listen to any criticism of Obama because like Dick Clark, Obama, among other things, is a symbol of something that just doesn’t exist which would be the idea of America as a champion of truth, justice and benevolence. The news media loves stories of Americans who went to some god-fucked land and hepped out the poor ignorant slobs who populated said land and are continually regaling us with such stories whenever they are found. The news media also ignores bloody and diabolical events like American troops raping young girls in front of their families followed by murdering the family and burning their houses down to cover their half-time entertainment. In America it’s always cherry picking time, an eternal harvest of all that’s good about our boyz and girlz in uniform. After all, murder and rape doesn’t fit in with the current fantasy and false realities many Americans abide in. And those rosy cheeked cherubs in the military are just so polite it’s difficult for Americans to imagine that many of them are just murdering thugs. Bring up the subject and it’s time to whip Dick Clark out or to remember you are late for a colonoscopy while you have a bad case of hemorrhoids.
For others more thoughtful if you bring up the topic of our uniformed thugs it’s time to whip out the old our leaders are really the ones who are at fault. Now I don’t really disagree that our leaders are most certainly at fault but that is no excuse for what soldiers are. We all are presented with certain choices in our life and it’s our decisions regarding our choices that define us. Without a draft nobody is forced to join the military and no matter how ignorant one is we all know that the military is used to kill people. As people say, power comes from the end of a rifle and it is these soldiers, among others, who give our leaders the ability to wage their wars of choice. Or as that Beatles song warbles, what if they gave a war and nobody came? Unfortunately, since there is nothing on the planet more sadistic and murderous than young men there will always be somebody willing to go to war. When people actually enjoy the act of murder it is useless to say that our leaders are more to blame because that isn’t really the point. The point is, our culture, like all western cultures, and others as well, create these rosy cheeked cherubic monsters and then set them loose to do their thing however polite they may be.
