Instinct tells me to get a mohawk. Thinking back to previous bouts of alienation from status quo America, my current state of disaffection nears the spiked dog collar days of an angry youth.
Another Bush reigned supreme, recession ran rampant and I toyed with Trotskyites. Ten years later, a dj vu presidency brings back those days of Crass records and kicking things.
It sickens me to long for those heady days of Bill Clinton when all was right with the world. Unfortunately, the speak-loudly- and-randomly-swing-a-big-stick politics of late decimates the grade curve for recent presidents.
I do not know where my country went, yet I feel no hurry to find it. I could hardly afford the repair bill in today’s economic environment.
It seems we lose about one soldier every day in the “non guerrilla” warfare of Iraq. Our president hides behind them and chides a growing number of militant Iraqis with, “Bring ’em on.” Terrorists and guerrillas apparently respond well to schoolyard challenges.
Outrage at the undaunting ignorance of the commander in chief rarely made it beyond editorial cartoons. In a atmosphere of institutionalized mediocrity, it hardly earned a second look.
An irritating thing about stereotypes is their innate truthfulness. The world’s caricature of a pistol-packing cowboy named America seems affirmed nowadays. We now ride alone. Bush values historic unions between the United States and fellow democracies as much as a headless doll at a yard sale.
We can’t bother being tied down in a relationship, and an attitude of condescending self-importance helps make this possible. Before, the French were just miffed because we always wear shorts and order Coke with ice. Now they have a real reason to treat Americans rudely.
In present-day America, the secretary of war/defense flirts with the notion of using tactical nuclear warheads. I, on the other hand, fall in the camp that refuses to describe any nuclear weapon as tactical. Dropping even the most petite of H-bombs best involves strategic thinking that looks all the way forward.
All the way to the end of the world.
I pick the warmongering from the American middle because that’s where we tend to kill the most people. I place importance in that fact. The morass of culture away from the battlefield hardly grants a reprieve from my alienation. Now we get to meet the people who burned Dixie Chicks albums and look forward to Charlie’s Angels 3.
Conformity is the only way to play it safe in the land of “watch what you say.” We boldly face the future in matching outfits. Be sure to show the logo.
Teetering factors of health, job satisfaction and intimate relationships affect my relationship with the rest of you. For the first time in a long time, I wonder if that is possible. I wonder if I really want to know the rest of you. Media offers a glimpse, and I’m not sure if the rest of you are good for me.