Shared Sacrifice

Apparently the death of wild-life provoker and self-promoter Steve Irwin has led to an outpouring of grief across the world with many devastated fans leaving flowers and other mementos at the gates of his zoo in Australia. According to an article on CNN.com the media experts are surprised by the attention paid to Irwin’s demise “especially given the glut of long-anticipated celebrity news, such as Katie Couric's debut anchoring the "CBS Evening News," Rosie O'Donnell's arrival on "The View" and the first photographs of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' daughter, Suri.” Does this sort of thing make anyone else want to vomit their breakfast? As of yesterday 2,658 young men and women have been killed in the administration’s disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq. While the actions of these soldiers haven’t been as entertaining as feeding angry crocodiles they are trying to make the best of a horrible situation and there isn’t exactly a parade of American citizens with bouquets of flowers marching up to lay them at the feet of the tomb of the unknowns. In fact, the bodies of dead Americans soldiers are brought home secretly, in wooden crates, at night, lest the American public be disturbed from their orgy of eating, following the inane lives of celebrities and buying a whole lot of crap they don’t really need. Where is the shared sacrifice which war demands of a population? No where around these parts. Bush is employing the rhetoric of WWII without asking the population to do anything in support of this war which, according to Bush, is the most important struggle since the Allied powers took on the Nazi’s. Yeah, right. I think if I see one more “I support the Troops” ribbon on a car at the Staten Island Mall I’m going to shove it up the driver’s ass. How, exactly are you “Supporting the Troops”? By taking mass transit? By helping to break our dependence on foreign energy? By volunteering your middle-class sons and daughters to go to the Persian Gulf in lieu of heading off to their liberal arts college in New England? Let’s not kid ourselves. This war, like most wars in this country’s history is being fought by the working class. The idea that we should start drafting middle class children to get blown up in the middle-east is anathema to Republican politicians whose principal concern is stopping gay marriage before Jesus comes back. (Which according to their calculations should be within the next few years).