Now That The Smoke Has Cleared
(a rambling rant moving towards an essay)

I couldn't even cope with the idea of watching the State of The Union address. I watched Bush's convention speech, the majority of all three debates, and his inaugural address. So much more on top of that. Enough, I said, finally. Still, the inauguration, is on my mind.

Of course, given the horror too many of us see, it's hard to stop talking about this new beginning (same as the old beginning). My mind, however, keeps going back not to the inauguration, but to who I was watching it with.

I work at a VA hospital, so the clientele are very interested in the government. I sat across parallel to a man having lunch with someone who looked like his mother, both of them watching intently, long after they finished eating. At one point in Bush's address, they shot to images of protesters, as if to suggest like they were just a few yards away when in reality they were probably closer to a mile down the road.

The man with his mother commented on how the protestors were for not being silent. "Even if you don't like the guy..."

The mother had the quote of the day, though: "They haven't been to war yet."

Yet. That word is still stuck in my mind two weeks later. The idea that all these kids need is a good war to set them straight. Sometime after this war's done and we spread democracy throughout the world, I guess.

In all seriousness, it's pretty much a guarantee that another war will be down the road. If a drawn-out battle in Afghanistan headed by Reagan's crew twenty years ago (don't forget the CIA) can start us down the path to a few thousand people losing their lives, imagine the horrors that will follow after we "win" here.

And deep down, those who've had to suffer from past crises in history love it, in a way.

It exemplifies the attitudes of too many. Not only is war a necessary evil, it's a neat character builder. Never mind what else war destroys in you on a physical, mental, and emotional level. Those in the "Greatest Generation" went to church, to war, to jobs they hated for forty plus years. So should we, in honor of those who are willing to sacrifice everything except participation in the cycle that keeps us going down the road to war, dogmatism and misery.

Despite people saying they want to provide their children with everything they don't have, too many people, I believe, really hate the idea of their children not suffering the way they did, be it a war they knew nothing about, a marriage they couldn't see a way out of (which often includes children they never wanted, go figure), or career choices they couldn't see the consequences of in the beginning.

Most people don't want anything different for their children. Maybe get them a trust fund to better deal with the same woes they're all-too familiar with, but not much else. A world where you don't have to worry about who you should marry, where to go for mass and having enough children to get great tax breaks? I doubt they could even fathom it. Indoctrinated religion is where we get our most famous wars, anyway. And overpopulation makes for ready-made desperate militias.

All for the sake of tradition. A word brandished pretty casually by many, including my mother, whose amazing spitfire personality I love to this day would not be allowed to express herself if trapped in the traditions of a hundred years ago. People forget the once-proud traditions of slavery, religon-based suppression of emotions, and minors in the workplace. They fail to realize that everything wonderful in this country (and there is still so much to praise here) came from not adhering to traditions, but from changing them.

I shudder to think not only of Bush's ideas of tradition set loose on the world, but also the willingness of all opposition to follow in their footsteps to try and lull fanatics and the blind on their side. Not going to work. The cold truth is that Barack Obama, the current rising star in the starless-Democratic Party, didn't win his Senate chair because he stressed his spiritual side. He won because the opposition, Alan Keyes, gives the impression that he talks to God the same way the kid in The Shinning talked to his index finger. How many years will it take before he starts to be taken seriously by anyone besides the Massachusetts News.

But no, God was the way to go, said everyone in Kerry's corner (mind you, I'm being very open in assuming that Kerry wanted to win in the first place). When the final debate focused on "if you were a tree, what kind would you be" type of questions, and questions about God, Bush took over, arguably had his only win, and I started getting worried. Can't say it was without good reason. Kerry pathetically tried to pass himself off as a man as driven by God as Bush claims to be, and the image of the liar stuck with everyone, including me.

Newsflash: you can't fake the kind of religous fervor Bush depends on from his most devout supporters. You can't fake insanity, and those who truly are insane can sniff you out a mile away. In this respect, Kerry, who does show a great deal of logic in a lot of areas, should have been ashamed of himself for even thinking he could fool anyone but himself. And anyone who has ever expressed doubts about Bush, from the beginning to now, but still voted for him based on claims of morality, should be doubly ashamed for thinking he'd adhere to any of the principals of the faith you claim to follow.

And now, this late in the game, the best we can debate about is the number of bodies we're willing to tally up on both sides before calling it quits.

Religion is a marketing tool, not anything that guides our leaders today (if it ever has). We still fail to realize that. Anyone who struggles against Bush by trying to push their spiritual background to the front is either a poor shuckster or someone who doesn't see that it is in direct oppositon to whatever change they're claiming to propose.

The cultural divide is so much clearer now. You either are for upholding tradition, or you're for the betterment of humankind. If you support both, you're either a liar of the worst kind or a failure in the making.