Huh?

Kicked in the head by a cow,
Montana man decides to
make organic goat cheese.

This is one of those puzzles that comes under the heading of: what the hell is going on, I don’t get it and it makes no sense. The problem is this: Bush now has an approval rating of a mere 19%, the lowest of any President ever. A majority of the American public is fed up with this “war” and want out of it as soon as possible. The public is equally fed up with Congress for the failure to stop this unbelievably expensive and unnecessary war.

McCain’s whole strategy is based upon his support for this unpopular war. He has adopted Bush’s position that it was justified and if we continue we will somehow “win,” although what we will win has never been specified. In short, McCain is closely identified with Bush and this “war” that is seen as a complete disaster and the greatest foreign policy blunder ever. It is known that Democrats are turning out in record numbers whereas Republicans are not. Some are predicting a landslide victory for Democrats. It is also known that there are Republicans who are supporting Democrats this time.

At the same time, the national polls claim that McCain is essentially even with either of his potential opponents. In some polls he actually leads by a few points, in others he is not far behind. Some are even predicting a McCain win in November. How can this be? How do you explain this peculiar situation? Do the polls lie? (a distinct possibility). Do the voters lie? How can someone promote such a useless and disastrous policy, in the face of overwhelming opposition, and still be considered a possibility for President? I confess, I don’t get it. Are there a large number of secret warmongers out there who do not want to reveal their true warlike nature? Are the MSM faking these numbers or loading the polls with leading questions? What the hell is going on?

I think we need some new terms to describe what goes on in fighting and warfare. It seems to me the nature of warfare has changed dramatically but our language to describe it has not. For example, we have traditionally described battles and such in terms like “savagery,” or “barbarism.” These terms strike me as no longer entirely appropriate. Now that we have “advanced” beyond bows and arrows and spears and bayonets and sabers, and rifles and such, and entered a new era of technological warfare with planes and bombs and nowadays even robots and drones, terms like savage and barbaric don’t seem very useful. Where, for example, is the savagery in pushing a button from five miles above the earth, even though that act may result in thousands of deaths? Or how about sitting in your office hundreds of miles from the battlefield and pushing buttons to send a drone over Afghanistan to kill someone. I guess you can stretch such acts under the terms barbaric or savage but somehow it just doesn’t seem quite right. But we have no terms, as far as I know, for “beyond savagery” (and we are certainly far beyond it now). I suppose we could define mass bombings of cities and innocent people as acts of humanicide and describe them as “humanicidic” but that doesn’t seem to me to be entirely satisfactory (somehow it’s just not quite powerful enough to describe such cowardly and inhuman behavior). Remember that until the Germans carpet bombed Guernica just prior to WWII such attacks on civilian targets were basically unknown even in war. Nowadays, of course, we just blissfully kill 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 or more at a time and think nothing much of it. Just with sanctions we kill 500,000 Iraqi children and our Secretary of State says “it’s worth it.” We’ve come a long way baby, from mere savagery. But think of the future. It may soon be the case that whatever nation has the superior technology they may be able to annihilate everyone else on the planet just by pushing a few buttons. We better start catching up with our education for science and technology. Never mind the arts and humanities, we won’t need them, having moved beyond even civilization. Exciting times, these, one never knows for certain whether we’ll blow ourselves up first, or just slowly drown in our own filth and waste. No one seems to care enough to do much of anything about it. I know, let’s privatize it! That works swell for the public interest. Does anyone even remember what the public interest is anymore? Don’t mind me, I just get cranky when I don’t get enough sleep, and I don’t get enough sleep when I’m cranky. I’m lost in the funk of modern life.

LKBIQ:
“I think we agree, the past is over.”
George W. Bush