Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Feeding the beast

If I were a brutally honest Democratic politician, this is what I'd say:

To all you liberal, progressive, anti-war bloggers, calling for an end to the war in Iraq: What are you smoking?

You think a few thousand soldiers dead is a political problem? Ha! You think a few hundred thousand brown people dead is filling the American people with remorse? Pull the other one. You think anyone cares that we've put a half trillion dollars in the pockets of Halliburton et al.? Give me a break. Habeas corpus? Torture? Unlawful detention? Puhleeze.

Sure, we made a big deal about the war in Iraq in the 2006 campaign; that's what a lot of people wanted to hear. But we're actually in office, and we have real problems to solve, problems that have nothing to do with why you morons elected us.

Let me tell you about a political problem: The price of gas. What do you think is going to happen if gas goes to $5/gallon? Uh huh: Democratic politicians—the lucky ones—will become assistant professors of Political Science at East Buttfuck State University. The unlucky ones will be drawn and quartered by a torch and pitchfork wielding mob, their families slaughtered, their houses burned to the ground and salt plowed into their fields.

We're politicians, not saints. Do you think for a second we're going to commit political suicide to temporarily interrupt a war which will only be redoubled when you idiots elect Giuliani and 434 (we just can't get rid of that ridiculous bastard Kucinich) Republican congresspeople in 2008?

We're going to keep our bargain with the Devil. We'll keep feeding the beast until the last dollar and the last drop of blood are spent—our job is to shake our heads and say, "So sad," while we shovel money and lives with both hands. With all good luck we'll be retired when the game is up and it'll be someone else's problem.

Because the Devil is the people: addicted to SUVs, cheap slave-labor trinkets and the whole apparatus of mindless consumption, outraged at the thought that if they want something they might not be able to simply reach out and have it. Change that and you might have a chance at ending the war in Iraq. And I have a bridge you might be interested in.

Grow up.

2 comments:

  1. Cynical - but damned straight.

    This certainly helps to expain why energy policy is hardly discussed by the pols of either stripe.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is why the energy problem is insoluble by technology. Our current lifestyle is not scalable and it's not sustainable. Things are gonna change big time, and it won't be long.

    ReplyDelete

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