February 26, 2003

War Bad! Arrrrrrr! I think

War Bad! Arrrrrrr!

I think I may have actually reached critical pissed-offitude today. Oh, it's been building for a while--a really long while, now that I think about it--but it's finally hit the whole cartoonish "head with exploding thermometers for eyes and steam-emitting ears" phase today. Why? First, let's just make a list:


  • From Cold Fury--this piece about "educators" deliberately villifying children's parents who serve in the military.

  • From Juan Gato--well, pretty much everything, but particularly the existence of the Wonder Twins Morford and MoDo,and their continuing, unreasonable belief in their own superiority.

  • Hollywood. My, they're full of themselves lately, aren't they? (via Andrea Harris)

  • And just read Critical Mass for a distillate of distasteful declarations from the dissolute dimbulbs who inhabit Ivory Tower land.

I could go into a lengthy analysis of knee-jerk anti-war leftism descending into the depths of contentless ad hominem crapola, but it's been done. Perhaps the problem is that we've been spending too much time trying to lend intellectual discussion to a debate which is quickly becoming a Usenet flamewar writ large, instead of, as we are taught in "Instructor 101," making our message "audience appropriate." So in the interest of time and clarity, here goes:

Grow. The. Fuck. Up.

No, really. You don't like Bush? Fine, whatever. Vote against him in 2004, write your congressfolk and senators, have bake sales to support his opponent. But stop letting your hatred of one man blind you to, well, everything else. The world has changed in the past 18 months, and the rest of us don't have time to wait for you to catch up.

Stop letting your belief that he "stole the election" send you into hyper conspiracy mode, wherein every single person who may have even considered voting for him somehow manages to be stupid, evil, yet diabolical enough to aid and abet the Wellstone assassination. Stop. It. NOW. And don't even try with the whole "nuanced debate" bullshit. Bush=Hitler? Where's the friggin' nuance? I see no nuance! I see a bunch of people so enraged by the fact that "our side lost" almost THREE FREAKING YEARS AGO that they're throwing a mass tantrum. I include Hollywood, France, The New York Times, and the current democratic petty obstructionism in that list. And when it's pointed out that their tantrum is actually having the opposite effect re: making war more likely, as well as being directly responsible for the subjugation of an entire nation by a fellow who would, incidentally, set their anti-war asses on fire as soon as they stopped proving useful, what happens? They get naked! What the fuck is that?

I'll tell you what it is. They're channeling my toddler. Scream and cry when thwarted. Reason doesn't work--the screaming merely intensifies, sometimes coupled with throwing things, or tossing a diaper at my head. Do you know what works? Ignoring the toddler. And it looks like the "eeeeville Bush Junta" (aside: stop with the junta, okay? Likewise with the whole hegemony thing. It doesn't make you seem smart or clever. It makes it seem like you just spent 10 minutes in a post-colonial theory course and you jotted down the glossary terms 'cause you thought it might help you get laid at the kegger later on) is going to do just that.

Everyone loses sometime. You can either accept it, learn from it and try harder next time, or you can throw a fit. But it doesn't change reality. No, not even if you click your heels together three times, hug your blankie and wish REALLY REALLY hard.

Posted by Big Arm Woman at February 26, 2003 08:25 AM