The court of our contempt

I was very moved by this.

Those who glibly suggest that we must fight terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them over here or whatever nonsense we are using to justify our war on the world's poor this week do not ever have to face the results of their blather.

The dead are all terrorists for them, or can be dismissed as collateral damage, because they do not see the real people that they were. They are not forced to face those that accuse them, the screaming wives and mothers, the uncomprehending fathers and husbands. They do not hear the bombs falling on their houses, the tanks in their streets.

***

I never lose sight of the fact that America supported the Khmer Rouge when Vietnam kicked that crew out of power. I never lose sight of their support for Saudi Arabia when I hear their blather about bringing democracy to the Middle East. I never lose sight of the truth that the only nation that has ever used a nuclear weapon in anger is the United States.

I do not forget that it harbours, and has long harboured, terrorists that attack Cuba; that it supported the contras; that it murdered many leaders. I do not forget that it bombed Serbia mercilessly; that it destroys hospitals, places of worship, schools and homes and calls what it does spreading American values and not by its real name: terror.

They'll write the history books but we'll indict them. Some lash out in fury, and it comforts the Americans to imagine that the fury is limited to those so enraged by it as to be driven to the extremes of giving their lives suicidally just to express it.

But it isn't.

Ah, what's the use? What's the use of any of it?

***

There is none, of course. We are dust in a hundred years from now, and our consciences dust with us. What fucking use will they have been to us?

It's one of the great unresolvable contradictions of the thinking man's life. You are smart enough to know it's not worth caring, but being smart means that you cannot ignore it.

posted by Dr Zen @ 12:33 am