Why We Fight
GP and I drive to BigCity, NC to see Why We Fight at the Fine Arts Theatre. It is undoubtedly the most depressing movie I have seen in years. It is also a must see.
I leave the theatre emotionally exhausted, walking like a zombie among a handful of other viewers who are also in tears. The film is about the imperialistic rise of the United States after World War II. It is about the wisdom and pleading for peace offered by Pres. Eisenhower as he left the Oval Office. It is about the current war on Iraq. It is about the first fifty “smart bombs” dropped after March 19, 2003 (the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom) and how every single one of them missed. It is about waging corporate wars, making money off the deaths of innocent people, and the corruption of our politicians.
At times I want to shoot the screen. My heart pounds in my ears and if I could give my life to end this war I would do it without flinching. I am overcome with intense desire to kill George Bush. Really, I sit sweating in my seat, cursing life and death and everything in between and thinking to myself that if I could kill the President I would do it. That I would do this and give up my own life and never look back. (Fuck the Patriot Act, scan my blog and arrest me for my threats. Tell me I am a weapon of mass destruction and I will tell you our government is a weapon of mass deception. I would write from prison, curse Bush from behind the bars, meditate on cold cement floors.)
All of this is accompanied by an overwhelming memory of peace.
The drive home is dark and slow. GP and I are silent in the car for a long time. He asks me where my layover is for my upcoming flight to Oregon and I start sobbing.
“Houston, Texas,” I whimper.
We discuss the movie. I tell him the only way I can cope is to try and make peace by spinning small circles in my life through education. I have never been to a national protest for this reason. The weight of my country’s faults are too heavy for me to walk under. I crumble at the thought of our misguided righteousness and choose instead to live my life with small glasses – pin-holed with a mission for peace in small steps, peace through children, peace through pacifism, peace through education, peace by example. I tell him that is why I moved my life to North Carolina in the first place – because I found a boarding school for teens that would allow me to teach and live with integrity. To all of this he agrees. His story, after all, is much the same as mine.
www.whywefight.com
www.democracynow.org
www.moveon.org
www.veteransforpeace.org
