Armistice Day.... or as it's now called in Britain, Remembrance Day. Everyone is walking around with paper or plastic poppies in their lapels in tribute to those soldiers who fought for their ideals.
...while at the same time sending more of them to die in a totally counter-productive war. I think that the bombings in Jordan are the strongest repudiation yet of the Iraq war. There were no Iraqi terrorists while Saddam was there... granted he was gassing Kurds... but we certainly could have threatened him with, oh... nuclear annihilation. I can't believe that Moustapha Akkad was blown up in Amman...does that mean there will be no Halloween 9?
Meanwhile, do Americans even recognize that it's Veteran's Day? I have to admit, I'm far more aware of a holiday on this date living here in England than I ever was in America (except perhaps when my yiayia gave me stern lecture regarding the sacrifices of our troops). I read that there are only EIGHT American servicemen from WWI still receiving pensions. Society has changed in ways most of us probably don't even comprehend over the past 100 years, and our links to the past, to the old world of faith, pattern, place, tradition are nearly dead. I shudder to think when we lost the "greatest generation" as well... they are the builders and destroyers, united and the partisan... but most of all, the deprived and the determined. Without their optimism, we surely wouldn't have been granted the civilities or the orderliness of the society in which we live in today.
I'm tired and don't feel like writing much, and so falling back on abstraction. Though really, what is going to happen when no one can remember the Depression? That there were people going door to door for food who WANTED to work? That there might not be tires for the car because the Japanese have Indonesia? That there might not be panty hose because the nylon is needed for parachutes? No one remembers everyone going to church on Sunday? Diners serving vegetarian meals for Lent? Driving across the country on national highways in a car without a heater during the dead of winter? And a million other things I can't even conceive of...
...while at the same time sending more of them to die in a totally counter-productive war. I think that the bombings in Jordan are the strongest repudiation yet of the Iraq war. There were no Iraqi terrorists while Saddam was there... granted he was gassing Kurds... but we certainly could have threatened him with, oh... nuclear annihilation. I can't believe that Moustapha Akkad was blown up in Amman...does that mean there will be no Halloween 9?
Meanwhile, do Americans even recognize that it's Veteran's Day? I have to admit, I'm far more aware of a holiday on this date living here in England than I ever was in America (except perhaps when my yiayia gave me stern lecture regarding the sacrifices of our troops). I read that there are only EIGHT American servicemen from WWI still receiving pensions. Society has changed in ways most of us probably don't even comprehend over the past 100 years, and our links to the past, to the old world of faith, pattern, place, tradition are nearly dead. I shudder to think when we lost the "greatest generation" as well... they are the builders and destroyers, united and the partisan... but most of all, the deprived and the determined. Without their optimism, we surely wouldn't have been granted the civilities or the orderliness of the society in which we live in today.
I'm tired and don't feel like writing much, and so falling back on abstraction. Though really, what is going to happen when no one can remember the Depression? That there were people going door to door for food who WANTED to work? That there might not be tires for the car because the Japanese have Indonesia? That there might not be panty hose because the nylon is needed for parachutes? No one remembers everyone going to church on Sunday? Diners serving vegetarian meals for Lent? Driving across the country on national highways in a car without a heater during the dead of winter? And a million other things I can't even conceive of...
posted by akrites @ 7:11 PM
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