Okay, I get the whole false consciousness thing. And I get that it’s hard to pay for an education these days. And I get that the warmongers in (and contending for) the White House are the real enemy. But if you don’t know by now that if you sign up to go to Iraq you’ll end up torturing Iraqis and/or dying and/or becoming a quivering, limbless mess for the rest of your life, you’re not worthy of my support. Maybe, if the brainwashing/desperation has been particularly severe, you are worthy of my pity, but not my gratitude, and certainly not my tax dollars. But I'm paying them anyway because even an antiwar congress thinks it can't defund the war because it would leave the poor troops without body armor in the middle of the country they invaded, but of course without money they wouldn't BE there so the logic is perfectly self-perpetuating, which the right knows, that's why they carry signs at prowar counterprotests that say "The Troops the Troops and Nothing But the Troops," a sign that speaks volumes about the sleight-of-hand it has taken to get us to ignore the facts of this war in favor of our loyalty to those brave young people doing Bush and Cheney's dirty work for them. The sign is incredible because it not only substitutes "troops" for "truth" but also tellingly omits the word "whole," which they probably won't be after their tours.Anyway, there are lots of people struggling to make a decent living who have decided NOT to invade countries and rape, kill, plunder, and torture. Maybe we could support them for a change? Or perhaps we could support all the Iraqis who didn’t sign up to have their country invaded, who lack basic resources and live in fear because our soldiers and bombs have brought about a state of perpetual chaos and war? That would be nice.
