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 Ice
Cube 
 "There
was some-thing truly visceral about Cube's voice that made his ever-present snarl that much more serious. As he barked on Death Certificate and Amerikkka's, he was the nigga you love to hate as well as the wrong one to fuck with."  "Even
though Sonic Youth grabbed Cobain by his hypodermic
needles and helped foist him into the spotlight, alterna-fans
du jour didn't return the favor when the New York
noisemakers lobbed this bottom-soaked missile their
direction." "People
are more aware of the world that they want to live in,
and now they have to realize that they can actually
create that world and fight for the things that are
worth fighting for and not feel apathetic. We are all
going to die. There is no point in holding anything
back."
 "There's
a scene in Richard Link-later's Waking Life
where the protagonist crouches down to read a note
in the street that says, 'Look to your right,' which
he does, only to come face to face with a speeding
car aiming right for his head. That's what it's like
to listen to Mars Volta's De-loused in the Comatorium
for the first time."
 "Well,
well, well. President George was in one hell of bind
when it turned that that Saudi Arabia funded Al Qaeda,
not Iraq. Realizing we'd invaded the wrong country,
Bush did the honorable thing: he's come out against
gay marriages."
 "By
the time this page fully loads, Guided By
Voices' Robert Pollard will have probably
composed, performed, mixed and pressed yet
another tightly coiled pop-rock nugget."
 "Unless
his friends turn bitch and
bail on him,
Lyrics Born will be here later this day,
that day or whatever day, until he's too
old to rhyme or sing."
 "There
is no one thing to know in Lord of
the Rings more important than the
fact that everything is disappearing,
and disappearing fast. Jackson's final
film in his peerless trilogy tenaciously
latches onto this theme and never lets
go." |
by Ross Levine Remember the Maine? Given that she sank in 1898, chances are you don’t. But perhaps you know that this was the rallying cry for the Spanish American War, which followed the Maine’s sinking. And perhaps you also know that at the time, newspapers in America had a rather jaundiced view of the world. With Pulitzer, Hearst and their ilk fighting the war for readership, they used the power of yellow journalism to incense the public and help create a real war. The United States took up arms against Spain though there was no evidence that Spain had sunk the Maine. In fact, rescue crews from a Spanish ship were among the first on the disaster scene in Havana Harbor.
One hundred and three years later, the United States suffered a disaster that dwarfs the tragedy of the Maine. September 11 left thousands dead, and they died horribly -- incinerated, pulverized, forced to leap a hundred plus floors to their doom. The skies literally rained death that day, and those deaths have now begotten countless others. One year ago the United States went to war against Iraq. What has happened in that year almost defies belief. We saw our troops encounter some fierce fire, yet within a month, Iraq was ours, for the price of 117 dead Americans (not a bad deal, unless one of them was yours).
Then came the chaos. Who would’ve believed that our fearless leaders had no plan for stabilizing the country once Saddam had retreated to his hole. Who would’ve believed that Bush would announce “mission accomplished” -- in a flight suit, no less, on an aircraft carrier moored off San Diego -- with hundreds of American soldiers yet to die? Who would’ve believed that not a trace of “weapons of mass destruction” would be found? Who would’ve believed that Halliburton, our Vice President’s own kingdom of gold, would get exclusive rights to the spoils and then overcharge us to boot? Who would’ve believed that, with our states running immense deficits and deadpan Greenspan talking about eviscerating Social Security, that the President would request -- and receive -- 90 billion dollars (to start with) as the price for making Iraq an example to the world (an example of what, we’re not sure yet). And who would’ve believed that our leaders could be so naïve as to think the capture of Saddam would put an end to the anti-U.S. insurgency?
Al Qaeda attacks the U.S. The U.S. attacks Iraq. Al Qaeda equals Iraq? Not.
So was it fuzzy math? Not at all. The math here was not fuzzy, but fixed. Bush has triumphed in the public relations department so far by making America believe that the Iraq war is part of his all encompassing war on terror. But even accepting that as true, is President Bush the best man to fight this war? The evidence suggests otherwise, but approximately half the people believe he is. They think he’s tough on terror because he sent us to Baghdad without the U.N.’s permission. Never mind the missing WMD or that Al Qaeda is undeterred. Or that Osama still taunts us. Or that our forces are stretched thin. Or that Iraq is the bomb -- every single day. Or that our foreign policy is not a policy at all, but a series of new lies meant to conceal the old ones.
Get the picture?
George Bush’s incompetence is the multi-ton (Republican) pachyderm in the room. Yet so many Americans refuse to see it. What’s blinding them? Surely it’s not Bush’s mellifluous tongue. His folksiness then? After more than three years, hasn’t that gotten a tad old? Is it just the idea that it’s better to do something, even if it has next to nothing to do with the problem? Or is Bush’s relative popularity just the product, expressed (or better said, unexpressed) in our mass denial of our mass fear that we are just as vulnerable today as we were that beautiful September morning? Never underestimate the power of denial; whole nations can be up to their nostrils in quicksand yet refuse to acknowledge it. How else can we explain the way the Germans followed their leaders into an abyss that, in so many ways, destroyed their civilization? Mel Gibson and his papa may not believe it, but the smoke from the crematories hung over Deutschland like skywriting -- “Murderers!” It was hard to miss, unless you willfully looked the other way. And then there were our own leaders in the ‘60s and ‘70s, who were so focused on the Domino Theory that they guaranteed a certain wall in Washington would ultimately be engraved with no less than 50,000 names.
Yes, folks: Viet (“V does not always mean victory”) Nam. It wasn’t always a country of friendly people making stuffed animals for the Disney store. Once upon a time, it was a battlefield of Terminators -- we shot, bombed, napalmed and slaughtered them and they kept on coming back to kill us. Nobody in a position of power on our side would admit that our mission was fruitless (see The Fog of War for more), so we made up a phrase -- “peace with honor” -- and finally got the hell out. The denial, however, that Vietnam was a mistake continues to this day. When the great GOP god Reagan said “No more Vietnams,” he wasn’t referring to misguided wars, but half-assed ones.
If you’re going to have a war, might as well go for broke. Or, as in the present case, just go broke. But jeez, are we talking about Vietnam again? We recently heard a commentary from a Bush-loving Generation Xer who excoriated Bob Kerry and the Baby Boomers for whining on and on about ‘Nam. That happened years ago, the “X” man said, and only represents a lame Boomer attempt to prove they know something about war when they really don’t know a thing. It was the generation before them that fought the real war -- one of the double Ws -- with the implication being that Vietnam should be buried away with America’s vast collection of other minor military escapades. The war on terrorism, the commentator implied, is a real war, and he, too, invoked September 11 to prove it, as people always do when they justify the present yearling of a conflict.
“Get lost, Boomers,” he seemed to be saying, “the world is ours now, and Vietnam may have been your nightmare, but it ain’t mine. Iraq is no Vietnam. You may have failed in your war, but we shall prevail; good shall triumph over evil. This is a just war whereas Vietnam was simply an exercise in giving Boomers something to suffer over. You were out in Saigon getting high and humping whores, not joining a death march in Bataan. You people have nothing to say about this war we’re fighting now. This is a good war, and we’re willing to die for our courageous Commander-in-Chief.” Of course, the Boomers are older and have seen more of the world, so maybe they should let the young’uns have their idealism and their missing limbs; they too have a right to die for a misguided campaign. But they have no right to dismiss any war as less germane than another. War is war -- the soldier who died on the beaches of Normandy is no more heroic than one picked off in Somalia, and no war should ever be disqualified from the discussion. Because once the bullets start flying, does it really matter whether you’re in Manheim, the Mekong or Mosul? Look at it this way -- each war forgotten is another one fought.
So please, one year later, with all we’ve seen -- and not seen -- and all the malarkey we’ve heard (“a war to free the Iraqi people”), and all the denials -- and denial -- that have attended this crusade-like adventure, please do not forget that the Bush war on terrorism cannot be evaluated in terms of September 11 alone. September 11 does not a foreign policy make. We must see the bigger picture -- does this war make terrorism in the world less likely? Has it brought the Middle East closer to peace and harmony? Was it justified as a way of defeating our real enemy, Al Qaeda and its allies? I would hate to pose these questions in Spain right now. The previous Spanish administration was not thrown out because of those bombs in Madrid. They were ejected because the people of Spain knew all along that their government had thrust them into a war that was ill conceived, unjustified, and ultimately detrimental to world security in general. Will the American people be so savvy? As of right now, a great many still believe that George W. Bush is their savior. They continue to go along with the hooey that he lays before them whenever he’s on camera, that sanctimonious glint in his eyes. Whether they’ll smarten up by November is anyone’s guess. In the meantime, let’s all remember that the reason we have barricades around all our federal buildings is not because of Al Qaeda but Timothy McVeigh. While we’re out policing the rest of the world, we need to keep an eye on ourselves. So happy birthday, Iraq war. Let’s hope we won’t be blowing out candles next year. 18 March 04 Ross M. Levine is an author, Marcel Proust marathoner and manatee-hugger who feels safer on the edge; i.e., in New York or California. He agrees with the King of Brobdingnag that we're "the most pernicious race of odious vermin to crawl the surface of the Earth." He thinks Americans have too much freedom -- fries, that is.
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Copyright 2001-2003, Morphizm.com. All Rights Reserved. |
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Smile kid! And hope daddy makes it home. "As of now, many still believe that George W. Bush is their savior. Whether they’ll smarten up by November is anyone’s guess." (Photo: Reuters/Jason Reed)
