Controlled Chaos

Posted by Cardozo

This blogosphere amazes me, Bush. It provides a snapshot in vivid colors and wonderfully varied colloquialisms of what people are thinking, all around the world.

Today’s snapshot of America shows that life, in all of its many forms, rolls merrily along in this country despite the madness your administration has wrought in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Some of my favorite bloggers are focusing on domestic issues like feminism (see skylarkd’s strident defense of public breastfeeding in Life as I Know It), while some merely dabble in political punditry while allowing themselves frequent forays (see Gone Mild’s mouth-watering education on winter ales) away from the daily life-or-death that is America’s foreign policy.

We’ve sunk into a kind of controlled chaos in relation to rising death tolls of soldiers and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. When we talk about those crises, our voices quake with passion. We curse and spit at the television screen. (Or, like PeterAtLarge in this morning's entry, we wax incredulous at the extent of your career advancement, Bush.) But then we move on, and this is partly due to a "success" of yours. As you’ve said repeatedly, “we’re taking the fight to the terrorists abroad, so we don’t have to face them here at home.” That’s true enough for now. Even though your preventive wars have clearly bolstered anti-Americanism and put us all, ultimately, in greater peril, there has not been a successful terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11.

I’m thinking maybe we are too set in our ways. Too self-absorbed, perhaps. The utter nonsense in Iraq and Afghanistan – the absolute and absolutely unnecessary horror – has ultimately failed to arouse Americans to any particular action except voting your party out of Congress. Is this all we’re made of? The Mexicans have a simple recount, and they are out in the streets marching! They’re camping out on the steps of the capitol!

I am not one to complain, having adjusted quite comfortably to our state of perpetual purposeless war. It just amazes me that the only clear sign of discontent with your administration’s gargantuan blunder are public opinion polls, editorials…and blogs.