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drew and brandon were over tonight to watch some dawson’s creek. we started up the 2nd season and watched 2 episodes. it’s still great.

during one of the smoke breaks on the patio outside, we got to talking about “the war.” in general, the boys and i just sorta tend to disagree when it comes to certain elements of politics… in general. sure, we can all agree that marijuana should be legalized (maybe for different reasons), and that it’s probably best that people not be allowed to randomly murder other people. but when it comes to Education and Feminism and Native Americans and The Treatment of Non-Human Animals and Other Life Forms and War and Peak Oil and 9/11 Truth and Government and Civilization, we probably won’t see as “eye to eye.” it’s funny. you’d think that people who disagree so much wouldn’t get along so well.

anyhoo, we were talking about “the war.” there were the usual buzz phrases being thrown around: “it was wrong to go in in the first place, sure, but we can’t just walk away” and “but it has NOTHING to do with TERRORISM. it’s all about OIL!!” and so on and so forth. but at the end of the conversation, when we were trying to wrap things up and get back to dawson’s creek, it hit me. i finally figured it out.

they way we live, the way we treat non-human animals, the way we kill people, the way we rape people, the way we pollute, the way we destroy, the way we force things to be things they aren’t, yaddy yaddy yadda…

it isn’t inevitable. all of this, it isn’t inevitable. it isn’t inevitable.

this isn’t the way things would be “as long as the situation was right.” this isn’t shakespeare that the monkeys are slamming out on old rusty typewriters. this isn’t “human nature,” and there is no forgon conclusion. the fact that humanity exists doesn’t necessitate the eventual “evolution” toward a culture of make believe.

i definitely understand that this is the way it is and that “this is the way things are.” sometimes we have to be realistic. but then something hit me. i switched places and all of a sudden i had a new mantra.

this is inevitable. this is human nature. this is the way things are.

all of a sudden i wasn’t pissed off at the world anymore. all of sudden i was thinking that it’s natural for people to create systems that don’t work for people. all of a sudden the public education system didn’t seem so bad and i was definitely going to send my kids. all of a sudden i knew that “technology” is going to save us from energy depletion. all of a sudden it sorta seemed alright that we are poisoning the very life support systems that keep us alive.

i could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

America is eating its own. The lies from the Iron Triangle are at a fevor pitch. Paulson says this is the greatest economy he has ever seen. Bush says we will have victory in Iraq. The NPC says there is nothing to worry about. Dick Cheney says he is not part of the Executive branch. The occupation of Iraq is not about oil. Conrad Black swears he is innocent. War criminal Scooter Libby is spared from the big house. Lies, lies, lies. We are a nation of liars, thieves, and warmongers. America is completely fucked.

- from a comment on Clusterfuck Nation