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Mar. 20th, 2003 12:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaI'm so... Sad. Anxious. Ashamed. I hate this.
I haven't been talking about the war in my LiveJournal because I haven't known what to say that wouldn't seem pointless. I'm not a pacifist, but I think that this war is wrong. I think it's been internally propelled by motives within the Bush administration, rather than being proportionately responsive to external events. It frightens me to see my country alienated from its allies of long standing. It humiliates me to see the bribery and bullying and intentional misdirection that has been done in my name, to force this conclusion.
But I'm not comfortable with all aspects of the anti-war movement, either. I got an e-mail urging people to call the U.N. and ask that the weapons inspectors be left in Iraq so that the U.S. wouldn't start dropping bombs. That innocent people - people trying to avert war - should be nonconsensually abandoned to Saddam Hussein as hostages, in the name of peace.
From where I stand, long ago the Bush Administration let their sense of righteousness overpower their senses of reason and compassion. I don't want the same thing to happen in the anti-war movement. I don't want to have to cringe back from people turning their contempt onto the nineteen-year-old boys and girls out in the desert waiting to be shot. But nor do I want there to be nineteen-year-old boys and girls out in the desert waiting to be shot. Not for this. It's the wrong war.
It's no coincidence, I think, that tonight I was spurred by this article at The American Prospect into taking a long look at Dean for America... and getting excited. Probably disproportionately excited, in that I wanted to sign up right away to volunteer my heart out. Dean looks really good. But I think that also, tonight, I'm desperately yearning for something political I can feel good about, some leader I'd be proud to follow, some way to work for change. It's tempting, tonight, to believe that there's someone out there who can be the fulfillment of my hopes.
I haven't been talking about the war in my LiveJournal because I haven't known what to say that wouldn't seem pointless. I'm not a pacifist, but I think that this war is wrong. I think it's been internally propelled by motives within the Bush administration, rather than being proportionately responsive to external events. It frightens me to see my country alienated from its allies of long standing. It humiliates me to see the bribery and bullying and intentional misdirection that has been done in my name, to force this conclusion.
But I'm not comfortable with all aspects of the anti-war movement, either. I got an e-mail urging people to call the U.N. and ask that the weapons inspectors be left in Iraq so that the U.S. wouldn't start dropping bombs. That innocent people - people trying to avert war - should be nonconsensually abandoned to Saddam Hussein as hostages, in the name of peace.
From where I stand, long ago the Bush Administration let their sense of righteousness overpower their senses of reason and compassion. I don't want the same thing to happen in the anti-war movement. I don't want to have to cringe back from people turning their contempt onto the nineteen-year-old boys and girls out in the desert waiting to be shot. But nor do I want there to be nineteen-year-old boys and girls out in the desert waiting to be shot. Not for this. It's the wrong war.
It's no coincidence, I think, that tonight I was spurred by this article at The American Prospect into taking a long look at Dean for America... and getting excited. Probably disproportionately excited, in that I wanted to sign up right away to volunteer my heart out. Dean looks really good. But I think that also, tonight, I'm desperately yearning for something political I can feel good about, some leader I'd be proud to follow, some way to work for change. It's tempting, tonight, to believe that there's someone out there who can be the fulfillment of my hopes.
