Protected by 1st amendment
02 January, 2003 :: 10:33 p.m.
Some people just don't get it...I'm a little late complaining about this, but what the hell...
The Lexus commercials that aired in December have been replaced by Jaguar commercials now. Yes, you were supposed to either run out and buy a Lexus for that special someone in your life or you should have gotten one from said special someone--so what if the economy is in the toilet, buy, buy, buy. And in case you forgot someone on your list or didn't get your very own Lexus, you can now get a "great deal" on a Jaguar. I realize the key to keeping the economy from actually getting flushed is to persuade consumers to part with their money, but c'mon. While everyone I know was running around trying to figure out how to stretch $100 into 30 not totally crappy gifts for people, we were supposed to be out buying luxury cars? Oh and the new Hummer...as Pat pointed out to me, they are encouraging you to pick one up in every color. Because who wants to be seen driving the same colored gas guzzling beast down the road everyday?
That leads to an even older point that I never got around to making, but it still is a legitimate beef what with us preparing to go to war with Iraq and all...those stupid-ass commercials trying to equate buying pot with funding international terrorism--first off there is plenty of homegrown pot...a shit ton of it comes from Kentucky and even in this little area that I live, plenty is grown. Secondly, which is helping to support terrorism more, occasionally buying marijuana or the hundreds of thousands of gallons of gasoline this country goes through a week with all the fucking SUV's and other vehicles on the road? Yes, I drive a car...but no, I'm not bitching about people buying drugs and I'm not the one pushing for war.
Bush criticized Kim Jong II for starving his people...where was Bush for the last few months when everyone knew that benefits for those without jobs would be running out on Dec. 28th? He's now scrambling and promising to ask Congress to extend benefits...why didn't he worry about this sooner if he cares for "his people" so much?
Who does he thinks he's fooling? Never mind, he's fooling the majority of population apparently with his focus on Saddam. Isn't it convenient that once people started getting bored with Afghanistan and questioning why so many of our troops are still over there, Bush finds a way to divert their attention to Saddam? Bin Laden, while hated by American citizens, is elusive...no one knows for sure where the hell he is. Saddam can stay hidden to a point, but he's in his little country of Iraq at least...we're bombing the fuck out of Afghanistan with no visible results as far as ending terrorism goes...so hey, Saddam is amassing a huge arsenal of Weapons of Mass Destruction!...oooh, sounds scary doesn't it? Forget that so far there are no signs, forget that if I was Saddam and knew ahead of time that there were inspectors on the way, I would make sure there were no signs, forget that Saddam has never really recovered from the last time we went to war with him...remember? To "liberate Kuwait"...because we care and shit... Meanwhile N. Korea is getting back into the nuclear game or at least threatening to. President Bush listed N. Korea as being part of the whole "Axis of Evil" but now he acts like they are no big deal. Iraq will remain our focus for now since we're already deploying our troops over there. He's better than Osama because we know where the little bastard is...at least we know he's in his country. He's better than Kim Jong II because most Americans don't know what the hell Kim Jong II looks like...Saddam was all over tshirts and movies and television just 10 or so years ago and has remained on television since then just enough to stay in people's minds...we know we already hate him, so why not take him out? Plus the media is all excited about round 2 with Iraq and focusing all of their attention there already. To switch venues now would be like tuning in January 26th to see the Super Bowl (within a day or two of that we may already be in full-attack mode against Iraq! Yay!) and finding it has been replaced with ballet.
Maybe one day the U.S. will learn that if we just keep our nose to ourselves, as big as we are, people won't go out of their way to target us. Sometimes, as shitty as it is, you have to just walk away when someone spits in your eye. When you act like the playground bully, however, you are going to find yourself quickly becoming a target of hatred for others.
I don't support or condone Saddam or Kim Jong II; I don't support Bin Laden either...it's just that it's important to know which battles are worth fighting. You can say that if we hadn't responded to 9/11, we would have been saying it was okay for anyone who so wished to attack us. Yes, you could say that. I think, however, that we did exactly what he hoped and now we're showing the rest of the world just how annoying and self righteous we can be...and Bush is perfectly content to keep at it until we've alienated all of our allies.