So the good ole boys at the Pentagon are finally coming to their senses, even old Rumsfeld who has apologized (in his manner, of course, with no "sorry" included) to Old Europe for dissing them so horribly in the lead-up to our illegal war.

I fear we haven't really learned, though. Bush may have Condi agree to go along with Europe's plan to negotiate with Iran, but it wouldn't be the first time this administration has said one thing one day and turned around the next in a complete about-face. The Onion has been frighteningly prescient the past few years...hopefully they aren't anymore.

Gunner Palace opens this weekend in Chicago. I know it's been showing on the coasts the past week or so. I intend to see it tomorrow afternoon. I'll post my reaction when it comes.

So we're coming up to the two year anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War, and over 1,500 American deaths (and literally countless Iraqi deaths) later, we've forgotten completely the argument over whether the war was just (or even legal), what drove us to invade to begin with, and what we hoped to accomplish. What worries me most, though, is how much we have put the war out of our national conscience. The news is dominated by the Jackson trial, Martha's release, etc. etc. And the republicans have made social security "reform" (destruction, a better word choice) so falsely urgent that we're worried about having to protest that instead of the war. It's insanity.

Of course, it does fit nicely into the fascist/Stalinist model, which seems to fit the "red-state" mentality just fine. I say the mentality and not the physical place on purpose. The whole "red state"/"blue state" division was appealing at first (how nice to just blame "them"! No need to look at our own neighbors, our own communities); now we know it is just another way to divide us, make us care more about silly labels than actual policies and actions.

I think I'd be checking myself into Bedlam if it weren't for Jon Stewart. I'm always a day behind...tonight I watched last night's show and heard his most perfect remark:

"I really think their foreign policy goal is to spread irony across the world."

With images of Hezbollah marching through the streets of Lebanon and Scott McClellan saying "outside influences" should be kept out of the process (and then Bush placing us squarly in the middle), it's true that irony, declared dead in the terrible days after 9/11, is alive and thriving. I only wish it wasn't so painful.

I think Orwell would find our utter destruction of the words "democracy" and "freedom" predictable, given our ChrisCap (Christian Capitalism) culture. What does "democracy" mean? What does "freedom" mean? Is democracy only about voting, regardless of whether or not the vote matters? Is it "democratic" to not know who you are voting for or for what office, as it was at the Iraq election? Do any of us know what democracy means? I'm going to start thinking more about this, trying to define it for myself. Perhaps I'll work it out here in the blog.

I know I keep coming back to Orwell, but 1984 is just too appropriate for these times. I feel sorry for G. O., though: with every Big Brother-like utterance by our "strict father" (Lakoff's Elephant) administration, the left pundits come out to tell us how "Orwellian" Bush et al are. Poor Orwell! He was against fascism, against totalitarianism...how his name is synonymous with the fascists' use of language to control, manipulate, and obscure. It's sad.

I went to my first democractic party meet-up on Tuesday. It was fantastic. I only wish I had attended them last year, before the election. In New Orleans, I was overwhelmed with teaching full-time (four freshman composition classes is A LOT). It's no excuse, I know. Perhaps I can make it up now! At any rate, we discussed the disastrous bankruptcy bill and the Bush administration's attack of the middle class. We also talked about our coordinator Josh's idea for a national "Democratic Values Service Corps," a commitment by each of us to go into the community to do volunteer work as Democrats. Many of us work in our communities already, but we often keep our politics to ourselves. We need to let people know that democrats are moral, that many of us live by our values first and foremost, regardless of our religion (or lack of).

I thought, too, that perhaps it's time for us to start info sessions in public libraries and schools, like I witnessed in Baja after the Fox election of 2000. I saw a poster advertising an info session on democracy and voting and what representative government means at the local elementary school there soon after Fox was elected. After our election last November, I read the riot act to my students, most of whom didn't vote, about their obligation to participate and how their futures were going to be changed, perhaps irrevocably, but this election. I told them about the erosion of civil liberties (I did a whole class on the Patriot Act) and the blood being spilled in Iraq and elsewhere in their names (and the potential that some of them would be drafted if things keep going as they are).

I had several students come to me after class and ask me why I hadn't told them all of this before the election. I told them that I didn't want to influence their vote at all because I wanted them to know that I was a fair grader who would never mark down a grade because I disagreed with a student's politics. (Interestingly, I also had students ask me who I voted for; I honestly thought it was obvious, even if I was trying to hide it a bit.) I should have talked to them about it beforehand, even if it was to invite students to come to an info session outside of class. I should have even if it would have put my job in jeopardy (there were a few scares about getting fired over beliefs -- remember that?). I've realized now that the issues are too important, too grand, to be "polite" and "nonpartisan." It's time to stand up for what we believe, inform people, and not be afraid to speak our minds. I really think it's crucial if we're to live in a country we aren't ashamed (or afraid) of.

I went to see Hotel Rwanda last night. It put the Clinton administration in a whole new light for me. He was far from a perfect leader. I can't believe we did nothing; that the UN, the Europeans, we all did nothing. It's sick. Now Sudan is going through something similar and again we're doing nothing. At one point in the film, Joaquim Phoenix, who plays a journalist, tells Don Cheadle (Paul, the hotel manager and star of the film) that the images will get out, but that westerners will see them on their TVs, say "How horrible," then go back to eating their dinners. Which is exactly what happened, and continues to happen today, even when it is Americans getting blown up too.

During my darker moments I want to move, escape, though I don't know where it would be better or even different, considering that the world is run on exploitation and extraction (if they are two different things -- you can't have one without the other). I'm hoping to talk to my good friend who spent the past seven years working with MSF, Doctors Without Borders, in Africa and is now studying to be an anthropologist. She has told me about the "politics of extraction" before, but I didn't listen closely enough. If I can get a reading list from her, I will post it here. The first step, I think, is for us to be as educated as possible so when the questions come, we can answer them. How can we sleep if we live in an amoral country? If we can't sleep, then we have to make it a moral country, one that we can be proud of. We need to know what's going on, even if it is painful and full of irony.