I understand Lenora's desire to pull away from it all and emerse herself in her work. After saying goodbye to S at Ft. Hood last month, I came home and watched Sex and the City for three days. (S gave me the entire series on DVD for my birthday.) Three FULL days, from morning till way after midnight. And it was great. Fantastic. I loved every minute of it. I only left the house to take our stumbling dog out for short walks. I felt like I was hanging out with four of the best-dressed women in New York, and I loved their luscious conversations about sex. It was bliss. Truly.

Then the series ended and it was back to reality. I know it sucks, but it's all we have, right? I keep trying to be zen about the whole thing (really zen -- like the meditating kind, not the marketed crap that pushes cell phones and mp3 players), but it's hard. I know it's better to be in the present moment; intellectually I understand that it's all there is, that there is no past or future except in the present moment. But sometimes I want to flee. I want to go back to my Sex DVDs and pretend I live next door to Carrie Bradshaw and that I go out to dinner with Charlotte and Samantha and Miranda all the time.

You know things are bad when you'd rather be with a bunch of fictional characters than face the truth. (Perhaps that's part of the wicked plan, though -- keep us all dreaming about things that don't actually exist to keep us occupied so we don't notice what's going on...it's so sinister, isn't it? Or perhaps it's an easy situation to exploit and nothing more. Either way, not good.)

The creation of fantasy is something our government has always engaged in. Now they've mastered it. Lenora points to an article in today's Times that's not for the faint of heart. I know; we've all heard about the fake news the administration's been feeding newscasters. But do we care? Do we truly understand the ramifications of this? We have to ask ourselves if we want to live in a false reality or if we want to wake up. Sleepwalking with Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte is fun, but it's not real. If we can't face reality for what it is, then we're handing over our lives to Bush & Co. and letting them "create reality" for us.

I don't know about you, but that scares the hell out of me.

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Remember. Don't let it all be thrown down the memory hole. The story of the two contractors killed? Already gone from the major newspapers' front pages. It was up for about three hours.

Please oh please tell me how this is different from the work of the KGB during the Soviet era. Please. I don't want to believe that we're living in a capitalist version of the soviet state, where the only rule of law is the one executed by secret agents. What the hell is going on?!!! What freedoms, exactly, are our soldiers dying for? Are we so scared of terrorism that we are willing to live in a totalitarian state? How does that make us different from Saddam? Our little elections?! I just don't get it!!!

I don't see what the point is for Italy, Sweden, and Germany to press criminal charges, seeing that we don't participate in the International Criminal Court anyway. No wonder we don't. We'd have half of our CIA in prison if we did.

It makes me so sick. Two more Blackwater contractors died in Iraq. And no one's counting civilian deaths (they don't impact the bottom line and therefore they're truly "expendable."). So that's 1516 American soldiers dead, 211 contractors dead, 170 coalition soldiers dead, at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians dead, with no end in sight. Was the toppling of Saddam worth this? Please tell me!

I can't seem to stop searching for information about the wars. I spend way too much time scouring the web for new stories; I've watched nearly every bit of war-related video footage I can find (including two fantastic Frontline shows, "The Soldier's Heart" and "A Company of Soldiers"), read countless blogs and photologs, etc. etc. Naturally, then, I had to see Gunner Palace as soon as it came to Chicago.

The film has been called a "masterpiece" by the Chicago Reader, and has received countless other good reviews across the country. I went to see it this afternoon with my mom. I think I was the youngest person in the audience, even though the directors fought for a PG-13 rating so kids could see it. Oh well. It's a somewhat uneven film, but I was moved, and left thinking about what I do most days, the unbearable burden we've placed on young people to be over there for the follies of a few greedy old men. I think I was most touched by Specialist Stuart Wilf, a sarcastic guitar player who closes out the film with a prophetic statement about the worthlessness of the war and how even one child's death is too much of a sacrifice. He was like so many men I've known in my life (which might be why I liked him so much): fully aware of how f*cked up it all is and still laughing about it. (I'm not alone; google the film and his last name and you'll see he's mentioned in most of the reviews. I decided to google him when I got home and found this from the Christian Science Monitor. What a surprise; he came home to no health coverage and soon found himself saddled with health care debt. I hate these greedy bastards! "Support our troops" my ass.)

The directors, a husband and wife team (Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein), purposefully made a non-political film, one that simply presents the lives of a group of soldiers. I've read that those opposed to the war see it as an anti-war film, and those for the war see it as nothing more than a realistic portrait of a group of gunners. It's obvious where I stand, so it's no surprise that I found it heartbreaking to see so many talented, interesting young people risk their lives for a lie. There were several poets, young men who rapped about life in Baghdad so eloquently; a comedian who pointed out the irony of homemade armor and Rumsfeld's $87 bil budget; and Wilf with his electric and acoustic guitars. I wonder how many of them have come home with PTSD, lack of healthcare, or  problems finding work; how many have been sent back already, or how many are in Afghanistan now, serving in the "other war." When Sgt. Beatty tells us toward the end of the film that we'll forget all about them and what we've seen, that only he and the other soldiers will remember, you know he's right. There's not even an update about them on the Gunner Palace website. (I can't imagine I'm the only person who wants to know how they all are now -- perhaps they'll come up with an update page after the film is more widely released.)

The film focuses on the raids and convoys the group has to endure, along with  the partying and joking they use to counter-balance it all. We also meet the group's interpreters and see Iraqi troops being trained (and that's when you realize we really are going to be there forever -- not a nice thought seeing that S is training ANA -- Afghan National Army -- troops. It's gonna be YEARS before we're out of either country...). The film is divided in two, based on Tucker's two trips to Iraq, one at the beginning of the group's deployment, and the other toward the end. When he goes home between the two month-long stints, we learn that three of the soldiers in the group have been killed. When he comes back to the palace, we see that one of the lead interpreters from the first half of the film, Mohammad "Mike Tyson," has been arrested for espionage by two other Iraqi agents working with the gunners. (Turns out he was taking pictures of the soldiers and then arranging for attacks by the insurgents. It's possible, then, that he was responsible for the three deaths we learned about in the middle of the film.) By the end of the film, another Iraqi agent is dead ("Super Cop"), another soldier is dead, and a couple have been wounded. How can it ever end? In his last voice over, the director says that films end but wars don't. A sobering thought, eh?

FYI, I've found out about a number of really interesting Iraq blogs. Here's a list of a few:

e-rocky-confidential
Baghdad Burning
Fight to Survive

For a list of others, go to Operation Truth. While you're there, check out the cool things they're up to, including recent comments on PBS by their ED, Paul Reikoff. They're doing good work.