If all of your rants about Congress and politics. If things really are bad. As bad as you say they are? When thousands of American troops are dead- and more dying. Probably as we speak. You tell me? How can we enjoy the good life?
Rome is burning son!
And the problem is not with the people that started this. They’re past irredeemable. The problem is with us. All of us- who do nothing. Who just fiddle. Who try to manoeuvre around the edges of the flame. And I’ll tell you something. There are people out that door today, all over the world that are fighting to make things better.
Robert Redford in Lions for Lambs
I watched Lions for Lambs on the plane over and this speech affected me so much I took the time to fight with the entertainment system to transcribe it.
After we checked into the hotel, Mark and I took the Metro into DC and walked around the mall. The last time I had been in DC I was a 16 year old puppy. Being there as a 37 year old woman seeing all the young things that were zygotes when I was their age, I had a fresh appreciation of how annoying I must have been.
It was a beautiful day. Bright, warm. All the usual clichés.
We walked past the Washington monument, the WWII memorial up to the Lincoln memorial and then stumbled on the Vietnam memorial. It starts out so small when the US ‘officially’ became involved in Vietnam in 1955, then the granite full of names tower over you until Saigon fell in 1975. So many names.
The granite reflects your face back at you.
In the DC airport there was a shop called ‘America’ with cheap jingoistic tchotchkes and cardboard cut-outs of McCain and Obama being used to sell tee shirts.
People can wear a tee shirt and say, “This is who I am. This is what I stand for.” They can buy a tee shirt that was probably made in a sweatshop and they can walk away and think that means something.
I protested the war before it started, walking down the street holding a sign. A big sign that said, “This is who I am. This is what I stand for.” But I haven’t done anything. I haven’t done anything real.
What might happen if we all stood up today and did something? If we took action that said, “This is who I am. This is what I stand for.”
What terrifies me is how many people would just shrug. And that I would be one of them.
May 11th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
One of the reasons I signed up with Thomas, is her ability to wake up (eventually) an soak up a place like a sponge. Then capture it via blog, or joke or photo. hart u hun xx