A Bad Day

Today is one of those days when I feel like nothing will ever change. The Lewis Libby commutation tells me that equality before the law is a matter of degree. As the pigs said in Animal Farm, “some are more equal than others”. Even more distressing are the mounting casualties from Iraq in a year when a Democratic Congress was supposed to put an end to this misguided fiasco. I worked damn hard to replace one of the biggest Republican assholes in Congress with a well respected local Democrat only to see him join other Democrats in continuing the war.

A few days ago, I wrote that “silence equals consent” but what difference does it make if we shout, rail and vote with no discernible effect? In the end those are our bullets, bombs and soldiers in Iraq. So what if I don’t agree with the policy that put them there? They are still acting in my name, in my country’s name. My tax dollars support those actions. The institutions of my government carry them out. How can I separate my self from those actions? Right now I don’t see any way out.

I’ve spent much of the last three years actively opposing this war and the lying fuckers who took America into the war and look what I have to show for it. Not much. I’ve put my own affairs on hold so I could stand in the blazing hot sun in Phoenix to register my opposition, yet here I am watching the war grind through its fifth year with CheneyBush still looking for that golden unicorn of a compliant Iraqi ally in the Middle East and Congress unwilling to stop what most Americans consider sheer folly.

My 2002 Appalachian Trail hiking partners Red and Gary have spent that same time doing what they want to do: cycling in New Zealand, Australia and the US, hiking the Pacific Crest and Continental Divide trails. For all the effect I've had, it seems like things would be no different had I just gone with them.

Deep down I know that even if I were on the trail, the war would still be with me. I’m just too hard wired to pay attention to this sort of thing. But I don’t see where it has made much difference.