HOME
Message Board
CURRENT COLUMNS
- Editor's Corner
- Blogfest 2005
- Commentary
- Commentary Too
- Down The Middle
- Faulking Around
- Global Warning
- This guy walks into a bar...
- Investing 101
- Faulking Opinions
- Off The Rail
- Words
ARCHIVES
LINKS
CONTACT US
 | |||
Commentary Too - Dec 24, 2006 - Printable Version
- Generation W
by Mark Faulk
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. ~Dwight Eisenhower, 1953
As we approach the holiday season, a season of religious remembrance for millions around the world, a season of hope for others, and a time where families of all faiths (or even those whose faith is grounded firmly in Earthly beliefs) gather together to contemplate the year ending, and look forward with hope to a better year ahead.
It is a time when even our soldiers hope for a momentary respite from the arduous and dangerous missions thrust upon them by our nation’s leaders, and when those leaders traditionally speak of hope, love, and peace, or at least the hope for peace.
So what message of hope, love, and peace did our president bring us this holiday season? After bringing us a war that many people knew was unwinnable even before the first rockets’ red glare flashed across the skies of Iraq almost four years, did President Bush comfort Americans with…at least the hope for peace?
Not this president. The self-designated “War President” instead proclaimed a generation that has searched for their own identity as the “War Generation.” Forget that the only thing that most young Americans can agree upon is that the one thing they don’t want to do is live under the cloud of death and war that has haunted our country almost since Bush swaggered into the White House in 2001, flanked by the most ruthless gang of warmongers ever to invade Washington.
In a press conference on December 22, ironically held in the Indian Treaty Room, where peace treaties with Romania, Hungary, and Italy were signed after the end of World War II, Bush again tried to foist his Orwellian “War is Peace” philosophy on America, and this time he’s bent on deputizing an entire generation to do his bidding.
“This war on terror is the calling of a new generation; it is the calling of our generation. Success is essential to securing a future of peace for our children and grandchildren. And securing this peace for the future is going to require a sustained commitment from the American people and our military.”
Generation X, say hello to Generation W, the war generation. How many young people out there were aware that war is their calling? And trust me, when Bush says “our generation,” he’s saying it in the universal sense, meaning that those who are maimed or killed in his misguided quest to “secure a future of peace” won’t really be his generation, but will instead be stirred with the blood of the very generation that he professes to be building a peaceful future for.
Bush went on to say that “we have an obligation to ensure our military is capable of sustaining this war over the long haul,” and that he believes “that we need to increase in the permanent size of both the United States Army and the United States Marines.”
Here’s the plan: a long-term war that will maim and kill the generation we hope will inherit a world of peace.
So sleep easy this Christmas Eve, Generation W, secure in the knowledge that Bush is ready to keep us at war indefinitely, if that’s what it take to bring us peace. Forget about the past, and whatever you do, don’t listen ot the words of those radicals who believe that the best way to achieve peace is to….be peaceful. Forget Albert Einstein, who said that “you cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.” Forget all of those past leaders who saw war as a last resort, not a “pre-emptive self defense mechanism.”
Embrace your newfound place in society, revel in your role as the War Generation.
The good news is, since Generation W is the same slogan that ultra-right groups have conveniently dubbed themselves in honor of Dubya himself, they don’t even have to change the merchandising that inevitably follows every great slogan. Hell, you can already buy “Generation W” t-shirts, coffee mugs, bumper stickers followed by the slogan “compassion, strength, and courage – PATRIOT” sold by a group called “Right Nation.US” that bills itself as “America’s #1 Conservative Community”. Need more? How about Generation W dog t-shirts, throw pillows, teddy bears, and (drum roll, please)…thongs! That’s right, tonight when you’re getting ready to have missionary-style sex with your Generation W girlfriend or wife (or maybe both), she can titillate you with her flag-motif thong-tha-thong-thong-thong.
(Ironic sidebar: Am I the only one who thinks it odd that the same ultra-conservative groups that have been calling for an amendment banning desecration of the American flag have absolutely no problem selling W shaped flags plastered across the pubic area of G-string panties?)
You know, this isn’t funny, and even halfhearted attempts at seeing a shred of dark humor in this ongoing national nightmare seem hollow and almost perverse. It’s hard to laugh through the tears, and it’s even harder to see the light at the end of this dark tunnel that we have been led down by our current administration.
Let’s instead enter the new year with words of hope from a national leader, not one who believed that killing leads to peace, but one who ironically gave his own life in the name of peace.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction....The chain reaction of evil -- hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars -- must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
~ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)
These are the words that this generation must heed, and that is the calling of “our generation” – to recognize that the only way to achieve peace is to live peacefully. In the end, we want to be known not as “The War Generation” but as “The Peace Generation.”
So here’s wishing everyone a peaceful holiday season, and many more to come.
And that’s the Faulking Truth.
Voice your opinion on our message board (you don't have to sign up to post).