ok, maybe i live in a naive little bubble world, but i have an idea about geo-politics and war. here’s the idea: before any 2 (or more) nations wage war on each other the heads of state of these (2 or more) nations would be forced to spend anevening drinking beer together, playing darts, and doing karaoke.
yes, sounds stupid. but sending people into battle is pretty serious. death and mayhem and destruction are pretty serious. so just one night of beer and karaoke and pretzels for the heads of state. they don’t even have to talk about war or politics, just hang out together, even if it’s tense. and maybe they would see that their differences aren’t quite so different, and maybe they would see that it’s actually a lot nicer to be decent and civil than bellicose and nasty.instead of beer and karaoke it could be gin & tonics and croquet.
or wine and chinese checkers.
but i think that if you put george w. bush and saddam hussein in a dive bar in the east village and bought them a couple of pitchers of beer that maybe they would loosen up and actually talk to each other.
george: ‘so saddam, i hear you like merle haggard.’
saddam: ‘well, he is an infidel, but i do have a soft spot for him.’
george: ‘well lemme tell you about this one time i went to see merle back in austin in 1982, see my buddies and i were on a bender and, etc’
maybe it would accomplish nothing. but at least it would remind our leaders that politics and war should not be dealt with as abstractions. politics involves people. war involves people. people are never an abstraction or a statistic, especially as far as mortality is concerned.
i have a great belief in the basic decency and civility of human beings, so long as they’re given a safe and unthreatening setting in which to be decent and civil. and nothing’s less threatening than sitting down with a pitcher of pabst blueribbon in a dive bar in the east village. preferably a dive bar with a good juke box, too.
just imagine george w. and saddam standing by the juke box in max fish discussing whether to play ‘1969’ or ‘i wanna be your dog’ by the stooges.
‘1969 is legendary, but “”i wanna be your dog”” has that menacing quality that really is remarkable’
‘yeah, saddam, i agree. so let’s play “”i wanna be your dog””, and what about ‘karma police’?’
‘i dunno, that thom yorke is talented but he seems to take himself so seriously..’
‘yeah, but it’s still a great song.’
‘oh, ok, you’re right, i should stop being such an armchair critic.’
‘hey, you said it buddy, not me.’
and then they drink more beer and talk about how cool the intro to ‘i wanna be your dog’ is and everybody’s happy.
-moby