iraq. america. oceania. etceteraria.
1984.
remember?
‘we’re at war with russia!’
oh, ‘we’re at war with serbia!’
well, what i meant to say was ‘we’re at war with al-qaeda!’
ok, excuse me, what i really, really, meant to say was ‘we’re at war with iraq! (but dont’ mind the fact that they used to be our allies and we soldthem the technology to make weapons of mass destruction when reagan and bush we’re in office and we didn’t mind saddam hussein using weapons of mass destruction in the 80’s but then again that’swhen we were wearing parachute pants like mc hammer, and you can see that things have changed, right? except for iraq, cos saddam hussein hasn’t changed, in fact he was an evil man 20 years ago when we gave him technology and called him our ally and he’s an evil man now but don’t focus on the details cos there’s a war to be waged and oil, i mean, justice, to be obtained).
sorry, i sound like a cliche. but the whole thing is just like ‘wag the dog’ meets’1984′. so fucking weird and transparent. yes, saddam is bad. but wasn’t he bad when he was using weapons of mass destruction in the 80’s against iran and his own people (in the south andin the north)? oh, but then he was our ally. and we sold him the technology to make weapons of mass destruction. and wasn’t noriega our ally?
and didn’t we give money and technology to bin-laden and the taliban? (yes, in both cases we did).
it all makes me so utterly ashamed to be an american. american foreign policy is so utterly fucked up that it’s actually kind of mind boggling.
supporting despots just because they support our prurient and short-sighted interests?i can’t help but think of the clash lyric ‘if adolf hitler were here today, they’d send a limousine anyway.’
we ignore genocide in rwanda but we give arms to the taliban. we ignore genocide in cambodia but we give arms to saddam hussein. and so on.
poor america. the country where i, ostensibly, live. so much promise. such an amazing constitution. so many amazing people. such utterly compromised and flawed government.
ok, i’m sorry to be so bitter. but the corrupt and flawed weight of a lot of american foreign policy is very heavy. and i’m a self-flaggelator, so i like to pretend to bear such burdens.
can’t america just be good? you know, support the things that we claim to support? human rights? democracy? civil rights?
yes, someone could argue the case for ‘realpolitik’. see where it’s brought us? ‘realpolitik’ compelled us to:
support the shah of iran
support noriega
support the taliban
support the central american death squads
support saddam hussein (until 1988)
and so on.
i’m sorry. i’m just a dim musician and a dim american. but i’m so depressed and disgusted by the horrifying things that have been done by my country in the name of ‘freedom’.
supporting saddam hussein in 1985 was the support of ‘freedom’?
supporting apartheid was the support of ‘freedom’?
and now that the bush republicans control the federal government who knows what horrifying things they’ll come up with in the support of ‘freedom’?

ok, i should go to sleep.
good night.
moby

i’ve been sitting here thinking about writing an update about our being at war.
but, sadly, nothing comes to mind.
i wrote an email to a friend of mine wherein i said that i know we’re at war, but today (sunday) was such a beautiful autumn day that it’s hard to believe.
it was one of those flawless days in nyc where the air is clear and cool and there are big white clouds floating in the sky and the sun is warm and bright. i made lunch with a friend of mine and then we played backgammon.

so i know that we’re attacking afghanistan, but it seems so far away. i know that people are being brutalized even as i write this, but how do i reconcile what i see on tv with what i see outside of my window?

the reality of the world trade center attack was inescapable for me, as it happened in my neighborhood. but the reality of what’s happening on the other side of the world seems so far away. i know what i hope. i hope that this war ends quickly with as few casualties as possible.
i hope that the people of afghanistan can begin to rebuild their country and their lives.
i hope that there are no more terrorist attacks.
good luck everybody.
thanks,
moby

there’s an email that’s been forwarded to me a few times, and in this email it describes humanity as if it were a village. it’s interesting, for it shows us that the world in which we live is very skewed in terms of resource distribution. but one thing to keep in mind is that most desperately poor countries are desperately poor due to their own bad government. i’m not saying that western governments and corporations are blameless, far from it. but a majority of messed up 3rd world countries are messed up because they’ve been poorly and autocratically governed for such a long time. and a majority of desperately fucked up 3rd world countries are desperately fucked up due to war and internal strife.
blame should certainly be placed on the destructive policies of many international corporations, but more blame definitely needs to lie with the governments and leaders of these tragic countries. and all of the corporate reform in the world isn’t going to help if the legislative and judicial infrastructures of these countries remain as corrupt and disastrous as they are.
-moby