I am far too entertained when watching my cat do something stupid. Honestly. I just spent about five minutes observing him smack a box of candy with his paw.

In addition, Meg and I bought Across the Universe last weekend and I have not been able to get the Beatles out of my head since. A point was raised, however, when watching this 1960s musical melodrama about the generations. (Yes, both my parents and parents-in-law watched this too with commentary). There is a point, however, in specifically the parallels between the Vietnam and Iraq Wars.

There are certainly a lot of people angry about Bush's War, both home and abroad, much like the unfortunate mistake forty years ago, but we are without the protests, the activism, the marching. I am as guilty of this lethargy as so many others. It is certainly understandable the the nature of the world itself has changed, and for the better is many respects; this is particularly poignant when viewed through the lens of the internet (is that supposed to be capitalized?). There is without a doubt no shortage of web-activism, but I feel that many of us are removed from this. Millions are on MoveOn.org's mailing lists, but do computer-generated form letters from a "Click Here to notify your congressman/senator/governor/President Bush" really have an impact?

Does social change need the classical thousands marching in the streets? I can recall only one major event in March of 2003, right before the beginning of Bush's War*. Personally, I long for that sort of involvement-- a desire to be a part of history. I wonder now where our place is.

We qualify as "Generation Y." I like this term because someone once argued against it by saying that it made us sound "cynical and jaded" which I think astutely describes the wave of Americans born roughly between 1980 and 1993. Gen Y now enters into the beginnings of "real world" (and there is turbulence in our landing), to the beguilement of those who came before us. We are the Americans who came of age in a time of tribulation, of disaster, of change upon us whether we wanted it or not; and as we age, the older ones will step to the side and this will be ours. And our responsibility to solve for the latter end of the 21^st century. It has yet to be determined how the Boomer Generation's impact on the world will be measured let alone ours.

Anyone have any thoughts?

* I'm trying to propagate the term "Bush's War" as the name for the current conflict. This is nice and egalitarian. Those who think of this war as good will always remember who led them to this glory, and those who hate it will always remember whose fault it is. Either way, I want history to remember this one as the act of our leaders and not of our nation

Perhaps it's a bit hypocritical, with having a blog myself, but I just don't read blogs very often (aside from my friends, of course). I know that this is the zeitgeist, and everyone talks about how weblogging in the medium of the early 21st century, but I just don't follow those.

Guess I just can't get into them.

All this said, while bumping around the intertubes today, I found myself on a military blogging site (The Sandbox). I know that this shouldn't really be news to anyone, but it is the thinks like this that just depress the hell out of me more than anything else. Maybe I am partisan, and against Bush's War before it even started in '03, but I really wish that more people read these-- its too real.

It's a real privilege to live in a nation which handily has the most capable and powerful military force on the planet, and to remain a civilian. I think that the current U.S. armed forces number around 1.1 million (active plus reserves), which means that this accounts for about 0.3% of the total population. I'm pretty sure that I know more than 300 people, and until yesterday when I found a high school friend on facebook who enlisted after the Catastrophes of 2001, I know none. (To be completely fair, I haven't even spoken to him yet, so the number is essentially zero). In all truth, I think that most of the people I know don't know someone who is there. This insulation is at once unsettling and confusing.

About a week after the towers collapsed in New York, I found myself at the site, before the cleanup, before (literally) all the dust had settled yet. There are few experiences in someones life which can truly be described as haunting, but that is what the ruins in Manhattan were to me; it forced a detachment because it was too real. So many Americans--myself included-- have been fortunate enough to think of destruction and war as an abstract thing that happens "in other places" and only exists to us in history textbooks and movies; and then I think of the men and women in the deserts of the Middle East who are immersed-- quite literally, as one who drowns-- in war.

War is no stranger to this part of the world, or even to America, and the blood shed in the sand will join with the countless others who have fallen in battle in the millennia since the first cities in the land. How does one deal with history in the "present-tense"?

I tried to read as much as I could on the page, but each line of text was another impact. All of us are well aware of the scars-- physical, emotional, psychological, financial, familial, and social which every enlisted man and woman in the War has, are, and will face. This is reality, this is the world of man's own hand.

Today, I know one man who has been to Afghanistan, but in a year? I teach seniors at a high school, and too often I wonder which one of my students will know the trauma and pain from which I have been free? There are so many "ripe" eighteen year olds, and I see the recruiters in the school; I seek no malice against these men, they do their jobs, just as those around the world in uniform are commanded to do, and thank all the goodness and luck in the world that they had the good fortunate to be stationed in a school in Massachusetts.

The feeling after reading these blogs can probably best be described as "hollow." It certainly makes most things I do in an average day seem trivial.

Yes, this is a jeremiad of sorts that I have seen no real war, and I have no desire to ever. It takes a certain bravery to volunteer for such service, and this is simply not a part of who I am. It's angering to think that this bravery has been taken advantage of. A war is a war, and it is always sacrificial, but all things about this aside, how is this even being done correctly?

The purpose of Bush's War aside (I think we can all agree that there essentially was none), the handling of non-combat both in Iraq and America is sickening. There is absolutely no direct goal of our forces there other than "survive," and even less at home. The last two years has been filled with stories about how our returning soldiers are mistreated by their own government, whether they are on a two-month leave before returning to the Mideast, or home after wounded discharge. So many wearing uniforms have given so much, but what of those at home? The fools who have justified this as a "just war" have drawn allusions to World War Two; if this is indeed a war which must be fought, where are the victory gardens, the oil rationing, the volunteer corps?

An army does not go to war, a nation does. Our leaders forget this, and too many at home do. This is on people's radar, but for too many, seems to be a faint aspect of life, as what will be on television this week. There is a war, and the news will report on trivialities. Things like this will only re-enforce the adage of "If you are not enraged, then you're not paying attention"

Read on, think, yell. I'm not sure what I meant to accomplish with this post, there is no grand thesis, or point with this diatribe.
I suppose that's just as much like Bush's War.