Is it just me...?

Okay; so, I've been thinking lately... And both of my readers KNOW what that means...

Now, I realize that I can (occasionally) pretend to normalcy, but not often and not for long. And I actually do TRY not to make it blatantly obvious in these mini-rants just how skewed my thinking is... But someties...

See, I was sitting at home on Tuesday last, pondering on the holiday that Our Nation (tm) was celebrating. And I got to thinking about EXACTLY what the day represented to America.

July 4th is the day that we set aside to commemorate the start of eight years of armed insurgency against the then-extant legal government and its supporting military (sent by an overseas superpower), using irregular militias and foreign combatants (with foreign funding, as well).

Kinda makes ya humble and proud, doesn't it?

Now, just for the sake of clarity (for the ironically-challenged) I am NOT saying that the rebels - excuse me: the insurgents - are on the same level as the American rebels - excuse me: Founding Fathers (tm). While the rank and file rebels and the Continental Congress/other instigators may have had different (but overlapping) reasons for wanting the British Crown to back off, they DID (eventually) want them out. On the other hand, it's pretty clear that the Iraqi rebellion is not that cohesive. Yes, the rank and file genuinely seem to want us out - no question. The main differences, as I see it are that:

A - They want ANYONE who isn't exactly like them out, too,
B - They don't CARE about collateral damage/casualties.( Actually, that's not true: they actually seem to ENCOURAGE them, and you can't really say that "they don't care". if they actively APPROVE!), and
C - While the foot soldiers want us out, I'm not convinced that the leaders DO. After all, without someone to rebel against, what are they? They have to go back to their day-jobs as used-camel salesmen.

Here's a test. The Sock Puppet should go on Al Jazeera and tell Iraq: "You want us out? It's easy. All you've gotta do is STOP !@¢*ing SHOOTING at us and blowing things up for six months. If you can do that, then we can declare "peace with honor" and get the hell home and you can go back to doing whatever it is you do. If you can't go six months, then you'll have to admit that it's not actually about us leaving, but that you simply PREFER killing people and creating chaos in your own backyard to actually THINKING about how to solve a problem."

(Okay... Granted, we'll have to dumb it down a good bit so he can actually deliver the lines, but the general idea is there...)

Personally, I have to say that the rebel leaders wouldn't BE ABLE to let things quiet down - having wired up their soldiers (literally, in some cases!) to kill any and all non-(insert name of political party, religious sect, clan, family, etc.), letting things calm down would be political suicide for them. They HAVE to keep their people in a constant state of deprivation and fear, so that they have something to blame on "The Enemy".

Curiously enough, this is the same strategy that the current administration is using at home in an attempt to keep the populace in line. The semi-regular raising and lowering of the Amazing Technicolor Warning System, based on information that is so secret that we can't tell you what it is but is so potentially important that (Trust us!) we have to go to Puce Alert, does nothing but raise the emotional insecurity of the average voter which - they hope - will translate into votes for the Warpublicans in the next election. (...And is it just me, or have they been running those tests of the Emergency Broadcast System WAY more frequently than they used to? And what's with running them on *CABLE* channels?!!? If there is an emergency and the power goes out - HOW THE $#&*^% AM I GOING TO WATCH THE FRICKIN' CARTOON NETWORK SO I CAN GET THE EMERGENCY INSTRUCTIONS!!??! Hello-o-o-o-o!!!)

Closing Thought for Today:
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." -- Albert Einstein