The weekend trip was really quite nice. I quite like Portland from my brief exposure to it. My hotel was right by many record stores and the bigger-than-I-could-possibly-imagine Powell's Books. I hated that place. Or, more accurately, I hated not being able to buy more (expensive dental work starts this friday). I found many books that I had been looking for and was finally able to inspect them personally. I walked away with Lewis Lapham's Theater of War and a sketchbook that fits in my back pocket. Among other books I wanted was Projects for Prada Part 1, a Rem Koolhaas book about his ideas for various Prada megastores. I want it even more now that it seems Prada is backing off their major expansion campaign. The San Francisco property they had bought a few years ago to be one of their epicenters is said to be for sale. Not that I can even dream of affording Prada now, and back when I had a decent salary it was still a bit out of my range, but they do make some beautiful items. And I admire the power of their brand.
I spoke of wanting to get away from many of the aggravating world and U.S.A. stories that continue to trouble me (and much of the world, I'm sure). I was only partly successful. I spent much of the time in Portland walking around and taking pictures, eating pizza, and drinking beer. But, on top of picking up the Lewis Lapham book, I also picked up the latest issue of Harper's and the June 2 2003 issue of The Nation. It contains a grim (but not unsurprising) article by Alisa Solomon titled The Big Chill, described as "Is this the new McCarthyism?". It's an absolutely sickening article about the wide spread ravages against those who supposedly dissent. Five students in a house hung a US flag upside down on the day the war started. It was responded to with broken windows, death threats, et al. Some professors have had to move out of their houses and teach surrounded by armed guards. Many professors receive a massive volume of hate mail / death threats daily, often for spurious remarks that really really really cannot be threatening to anyone. People carrying signs that say "I love President Bush" can stand in the public area, while others carrying protest signs (like the typical and sadly unimaginative "No War for Oil") have to move to a "designated protest area", or face up to six months in prison on a federal charge. If you say that you wish the Iraqi army were victorious and mass death was visited upon Americans, you have basically signed your own doom. However, if you gleefully read an email from a soldier describing the scenes of carnage in downtown Baghdad, like:
You would not believe the carnage, imagine your street you live own with body parts about knee deep, with hundreds of vehicles burning to include the occupants, we fill up trucks of body parts daily- this is every checkpoint we run.Apparently, Bill O'Reilly read this enthusiastically. There is nothing enthusiastic about war! I don't understand how anyone can really really be pro-war. To be pro-war is to be pro-death. If that world view is acceptable to you, you have to understand that it's acceptable to our enemies. And when they hit us again, you can't say we didn't deserve it. Because, if you are pro-war and believe THESE guys, these 5,425-7041 (current count) Iraqi civilians deserved it, then you must think we do too. The right has attacked the anti-war protesters saying they "give comfort to the enemy." I would challenge it with the notion that the pro-war "protesters" give reason to the enemy. And that enemy has shown themselves to still be alive, active, and going strong. Alright, so we kicked out the Taliban and Hussein and may be able to make life better for [surviving] citizens in those countries. Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and others are still strong, and only likely to get stronger in the face of American arrogance.
[News straight from the war front]
In the hours following the September 11th attacks, (which Alisa Solomon, the author the article that has my stomach in a knot, was personal witness to), footage was shown of apparent celebrations of the attacks in parts of the arab world. These were not even prominent (ugh) media figures like Bill O'Reilly - just street celebrations (and some of the footage was found to actually be unrelated to the attacks at all. sigh). This footage was, naturally, inflammatory to many Americans. As it probably should be. We don't want to see, nor should we see, people actually reveling in the deaths of so many undeserving civilians by the hands of so few. So what makes us think that Bill O'Reilly and others like him enthusiastically reading off the descriptions of carnage won't be used as inflammatory imagery by the recruiting machines of the world's terrorist organizations? Wishing for a more diplomatic solution to the Iraq situation (WMD's - still missing!) does not give comfort to the enemy. Appearing to gloat over the war, the carnage, and the destruction of so many civilian lives - that only strengthens our real enemies. Until the United States stops attacking nations and really puts an effort into using international and local police efforts behind stateless terrorism organizations, we're going to keep losing the war on terror. The civilian populations of certain nations will diminish for a time, but all the while the ranks of the truely dangerous terrorist organizations will keep growing.
This memorial day, I remember my Grandpa and his siblings and relatives who fought in the second World War. I remember how my Grandpa tried to keep my dad out of Vietnam, a war he knew served no real purpose. I remember how he was hoping to get better so he could move me and my brothers to Canada to get us away from any potential drafting for the Iraq war - which he also saw as serving no purpose. This man fought. This man smelled burning flesh, and had to stay at his post on his ship while they burned and others were injured around him. And, like George McGovern and other WW II fighters, hoped that "the war to end all wars" would live up to that moniker. Instead, we find ourselves in a state of perpetual war, perpetual war profiteering, perpetual enemies, and perpetual conflict in the homeland between those who question this perpetual state of war, and those who seem to want more. My Grandpa survived the war (we lost him this last October, a loss that's hit me deeper than I ever expected), but another member of the family didn't. This from a family that had to alter its name to make it appear "less Germanic" during the anti-German feelings of the first world war (another dark time on the homeland's political landscape).