Waitin' On The World to Change...
Tonight's a sad night.
I was reading some war poetry and my imagination is running away from me... I keep thinking about how my brother wanted to join the Marines. How it would feel to have him come home in a box. I never thought I'd be glad that he has epilepsy.
It makes me so angry when these people get treated badly at home as well. I by no means agree with war - I'd more likely be in the protests and the picket lines. And I'm not suggesting they don't have their share of nutcases and arseholes. But the people who get sent off to 'fight for their country' are not the ones starting the wars... they're just doing their job and, advocate of passivism though I may be, unfortunately someone has to do it. And it ain't gonna be me out there in the dirt and the shit and the blood, running from bullets, feeling shrapnel whistle past my ears and my life ticking out of me by the second. Watching the people around me die, screaming and in pain. Seeing human flesh twisted and destroyed. Experiencing the most horrible evils that people can inflict upon one another. In the places these people go to, you can feel your time running out with every step and every breathe.
Wars past, the world wars and Vietnam and all the million in between, entire generations of young men have been wiped out. Countries full of women with sons and husbands and brothers coming home without a pulse, in pieces or not at all. And when they do make it home alive, after the part of them that can live a normal life has been burnt away and bled out, they get shit upon. Spat at. Insulted. Beaten.
But they asked for it, right? Signed their lives away, picked up a gun and went looking for death. Well, if they're already dead, then we can give them a fucking break. And, god forbid, maybe a little respect.
It makes me cry thinking... imagine you're a mother. Two sons or two daughters or three or one; young, happy, strong. Indestructible. Ready to save the world. You give them all your love. You fix them up when they get in a fight and help them through the mistakes they make. You watch them grow wise. And off they go. Then one day you're suddenly in a quiet room and there's your child, dressed up nice in a cold box, and the only place they're going now is the cold ground. No more fights. No more mistakes. You can't fix this for them. Love will do nothing now except kill you too. The only place you'll see them, for the rest of your life, is behind your eyelids, when you wake in the night and remember that your child is dead...
It seems unbearable to me.
And then... there's these people. In quiet, comfortable lives. Like mine, maybe. Or in offices or schools. And they insist on being stupid about everything. What am I bitching about now? Well...
Any ideas how many books are and have been challenged and banned in the world? Usually, for portraying the world in a manner that is closely similar to reality. It is unbelievable. It's sexually explicit, or it presents negative ideas, or it's potentially damaging to the moral fiber of society. It talks about racism, it talks about feminism, it talks about abuse. And these stupid people in their offices, with their lattes and people carriers, decide that the general public really can't handle this kind of shit. That the best way to protect everyone is to censor anything that makes them feel, well, a little squeamish.
What utter idiocy. If you can watch the news, then you can read Chuck Palahniuk. If you can browse through the Sun, then you can read Chaucer. If you can flick past the porno channels on TV, then you can survive Catcher in the Rye.
So... here's a link to a website of banned books. And I think everyone who happens to skim through my ramblings should go and have a look at it and, if inclined, pick a few to seek out. Frankly, its probable that just about everyone has read at least one already.
For one thing, its very amusing.
And for another, sometimes it's important to do the things you are told not to.
http://title.forbiddenlibrary.com/
Here's to being wise and unhappy.
+_+
I was reading some war poetry and my imagination is running away from me... I keep thinking about how my brother wanted to join the Marines. How it would feel to have him come home in a box. I never thought I'd be glad that he has epilepsy.
It makes me so angry when these people get treated badly at home as well. I by no means agree with war - I'd more likely be in the protests and the picket lines. And I'm not suggesting they don't have their share of nutcases and arseholes. But the people who get sent off to 'fight for their country' are not the ones starting the wars... they're just doing their job and, advocate of passivism though I may be, unfortunately someone has to do it. And it ain't gonna be me out there in the dirt and the shit and the blood, running from bullets, feeling shrapnel whistle past my ears and my life ticking out of me by the second. Watching the people around me die, screaming and in pain. Seeing human flesh twisted and destroyed. Experiencing the most horrible evils that people can inflict upon one another. In the places these people go to, you can feel your time running out with every step and every breathe.
Wars past, the world wars and Vietnam and all the million in between, entire generations of young men have been wiped out. Countries full of women with sons and husbands and brothers coming home without a pulse, in pieces or not at all. And when they do make it home alive, after the part of them that can live a normal life has been burnt away and bled out, they get shit upon. Spat at. Insulted. Beaten.
But they asked for it, right? Signed their lives away, picked up a gun and went looking for death. Well, if they're already dead, then we can give them a fucking break. And, god forbid, maybe a little respect.
It makes me cry thinking... imagine you're a mother. Two sons or two daughters or three or one; young, happy, strong. Indestructible. Ready to save the world. You give them all your love. You fix them up when they get in a fight and help them through the mistakes they make. You watch them grow wise. And off they go. Then one day you're suddenly in a quiet room and there's your child, dressed up nice in a cold box, and the only place they're going now is the cold ground. No more fights. No more mistakes. You can't fix this for them. Love will do nothing now except kill you too. The only place you'll see them, for the rest of your life, is behind your eyelids, when you wake in the night and remember that your child is dead...
It seems unbearable to me.
And then... there's these people. In quiet, comfortable lives. Like mine, maybe. Or in offices or schools. And they insist on being stupid about everything. What am I bitching about now? Well...
Any ideas how many books are and have been challenged and banned in the world? Usually, for portraying the world in a manner that is closely similar to reality. It is unbelievable. It's sexually explicit, or it presents negative ideas, or it's potentially damaging to the moral fiber of society. It talks about racism, it talks about feminism, it talks about abuse. And these stupid people in their offices, with their lattes and people carriers, decide that the general public really can't handle this kind of shit. That the best way to protect everyone is to censor anything that makes them feel, well, a little squeamish.
What utter idiocy. If you can watch the news, then you can read Chuck Palahniuk. If you can browse through the Sun, then you can read Chaucer. If you can flick past the porno channels on TV, then you can survive Catcher in the Rye.
So... here's a link to a website of banned books. And I think everyone who happens to skim through my ramblings should go and have a look at it and, if inclined, pick a few to seek out. Frankly, its probable that just about everyone has read at least one already.
For one thing, its very amusing.
And for another, sometimes it's important to do the things you are told not to.
http://title.forbiddenlibrary.com/
Here's to being wise and unhappy.
+_+