To the Barricades of the Mind!

I was opposed to the Vietnam War and took to the streets of Washington in protest. My act of moral courage in some small way helped to stop the carnage. Wasn't I great?

When that war began, like most Americans I went along. Hey, dominoes made as much sense as anything else in the Cold War. Soon, however, the pictures coming into my home were horrific and the casualty numbers extremely troubling.

The early protests didn't seem like much, and I solved the problems of the pictures and sounds of war by shutting off the TV and by not reading the coverage of the conflict.

It was only when President Johnson escalated the war that I began to pay closer attention. Still I was not ready to abandon the government's rationale for continuing to pour human and material treasure into the fray.

But as the months became years, something changed, and I prepared to act, to take to the streets and move on the barricades. Enlightenment? An epiphany? Goodness? All three but not of the kind that makes me proud today. I had been raising three boys, mere babies when the war came to my attention. It dawned on me that the madness would soon engulf me and mine.

My sons were growing up and would have to choose between the draft and defiance. I was focusing. Quickly my choice was made, I would work to stop the war. I, like millions of others, had lost confidence in the government. To the streets we turned. But the enlightenment, the epiphany and the goodness were far from altruistic. I only acted when my self interest became clear.

Now we are in a war in Iraq that does not create fear in the guts of middle class parents. In fact many of them are pleased with the way this is going. Somehow the killing and the propaganda make them feel safer from the terrorists. I don't know a single enlisted man serving in Iraq. The dead and wounded are total strangers to me. Who will demand a stop to the mad neocon dream of empire? If we do not turn the ship of state, forces from beyond our shores will do it for us, but only after a tragedy that could wreck the nation on rocky shoals.

We must fight those who attacked us. Of this there can be no doubt, but we must review the policies that have brought us to this juncture, not only this crazy Iraqi adventure but our entire foreign policy to determine if some of the complaints of the jihadists have merit. The baloney that they hate because we're free sickens the stomach.

Clearly, the Central Civilization with but a single major commodity, oil, is in crisis. Anything we would recognize as a renaissance that would elevate man is, at least at this point, nowhere in sight. The screwball notion that we will impose democracy and freedom on its peoples and make them better for it is more suited for after midnight musings in bars and psychiatric couches than for serious discussion among rational adults.

The future of the United States and its people is at stake. Spread the word. There will be no middle class parents carrying placards to save their young. This time those without personal interest must muster and maintain the courage on their own.

Enough of that Mild Bill bull crap,

Wild Bill

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