Merry Christmas / Oh War

I've been making jokes and posting music today, and enjoying the holiday with my family too, but I can't help feeling there's something incomparably obscene about being at war at Christmas -- let alone a war of choice, let alone a war with religious underpinnings that's billed as just and righteous, but -- like all the wars of my lifetime -- just happens to be about money, and power, and oil.

... all of which brings me back to a piece I wrote three years ago today:

Some days I just cannot get past the utter depravity of it all. We've got cold-blooded mass murder; routine torture; blind, blinded, blinding patriotism; and a media-inspired madness that has self-described Christians clamoring for all manner of grotesque and inhuman cruelty. Merry Christmas to all.

And it gets worse: Now we're supposed to believe that this horror is justified by the president's claim that God speaks through him. Oh really? What kind of God would tell anyone to do this? What kind of America would allow it?

Words fail me. Or at least, I don't have any more words of my own.

Listen to Pye Dubois, writing for Max Webster:

Oh War

Oh war, it's been done before
that's what they say
I wasn't there, they say there's one today
I don't care, I'm not there today

'cause I'd say "fuck you" instead of "thank you"
your choice under your breath
oh say go to hell
I'll go American express

Oh war, history says you're in it
your sister's boyfriend's in it
so so long, soldier, wash your socks and guns
and just remember
if you don't see a profit, sell your stocks and run

'cause I'd say "fuck you" instead of "thank you"
your choice under your breath
oh say no to hell
I'll go American express

It's especially dismal to see how little has changed in those three years, despite the best efforts of so many.

Oh well. Keep pluggin'.