The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Kind of a played out cliche, right? But its true and I should know, I'm fucking nuts. And I'm not talking eccentric, god bless her she's nuts-nuts, but legit nuts. Certifiable. Depression, anxiety, agoraphobia, claustrophobia, gender dysphoria, I got a little bit of everything and have forever but it really blew up in my fucking face after high school when I had my first nervous breakdown. Long story short, I know nuts. I am intimately familiar with nuts (cue Beavis & Butthead) and America's war in Afghanistan is fucking nuts.
Sixteen years, over a trillion dollars, nearly a hundred-thousand dead and what the fuck have we achieved? The Taliban is more powerful than ever. Al-Qaeda has spread to every corner of the known universe and their mutant offspring ISIS are somehow even worse. Afghanistan is a fucking disaster even by American standards. Nobody likes this fucking war. Nobody remembers why we even fucking started it to begin with (Hint; It had something to do with our old friends the Saudis). Even our sadistic man-child president is fucking bored with it. But we're still fucking there. We're still fucking building bridges and blowing them up. We're still arming dope smugglers and child molesters to kill other dope smugglers and child molesters. It's an overflowing bloodbath with a drain clogged with baby teeth and American dog tags. Why the fuck don't we just fucking leave?
I cant help but to think of my own bottomless quagmire, where I spent the better half of my twenties as a bitter shut-in in denial. I spent every day in my house, telling myself, I'll leave tomorrow, No, the next day, No, next week, next month, next year in Jerusalem! But next year never came. There was always some excuse. Some distant goal I was waiting to be achieved for me by unknown forces. Whenever I hear H.R. McMaster or one of Trump's other bullet-headed, desk-chair warriors waxing philosophic about the logic of just one more surge, I can't help but to feel a twinge of deja vu. Just one more year. Just ten thousand more troops. Just a few more wedding party drone strikes. America is no stranger to gross. Gross is what we do. Genocide, nukes, nerve gas, you name it, we've done it. But this war isn't even gross. It was gross ten fucking years ago. Now it's just fucking sad.
Things had to get sad for me before I could leave my house. Real sad. Ian Curtis sad. I had to grieve the loss of the life I lost before I could start a new one. I had to hit rock bottom. Sometimes I wonder when America will hit rock bottom. You would think the Great Recession would have done the trick. Or the election of a reality TV personality to the White House. But no cigar. Every time you think this fucking country has finally hit rock bottom, just when you think shit can't get any worse, it does. So what do you do with a batshit giant that has no rock bottom?
We the people have to become that rock bottom. I had to shake off my complacency and embrace the terror of the outside world to overcome my own madness or at least to get a grip on it. The American people need to do the same because our fearless leaders clearly aren't fucking equipped to face reality. Americans need to leave their own houses and join each other in the chaos of the streets where true democracy thrives. We need to embrace the terror of revolutionary change. That's how we stopped Vietnam. Just scared kids in the fucking streets shouting 'enough!' to the giant. If a motley crew of dope-smokers and flower children can put the scare into this demented old empire then why not us? What have we got to lose at this point but padded shackles and gilded cages?
Trust a basket-case like me when I tell you, dearest motherfuckers, freedom is worth the price of terror. Join me in the streets and shout at the giant. There is no such thing as an agoraphobic democracy.
Peace, Love & Empathy- CH
Soundtrack: Songs that influenced this post (an endless playlist for an endless war)
* Going To Hell By The Brian Jonestown Massacre
* Disarm By The Smashing Pumpkins
* Crazy By Willie Nelson
* Insane In The Brain By Cypress Hill
* Isolation By Joy Division
* Ironic By Alanis Morissette
* Instant Karma By John Lennon
* Young And Insane By The Magnetic Fields
* Lost In My Bedroom By Sky Ferreira
* Grey Cell Green By Ned's Atomic Dustbin
* Paranoid By Black Sabbath
* Schizophrenia By Sonic Youth
* Just By Radiohead
* Can't Stop By Red Hot Chili Peppers
* For What It's Worth By Buffalo Springfield
* At The Bottom Of Everything By Bright Eyes
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