I was fifteen the last time we invaded the Persian Gulf (something of a national pass-time). I was young, confused, and like most kids that age, a bit stupid. I was conservative like my parents, I thought Korn was the best band since Kiss, and I was so far in the closet over my gender identity that I thought it was a studio apartment. I was dumb as shit alright, but I was still smart enough to recognize that invading Iraq was a bad idea. Being stupid, I was fully on board with Afghanistan. I suffered under the national delusion that invading that black hole would somehow vindicate the deaths of the people killed primarily by American allies on 9/11. But Afghanistan made sense. It added up on some level. I mean, at least Bin Laden was there (maybe). But even in my nu-metal damaged teenage mind, Iraq felt insane.
None of the "facts" added up. All of the "evidence" seemed sketchy at best. And I couldn't fight the creeping feeling that people were rushing to drop bombs before they could come to their senses. But I was a conservative Catholic boy in a purple state and everyone who I loved and trusted seemed to buy into this bullshit hook, line, and sinker. Of coarse we should bomb Baghdad, Saddam Hussein is a wild animal, he funds his enemies in Al-Qaeda and runs a WMD program so incognito that even the UN can't see it. It felt like my whole universe had up and lost its goddamn mind. Up was down, black was white, and things would never be the same.
That was how it all began for me. I was radicalized the night they bombed Baghdad. I remember watching the skyline of that beautiful ancient city explode like fireworks that Sunday after my parents had gone to bed and feeling physically ill. People were dying and no one I knew seemed to fucking care. The next day I got up and horrified my tiny Catholic school by showing up with a peace sign strapped to my arm. I spent the whole day fighting, with classmates, with teachers, with clergy. By the time the bell rang I was exhausted. But I never felt more alive. I had taken a stand that not even my parents believed in and I held my ground. I was hooked on chaos. That was the day Nicholas Reid, good Catholic boy, died and, in many ways, that was the day Comrade Hermit, genderfuck anarchist fire-starter, was born. It would have been downright fantastic if it made a difference. But America has never been as smart as its stupid, rebellious, youth. And now it feels like 2003 all over again.
I invited you, dearest motherfuckers, on this stroll down memory lane because I'm pretty sure we're headed back for yet another clusterfuck in the Persian Gulf. Bibi Netanyahu has hit the road again with his classic "the sky is falling unless we bomb it black" prop comedy routine (now with PowerPoint!). And our latest man-child president has been paid handsomely by bloodsucking cretins like Sheldon Adelson to decertify the Iran Nuclear Deal and set the stage for a cataclysmic showdown that could easily end in World War 3.
At one time we might have been able to rest our hopes on the shaky ground of the Donald's spastic dog-like attention span but with the Wonder Twins of neocon doom, Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, jabbing their fork-tongues into his unwashed ears, I'm pretty sure we're shit out of luck. Our last hope may be praying to Mary Magdalene, the patron saint of righteous sex workers, that Stormy Daniels can sabotage Trump's mojo with raw footage of her pegging the war-monger in chief with a 13 inch strap-on and an apple in his mouth. Then again, sexual humiliation never slowed that Super-Predator and fellow Lolita Express frequent flyer Bill Clinton down, so this may be the end of the road.
Our best hope may be to fight war like fifteen year old fire-starters. Young, angry, and just a little bit stupid in the Quixotic sense of the word. It may be time to charge the windmills. That pied piper of youth rebellion, Abbie Hoffnam, would say in times like these the only thing left to do is shout Theater! in a crowded fire. Take to the streets. Jam the Capitol phone lines. Burn a flag. Deface a monument. Holler and cuss at any adult too emotionally tone-def to give a fuck about the piles of young corpses that may soon line the streets of Tehran like crimson snow-piles after a blizzard of shrapnel. This country doesn't learn lessons. Lets fucking blow it up like 1968. In the eternal words of H. Rap Brown, "If America don't come around, we're gonna burn it down."
Well gather your matches, dearest motherfuckers. We've got a theater to light. It may be what's left of the Persian Gulf's only hope.
Peace, Love & Empathy- CH
Soundtrack; songs that influenced this post
* I Won't Back Down by Tom Petty & the Hearbreakers
* Shoots & Ladders by Korn
* Nocturnal Me by Echo & the Bunnymen
* Rebellion (Lies) by Arcade Fire
* In the Streets by Cheap Trick
* Disarm by Smashing Pumpkins
* Kill For Love by Chromatics
* Mandinka By Sinead O'Connor
* Shout It Out Loud by Kiss
* Firestarter By the Prodigy
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