Don't Vote with Magnets

I bought a ribbon. It was magnetic. It had red, white and blue stripes. With stars. And it said “Support our Troops.”

So I bought it.

Because it was so fucking ironic.

And it sits on my fridge today, to remind me. It reminds me that today, the definition of support seems to have lost some of it’s punch. I had checked into it. For the most part, none of the money gathered from the sale of the novelties actually went towards supporting the troops. Zero. Millions of ribbons sold, not so much as an extra condom and a packet of Sanka for the boys in the field.

It’s there because we support our boys! We support their right to go overseas and kill for policies they can never truly understand. Not because they lack the ability, but rather because they lacked a leadership secure and honest enough to say a true thing. In order to define the bizarre and darkened labyrinth that is the true world of international politics (or as some would call it, “oil”), one would have to coin a new word. This new word would have to somehow have to be cunningly. linguistically twisted to combine the word “Byzantine” with the term “google”. Byzoogantine would be my best guess. It’s that fucked up.

It’s ok, we support them! We support the right of our lower incomes children to die in foreign sand to keep safe the rights of the more enlightened, enriched classes. It’s that that we’re better, or anything, we’re just lucky. I’m just saying, would they switch places with me if I were in there position? Exactly.

It’s ok, we support them! The lower incomes, the disproportionately ethnic population. Blacks. Disproportionately high number of blacks, overseas, trading life expectancy for college tuition.

But it’s ok, because I have a crappy $1.99 magnetic ribbon on the ass of my gas guzzling SUV.

So some men died because they believed their leader wanted to right a wrong.

And some men died because they knew a wrong, but saw the rights it could do.

And some men died because they just like killin’.

And it goes on.

My fridge.

Don’t vote with magnets.