re: London

okay...

after 4 unfinished drafts sitting on some blogger server somewhere, it's become urgent. i gotta start writing something and burying that last little drunken outburst down there. then London was struck, and i got absolutely nothing i can think of to say.
tragedy? no.
tragedy is a word to re-imagine things. Gussied up in Victorian lace; convert it to a monochrome woodcut where the blood becomes a pool of shadow. i hate the word and i hate the thought behind it.
Tragedy is a ribbon to wrap it all up and make it capable of dropping into a Churchillian speech (spot this week's Adjective Cliche for extra points!!).

i didn't feel tragic or surprised... just horror. That's it: not the romantic kind, the swampy B-movie kind.

We live in a butcher shop and it's hard to feign surprise. What do you think happens in a Butcher Shop?
(note: author may be now projecting to the warmongers in the peanut gallery, wearing I (heart) Gitmo t-shirts and spilling their bag of Sour Kids)

What the Fuck did you think happens in a war, hanh? All that rancid bullshit from Teddy Roosevelt about War building National Character... who do you think the Nation eats, you frantic jackasses?! They weren't little Eichmanns or heroes or anything less than our very kin.

So eat it up, losers. Stick your arm into that barrel you see by the window there... in there's Gitmo. That is what's inhabiting your skulls right now. You (heart) Gitmo, right? That there's Gitmo, so have your fill. Who cares who it was?! D'you think your cluster bombs and landmines separate the Guilty from the Innocent? D'you think the blood money and note-recited apologies cover every accidental shooting in Baghdad? What pathological deficiency in your conscience keeps you getting sleep at night?
C'mon, dig in. C'mon. The dead aren't going to eat themselves. Blair's already got a taste for it... he can't stop thinking how Resolute he is as he preens for the cameras. Bush has got the smirk swimming just underneath his skin... looks like he's leaning back after a satisfying meal. Waiting an appropriate amount of time before he lets loose with a belch.

So eat it up. Who cares if they were English this time, and not Iraqi? It's not like Iraqis had anything to do with 9/11. They just had something to do with your need to perpetrate harm until you stopped feeling angry. This war has never been about anything more substantial than American appetite.

Tune in again soon when hopefully I can come up with something that doesn't read like the transcript of a Tourette's gameshow.