Bradley’s Almanac

Gasmasks and Ex-Lax

Posted on March 20, 2003 at 9:25 am | No Comments

Operation Rocky, sorry “Iraqi”, Freedom is underway, starting right on schedule. The pre-game show is over, the main event kicks in, the long-prepared slogans and graphics are up on the tv screen. Cut to Brian Williams in a gas mask saying “everything’s ok here… they tell us nothing is happening.”

The guy’s wearing a gas mask, holding a microphone up to an airfilter, muffled shouting over blaring air-raid sirens. But “everything’s ok”, right?

Cut to Peter Coyote pimping for Clarinex�. Cut to a postal carrier having a much better day thanks to Ex-Lax�. Cut to ‘Maid in Manhattan’, now available on dvd!

“And now, back to the war!”… Currently in progress.

So we all go about our daily routine, fill the tanks, head to work, drink the coffee, make the weekend plans. It’s easy to tune out when it’s so far away, isn’t it? Focus on what’s in front of you and move forward. Just keep on moving. It’ll be quick, right? We won’t kill a lot of people, right? Right, right.

Do the job, earn the pay, cough up part of it to pay for machinery that is, at this very moment, rolling towards and falling on Baghdad. Killing people who, like you, had no say where they were born. Pretend that your dollar went towards something nice like park preservation or public television or maybe a little memorial. Other people’s money paid for the tanks and missles, right? Right, right.

So long as the war coverage doesn’t interrupt your weekly shows, everything’s going to be ok, isn’t it? You can watch the war later when they turn it into a movie of the week.

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