Improving the Past

Posted on December 31, 2006
Filed Under Blogging, Politics |

One of my favorite bloggers, Fred Clark, who writes Slacktivist, has this to say about the current urge to surge in Iraq:

[I was] searching for the word “past” in these lists of wise clichés, I found many variations of this: “Sanity: What we get when we quit hoping for a better past.” That, I think, pinpoints the insanity driving the current enthusiasm for a “surge” of additional U.S. troops in Iraq. Proponents of this surge are not hoping for a better future, but for a better past. They’re not trying to win the war in Iraq but rather, somehow, to win the war in Vietnam.

That is both ruefully true & funny. And on New Year’s Eve, a time when we look both forward & back, it’s an appropriate, if mordant, sentiment. Sorry not to be filled with cheer & optimism, but the new year looks like more of the same for the country. I am at once profoundly grateful & guilt-laden that I am largely isolated by class, education, & geography from the worst of the horrors.

Comments

3 Responses to “Improving the Past”

  1. randi on January 1st, 2007 7:44 am

    Hi Joseph,
    Just to cheer you up a hair go check out the Edge’s 2007 Question: “What are you optomistic about? Why?” I’ve just been reading through some of the responses and as a self-confessed perennial pessimist it actually gave me a bit of, dare I say it, hope. I’ve long felt the same guilt you describe..white, well fed, living in Vermont, skating by just on the lucky happenstance to have been born when and where I was..but for a long time I’ve felt we human animals have become increasingly agitated in our collective unconsciouness and my gravy years, our gravy years, our little, historic bubble of time is about to burst. Selfishly I’m glad I’m in my 50’s instead of my 20’s but I’d like more than anything else to think of a world improved down the pike. I’m madly in love with this globe and would love to imagine it spinning in health a few billion more years. Ah me..meant just to wish you a Happy (read:less stressful) New Year..Randi

  2. Dori on January 3rd, 2007 5:00 pm

    Hi Joseph,
    Found your new blog, sorry it took so long to write back to you, lost your email in hotmail. I have several websites but here’s a link to myspace space if you’d like to stay in touch. Lovely to read your thoughts in this blog. Down here in NZ the US and it’s politics not such a huge issue everyday …. Happy New Year , Dori

    my link to my space :

    http://www.myspace.com/ethereallollymermaid

  3. Joseph Duemer on January 3rd, 2007 5:06 pm

    Dori, I envy you your distance from the enter of the death star.