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sanpaku_backupI've noticed that after the general crescendo leading up to the war, a lot of folks on my friendslist have stopped posting or confessed to feeling too tired to post. Speaking for myself, I have found myself all too often reduced to blistering, sputtering rage and frustration and despair by the whole thing, and I assume that this is pretty universal. And it does no good to walk around telling yourself that it's pointless to feel that way because you can't do anything about it, certainly not when 75% of the public "supports" the war.
But in the past couple of days I have reached a new state of serenity about the whole thing that makes me feel a lot better, and it is this: the conviction, the certainty, that this is the beginning of the end. Because the idiots in the Pentagon had me half-convinced that we would have our "cakewalk" in and Fate or whatever would prove us all wrong: the Iraqis hate Saddam so much that they would embrace us. And who could really argue against that? (Though the Russians even fought for fucking Stalin when their country was invaded by a "liberator"...)
But then they not only hoped this would happen, these morons, who sit around all day doing nothing but plan wars and how to give tax breaks to rich people, acually expected that it would happen, and made an entire war plan assuming that it would happen. And even the stupidest 15-year-old who has played Panzer Leader knows the basic, ancient rule of war: protect your flanks and supply lines. I mean, it was the only part of the whole thing that I might have conceded that they would do intelligently, and they managed to fuck it up.
So it's the end for this whole enterprise of hubris, this idea of empire that these lunatics have sat around concocting. Because as the news comes in, horrible as it is, I realize that, unlike in the past, when one might have to wait years or decades to judge the worth of something like this, we are already seeing how it will turn out. In Vietnam it took ten years for the full stupidity of what we were doing there to become apparent to all but the most die-hard reactionaries. With Iraq, it's already started. It will be obvious by the end of the year that this was a Pyrrhic victory in every conceivable sense of the term.
So although I never considered myself much of a Hegelian in my work as a historian, I am bound to feel downright optimistic about the dialectical process these days. What has always really galled me about this war was its hubris in pretending that destroying the International System was a good thing, but the truth is, the system will right itself after we "win." This isn't good news for the people who will die, and I hope that the correction happens before someone sets off a nuclear bomb in New York or something like that. People who die as a result of this are dying in the ultimate preventable catastrophe. But the bottom line is this: There is just no way that we will get away with this war. And that will prove to be a good thing in the end.
------------------------------
Awakened today at 6:15 am by the baby. We went up to Boston to have dinner with my dad, who was there for a conference. It was amazing: last time I was in that whole Back Bay complex, I parked in the Prudential Place Mall and got screwed on the validation because the movie theater was in Copley Place. So this time I parked in Copley Place and got screwed because the restaurant that validated was in Prudential Place. This is all one big mega-mall-indoor-glass walkway what-the-fuck-do-you-call-it thing. To add insult to injury, they actually opened my car trunk to inspect it before they would let me park there. I guess that the ammonium nitrate bomb back there would do less damage if it went off next to the hotel lobby than deep in the parking garage... The mall was filled to the brim with cops and rent-a-cops. How is it that people have convinced themselves that they are more "secure" with this sort of thing? It makes no sense at all to me.
Other news: plans underway for spending a good two months or so in Maine. My sister-in-law and her boyfriend are going to work up there, and my in-laws want someone to be there as part of a fiction that they are being "chaperoned." I think we will be able to make it, though I have no idea what we will do with the cat -- he's not welcome to piss his way through the 100-year-old house up there, but he'd be pretty sad to be by himself all summer. I need to find a good catsitter, and pronto.
Did go to the accountant on Friday, and I'll describe the experience just in case any of you are wondering whether to go through this yourself. First of all, I had this impression that you could just hand the papers to him and let him sort it out, but this was not the case. I sat there for an hour watching him slowly... slowly... tab through the fields and tote things up. I could have done it in about 5 minutes. (In fact, I have tax software, and I have done it in about 5 minutes.) When it came to the things I was concerned about, though, and which I would have agonized about -- how much to count as a business expense, what to do about utilities, etc. -- he just sloughed off and made some fairly, hm, generous assumptions in my favor. Still, it was nothing that I couldn't do myself.
So after an hour of watching him dodder through the material, I was feeling pretty much in a "one of those learning experiences" mode when he showed me how much I would pay. Now, I really wish I hadn't deleted my financial files, because I don't remember how much I expected to pay. I just had this mental space in my mind for how much I thought it might be. The number he showed me was lower than that. Thousands of dollars lower.
Upon some consideration I think I must have scared myself into that high original number, because it can't have been right. But still I walked out of there feeling that he had somehow magically saved me money. And there was the peace of mind element to it, plus the fact that it took him an hour and a half whereas it would have taken me hours just to stress about it and find the right paperwork and read the instructions ten times. Total cost was about $270 -- we had three W-2's, a Schedule C, an SE, and two state returns -- so, hm. But I guess I have learned something about how to do it for next year. Plus, since I had to estimate, I think we will get nice refund checks next year. That will be just about the first time that ever happens to me.
So the government has an extra $8,500 of mine heading their way to drop on Iraq or give to rich businessmen, whatever... Enough raving for one night.
But in the past couple of days I have reached a new state of serenity about the whole thing that makes me feel a lot better, and it is this: the conviction, the certainty, that this is the beginning of the end. Because the idiots in the Pentagon had me half-convinced that we would have our "cakewalk" in and Fate or whatever would prove us all wrong: the Iraqis hate Saddam so much that they would embrace us. And who could really argue against that? (Though the Russians even fought for fucking Stalin when their country was invaded by a "liberator"...)
But then they not only hoped this would happen, these morons, who sit around all day doing nothing but plan wars and how to give tax breaks to rich people, acually expected that it would happen, and made an entire war plan assuming that it would happen. And even the stupidest 15-year-old who has played Panzer Leader knows the basic, ancient rule of war: protect your flanks and supply lines. I mean, it was the only part of the whole thing that I might have conceded that they would do intelligently, and they managed to fuck it up.
So it's the end for this whole enterprise of hubris, this idea of empire that these lunatics have sat around concocting. Because as the news comes in, horrible as it is, I realize that, unlike in the past, when one might have to wait years or decades to judge the worth of something like this, we are already seeing how it will turn out. In Vietnam it took ten years for the full stupidity of what we were doing there to become apparent to all but the most die-hard reactionaries. With Iraq, it's already started. It will be obvious by the end of the year that this was a Pyrrhic victory in every conceivable sense of the term.
So although I never considered myself much of a Hegelian in my work as a historian, I am bound to feel downright optimistic about the dialectical process these days. What has always really galled me about this war was its hubris in pretending that destroying the International System was a good thing, but the truth is, the system will right itself after we "win." This isn't good news for the people who will die, and I hope that the correction happens before someone sets off a nuclear bomb in New York or something like that. People who die as a result of this are dying in the ultimate preventable catastrophe. But the bottom line is this: There is just no way that we will get away with this war. And that will prove to be a good thing in the end.
------------------------------
Awakened today at 6:15 am by the baby. We went up to Boston to have dinner with my dad, who was there for a conference. It was amazing: last time I was in that whole Back Bay complex, I parked in the Prudential Place Mall and got screwed on the validation because the movie theater was in Copley Place. So this time I parked in Copley Place and got screwed because the restaurant that validated was in Prudential Place. This is all one big mega-mall-indoor-glass walkway what-the-fuck-do-you-call-it thing. To add insult to injury, they actually opened my car trunk to inspect it before they would let me park there. I guess that the ammonium nitrate bomb back there would do less damage if it went off next to the hotel lobby than deep in the parking garage... The mall was filled to the brim with cops and rent-a-cops. How is it that people have convinced themselves that they are more "secure" with this sort of thing? It makes no sense at all to me.
Other news: plans underway for spending a good two months or so in Maine. My sister-in-law and her boyfriend are going to work up there, and my in-laws want someone to be there as part of a fiction that they are being "chaperoned." I think we will be able to make it, though I have no idea what we will do with the cat -- he's not welcome to piss his way through the 100-year-old house up there, but he'd be pretty sad to be by himself all summer. I need to find a good catsitter, and pronto.
Did go to the accountant on Friday, and I'll describe the experience just in case any of you are wondering whether to go through this yourself. First of all, I had this impression that you could just hand the papers to him and let him sort it out, but this was not the case. I sat there for an hour watching him slowly... slowly... tab through the fields and tote things up. I could have done it in about 5 minutes. (In fact, I have tax software, and I have done it in about 5 minutes.) When it came to the things I was concerned about, though, and which I would have agonized about -- how much to count as a business expense, what to do about utilities, etc. -- he just sloughed off and made some fairly, hm, generous assumptions in my favor. Still, it was nothing that I couldn't do myself.
So after an hour of watching him dodder through the material, I was feeling pretty much in a "one of those learning experiences" mode when he showed me how much I would pay. Now, I really wish I hadn't deleted my financial files, because I don't remember how much I expected to pay. I just had this mental space in my mind for how much I thought it might be. The number he showed me was lower than that. Thousands of dollars lower.
Upon some consideration I think I must have scared myself into that high original number, because it can't have been right. But still I walked out of there feeling that he had somehow magically saved me money. And there was the peace of mind element to it, plus the fact that it took him an hour and a half whereas it would have taken me hours just to stress about it and find the right paperwork and read the instructions ten times. Total cost was about $270 -- we had three W-2's, a Schedule C, an SE, and two state returns -- so, hm. But I guess I have learned something about how to do it for next year. Plus, since I had to estimate, I think we will get nice refund checks next year. That will be just about the first time that ever happens to me.
So the government has an extra $8,500 of mine heading their way to drop on Iraq or give to rich businessmen, whatever... Enough raving for one night.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-04-01 04:22 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-04-02 06:29 am (UTC)Re: the war, they launched an offensive today so as to shut up us doubting Thomases. I'm sure they'll still "win." Of course the real thing will be in November, when riots and car bombings and snipers happen every day. That's what I think is the real significance of what's happened so far.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-03 04:24 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-04-06 01:06 pm (UTC)