The Fucking Problem With Construction Paper

Clive Stafford Smith wrote this op-ed in Aljazeera on 11 September. Read it, please, even if you don’t come back to finish this post. In case your searchable content is restricted I’d like to recommend a VPN. It hides your location from the sites you visit and if in Incognito mode, your ISP as well. You can view or download almost anything you want virtually undetected.

Now then. I’m glad a friend sent me this opinion piece. I was going to do it on the 11th, but was busy with other things and forgot about afterward.

Mr. Smith does one thing I have, since I have written blogs beginning in 2008, been unable to do: wrap all of the things we did wrong after September 11, 2001 up in a few paragraphs.

Sure, I expressed disgust at torture. Sure, I’ve also noted that of all the things Obama got right, he still kept up the charade that we were doing good things in Iraq and Afghanistan. Because we never should have been there at all.

I’ve written that we have engaged in violating human rights and stuck our middle finger at the world as if to say “We’re right no matter what so fuck you.”

And I’ve also been of the mind that the last war we righteously engaged in was World War Two, and that in so many words, every shot we’ve fired since was a big mistake, each and every one.

But what I have never been able to do is put all of these things together at one time. I got hung up specifically on torture: it is forbidden and it is a gross violation of everything that we the people thought our nation was dedicated to. Civility, keeping the law, not being the goddamn bad guys.

Although stories of torture did leak and cause outcry, we settled for “Okay, we won’t do it again,” when in fact we should have kept pressing for a full accounting of what had happened and what was going to be done to stop it. We sure are gullible.

I’ve written about why we should never have gone to war overseas against people instead of a country. How could any other country watch what we were doing and ever trust us again? How could any country not usually diplomatically engaged with us ever believe we were sincere with all the underhanded things we were doing in front of the whole world? We trashed any credibility we might have had in exchange for an open and arrogant display of unreasonable force and invasion. That’s not the United States I was taught about in school. Of course, our textbooks were printed in the 1950s, the height of the first chapter of the Cold War. Meaning the story of the first Thanksgiving, a complete lie in every sense, was fervently taught and we had to make “Pilgrim” hats with glue and black construction paper (and NO sharp scissors!)

The Age of the Big Crayon and Colored Construction Paper. Fuck, what a shit show.

I want to vomit. I may even manage it before I’m through here.

Some will not take kindly to my words. Had I said anything like this back then, and this is no joke, I would probably have been committed. I picture myself then, saying, “Fuck a pilgrim! You know the (native Americans) Indians hated us!” Man, how many girls would have drawn a breath in horror, how many guys would have cracked up because I said “fuck” out loud?

And how long would it have taken to expel me? Ah, with the stroke of the principal’s pen. Laugh if you must, but it’s true.

You know how many girls in my eighth grade class we lost to pregnancy? Parents wanted their kids taught straight arithmetic and fairy tales, no joke. Sex education? We had one visit in the assembly room during sixth grade. And that shit never happened again, I tell you. Never. In a place as big as Pasadena where there really wasn’t much else to do, kids fought, got hold of drugs, and fucked. In parks after dark, even in the woods, whatever. Parents were so shocked when their daughters got knocked up or their sons got caught smoking pot. Ignorant redneck motherfuckers, they were. Living a life of lies in a fairy tale world. We owe them so much.

Yes, Mr. Smith is correct. One hundred percent, baby. Everything we did following the attacks of September 11th was wrong. Just about as wrong as you can get. If they were teaching anything but bullshit in school, my generation would know this. To think that people my age still believe the first Thanksgiving was all warm and fuzzy white men hosting Indians for technicolor corn and turkey is enough to make me cringe.

But clearly, some do. Lots of people believe it. They also believe that planet Earth is flat. Rather like a sheet of construction paper. What a bunch of shitheads.

I think we have some sins to atone for. The question becomes whether there’s enough time. We’re still largely ignoring global warming. It and a nuclear holocaust inch closer with each tick of the clock.

Daddy-O, you got bigger problems than your 14-year-old getting preggers. Whether or not she actually keeps it is not my business. But let’s say she gives birth. What kind of world will that baby live in when it grows to be adult? My guess is an extremely hostile climate with a world war about to go nuclear.

And Mama, what of your son, whose drug use is limited to smoking grass, because your right-wing fringies and parents told you it was a gateway drug, and now you cry every night while praying for God to strike down his dealer?

You’re more blessed than you know and you’re pissing precious time with him away with your fucked-up rigidity. Grow the fuck up. God doesn’t do that shit and you’re the bigger sinner than anyone involved.

And political beliefs? We’re all guilty of wrong thinking. Everyone compared Biden to Trump. What about us? While Trump feigns wealth and wisdom in a show of grandiloquent shittiness, Biden never pretended to be anything but what he is. You want someone to blame, then fine: but add yourself to the fucking pile. What did you ever do to stop the wars or protest the Patriot Act or anything else but what you did, which was sit back and watch? Bullshit. We’re all dirty. Blood on our hands, each and every one.

And the clock is ticking.

I’ll play you out with the music and images of the end credits to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. In the film, a probe of extraterrestrial origin begins causing serious damage to Earth’s atmosphere because its creator lost contact with humpback whales. Knowing they were gone, the civilization which sent the probe vaporizes sea water so the process of evolution can begin again. The idea is preposterous but the theme inescapably real; we’re killing every life on Earth.

https://youtu.be/SHbyILpmLXg