Thursday, September 5, 2013

Proxy Wars and Gasps

Syria all morning since 7am. Which is not so long, in the scheme of things. It is apparent in this moment how incredibly twisted my thinking has been made by experience of being born and being a toddler in the era of Reagan and stratification, a kid in the era of Bush and war, a teen in the era of Clinton and capitalism, a young adult in the era of Bush and militarism, and a 20-something in the era of Obama and post-racism. So twisted, in fact, that I can't wrap my head around who we are at war with presently, or what the impact is (globally, and in my neighborhood, and in my very body) of striking a place unilaterally, or how to help someone who you never cared to help a year ago when they asked for it and who is now dying in part because of what you have been doing for years and years and years on end.

They say that our generation is apathetic, but there is a more accurate description of the feeling, I think, beyond apathy... it is, perhaps, deep within the realm of fear--a feeling that is native to those born and raised in neoliberalist terror. It is closely related to the feeling familiar to those with chronic pain: sharp stabs in the back that your mind at first twists into dull throbs and eventually into normalcy. Not "who cares?" like it doesn't matter, but "who cares?" like it matters so much that holding my breath has become a proxy for breathing.

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