Being the big old rabble rousing dyke that I am, I suppose I should be ordering a keg to celebrate the fact that it looks like we can be openly queer and still kill people while they’re making breakfast or getting ready to go to school, as long as a few conditions are met.
1. The victims have to live in a foreign land
2. Someone has to order us to do it
3. And we have to be wearing the uniform of the U.S. military
Back in the good old days before the advent of the wheel, young men were drafted into the US military and forced to kill in Southeast Asia. But, this was a strain on the psyches of the men who found themselves in such a state of peril, as they watched their best friends blown to bits before their eyes. Things were never the same when they returned to their former lives, which did not involve killing on command, or being ever vigilant even when asleep. Many of them moved into the streets trying to drown their guilty consciences with bottles of whiskey, while others joined the American Resistance and successfully organized to abolish the draft. That’s when the U.S. military became a volunteer organization.
Women wanted equality in all things, including the right to volunteer to be on the front lines, and they got their wish along with unbelievable sexual harassment including rape by their fellow soldiers. Now it’s the queers. I say, if that’s really what you want to do, then starch that uniform, polish your boots, and go to the Cuff on Uniform night. Leave that gun at home, and leave those poor people in Iraq and Afghanistan alone.
Oh yes, they’re waving that old red white and blue like there’s no tomorrow, while they try to spread democracy around the world like an infectious disease. We’re defending America against the nameless faceless terrorists who are out to destroy us. But the story changes with the times. In Korea and Vietnam, we were fighting the plague of communism which Russia was supposedly spreading like butter on bread.
When the United States was unsuccessful in finding and annihilating Osama Bin Laden after 911, the enemy morphed into Saddam Hussein and his fictitious weapons of mass destruction. Once Iraq was demolished, we moved onto Afghanistan where it’s hard to tell if someone is a terrorist, or a farmer working in their fields. You know, we had that same problem in Vietnam. Couldn’t tell who was a communist and who was a farmer, so we just killed them all, children included. After all, they could grow up to be communists; might as well nip it in the bud.
For now, the terrorist threat is working and when everyone gets sick of that excuse for war, it will be something else. Even though war has been proven time and time again to be completely ineffective as a problem solving method, it reigns supreme. War reigns supreme because it’s profitable. Doesn’t anyone get that? So, yes, my brothers and sisters, you’ve won the right to raise your rainbow flags as your charge into battle making money for Haliburton and the war mongers. What a victory!
– Lamar Van Dyke
Lamar Van Dyke is a rabblerousing/dyke/activist/writer/artist who’s left her mark on Seattle, and been raising hell for the past 30 years. You can find her here and on Facebook. Ms Van Dyke’s opinions and advice are her own. But, she is happy to share them.
