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hkellickThere's alot on my mind and I'd like to, in as much depth as I need, cover it...
So, this will most likely be a long LJ post (which is OK as I don't really post much anymore anyways.)
So, I shall hide everything behind
Let's start in vaguely chronological order...
The Sims Online
As many of you no doubt have noticed, I just haven't been on ChaoticMUX much for the past two weeks. That's because I've been near obsessively playing The Sims Online.
It's oddly amazing to me.
I'm surrounded by people like me most of my time... you folk, other students in my major, my family...
So, it's odd to log on to someplace where... almost no one is like me.
There's a huge range of people on The Sims Online and by no means are they all the intellectual crowd.
I find myself faced with raging hormones.. both male and female.. looking for SimRomance and CyberSex.
I find myself faced with people who believe, in their hearts, that Dubya is right and that we have to attack Iraq before they attack us.
I find myself faced with people who declare loudly "Look at me, I'm Bisexual!" but then can't seem to handle people who misunderstand what that means or who scorn them for it.
I find myself faced with small-minded people who blindly hate because that's all they know.
In some respects, it's entierly engrossing. All these people with different attitudes and different opinions.
It's almost like a fresh start. I can define my own role in this society. I don't have years of history behind me. I don't have a pre-defined role I must fulfill due to my role within the community.
And I've found my niche... and... it's not entierly like my niche anywhere else.
I'm still an intellectual. I actually speak real english instead of haxx0r or compressed english (ur so v freaky. ty. yw.)
I'm the comedian, making a fool of myself for the sake of a good (or even a bad) laugh, with bad puns and setting myself up to be insulted.
It's.. different. It's entierly different.
And entierly engrossing in it's own way.
I'm ready to come back to Chaotic. I miss all of you people I just don't talk to much.
Heh, the only thing is I find myself spending less time on the internet and more time dorking out with a good book or watching Star Trek.
But I'll be back. I will. :)
Syracuse
And so this weekend, I left my comfortable world of internet access, kitty love and such to be a part of a research consortium I chose to speak at.
The Research Consortium is both incredibly boring at times and really cool.
On one hand, I get to hear what everone else is working on around Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, which is fairly cool.
There's all sorts of interesting things going on.
But some of the presentations can be REALLY dull and boring and, without good company, the entire weekend can feel like it's just a long drawn out yawnfest.
Not helped by spending a couple hours alone in a hotel room.
There's something... incredibly lonely about spending hours in a hotel room all by yourself. I hate it.
This year wasn't as bad as last year, I found some Star Trek: TNG on the TV which I watched until I fell asleep around 11:00, but the feeling of loneliness.. just permeated the room.
Ugh.
But the weekend is done and I'm back home to my comfortable life.
The War
It's the end of the world as we know it... and.. I DON'T feel fine.
It really looks like Bush is going to declare war this week against Iraq.
If we go through this, if America really goes to war against Iraq... it'll be like our generation's watergate.
Nothing will be the same.
You can make a good case that 9/11 was like that too.. that nothing was the same. Perhaps in your mind, the imporance of 9/11 eclipses the importance of declaring war with Iraq... I can see that point of view, but I don't agree.
When we were attacked, we were still America.. home of the free, land of the brave...
But when we strike Iraq, we will not be...
We will be America, big bully of the world. So entierly arrogant as to believe WE and ONLY WE know how the world should be run and that a democratic-like government is the only good one for the world.
We will never be able to go back.
We... and our children.. and perhaps even our children's children will be forced to live with the reactions to what we have allowed to happen.
What if we lose this war?
What if we, with as many forces have come to the Middle East, manage to never find Hussein? Just as we can not find Bin Laden?
Can you imagine the CONSEQUENCES of that?
I can see, in my mind, the number of people who will not make it home from the middle east... the number of widows who will lose their husbands and, in some cases, the sole moneymakers of the household, the towns losing their policeman and firemen, the colleges losing their students.
I imagine, in my mind, that the number of dead Americans will exceed those killed by the hijackers during 9/11.
Possibly even the number of dead Americans killed when the terrorists attack us again.
And why shouldn't they?
Our military is overseas, Our firemen and policemen with them.
Now is the PERFECT time to attack.
And that's only in the near future.
No, my friends, it gets MUCH messier than that.
Will the UN be dissolved?
NATO?
Both are entierly useless, now... an ancient relic.
What about the muslim world? Already, moderate muslims are trying to explain that should Iraq be attacked, that they, too, may take it as an attack on their religion.
We're going to destabilize the entire region.
There are far many more muslims in the world than there are Christians.
What do we do if Iran attacks us? Or if Libya or if any other muslim country?
How much support will we get on our war against terrorism if the countries whose help we NEED, to root out dissension in their midst, become our enemies?
The only reason we're doing as well in the war against terrorism is that we have the help of alot of allies working in concert with us.
What happens as our relationship with these allies gets strained as our relationship with the French has been strained?
This is what kills me. This started with a war against terrorism. We had tremendous support world wide against that battle.
Now we're frittering it all away, all the good will after 9/11, for what?
What about in a purely business sense?
American business is multinational.
I would suggest that if Saudi Arabia ever stopped giving us their oil, we'd be in a heap o trouble.
Right now, with the Princes in control of Saudi Arabia, that's probably not going to occur, but if they lose control to more fundamental people?
What happens if countries around the world decide to absolve themselves of American presence? (OK, this one might be a BIGGER What if than the rest, but...Coke and McDonalds and the rest would probably suffer pretty big if the Muslim world rejected their presence, forget some of our more important allies.)
Yes, there's a lot of what ifs here. Things COULD potentially never get this messy. It's POSSIBLE that we'll go in, that the Iraqi military will all but give up, and that we'll have free reign of the country to do as we wish. But I seriously doubt it.
Lord Murphy has his fingers in everything and the more steps to get you through an easy victory, the more ways things can go wrong.
What kills me, really.. is that if any of these things occur.. war with the Muslims, terrorists attacking American soil... we will have deserved it. We will have STARTED it.
You can make a case that, to some extent, we deserve what happened to 9/11.. that they attacked US because our foreign policy... well... old Richard Nixon did a much better job of things.
But that's not the point. That's beside the point.
If we attack Iraq... what messages are we giving?
We haven't been able to convince the world that attacking Iraq is right.
We haven't even been able to convince ourselves.
We're going to piss off... most likely most of the world.
Why would we expect anything less?
What kills me is that the generations who dealt with McCarthyism are pointing fingers at other people calling them UnAmerican.
That the same people who felt that VietNam was wrong are OK with Iraq.
That the same people who didn't trust the government after Watergate are wholly trusting now.
I just don't get it.
I don't get people.
Umm... I think that's all I have to post...
So... I'll just post it... :)
So, this will most likely be a long LJ post (which is OK as I don't really post much anymore anyways.)
So, I shall hide everything behind
Let's start in vaguely chronological order...
The Sims Online
As many of you no doubt have noticed, I just haven't been on ChaoticMUX much for the past two weeks. That's because I've been near obsessively playing The Sims Online.
It's oddly amazing to me.
I'm surrounded by people like me most of my time... you folk, other students in my major, my family...
So, it's odd to log on to someplace where... almost no one is like me.
There's a huge range of people on The Sims Online and by no means are they all the intellectual crowd.
I find myself faced with raging hormones.. both male and female.. looking for SimRomance and CyberSex.
I find myself faced with people who believe, in their hearts, that Dubya is right and that we have to attack Iraq before they attack us.
I find myself faced with people who declare loudly "Look at me, I'm Bisexual!" but then can't seem to handle people who misunderstand what that means or who scorn them for it.
I find myself faced with small-minded people who blindly hate because that's all they know.
In some respects, it's entierly engrossing. All these people with different attitudes and different opinions.
It's almost like a fresh start. I can define my own role in this society. I don't have years of history behind me. I don't have a pre-defined role I must fulfill due to my role within the community.
And I've found my niche... and... it's not entierly like my niche anywhere else.
I'm still an intellectual. I actually speak real english instead of haxx0r or compressed english (ur so v freaky. ty. yw.)
I'm the comedian, making a fool of myself for the sake of a good (or even a bad) laugh, with bad puns and setting myself up to be insulted.
It's.. different. It's entierly different.
And entierly engrossing in it's own way.
I'm ready to come back to Chaotic. I miss all of you people I just don't talk to much.
Heh, the only thing is I find myself spending less time on the internet and more time dorking out with a good book or watching Star Trek.
But I'll be back. I will. :)
Syracuse
And so this weekend, I left my comfortable world of internet access, kitty love and such to be a part of a research consortium I chose to speak at.
The Research Consortium is both incredibly boring at times and really cool.
On one hand, I get to hear what everone else is working on around Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, which is fairly cool.
There's all sorts of interesting things going on.
But some of the presentations can be REALLY dull and boring and, without good company, the entire weekend can feel like it's just a long drawn out yawnfest.
Not helped by spending a couple hours alone in a hotel room.
There's something... incredibly lonely about spending hours in a hotel room all by yourself. I hate it.
This year wasn't as bad as last year, I found some Star Trek: TNG on the TV which I watched until I fell asleep around 11:00, but the feeling of loneliness.. just permeated the room.
Ugh.
But the weekend is done and I'm back home to my comfortable life.
The War
It's the end of the world as we know it... and.. I DON'T feel fine.
It really looks like Bush is going to declare war this week against Iraq.
If we go through this, if America really goes to war against Iraq... it'll be like our generation's watergate.
Nothing will be the same.
You can make a good case that 9/11 was like that too.. that nothing was the same. Perhaps in your mind, the imporance of 9/11 eclipses the importance of declaring war with Iraq... I can see that point of view, but I don't agree.
When we were attacked, we were still America.. home of the free, land of the brave...
But when we strike Iraq, we will not be...
We will be America, big bully of the world. So entierly arrogant as to believe WE and ONLY WE know how the world should be run and that a democratic-like government is the only good one for the world.
We will never be able to go back.
We... and our children.. and perhaps even our children's children will be forced to live with the reactions to what we have allowed to happen.
What if we lose this war?
What if we, with as many forces have come to the Middle East, manage to never find Hussein? Just as we can not find Bin Laden?
Can you imagine the CONSEQUENCES of that?
I can see, in my mind, the number of people who will not make it home from the middle east... the number of widows who will lose their husbands and, in some cases, the sole moneymakers of the household, the towns losing their policeman and firemen, the colleges losing their students.
I imagine, in my mind, that the number of dead Americans will exceed those killed by the hijackers during 9/11.
Possibly even the number of dead Americans killed when the terrorists attack us again.
And why shouldn't they?
Our military is overseas, Our firemen and policemen with them.
Now is the PERFECT time to attack.
And that's only in the near future.
No, my friends, it gets MUCH messier than that.
Will the UN be dissolved?
NATO?
Both are entierly useless, now... an ancient relic.
What about the muslim world? Already, moderate muslims are trying to explain that should Iraq be attacked, that they, too, may take it as an attack on their religion.
We're going to destabilize the entire region.
There are far many more muslims in the world than there are Christians.
What do we do if Iran attacks us? Or if Libya or if any other muslim country?
How much support will we get on our war against terrorism if the countries whose help we NEED, to root out dissension in their midst, become our enemies?
The only reason we're doing as well in the war against terrorism is that we have the help of alot of allies working in concert with us.
What happens as our relationship with these allies gets strained as our relationship with the French has been strained?
This is what kills me. This started with a war against terrorism. We had tremendous support world wide against that battle.
Now we're frittering it all away, all the good will after 9/11, for what?
What about in a purely business sense?
American business is multinational.
I would suggest that if Saudi Arabia ever stopped giving us their oil, we'd be in a heap o trouble.
Right now, with the Princes in control of Saudi Arabia, that's probably not going to occur, but if they lose control to more fundamental people?
What happens if countries around the world decide to absolve themselves of American presence? (OK, this one might be a BIGGER What if than the rest, but...Coke and McDonalds and the rest would probably suffer pretty big if the Muslim world rejected their presence, forget some of our more important allies.)
Yes, there's a lot of what ifs here. Things COULD potentially never get this messy. It's POSSIBLE that we'll go in, that the Iraqi military will all but give up, and that we'll have free reign of the country to do as we wish. But I seriously doubt it.
Lord Murphy has his fingers in everything and the more steps to get you through an easy victory, the more ways things can go wrong.
What kills me, really.. is that if any of these things occur.. war with the Muslims, terrorists attacking American soil... we will have deserved it. We will have STARTED it.
You can make a case that, to some extent, we deserve what happened to 9/11.. that they attacked US because our foreign policy... well... old Richard Nixon did a much better job of things.
But that's not the point. That's beside the point.
If we attack Iraq... what messages are we giving?
We haven't been able to convince the world that attacking Iraq is right.
We haven't even been able to convince ourselves.
We're going to piss off... most likely most of the world.
Why would we expect anything less?
What kills me is that the generations who dealt with McCarthyism are pointing fingers at other people calling them UnAmerican.
That the same people who felt that VietNam was wrong are OK with Iraq.
That the same people who didn't trust the government after Watergate are wholly trusting now.
I just don't get it.
I don't get people.
Umm... I think that's all I have to post...
So... I'll just post it... :)
