Something We Could Die About

This morning, a friend who was undoubtedly the most Nordic bar mitzvah boy since - since - ever, pointed me to the blog of another young Jewish man advocating for the war. I'm not linking to him, forget it. Look, everyone's entitled to his youthful indiscretions. Everyone's entitled to make mistakes in judgment. I make 'em all the time, but I am a little old Jewish lady. One of these days, I'll eat dinner at 4 and tuck butter pats into my oversize purse for a needy later that never really comes. And that fucking kid is an embarrassment to my adopted people.

If you are a young man or woman who supports the war: enlist. Period.

If you are a young Jewish man or woman who supports the war: good for you. Enlist and shut up. If you agitate for endless war you think you're too good to fight you're reinforcing stereotypes about Jews. Zip it, idiot. Let's hope you grow out of this foolishness.

Oh Lieberman, Novak, Goldberg, Goldstein, Perle, Wolfowitz, Kagan, Kagan, Kagan and the absolute ghoulish worst Kristol... God damn it, stop what you doing.


Recent political discussion has included a lot of shoulder shrugging and blame shifting, the most notable of which has been the refrain "No one could have known..." applied to an appalling variety of disasters. The fact is a great many people did know, told you and you didn't listen. Moreover, you're not listening now, after you've been proven wrong over and over. I don't know what could be in it for you to keep sputtering that more time, more money and more death will ultimately prove you right, because at this point, being proven right about any one thing you say will not be enough to counterbalance the damage you've done.

Finally, intention is nifty but outcomes are what count. It does not matter what you intended to do. What matters is what you've done.

Whose suffering did you mitigate? Whose life did you save?

What have you done?

Update: I wrote our young chickenhawk (correction: Yellow Elephant) that it wasn't too late for him to enlist. He sent back an email with the subject Don't waste your time, my time or our country's time, including only a link to his FAQ titled Am I A Chickenhawk? My response: As a little old lady, I think it's your duty to defend me. He's blocked me from his site, so I can't mentor this promising young man.
Non-enlisting chickenhawk (Yellow Elephant)

This is Josh Levy. He wants a bigger military he doesn't want to join, but you or your children should. Stop by and encourage him to consider an alternate career path.

Update-update: Mr. Blogenfreude points out that our boy Josh is not a chickenhawk; he's a Yellow Elephant. I'd do the fancy strike-through text but I can't. Born before the cut off date and all. As you were!