Once upon a hoopty...

Today, while I was setting the VCR to tape LOST, I saw a few moments of Oprah while she was interviewing the Dixie Chicks. I've been out of the country for a while, and so everything I'd heard about the whole situation made me think that they were stupid for making the remark. By that I mean that a large portion of their audience has a different political view than the singers do, and there was no need to take advantage of their platform to speak to talk about something unrelated. Famous people are allowed to have opinions, but if they are not famous for those opinions, then they need to realize that voicing those opinions may decrease their fame. In my hometown, all the country radios did a poll among their listeners to see if they wanted to play songs from the new Dixie Chick album, and the local audience overwhelming voted that they did not. I felt like they audience members were entitled to their opinions. When i saw they had made a documentary about the whole thing, I immediately felt like it was a publicity stunt and a desire to try to make up for the large numbers of audience members they had lost.

But I'm glad that I saw them on Oprah today. One of them (the taller, slender one who kinda looks like Sarah Jessica Parker) said that the movie was not about people not buying their albums, because they have every right to do that. It had more to do with the organization behind boycotting, with the threats, the labeling of "communists" and "sluts." I also think those things were wrong. If you don't want to buy their album, that's okay. You want to tell your friends why you aren't going to buy their album? That's okay, too. You want to personally ruin their careers by encouraging a boycott? What the crap?!? You feel the need to give them emotionally-charged and inaccurate descriptions just because they don't agree with you? How do people get so mad about someone voicing their opinion? Who do we think we are?!? It works both ways, and plenty of anti-war people get angry when pro-war people voice their opinion, but what is up with the hatred? Why can't we just discuss it? Why does everything have to be so passionate?

And I wonder if losing a son makes some people hate the war, because it took their sons, and makes others embrace it, because if it wasn't a good war, he has died in vain. And I wonder if our opinions have more to do with how it affects our lives, personally than the philosophy behind war.

Even the staunchest of supporters are starting to wane, now. And I hope we don't look back on this Iraqi conflict as another Vietnam. I hope that when we pull out that it's for the right reasons.

God help us.

The frustration that comes when the situation in which you find yourself is out of your control. It doesn't matter how smart you are or strong you are or how good a person or how bad a person. It is nature or fate or God or something taking a swing at your personal pride. Very little can be more humbling or belittling. And it is not easy to take sitting down. Responses vary, but anger is a common one. You want to fight against that greater power that somehow singled you out from doing what you wanted to do. You want to curse God and damn fate. But these powers seem so out of reach that trying to injure them or seek revenge on them is so obviously hopeless that it is much easier to blame a person. Your spouse. Your parent. Your boss. Your child? Your government. Because it always feels safer to blame someone who is one layer beyond people you actually know. Or you can take an even safer approach. Blame someone else's government. All your neighbors will agree with you, so your anger and resentment will be approved by your friends and peers. The other government has little say where you live, so you can denounce them all you want and they can do little about it. In fact, you know you have so many friends in your own country that you can probably hide there if you attack the other government and run away back home. Then, if the other country responds at all, especially if they respond in a manner that was more extensive than the way you attacked them, your nieghbors will side with you to continue to attack them. For revenge's sake. So then hate will continue to breed hate. Because you only feel good when you feel like you have the power to affect that other country's emotions and policy. It makes you feel powerful. And safe. And not impotent. Even though that's really what you are. To some degree, we all are.