thoughts

a young girl is walking down the hall way at brookline high. i notice she has on a "stop genocide in sudan" t shirt. i have yet to see anyone wearing a "stop genocide in iraq" t shirt. genocide, it seems, is something that germans did, or that africans currently do. we only make "mistakes," or have "misinformed leaders,' or "faulty intelligence." the war in iraq is a "diversion from the war on terror," not genocide. it is a "misuse of our tax dollars," not genocide.
tell that to the hundreds of thousands slaughtered by u.s. weapons, the millions made homeless. explain our hypocritical use of language to those who were bombed while lying ill in hospital beds, and to the children whose schools have been demolished. ask the residents of fallujah if they were the victims of a "mistake."
a "mistake" is adding 2 and 2 to get 5. plundering the planet is genocide.
well, i guess it doesn't matter. the t shirt wouldn't help anyway. it would probably only get the girl suspended. invariably, she would be made to feel like an outcast. as that great opponent of the bombing of serbia said, "you have the freedom of speech. now shut up!" in any case, what does a t shirt do? has that che t shirt made the world a better place, or that one with martin and malcolm shaking hands? has the number of young black men in prison decreased since that shirt appeared? have the poor been fed since that picture of huey sitting in a chair holding a staff was made into a shirt? capitalism will sell you anything, and by doing so, will kill the power of the image they are selling.
once, i was walking down the street in downtown boston, when i came to the army navy store. in the front window, they had that che t shirt! my g-d, it was our own cia which precipitated his demise, and now that same imperial monster is profiting off of his image! it was, and is, our government which has savagely strangled the cuban revolution since its inception. and now, this same merciless military machine presents us with a consumer good containing the image of the man who gave his life in an attempt to rid the world of u.s. imperialism. oh, the wonders of mindless capitalism.
also outside that store was a full body suit to "protect" us from a gas attack. something out of a satirical commentary of the 1950's, the outfit will surely help protect us against those bearded others who are out to destroy all that is beautiful and pure within our blessed nation.
che and gas masks, side by side.
the bottom line is profit, with ignorance a close second.
go fuck yourself america, with your atom bomb.