Saturday, May 29, 2010
Memorial Day Weekend
Memorial day weekend in the U.S. is beginning. There shall be buckets and barrels and bushels of praise, glory, etc. heaped on war, war veterans, violence as a means to peace, etc. etc. Meanwhile U.S. vets shall continue to kill and torture people abroad, and shall continue to commit suicide at double the rate of others, and shall continue to struggle for the rest of their lives with combat related PTSD, depression, and a host of other problems. It's our annual culture-wide homage to the (caca de vaca) myth of redemptive violence. Here's to the country that spends 60% of the entire planet's violence budget.
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A violence budget - an interesting idea. Though not sure it can be directly equated with military spending because (a) not all military action is equally violent (some countries have a defence force for, um, defence) and (b) not all violence is military.
ReplyDeletethe whole notion of memorial day blows my mind.. it's about celebrating people who give us freedoms.. what about the 8 hour days? women's ability to vote? etc.. didn't those people give us freedoms as well? but nope, we don't celebrate them - we just celebrate the violence.
ReplyDelete*sigh*
Maybe Americans actually think about the holiday that gives them a long weekend. Here in Canada, our first long weekend of summer was last weekend. Theoretically, it is to celebrate the birthday of Queen Victoria (lo, these many decades after she lived and died).
ReplyDeleteHowever, it is known more familiarly as the May two-four weekend. Good Queen Vicky's birthday was May 24th, but the two-four weekend pays homage to the number of cans in a flat of beer.
But, as I say, perhaps y'all down south actually think about what your holiday was designed to commemorate. And, if so, Happy war day. And, may the numbers killed in highway accidents not exceed the number killed on the battlefield.
my former principal was in Holland recently and visited a large cemetery there. he engaged in a conversation with a dutch person there, who found out he was canadian and was nearly moved to tears - and (basically) said, "thank you so much for freeing us!!!!"
ReplyDeletethe dutch still have such a strong sense of gratitude to the canadian soldiers that freed them from WWII - i want to celebrate that, too!