when love walks in the room everybody stand up
it's good, good, good
say it over and over again
that's a song by pretenders (i won't say "the pretenders" since that was cleared up by the common ills) called "message of love."
a number of you have worried about my latest activities possibly detracting from my blogging. paul asks if i saw the movie dick and warns me about how terri garr gets set up with a spy in that film by the nixon administration and cautions me to be careful.
how could i not with so many caring people watching out for me? and i mean that. the ones who expressed concern were not prudes and i appreciate their concerns.
but i'm not planning to stop blogging. on the weekends i may blog late or brief but the guy i'm currently seeing isn't able to make the trip in to see me during the week and that's more than fine with me since i don't like to be crowded.
i'd also advise you that my love affairs tend to be like viral infections - they come on with intensity and then quickly vanish.
so let's talk politics because today was the elections and common ills e-mailed me asking what i thought.
here's what i think. the elections were corrupt. that was no surprise.
any 1 who lost their cherry on that has lived a truly sheltered life.
but the reason the elections needed to be held was that we had promised them and promised them. over and over yet somehow we always postponed them -- dangle the carrot and then pull it back.
they've had their elections. that doesn't solve much. that does however give iraqis a sense of ownership. they can press their leaders who may or may not listen.
that's not a problem peculiar to iraq - take a look at our own congress.
there's no such thing as a little democracy or a little pregnancy is something i was always told.
i think it's true. having voted, they will press even more. and maybe with them pressing, us pressing, the entire world pressing, we can end the occupation finally.
this is their country and our presence there only increases the tensions and the violence.
while we've raided their resources and held a tag sale on pretty much everything (in violation of international law) we've treated them like slow children incapable of making their own decisions.
i don't doubt that they have a puppet government in place now. but they can press that government and we just lost a solid excuse for staying. they have an elected body. why are we still occuyping their country?
and iraqis will look at leaders who are not responsive and get vocal against them. having participated in a flawed election, they will demand accountability. the puppet government, installed by us, will either listen or not.
do not listen to the hype. these weren't the first elections. in fact the british supervised elections many years prior. having shown up at the ballot box will not bring democracy to iraq but it will underscore the need for changes both in terms of leadership and in terms of kicking us out because it's past time that we left.
iraq's been through this before. they are not stupid people. quite the contrary, they are an educated people who can trace major developments in civilization to the area.
it's past time to stop playing bwana and act like we are somehow helping an unenlightened mass of people. i have hopes that they will demand accountability. if the newly elected leaders refuse to be accountable to them (which is very likely) i am hopeful they will not shrug their shoulders and scratch their heads. (the way many of us did regarding the election of 2000 and 2004 in this country. many of us, not all of us.)
they will chart their own way and we will no doubt see efforts by the bully boy to snap them into line. but they are a strong people and they are a wise people. having finally granted elections, the bully boy will quickly find that it's a bit harder to be a puppet master. we'll also see some heady with their own victories begin to stand up to the bully boy.
those are my hopes. i may be idealistic. i'm sure some 1 will e-mail, 'becky you are so blinded by your latest sexual romps that you have no idea what you're talking about.' possibly. but hey, what sexual romps. it is often you find a guy who is not just willing to go down on you but eager to as well, 1 who doesn't need prompting.
too much information? no such thing!
