Falling Down

I'm an angry person. Not in a marketable, sexy kinda way. I'm angry in the kinda way where when I start to let go the polite facade slips (see last post) and I'm no good in front of anyone. Like, not only am I no good in mixed company, I am no good in company. I am no good venting in front of "people who would understand." Because really, I'm that guy. I've always been. I remember my first girlfriend explaining that she broke up with me because I'm "angry with rocks." Yeah, a very insightful young lady saw to the heart of things. I'm bitter and angry. Like I want to, not yell, but spit, nigger, faggot, cunt. I want to burn down houses of the privileged middle class. Like everything in the north end. I want to send my neighbors to work camps to make techo-fetishists gadgets that I can by from the pawnshop after their families pawn them for taco bell coupons. I'm filled with an explicable amount of hate and rage. This is my caveat.

I was half in the bag when I got home tonight (shocking) when I decided to cook and listen to AM radio. Coast to Coast to be exact. They had some nonsense segment about the Ouija boards that got me thinking, free associating really, about mistakes that me make. And this leads me to this:
We excuse you men and women for entering the military when they are young and impressionable. Whatever excuses we use (poor families, lack of options, blah blah blah), we are comfortable using them for military service but not for other choices. Now, (another caveat) some of the people in my life who I care about most are ex-military. These people are the kindest, smartest people I've ever had the privilege to meet. Ok, so all of this being said, and here's where I went from Ouija boards, if someone is young and they make the mistake to join the military where they are obligated to kill poor, sometimes defenseless people a world away if ordered, then we forgive them. Because, you know, they did it for our country. Or they were cajoled, indoctrinated, or they didn't think they had any other options. Or whatever.

Now, if some dood is half (or entirely) wasted at a frat party and he fucks a passed out girl, do we forgive him? Or if he commits any of the other myriad versions of rape that occur, do we forgive him? What if he does it again? And again? what if he's an alcoholic and it only happens when he drinks? What if it happens enough that he gets the moniker "Date Rape..."? What if, what if, what if...

What if he feels like he doesn't have any options and he joins the service? What if he drops bombs on an Afghan village in pursuit of a terrorist? Google Afghan village, btw.

Moreover, so say we know someone who raped someone or who killed someone. What if he killed someone we know? What if he assaulted someone we know? It's so easy for us to quote Derrick Jensen, who is being fed peanut butter sandwiches from his mother while he pounds out jeremiads on keyboards manufactured by Korean children, while we go to rallies or tour the pre-industrial world on vacations that are exploications.

I'm so close to saying something that I can't take back. I'm that pissed. And not just at you. At me. Because when I go to sleep I don't see all of the shit I don't like about you. All of your selling out or buying in or hypocrisy or sophistry goes away. Because we're family and I love you. What doesn't go away is everything I've done or abide by; is everything that I've sanctioned by silence.

The best of us fail. And the best of us are guilty. What I wonder everyday is where that leaves us.