Middle of the Road

There's nothing in the middle of the road
but yellow stripes and dead armadillos
--Jim Hightower

In the middle of the road,
You see the darndest things.
Like fat cats driving around in jeeps through the city,
Wearing big diamond rings and silk suits.
Past corrugated tin shacks holed up with kids
--Middle of the Road, The Pretenders

"Oh, Balls!" cried the Queen.
"If I had 'em, I'd be King"

...and the King laughed.
Not because he wanted to,
but because he had two
--The Night of the King's Castration

Glory days, well they'll pass you by
Glory days in the wink of a young girl's eye
Glory days, glory days
--Glory Days, Bruce Springsteen
___________________

There is a 65-year-old dude at the coffee shop who is very vocal in stating that he was a Vietnam War draft resister and an anti-war protester. God bless him.

But I wonder why such a morally committed man was these things back then, but does nothing in the present to oppose two foreign interventions every bit as senseless as VN, and probably moreso. Why then and not now? Is he resting on his laurels, and his conviction has gotten lost when it pertains to the lives of other young men?

Forget the coffee shop hero and let's look at a real hero who once had the force of conviction in his voice, Senator John Kerry. His testimony in the 1971 Winter Soldier hearings was both eloquent and moving. He said:

In our [returning Vietnam Veterans'] opinion, and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam, nothing which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those misfits supposedly abuse, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart.

Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn’t have to admit something the entire world already knows, so that we can’t say that we have made a mistake. Someone has to die so that President Nixon won’t be, and these are his words, ‘the first President to lose a war.’

The film of these hearings, which took place in a small conference room in Detroit, was broadcast twice in our city over the past few years. I (Lisa) attended both viewings: at one, I was the only attendee; at the other, the amphitheatre was mostly empty save for out-of-town veterans advocates trying to make connections.

Terribly moving presentation, the words as applicable today as then, but who cares, really? Even though the showings were free -- practically nobody attended. Kerry's protest was a political kiss of death, and he is left languishing to appease a base lacking all conviction.

The Republicans are our attack dogs -- tough for America, and yet it was Nixon, a Republican, who brought the U.S. out of the Vietnam quagmire. Whatever works, they are the expeditious party. The Democrats haven't a clue.

The anti-war stance today is as popular as Gulf of Mexico seafood. Kerry wasn't popular for his stance then, and he's not now. Pity. Since he won't be king, it would be nice if he could lead the way out. I guess it's hard when working under gutless Nancy Pelosi as queen.

No one of any political or military substance has jeopardized his position by opposing the wars, a startling fact that should be countered with a simple word:

WHY?