Can You Use 'Empire' and 'Women'in a Single Sentence? (Neither Can I)
[This is from SwamiUptown, whose blog is on Beliefnet.com]
Woke up this morning to see that The New York Post had, once again, made me proud to be an American--on the front page was a helmeted, dirty-faced soldier, butt dangling from his lips, under the headline SMOKIN' and over the caption MARLBORO MEN KICK BUTT IN FALLUJAH.
There, right there, is our big problem.
Not the guy himself--he's a soldier on the front lines, thus exempt from everything but our prayers for his safe return.
The big problem is with the men who sent him to Iraq and the men who praise them for sending him. And on the other side, men who hold power because they have their boots firmly on the throat of their women.
Testosterone. It's deadlier than the A-bomb. More insidious than pollution. Meaner than Dick Cheney.
I've been musing about a new direction for this blog, and I've decided maybe it's time to turn the conversation to a topic more important than whether Blue Staters need to kiss Red State ass.
That topic, it seems to me, is men. Specifically, American men. Look at every issue that allegedly determined this election. Iraq. Abortion. Sexuality. Even "leadership" (as exemplified by the Action Hero in the flight suit). Track them back, and when you get to The Source, you're looking into the face of some obnoxious jerk who gets off on having power over anyone more finally calibrated than he is--starting with women.
In the workplace, it's the brilliant nerd who can do algorithms in his sleep who rises to the top--the day of the hunter-gatherer in the Ford-tough truck is over. Long over. The proof's all around: downsizing, outsourcing, automation. The movie cliche--the classic American hero--is mired in the quicksand of history, and sinking fast.
But he doesn't go down easily, does he? Howls like a kid with a skinned knee. Flails in all directions, knocking down everyone who might be offering him a life-saving hand. And, all the while, refuses to ask directions.
Oh, what can you do with a beast like that? For starters, avoid him--and, man, I do. Whenever possible, I work with women. Are they really superior? I like to think so. (They may not be--for all we know, they're just as violent and aggressive as men have been--but why don't we find some way for them to wield all the power until we have some evidence? Consider it a nation-wide science project.)
Am I the only one who sees our national landscape as some sort of addled junior high school, with cool guys and jocks thrusting out their chins for the benefit of beauty queens they'll dump, two decades later, for fresher flesh? Do you also suspect that adult life is mostly a struggle for better wheels and the window table at the malt shop? And do you also consider the State Championship as just the warm-up for business and politics and war?
Or am I just blinded by that butch hero on the newspaper cover? Is it just that he's so much more of a man than I can ever be?
Oh. I do see one bright spot on the male-female front. Viagra. Cialis. And some other cute-sounding pill. The popularity of these drugs suggests that millions of men recognize that something is turning their swords into plowshares--and they've taken steps to deal with it. Good. A guy who's staring at a four-hour erection is more likely to use that than he is to pick up a club, or a gun, or even a phone.
"Make love, not war." It worked once. Might again.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/145/story_14546_1.html