I'm a geek, but I'm not overly concerned about that fact. My current subject of entertainment is the game Warcraft II, which I bought for a cheap price, because, hey, it's a classic. After the mightiness that was Myth II, however, it's not quite as impressive as it no doubt was when it first came out. The AI is fairly stupid so far, and tends to hold back its forces until it's too late, at which point you can easily crush it. However, there is much entertainment potential in the mix of land, sea and air that makes up for the fact that you can't stand up on ridges throwing bombs down at the enemy. Warcraft II is a game of the second type of Real Time Strategy games, the type where you build and train forces, which allows you a fair degree of customization based on your particular strengths as a player and the needs of the scenario, unlike the first type of RTS games, where you're just plunked down with assorted units and sent a-killin'. Besides, it was cheap, so it's fun-per-unit-dollar makes it worth it.
In the "things to make you envious" department, the company has increased its commitment to supply us programmers with boundless caffeine. Not only do we have the never-ending coffee pot, but we now have a machine that dishes out free soda. Pepsi! Coke! Mountain Dew! Dr. Pepper! Free! A-hahahaha! Now, if we can stop our hands shaking from caffeine addiction long enough to press the buttons...
And now, let's stop to consider that our lives could be much worse. After all, we could be the poster boy for political action, Elian. Yes, everyone's favorite Cuban exile is still being batted around like a ping-pong ball by political morons.
Exile communities tend to be rather surly, and, also, often fairly economically powerful, being as they have a common enemy to stick together against. And what does money get you? Why, political power, of course. Why else do you think we're still embargoing Cuba, besides the fact that being the world's only super-power means never having to admit you were wrong? Answer: where do you think all that damn money comes from? Politicial budgets don't grow on trees, you know.
So, having contributed scads of money, directly or indirectly, to people like Dan "I got yer subpeona right here!" Burton and that Floridian judge who mooned the INS, the Cuban exile community has free rein to abuse their new toy to their hearts' content. The Democrats certainly aren't going to do much. After all, it's fund-raising season.
So, now, instead of just cutting their losses and sending the boy back to Cuba to live with his father, who is by all reports the very model of a stable parent, with a steady job, a middle-class lifestyle, and other family members close by, they're instead going to parade this kid around like a prize animal, posing for photo opportunities, trucking him about to court appearances, and no doubt, if Burton gets his way, having him appear before the Senate, all for no other purpose than to try to keep him from going home to his own father.
This is a kid who watched his mother die, this is a kid who got bobbled around on an inflatable ring thingie for days, and who is now being bribed with ice cream and attention to denounce his only surviving parent and "choose" to stay here, eternal symbol of the Cuban exile community's determination to spare no expense in opposing Castro.
"Victory for Elian!" cries the boy's appointed guardian, upon leaving the court-house with another delay in hand. No. Victory for you.
Have we no decency left? At the end, have we no decency left at all?
Elian probably doesn't really get what's going on (although kids are brighter than most people seem to think), but even now, this can't be good for him. So what happens when he grows up enough to figure out how he was used, publicly used as a tool for the most base and despicable of all political purposes? You think this is going to foster a healthy environment for the kid?
No-one with an ounce of sense can hold that opinion. Let's face it, there are a lot worse places to live than Cuba, as long as you aren't too politically surly, which is something I doubt a kid is going to be. By the time Elian was old enough to contemplate politics, Castro would be dead, and with Castro's passing, this embargo will finally be too ludicrous to maintain. But no, we can't wait. We have to have our victory now.
And so we're cheerfully nuking the village to save it. Never mind that Elian will probably grow up to be neurotic. No matter that we're keeping him from his natural father. No matter that this shameless influence peddling, this execrable buying of political influence, is nothing better than the public rape of the American political system, with all of us able to do nothing more than stand around and comment because both parties are on the dole. No matter that the people doing the fighting "for" Elian are blind to the fact that Cuba isn't a hellhole by any means, or, even worse, they simply don't care.
Have you ever heard the saying "Choose your enemies carefully, for you will eventually become them"? What is being done here is no better than the accusations of suppressing free elections, free press, other political opinions, that are attributed to Castro. Oh, no. He takes away freedom because he knows better. Gosh, we would never do anything like that. Oh, heck no.
It's said that you can judge a man best by looking at his enemies. Well, Castro's looking a whole lot better after this.
It's time like this that I wish I did believe in Hell. At least, the metaphysical one. Elian's road to Hell is certainly being paved with the presumably good intentions of the raving Cuban exile community. But if there is a nice, metaphysical Hell, I know who'll be there. It gives me a warm feeling just thinking about it.
In this nation, we've always glossed over things, choosing a little carnage to support the greater good, or at least what we considered was such. Just ask the Royalists, the Native Americans, or those poor blighters who happened to be in Sherman's way on the march to the sea. But here... we don't even have a pretense of justification. Even the politicians involves pretty much admit they're being blatantly obstructionist just because. There's no pretense of rightness, we aren't even PRETENDING to be the good guys any more. It's just "We're right, darn it. Look at what we say, not what we do."
At the end, we have no decency left. At all. You, me, the voting public, in the end we will simply grin and bear it, and allow these people to apply the red-hot poker enema of their focussed will as they see fit, because we have not the strength of conviction to band together and do anything about it, and because WE don't have sodding great lobbyist groups. They will abuse this kid as they see fit because WE LET THEM. Because we've let this country go so far from its democratic roots that we really CAN do nothing to stop it.
But, most likely, we won't even have a chance to try, because, really, where would we start?
Ah, well. I suppose sacrificing the occasional kid is what is necessary to appease the patron spirits of our enlightened and technological society. After all, it's ever so difficult to maintain focus on such little things as a life or two when there's so much gratification at our finger-- oo! They've got "Batman: Mask of the Phantasm" on DVD! Er, later, y'all. I've got to go consume.
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