Diversion Tactics

Everyone loves an action flick. You know, the ones where the good guy (typically a fairly well off, good looking, charming white guy) is faced with terrible, evil bad guys (typically of differing ethnic or cultural background). There are lots of explosions, gunfights and impressive stunts. Stunning special effects. In the end, “truth, honesty and honour will win the day”, and the hot, white, gunslinger gets the girl. The End.
These movies are a great distraction from the stress and bothers of real day life. It’s a lot of fun, going to see the latest Bond movie. Americans love these movies so much they elected the king of them, Arnold Schwarzenegger, as a state governor.
Here’s the problem: that’s exactly what the Iraq war is; a distraction from the real problems of our world. And a fun one at that. Certainly George Dubbya is loving it. It got him elected again after all. But seriously, the threat of terrorism is not a big problem. The administration couldn’t even come up with a creative name for this threat, so they stole Hitler’s. “The Axis of Evil”? Come on…I’ve heard better in comic books. When you look at the numbers of people killed yearly, terrorism is hardly a drop in the bucket. McDonalds is killing more people world wide than Osama Bin Laden’s organization. North Korea has claimed less lives than motorcycles. More people are killed each year by falling off of ladders than by all the terrorist attacks combined. To quote Canadian columnist Gwinn Dyre: “So where are the air strikes on the Harley Davidson plants? Why hasn’t Ronald been blown to bits by a cruise missile? Where is our War On Falling-Off-Ladderism?” What are we being distracted from?
We’re being distracted from that one degree warmer, on average, it is now than it was in the 90’s. We’re being distracted from the crazy weather in Europe, which forced the Canadian Junior ski team to come home early. We’re being distracted from the 3 metres of snow in upstate New York. The people at the top, those controlling the war and “leading the free world” do not want us to fully understand the gravity of our situation. If you were Dick Chaney, would you want the demand for oil to suddenly start to drop? Does it seem like smart business practice to show people that all your talk about “intensity targets” is really just a smoke screen to keep the green peace activists at bay? Of course not. Dick can’t afford his new bullet proof Escalade if Halliburton’s stock shares drop. Neither Bush nor Harper have the stones or the will to deal with the upset corporate campaign donators who would come knocking if real goals for lowering carbon emissions were put in place. So instead, we are given this grand spectacle to occupy us. “Sorry, this terrorist business is far to pressing for us to deal with the state of our planet right now.” When it’s all over, when the good guys have won, and the hero has the girl, then they’ll look at the environment thing. The catch is, if current policies are allowed to stand, it’s never going to be over. The "good guys" can’t win a war against an idea, and most of us can’t seem to get the girl anyway, even with out all the guns and hero bullshit. Every time the evening news chooses to show us death, bombs and killing in a tiny part of the world, we lose one more chance to start to fix the real problems on our planet.
The next time you hear someone arguing about the war, stop and ask them why they aren’t debating global warming. Drag them out of the theatre and back to the real world.