10:21 a.m.
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29 March, 2004
Today, I am thinking...
Rock stars should not sing love songs. Just stop faking and admit you're banging the groupies and doing the drugs and not caring about anyone or anything but yourself, then I'll buy your CDs.
Politicians with five ex-wives, children raised by nannies and public school institutions, and several scandalous affairs in their past should not be preaching about 'family values'. Neither should fifty-year-old spinsters who live with their elderly mothers and flinch at the sight of children.
Teenybopper popstars who wear their underwear on stage, should not go on about 'expressing their sexuality' and berate the hypocrisy that calls males studs and women sluts, and pretend that they invented this attitude, or that they were not undermining it just last year when it was fashionable to do so.
No-one should say the words 'gay lifestyle', because I immediately picture scenes from the Great Gatsby, and then I'm away day-dreaming when I should be verbally destroying bigots.
Charities should stop sending pointless leaflets and letters to people who already support them, and use the money on actually doing some good.
You see, I gave a big bunch of my Christmas money to the Royal British Legion. I have a huge amount of respect for those who risked and lost their lives during World War I and II, it's not their fault that the rest of the human race stayed stupid. I always watch the war memorial parades and stuff, get all teary-eyed when I hear the songs, blah-de-blah, blah.
Anyway, so I gave my money so that these elderly men and women would be taken care of, shown the respect they deserve and what-not. Then, TODAY, I get a letter asking for more money to give to women who have lost their husbands in Iraq. And suddenly, I'm starting to wonder whether I'm actually a cruel heartless bitch, because I was quite offended and unimpressed.
Firstly, I'm all for the 'we're not against the soldiers, we're against the war' way of thinking. I understand they can't choose their missions, they're not secret agents or anything. But, at the very least, if you marry a soldier in active service, you should have some expectation that maybe he's going to be in dangerous situations, that he's going to go away for long periods of time, surely? Why should I pay for some women who find that, without their husband, they can't afford to pay their bills, because they don't have a job of their own? Plus, I'm not really into the idea of the career soldier either.
So, the question is, was my automatic and instinctive disgust at receiving this letter a sign that I have no heart? I shudder at the thought that I've become one of these people whose principles actually interfere with their natural empathy for other human beings. I do think it's awful and horrible that people have died in Iraq, both British and Iraqi, but it's not as though the soldiers signed up to be gardeners and were then suddenly parachuted into a war zone.
Oh, just a related thing. I was standing outside the one and only island supermarket the other day, waiting for a taxi, when this bunch of pre-pubescent girls came shrieking along, as they do. One of them shouts, "The island is being taken over by Pakis!" Because they are inherently stupid and bigoted, like everyone else round here. They're cackling at their wit, when they see some poor guy with a turban, and start screaming, "It's Bin Laden!" The others join in with a cheery chorus of, "Iraqis!" And then they proceed to have this very deep, intelligent political debate about how Bin Laden is an Iraqi and that was why 'we' invaded Iraq. I was beginning to lose the will to live when my little 9 year old baby brother turned to me, and said, "But Bin Laden is from Saudi Arabia, isn't he? I thought the war was supposed to be all about Saddam?" And my faith in humanity was restored.
But anyway, this is why I think democracy is a bad idea.