So, I just glanced at the latest issue of 'MacLean's' (May 21, 07) and at the top is a little block on 'The War on Google'. Which got me thinking, how many wars do we have? We have a War on Drugs, the War on Terror, the War on Obesity... On a Google search, "The war on" resulted in (approximately) 9.5 million results. Within the first ten are, 'The War on Terror', 'The War on Drugs', 'The War on Iraq', 'The War on Guns', 'The War on Spam', and 'The War on Christmas'.
How many 'wars' can we have? Why are we involved in all these 'wars'? Why are they even 'wars' in the first place? So I thought about it and this is what I've got.
Dictionary.com gave me this:
'War' | 1. | a conflict carried on by force of arms, as between nations or between parties within a nation; warfare, as by land, sea, or air. (It isn't this)
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| 2. | a state or period of armed hostility or active military operations: The two nations were at war with each other.(Hmm... Not this either) |
| 3. | a contest carried on by force of arms, as in a series of battles or campaigns: the War of 1812. (Not really this either) |
| 4. | active hostility or contention; conflict; contest: a war of words. (Nope) |
| 5. | aggressive business conflict, as through severe price cutting in the same industry or any other means of undermining competitors: a fare war among airlines; a trade war between nations. (Nah) |
| 6. | a struggle: a war for men's minds; a war against poverty.(OK, so they used it in the way I'm talking about.) |
| 7. | armed fighting, as a science, profession, activity, or art; methods or principles of waging armed conflict: War is the soldier's business. (Not at all) |
| 8. | Cards. (Same word, but not what I'm looking for.)
| a. | a game for two or more persons, played with a 52-card pack evenly divided between the players, in which each player turns up one card at a time with the higher card taking the lower, and in which, when both turned up cards match, each player lays one card face down and turns up another, the player with the higher card of the second turn taking all the cards laid down. |
| b. | an occasion in this game when both turned up cards match. |
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| 9. | Archaic. a battle. ('Archaic'? Christ... I thought it was still a definition of a war)
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So, number 6 more or less got it. It's a struggle. A struggle against what? Is it truely a struggle that we wish to perpetuate? Do we declare war on anything we don't like? I thought Google was the good guy? or was that yesterday? Are we allowed to declare war on anything? Have we declared a war on dandruff? (Actually, come to think of it, I swear I heard that in a commercial once). or Maybe a war on slow internet? I know! A war on shitty HBO movies that are three years old and advertised as new and kinda suck but we watch them anyways because it's four in the morning and we should be asleep anyways? We could call it 'TWOSHBOMTATYOAAANAKSBWWTABIFITMAWSBAA'. Maybe not.
The fact is, we haven't won a war since WWII. Think about it, we lost the war on hippies, , there was Korea, we had the war on yuppies, Vietnam (we all know how much of a victory ~that~ was)... Christ, recently, we've had all the wars I've listed above and a million more. We keep declaring wars, but we never finish them. We let them peter out, we let them fall from our minds as a new CD, a new movie, a new celebrity, or even just a new war comes up.
My point is, finish what you start! I say that in almost everything I end up doing, (especially when I was working in a Hong Kong kitchen and as a waiter), and its true. We start these wars to win votes, to gain support for our ideas and policies, and then we drop them to move onto the thought of the day. Here's a thought for your day, 'Think. Just think. Think about anything, as long as you're thinking. As long as you're not watching TV or sitting on Facebook or whatever you do, you're doing yourself a favor.'
I'm rambling again, so this is where I'll let off. On a side note, and as an introduction, my name's James. This might last the rest of my life, this might die now, it all depends on how I want to play it. Thanks for tuning in.
Peace out.
1 comment:
Great work.
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