The War in Iraq is Fucking Boring (A Hint for Baby Boomers)

[alcibiades_mystery]

Many people on this board work to shock the consciousness of other with details of the Iraq wear. This is an old-timers strategy: wrong in its conception and destined to failure. The problem of today is not complacence, but shock culture. The way to cure that is not wit more shock, but with boredom.

This is the great mistake of the baby boomers, who still think we're in Vietnam times, and so impress on our generation the need for mass protests, and more shock, and more shock, and more shock.

Here's a hint, baby boomers: shock doesn't work anymore. It's over. There is no more shock. It was a historical phenomenon that was, after all, fairly short lived. Shock could affect politics probably between 1870 and 1980. Now it's over.

What impresses us - we post baby boomers - is not shock, but boredom. Boredom is the order of the day. And boredom, believe it or not, baby boomers, is what will end this war.

The problem with Iraq in terms of American historical consciousness is not that the casualties or the endless bombings are shocking. Nobody is shocked by any of it. Indeed, you'd have to be a baby booomer or an imbecile (and the two generally amount to the same thing) to be shocked by any of this. That's why shock and awe was so effective a marketing tool: the shock was more the novelty of it all for an American audience. Shock is marketing. Boredom is poison to marketing. The Iraq war is failing because it's fucking boring.

That's right.

What's ending the war in Iraq is not ethics, not care, not compassion. It's boredom. The war is fucking boring. It's like the same Seinfeld sitcom comes on again, and again, and again. Car bomb goes off in Baghdad. Yeah, what else is new. Two troops killed in roadside bombing. Didn't I see this show yesterday? In the Vietnam era, something like a Tet offensive could affect the course of the war - a huge shock to collective consciousness of the nation. No such measures are needed today, and only baby boomers and imbeciles suggest that such a thing is possible. The Tet offensive of today is what you've been watching in slow accretion for the last damn near four years: car bomb explodes in Baghdad, killing 38. Two Americans killed in al Anbar. That's the Tet offensive of today.

It's not shocking. Quite the contrary. It's like an endless rerun. It's fucking boring. And that's what will get us out of the war.

[TayTay]

1. I will remember that the next time I see a wounded Iraq War Vet

Gee, the cause you lost that leg in is boring. I really, really, really want to turn the channel here. So, ahm, could you like, move it along and get out of my way. I am just too filed with 'I don't care' to actually want to stop long enough to see you.

And those funerals that are occuring ever more frequently these days? Damn, why don't they just do them all as drive-by viewing. It's boring to see that all families seem to just cry when someone dies. Haven't we seen that sitcom before, your kid or wife or father dies and they cry. It's so predictable. So very, very boring. Honestly, why don't we just all get a national clicker and pretend that we can change the channel, cuz this show sucks.

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. But that's exactly right

You can play all the sarcasm you want. You can pretend that the war is losing popularity because everyone is so shocked by the legless vets. But that's bullshit. The war is lost because it's fucking boring, and precisely because everyone wants to change the channel.

That is exactly the point, and exactly right. In fact, if there were a Tet offensive like operation, the war would double in popularity overnight. People would be intrigued and into it (what's gonna happen!!??).

So make it out like I'm an asshole for saying it. I don't really give a shit what you think, quite frankly. At the end of the day, you know I'm right. The war is lost in the American consciousness because it is a massive fucking bore. Whatever you say to the legless Vet is irrelevant on that point. That's the way things work.

[knowbody0]

2. thanks for setting me straight

I will pray to be bored by the carnage and destruction of a civilization thousands of years old..the empty boots at our cemetary, the kids at Walter Reed.

thank you thank you thank you

[Mojorabbit]

3. This cynicism and apathy in your post

is the reason why we have lost so many of our rights and have been in this war so long. People who can get up a head of steam are working to set things right. These people who ARE shocked by what has been happening instead of sitting there bored, are doing the heavy lifting.

[alcibiades_mystery]

9. Bullshit

There is neither cynicism nor apathy in my post. People who think things operate by shock are pitifully ahistorical and dead wrong about climate. That's not a cynical statement. It would only be read as a cynical statement by the ahistorical shockmongers, who still think it's 1967. It's not. Shock was a weapon appropriate for a particular historical time. It was then co-opted, and brought fully within the domesticated sphere of ritualized politics. If you deal in shock, you're a loser, or a co-opted optimist. Which is more pathetic, I'll leave to others to decide. It's pathetic either way, in any case.

But this is also why the shockmongers have no leverage, and no currency. You IMAGINE yourself to be doing the heavy lifting. You're not. The only people who are doing the heavy lifting are the Iraqi insurgents, who have mastered precisely the frequency of mind-numbing repetition to bore the American public into submission. That is their genius. The Vietnamese had their own particular genius, which attacked the American consciosuness of THAT TIME at its own weak point: the need for measurable goals. they eliminated the measurable goal, and thus won the war. That was their move. Today, the way you attack the American consciousness is not with shock, and not with eliminating measurable goals, but with repetition. If there's one thing American culture - the American mind of TODAY - cannot tolerate, it's repetition. Yawn indeed.

[mnhtnbb]

4. Yawn. Your post is putting me to sleep.

[Aussie leftie]

I was going to respond by asking you how you think the Iraqis feel

but I wouldnt like to bore you

[alcibiades_mystery]

14. Oh stop it

That's neither here nor there, and you know it.

The Iraqis are living in unending horror. That's obvious enough. But the conditions of the Iraqis is irrelevant to the American political climate. People haven't turned against the war because they feel bad about the Iraqis. If you think that's the case, then you're a fool, and probably a hermit.

[oldlady]

6. why do you hate

your generation?

[alcibiades_mystery]

12. I don't

Where would you get that idea?

:shrug:

[oldlady]

31. hmmm...

Seemed to me that you were laying out a whole generation as simplistic marketing-driven non-thinking drones -- so I interpreted your tone as that of a hater. My bad fam.

[alcibiades_mystery]

37. You only thought that because you cannot think outside your own generation

There's nothing wrong with my generation. Hell, boredom may be a more productive response to conditions than all the shock ever produced by the baby boomers, who turned out to be a bunch of marketing drive drones in any case, for all their righteous indignation. Your bad, indeed.

[Olney Blue]

7. And maybe it will end because people know it is wrong.

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. You don't talk to people much, do you?

:rofl:

[Olney Blue]

18. Don't really need to.....

[alcibiades_mystery]

20. There were ten times that number in March 2003

And again in January 2004, etc., etc., etc.

That's not what turned people against the war, chief.

It is a bit sad, however, that you think it is...

[redwitch]

8. May I ask your age?

Don't mean to be rude.

[alcibiades_mystery]

10. 33

n/t

[Arkansas Granny]

13. You are quite within your rights to be bored by this war, but

I, as an old boomer, will continue to be shocked. The only way we can make a difference is to make some noise. I don't see that anything will be accomplished by boredom.

[alcibiades_mystery]

16. Everything IS being accomplished by boredom

That's the point.

People are not turning against this war because you're out protesting. What a big, idealistic, childish ego you must have!

People are turning against the war because it is fucking boring. Because it violates the basic make-up of American consciousness.

[Arkansas Granny]

38. Many people have been against this war from the very start and

many of those who initially supported the war are turing against it because they are realizing how they were lied to about the reasons Bush took us to war. The boomers have seen this before and are heartsick to see it again. Perhaps your "boredom" is just an excuse to not trouble your beautiful mind with the sordid details of death, disabilities and shattered minds due to this boring war.

[alcibiades_mystery]

40. Um, excuse me

Perhaps your "boredom" is just an excuse to not trouble your beautiful mind with the sordid details of death, disabilities and shattered minds due to this boring war.

What the fuck are you even talking about? I was against the war from the beginning, and my filthy and ugly mind keeps up with day-to-day events in Iraq as much as anyone on this thread. So I really have no idea what you're talking about. Bortedom doesn't mean inattention. When you're waiting in an endless line at the Department of Motor Vehicles, you're damn attentive to its progress, precisely BECAUSE you're bored stiff. Get it?

[evlbstrd]

15. "you'd have to be a baby booomer or an imbecile

(and the two generally amount to the same thing)"

Go Cheney yourself.

[alcibiades_mystery]

17. ROFL

I knew there'd be at least one!

:rofl:

[evlbstrd]

28. Glad I could help.

[otherlander]

32. Agreed.

Tarring an entire generation is the kind of shit I'd expect to see on FreeRepublic.

[alcibiades_mystery]

39. Backhanded accusations of trolling

is something I'd expect to see on...oh, never mind. I'll leave you to your stupidities.

[Postman]

19. You're bored because you're not affected. Perhaps nobody you know has been damaged by this war..

Perhaps if you had your legs blown off you wouldn't be bored into inaction.

It is the people outraged at the lies that started this war that are the ones in the streets, writing letters, making phone calls, organizing, campaigning to end this disaster.

Maybe you should get off of your lazy ass and do something toward that end to end the bloodshed.

The Iraq War isn't unpopular because people are "bored" with it, as you say. It's unpopular because they realize now (the ones with a brain) they were lied to, the plan was doomed to fail and the ineptitude and incompetence of this administration is there for all to see.

[alcibiades_mystery]

21. I disagree

People are bored.

The lies and all the other stuff is of course true, and that does affect people, to be sure. But affect comes before all that stuff. People knew that they were lying pretty early. They only turned on the war when it turned into a bad rerun.

Whether I am affected is irrelevant. I'm making an analysis of the national mood. My own take is beside the point, although you're free to continue using it as pathetic ad hominem at your leisure.

[Postman]

22. Did you take a poll?

I'm not bored. People I know and talk to aren't "bored" by the war.

I didn't realize you had such a kean sense of the "national mood"... Quick, call Gallop...

Did you talk to any service personnel? Do you think they are bored by the war?

[alcibiades_mystery]

30. I think you probably are bored

In any case, the boredom I'm talking about wouldn't be verified in any Gallup poll, first because no one would cop to being bored, and second because I'm talking about an affect, which is pre-personal, or unconscious. Yes, that's hard to swallow as evidence, I'll admit. But I'll offer this in lieu of an empirical poll: if you asked twenty people to describe the last three major bombing in Iraq, how many would know the details - even broad stroke details - of that? If you described 3 roadside bomb attacks that killed US troops, one each from 2005, 2006, and 2007 - how many people would be able to identify the year of their occurrence? When people are SHOCKED by something, they remember it - clearly. Nobody is shocked by anything coming out of Iraq. It has the structure of an interminable rerun, and if you pause for a moment and stop making this about me (it has nothing to do with me) because you're so indignant and upset, then you'll know that I'm right. What's intolerable about Iraq is not the carnage, but the endless, repetitive carnage. What is turning people against the war is the indeterminate repetitive structure of it - a repetitive structure intolerable to a culture premised on constant NEWNESS. That's what I mean by boredom. It's not a mood, but an affect.

[redwitch]

23. You don't sound bored. You sound angry.

Are you angry? I'm not really sure of the reason for your original post, are you just angry that the American people aren't as angry as you? I don't even know how to talk to you about the war. I am a baby boomer, BTW.

[Zachstar]

29. Im Bored

Can we get out of Iraq and get an IEF reactor working please?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606

I'd like the boredom to end when Big Oil isnt in such a position to push around politics. I'd rather pay 3 dollars for my electric and play Wii when I am not at work/school

Have to admit people but the fact is that this war is boring. When you have a war based on a lie that WONT liberate people but plunge them into civil war.. ya things are boring now and nothing to look forward to.

Yo Bush! How about doing something exciting like say... Fixing the situation in Dafur? I think it's exciting when you can actually do something that HELPS people.

[Kiouni]

I read a quote recently

by Martin Luther King Jr. that was reprinted in Jimmy Carters Palestine book that went something like the greatest setback to racial equality would be if white people became bored with it.

I don't have the exact quote I tried googling it but it was something to that effect. And I think your right, although I don't agree with your wording, that if we lost interest in it, the war would end for us. But that doesn't mean it would go away we just wouldn't know about it.

We forgot about tibet and what's happening there now? we forgot about Russia after the cold war and now what do we here about their crippling poverty? nothing to us it doesn't exist. Just because we don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

[alcibiades_mystery]

34. Boredom has nothing to do with forgetting, or inattention

That's the major flaw in a lot of these responses. If I'm on an endless line at the Department of Motor Vehicles, I might be bored, but that doesn't mean that I forget that I'm on line, nor does it mean that I am inattentive to my condition. Quite the contrary. Boredom is oppressive. I will do anything I can to make it STOP. Think back to that line at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Now a new line opens up, and the attendant yells "Line open here now!" Don't I run to get at the front of that? That's not a forgetful or inattentive boredom. It's an oppressive boredom.

[Kiouni]

24. I read a quote recently

by Martin Luther King Jr. that was reprinted in Jimmy Carters Palestine book that went something like the greatest setback to racial equality would be if white people became bored with it.

I don't have the exact quote I tried googling it but it was something to that effect. And I think your right, although I don't agree with your wording, that if we lost interest in it, the war would end for us. But that doesn't mean it would go away we just wouldn't know about it.

We forgot about tibet and what's happening there now? we forgot about Russia after the cold war and now what do we here about their crippling poverty? nothing to us it doesn't exist. Just because we don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

[stillcool]

25. all wars are boring..

unless you're a participant. The first Gulf War, was in my mind more of a commercial interruption in regularly scheduled programming than anything else. It's easy to be callous, and sinister when you have no dog in the race. What happens to many people as they go through life, is that they experience some of their own horrors, and can therefore relate to the more egregious experiences our country is showering on others. Perhaps we see what could very well be us, and that is not boring at all.

[walldude]

26. We're losing the war because it's boring...

And you are impressed by boredom. I wish I was lucky enough to be as apathetic, as desensitized, and as bored as you. Frankly I'm not. What I see and hear on a daily basis regularly drives me to the point of insanity. I am furious, angry, pent up, pissed off, and pissed on. I'm confused, scared, freaked out, paranoid and shocked that a post like this resides on DU. You can keep your "hints" you aren't impressing me with your "boredom".

[alcibiades_mystery]

35. Who the fuck said I was apathetic

After that severe misreading, I'm not sure it's worth responding to the rest of your ad hominem nonsenses.

[muntrv]

27. I thought the war is failing because it is based on a bunch of lies. But then

again, those lies are boooorrrinnng. :crazy: :crazy:

[alcibiades_mystery]

41. Everyone knew they were lies in 2004

The war remained at 60% popularity. And I'm the one with my head up my ass? Please.

[Mind_your_head]

33. Sadly, I have to agree with your assessment.......

....and perhaps your conclusion that "that's what will get us out of the war" might be exactly correct.

I'm the first to 'recommend'....you've definitely provided 'something to think about' in light of a general acknowledgement of an infotainment culture that enwraps us ALL. Thank you.

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[alcibiades_mystery]

42. I suppose if you can't muster an actual argument

You'll revert to that sort of nonsense. My best to you.

[Ediacara]

43. Locking

This is flame bait