Informed Speculation

Eve Ensler, feminist/lesbian hero and author of the Vagina Monologues, has just participated as a juror in the World Tribunal on Iraq held in Istanbul, Turkey. You’re forgiven if the preceding sentence seems to have no meaning. Let’s reword it, and maybe it will make more sense: a playwright best known for writing a play about the female anatomy has taken it upon herself to participate in some sort of show trial in Instanbul condemning the Iraq War. Nope, didn’t work – it’s still nonsensical.

Where could such an earnest do-gooder find an outlet for her prattling? Why, at Huff’n'Puff’s site, naturally, and sure enough, there we find a post that defies parody by the aforementioned expert in global legality. Keep in mind that this is not an April Fool’s joke as we examine Ms. Ensler’s handiwork:

Dear America: I am longing to reach you — crossing this river of indifference and consumption and denial. I am trying to find you, reaching out through the desperate limitations of words and descriptions, swimming through the rhetoric of terror and God.

Apparently, denial ain’t just a river of consumption (ouch!). Right away, we see this is going to be gold-plated crap. Wow, what an opening…

I need you to wake up. The house is on fire and you are still sleeping, lulled by the intoxication of smoke and mirrors. I need you to wake up and I know that shaking you, scaring you will only make you cling to your sleep and sleep more.

How then do I tell you what’s going on? How do I tell you about the one hundred thousand dead Iraqi people that you and I are responsible for murdering. [sic] Each one of them valued their life, longed for their morning, cherished their first cup of milk or coffee or tea. In what way shall I deliver what I learned?…

Let’s see, what way shall you deliver it? How about blowing it out your…ahem. Once again, the discredited Lancet study rears its ugly head. The U.N. itself, hardly an organization known for its support of the war, puts the Iraqi civilian casualty figure at a fourth of that. Before you start putting the deaths of Iraqi civilians on me, though, Eve, whether they be 24,000 or 100,000, tell me how many died at the hands of the Butcher of Baghdad? How many would have died had no action been taken to remove him? You got an estimate on that?

How do I tell you about the strategic planning of such atrocities in the boardrooms, the backrooms, the back seats of limos, the organized take over and looting of Iraq right out from under the terrorized, hungry, thirsty Iraqi people. [sic] How do I get you to listen to the stories of our soldiers who are trying to kill themselves now, longing to escape the madness of murdering and maiming for no reason. [sic]

Unbelievable. I’m speechless…remember that Iraqi government spokesman that everyone had so much fun with, the one that assured us the Iraqis were driving back our forces even as we swept into Baghdad? He also broke the news that our soldiers were killing themselves in droves. He had about as much credibility as Ensler.

Please don’t go back to sleep. I know how hard it is to hear of the massive black holes, [sic] called prisons we have dug to hold thousands without charging them, without trials or the torture, the meanness, the cruelty we are inflicting upon them.

America, those who now control our country have changed and ended law. I do not believe you are so calloused or selfish that you do not care. Your sleep is induced. You are distracted and derailed. The corporations have concocted and perfected these sleeping potions for years, developing ingredients to make you despise every bit of yourself, to feel ugly and fat and stupid and poor and not enough. And so you spend your time and every bit of the money you do not have buying products that will make you better, skinnier, lighter, whiter, tighter. And as you consume and consume, the corporations consume you. They take your money and your time and your voice and your instincts and your outrage and your sorrow and your anger and your grief. They consume your courage and leave fear in its place. They devour your conscience and your memory and your compassion.

Well, that’s quite the Marxist rant (are you sure you make a living writing, for God’s sake?), but tell me, Eve, what’s your net worth? How much did your corporate-owned publisher pay you for your little screeds? Are you trying to consume me, Eve? ARE YOU???!!!

And how do I speak when they are sure to tie my tongue? When they will say I do not love my country or support the troops or honor the dead or believe in their God? How do I break through your sealed wrapping, your self-obsession, your TVheadphonedDVDcell pod?

America I am getting desperate and I know this will not get me published or heard. Those who control the information will say I’m extreme, that I’ve gone mad. But I have heard the cries of children in the exploding houses of Falluja. I have seen the agonized faces of the sleepless Iraqi women who still clutch the outline of their charred dead babies in their arms. I have watched as we as a nation grow more isolated, despised and alone.

America, there is not much time left. The fire is spreading, consuming the world. We are the arsonists. We will need each other to find our way out through the lies and haze. It will take our greatest imagination, courage and skill to subdue these flames.

I don’t really think I have to say any more…congratulations, Ms. Ensler, you can put your Weekly Jackass award on the mantle right next to that Obie…

UPDATE 07/11/05 11:10 a.m. central: Thanks to the esteemed Dr. Shackleford for the link, delivered in a most amusing fashion…

UPDATE 07/12/05 8:16 a.m. central: Thanks also go out to the great Arthur Chrenkoff…