HOW BEAUTIFUL IS DEATH!
Aug 19, 2006
As I sit at my computer, the fighter jets are roaring low overhead, tearing open the sky several times a minute. No, this is not Iraq or Palestine or Lebanon, though the aircraft are the same. It is Burlington, Vermont, the People’s Republic, home of the university of Vermont, “Groovy U-V“, the only “city” in the state.
This weekend we are suffering through the Vermont National Guard Air Show, with its world-famous Pentagon guests, some crack flight team, the Blue Angels or the Air Force Thunderbirds or something. Angels they are not. Nor are they sacred servants of the great spirit. Still, 40,000 Vermonters are expected to come out, cheer religiously, and bring the kids.
Very few of us support mass murder, yet I had an interesting conversation recently with an intelligent woman, highly critical of the war, who was all excited about this air show.
“I know I shouldn’t really love it,” she said, “but it’s so exciting. Those planes are so beautiful, the pilots’ skill is so impressive. It triggers off some visceral reaction...”
“Would you be excited to see someone beheaded, or perhaps burned at the stake?” I asked. “No!” she averred, “But nobody gets killed at the air show.”
What was amazing to me was the screeching to a halt of thought. No, short of a crash, these planes will not kill anyone today. But they are the meanest and most vicious of killing machines, designed to bring fiery death to any persons or structures in their cross-hairs. They are “smart”, these machines, and their pilots are smart, well-trained, and their bombs are “smart”, and we never intentionally kill innocent civilians. Yet somehow, there is always “collateral damage”. We’ve just seen their handiwork on the entire country of Lebanon. “No one gets killed at the air show.” Only everywhere else these machines perform.
Yesterday, when they buzzed ear-shatteringly over Burlington, praciticing, I wanted to call someone up to complain. Could the police have investigated a noise complaint? The mayor’s office? The governor’s? No. We are simply supposed to admire — or tolerate it in the name of...of what?
Back in February, Ed Shamy wrote a column in the Burlington Free Press
entitled “Cause It’s Cool, Let Airshow Roar” : “C’mon guys,“ he wrote. “all you ‘waterfront zealots, anti-war movers and shakers, environmental sorts. Can’t you just get off your high horses for a day, stop being so stuffy, and, like, just have some fun watching the boys play with their toys? ‘Cause it’s cool, man. Don’t get your undies in a knot. Hey, even the Make-A-Wish Foundation loves it. [The foundation will receive a charitable donation from the proceeds.] Are you against dying kids? Meanies.“ Shamey advises the peace-freaks to just “close their eyes and imagine that the jets torching along at 500 mph are on a peace mission promoting sustainable global tranquility.”
But these jets, and the other Air Show events, are not promoting global tranquility. They are polluting the air, and the soundscape, and burning up many taxpayer dollars — almost 200,000 of them. But worst of all, they are promoting military macho, and by implication approving the world-wide death and suffering it creates. They are promoting killing kids who have no Make-A-Wish foundation, and whose only wish is that the wars around them would end. And not least, they are enticing our own children to graduate from violent video games to doing the real thing when they grow up.
I know — I’m a priggish elitist meany with twisted undies for thinking such thoughts. Why can’t I just be cool?