Aaron Brown is so fine. And I think that he treated himself to some new glasses. I am not positive, because they are strikingly similar to the last terrifically flattering pair, but since I watch him fairly obsessively, I knew there was something different, that I could not really put my finger on, until my husband said, “SOMEONE’S GOT A NEW PAIR OF GLASSES!!!” and then I realized that was what is was.
He’s just interviewing the President of Egypt, in his softly reassuring and respectfully dignified Aaron Brown way, and he is making the horror of the situation somewhat more bearable, which is a godsend. We are in troubled times, when George W. Bush has to force some Grecian Formula into his white overnight hair and give a ridiculously unconscionable and hypocritical press conference, stressing that the US has an ‘obligation’ to fight for freedom, to fight AIDS – “in Africa” – a quickly added aside, as if it were not a problem here – where he has gone out of his way to block AIDS education in schools, severely crippled an already degenerating healthcare system , then tries to make it possible for gays to be fired from their jobs as well as attempting to write bias and even more homophobia into the Constitution by introducing the Federal Marriage Act, as if heterosexuals were under siege, as if the GLBT community were taking hostages. “Shut the fuck up and put on this dress. Walk down the aisle you breeder! That’s right. With another MAN!!!!!” As if drag queens were pistol whipping brides and stealing their bouquets along with their innocent and straight husbands.
I like the President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak. That is a hot name. He’s trying to explain why the USA is so incredibly unpopular in his country. He is calm, yet passionate in his plea for the US to leave Iraq alone. Enough damage has been done. There is a reason why only 6% of his country supports our occupation of this faraway land. Innumerable families, men, women, children, grandparents, brothers, sisters, casual acquaintances, close friends have to live with the chaos and destruction just beyond their borders caused by our ridiculous self proclaimed “obligation” to freedom.
How do we dare to fulfill these “obligatory” tasks if we cannot even achieve freedom within our own cities and states? What about our hostages? What about Damien Echols and Leonard Peltier? Are they not being held hostage by our own faulty courts? Why is their impossibly unfair and tragic imprisonment by our own bigoted and at times completely lawless judicial system any better than the demonized Shi’ite extremists with their machine guns and ski masks holding innocent Americans and other foreigners by their hair, asking for no specific demands and threatening death by dusk? Do we get away with this injustice because we are more organized in our terrorism? Are we allowed a clear conscience because we show our faces and claim “obligation” to freedom, when really it is just an “obligation” to a mysterious and vast power structure, impenetrable – or at best, incredibly slow to act -so that even when justice is served, it takes so long that the point is lost in the years of struggle to win back freedom, that we were so “obligated” to uphold?
Are we not guilty of holding our own armed forces hostage in Iraq, lying to them about what is going on, telling them they can come home then taking it back, making them fight a war that nobody there, nor here really understands, letting them die in the name of “obligation” to us, when we have not “obliged” them the right to the truth?
I feel now we no longer have the “obligation” to freedom. We are not free, so have we the power to set anyone else free? What I sense “obligatory” now is merely apologia. Don’t “oblige,” apologize. Unfortunately, this doesn’t raise the dead. This is cold comfort for all the families who have suffered worldwide because of these imagined “obligations.”
All that is left now is to take refuge in the soothing presence of Aaron Brown, which at times, for me, is almost enough. He is super fine in his new glasses.