There’s a war on

Perhaps that phrase should replace the other self-satisfied and congratulatory phrases we put on coins, bills and other tokens of power and authority. How often will you hear anyone say “In God We Trust” or “e Pluribus Unum” or “Novus Ordo Saeculorum” in the course of a conversation?

There’s a war on. That we say with pride. It conjures up the let’s get down to business, “let’s roll up our sleeves and sacrifice messages” I grew up with in endless WW II movies. For many, that spirit marked either the best of times or something we just missed out on and, with nostalgia in our hearts, have tried to recreate all our lives. Presidents have tried to invoke that spirit to make it serve other enterprises: the war on poverty, the war on crime, the war on drugs, but although such struggles persist, the panache of Rosie the Riveter and the image of families giving away the pots and pans for scrap and planting Victory Gardens just never attached itself to such campaigns. Although Presidents like John Kennedy did manage to inspire national pride and ambition sufficiently to allow us to spend the money to go to the moon, it was only the Cold War that made it possible.

America needs a war. A continent full of stingy, selfish, ignorant, fearful, angry, greedy and not too intelligent individuals needs a war to unite us to the point where some other purpose can share attention with the ball games, the video games and the latest Japanese trucks.

What President has been so successful in tailoring a war to further his greedy and nefarious ambitions as George W. Bush? But it has been us, the American people, who as anxious to throw away our freedom as a handful of Muslims were to throw away their lives, who have made it possible. There’s a war on. Let them search us, record us, squander our fortune and our future – let us be martyrs too! There’s a war on and even if our T-shirts have no sleeves to roll, we can show our team spirit by being the bitches and hunting the witches for the greater glory of Bush.