Two songs

I'm having a particularly F transition from 2008 into 2009. Who knows; maybe I'm moving into personality development territory, or maybe I'm just particularly thrown off-balance.

Two videos have made me think about two extremely different topics, and I'll post the fun and empowering one first:

The Dresden Dolls had an issue come up with their latest video: the execs said that Amanda Palmer's belly was too fat in the video for Leeds United.

To which she, and every other rational human being in the world, replied, "What the fuck is wrong with you people?" As if they don't work hard enough to try and make everyone with a curve on their body below the chest feel as if they are worthless, they take a person who, in every instance shown, does not show the slightest bit of pudge, and then tell her that, because she does not look positively anorectic (because, seriously, I can't see a shot in the video where she looks "fat"), the video will not perform well. They asked to edit it, and she told them, essentially, to sit on it, gaining the love and respect of feminists everywhere.

What I love is that this has spawned a rebellyon. I love the pictures; I love especially the "imperfect" pictures, because I am deeply flawed, and, while my complaints about my body do extend more to function, at the same time, they are rooted in body image issues that are ingrained in every female from birth up, in every image we see plastered everywhere, in every self-deprecating remark made by every female who has a BMI higher than 10.

I LOVE seeing this massive "fuck you" movement. I love seeing women rebel against this, because it makes me suddenly feel, perhaps foolishly, as if I do have that little bit more value because I'm not an aberration - I'm normal. But, what's more, is that, even if I weren't normal, it still wouldn't matter. It makes me feel beautiful, and it makes me want to dropkick every asshole everywhere who reduced me to a body, whether positively or negatively. I like feeling angry about that, instead of depressed; it's anger that can fuel change for me, far more than despair, or self-hatred. True change doesn't come from self-loathing; it has to come from a place of self-love, and it's easier to love yourself entirely if the people around you who look like you love themselves, too.

And I want my daughter to be able to look at me and see something positive in that way.

On the other hand is a song I have not heard in eight years - Gulf War Song by Moxy Fruvous.

A friend of mine who has turned out to be a very passionate pacifist introduced me to this song, and I had forgotten about it completely until I went to look for music I hadn't heard in a while and thought of the band. I pulled up this video because the title was familiar and it was like being hit in the stomach by a ton of bricks, almost literally, and I was in tears nearly from the first chord because of the feelings it evoked.

The title of the song alone should make it pretty clear that this song is...laden. It wasn't nearly as heavy for me as a sixteen-year-old who wasn't particularly political, who had never considered the military, before 9/11. However, as a Marine ( a) once a Marine, always a Marine, and b) still in the Inactive Ready Reserve until 2010) with very, very conflicted views on war, among other things, this is very painful for me to listen to, which is, of course, why I have it on loop, having downloaded it because I have to hear it - it's a purging of sorts, I guess.

I am still not sure how I feel about my service in the military (however innocuous it ended up being), how I feel about war, or how I feel about violence in general. I think I am actually more prone than most people to have visceral violent urges about all kinds of things - chalk it up to inferior Fe, or what have you, but I have had to seriously learn since adulthood to take a pause, find something that either will not break or is easily replaceable, make sure that my kids are not going to see me use violence to resolve something, and then give a controlled release of temper, because, if I do not physically express anger (when it's that strong), I build up to being almost out of control. I seldom feel this way about human beings, but, at the same time, it's the reason that I largely eschew corporal punishment - I know myself better than that, and would rather have a child who defies me more frequently than is healthy than a child who is abused just because I cannot control myself.

However, despite my need for a physical outlet for anger, I was absolutely horrified whenever the initial response to 9/11 of most of the people with whom I had contact was, to gank from a popular slogan, "Kill them all and let God sort them out."

If you're reading this and you agree with that particular statement, here's a suggestion: go read something else, because you're not capable of the slightest amount of nuance, or thought, or rationality.

Then I enlisted. I enlisted for a lot of reasons, and no, contrary to common belief about every single person who enlisted around that time period, the attacks had absolutely nothing to do with it. Looking back, while, at some point, I murkily supported (or, rather, didn't really think about) the war in Iraq (and I have mixed feelings still on Afghanistan), I never felt that there was a concentrated terrorist threat that we could fight with a military force. I never believed in the 'War on Terror.' I just...didn't think about it. It was relatively easy; I had just been through boot camp, which is a pretty intense brainwashing scenario (and go ahead and try to deny it, everyone - it's a necessary brainwashing that I am not so much decrying as pointing out), I had a very busy life at the time, between training, getting married, and having my first child (my support of the war extended until mid-2004, when it kind of fell away like a husk), and so it was a culture shock of sorts whenever I actually started paying the fuck attention and seeing how grossly wrong our behaviour overseas was.

I've never considered myself quite a pacifist. I don't really know that I have a position on it; it's similar to how I used to feel about abortion - possibly a necessary evil, but still necessary. However, while killing in response to killing seems logical, at the same time, it's become more and more irreconcilable in my head as a course of action, to the point where I am truly conflicted about it. I think to myself that there's no way to respond to someone attacking you other than to attack them back.

Then I see things like this that put outright the results of that kind of thinking. And I can't. I just can't.

I have long been torn between feeling guilty about participating in an organization whose primary purpose is to eliminate enemies and feeling guilty for not deploying. Now, you cannot say that is not our primary goal. We are trained to kill people. Period. You can justify it, say that the Corps is used for humanitarian purposes, say that it is used to kill people who are bad, say that I just played the clarinet anyway and I never even saw the desert and so I shouldn't feel blame.

Bullshit. Support positions are still positions. I still participated, whether that makes you think less or more of me.

And then there's this part of me that feels like I was never a real Marine in the first place (and I know people who would argue that already, especially after reading this). I never deployed. I never did anything remotely heroic. I played the clarinet. And I don't feel like I rate the same respect that someone who has put their life on the line does - I really don't. I don't like being thanked for my service because I don't feel as if I did anything that warrants gratitude. Everyone else went, but I had medical problems. So I don't count.

And I know that's an absurd dichotomy, but it's long been present and will probably always be there.

So, that song comes up, and I don't know how to respond, because that's how I feel, too, and that does not sync with any of my experiences as an adult. I don't know how to reconcile that part of myself with beliefs that I only tenuously hold.

And I don't know that this will ever happen.