{"id":65280,"date":"2011-09-25T21:38:24","date_gmt":"2011-09-26T01:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/65280\/war-zombies\/"},"modified":"2011-09-25T21:38:24","modified_gmt":"2011-09-26T01:38:24","slug":"war-zombies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/65280\/war-zombies\/","title":{"rendered":"War Zombies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"My favorite computer\u00a0 game is \u201cCivilization,\u201d a world-building simulation game that starts you off as a wandering band of nomads and ends with you being the first civilization to build a starship. During the course of the millennia, you end up fighting a lot of wars against opposing nations.\u00a0 The game has within it the concept of war weariness, i.e., the longer you continue a war, the more and more unhappy your people are made by it. Eventually you have to increase your \u201cluxuries\u201d, build lots of coliseums & theatres or impose a more authoritarian form of government.<\/font><\/p>\n

We are in the midst of a ten year war in Afghanistan.\u00a0 Sure, there is a \u201ctimeline\u201d for leaving, but still, every week, scores of Americans, Canadians, Brits and half a dozen other nations\u2019 soldiers die in a war that already has a schedule for ending\u2026\u00a0 WTF?<\/font><\/p>\n

Where is our war weariness?\u00a0 Are we so numbed by the theatres and coliseums?\u00a0 Are we being bribed by luxuries?\u00a0 I find it interesting to examine politics through the lens of my obsession with the Civilization game.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, it feels like we\u2019re a bunch of zombies.\u00a0 Brain-dead denizens of the night, enjoying our brain cocktails, watching our big screen TV\u2019s and playing ukulele.<\/p>\n

\"\"Speaking of ukulele, I had the day off today and I felt it was finally time to record a song with my new instrument.\u00a0 Sorry, SPK, this one isn\u2019t the one I promised you yet.\u00a0 Instead, it is an anti-war song.\u00a0 \u201cZombie\u201d by The Cranberries (1994).\u00a0 I learned that the song is about \u201cThe Troubles\u201d in Northern Ireland, but it\u2019s applicable to any human conflict.<\/p>\n

Maybe we aren\u2019t exhibiting the war weariness we might otherwise because we aren\u2019t really exposed to the horrors of this war.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t alive during Vietnam, but my understanding was that the social movement against that was in part because it was being broadcast into America\u2019s living room every night.\u00a0 We see no such thing with Afghanistan though.<\/p>\n

SO\u2026 Be forewarned, this video contains graphic images of the reality of war.\u00a0 What started off as a little ditty on the uke turned into something I feel is worthy of being the first thing I play on the new instrument.\u00a0 This took me all day; I christened the uke with anger, tears and grief.<\/p>\n

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Now, some might say, “but Joko!\u00a0 Even the Republicans are starting to come around to being against the war Afghanistan!”<\/font><\/p>\n

True, but they’re doing so for fiscal reasons, not humanitarian ones.\u00a0 They care more about dollars than human lives. <\/font><\/p>\n

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My favorite computer\u00a0 game is \u201cCivilization,\u201d a world-building simulation game that starts you off as a wandering band of nomads and ends with you being the first civilization to build a starship. During the course of the millennia, you end up fighting a lot of wars against opposing nations.\u00a0 The game has within it the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,1428,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-politics-2","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65280\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}