Ride to Remember

One thing about Livingston County that sometimes mitigates the magical joys of the natural environment here is the rampant knee-jerk conservatism of most of the people who live in the area.

I was impressed to see the effort of close to 200 motorcyclists honoring the soldiers from this county who have died in Iraq in the Livingston County Ride to Remember on the local TV broadcast, and had a moment of wishing I'd been present for that. But the spin always turns the public attention back to war support and patriotism instead of merely a celebration of the lives of the men and women who served -- or a somber reflection on the losses of their families.

I can see on some level why this happens; if you come to the conclusion that this war is unjust then you have to accept that they effectively died in vain (at best), or in the service of an administration promoting an imperialist and highly counterproductive agenda abroad (at worst), and it makes the loss of these young people all the more tragic and difficult to accept.

But it makes it hard to stomach going to such an event, even though my heart goes out to those families, because I don't accept that such a display is really "about patriotism". I would love to go there and show my support for the families without that gesture shifting into a vote of confidence for the mess that this administration has made in Iraq, Afghanistan, and therefore the world over (because of the anti-American public opinion emerging as a result of our foreign policy).

I guess that I'm always going to be a bit of a black sheep here in this "red" county -- which I suppose is okay. I never actually thought it would be a permanent home.