Watching the War on Television

It is Sunday afternoon. My husband is in the other room watching the Giants-49ers game. I’m here in the kitchen watching the best competitor to football--the war game. I and the rest of the world are actually watching the war on television. It’s insanity! Gen. H. Norman Schwartzkopf (commander of allied forces) is interviewed by CNN. He looks and sounds like a football coach. Macho men are pitting their asinine virilities against one another.

As I watch this obscene war game I can feel myself becoming desensitized to what is going on. There are people under those fireworks displays! Maybe civilians are not being targeted but with all those constant bombs being lobbed, isn’t it inevitable that some innocents get murdered? And aren’t soldiers human beings--both theirs and ours? Can we really be doing this and is it really possible that this is OK with the American people? Are we so desperate for excitement that we must kill one another on television? I wish this was just a terrible dream. I thought the human race had evolved further than this. I thought we finally knew that virtuous principles will out, that we must seek out the darkness in ourselves and that violence will produce only more violence. God save the human race. It is in dire jeopardy.

VICTORIA E. KERRIGAN

Pacific Palisades