Mike Malloy's montage of pre-war lies just now

[The Witch]

I just sent the following to Mike.... thought you all might appreciate it.

Mike,

I had to write after that montage and let you know
what a punch in the gut it was. I graduated from
college in 2002 and that October, I went to Japan to
live for a year. I had a wonderful year in Japan
completely oblivious of what was going on except for
the most cursory of coverage. I never heard those news
conferences. I never heard those facts repeated over
and over again. I just left for Japan knowing we were
going to war in Afghanistan, and I came back from
Japan in October of 2003 and we were going to war in
Iraq. I said to my parents at the time, "What changed?
Just the country? Isn't it the same thing we were
saying about bin Laden? Did we just wake up one
morning and switch countries?" I had no idea of the
slow, steady buildup of lies and misinformation and
veiled threats, except for what I heard second- or
third-hand.

But listening to that montage, I finally feel like I
have heard what I missed. And it is gut-wrenching,
terrifying to me to hear all this and imagine what it
must have been like to live in this country during
that time and have half a brain in your head and know
what they were doing but be unable to stop it. In a
way, I feel like I was blessed to have missed it
all... but it also makes me wonder if one more voice
would have made a difference.

Anyway, thank you for playing it, painful as it was to
listen to. I appreciate it.

Jen in D.C.

[Downtown Hound]

1. Those were insane years

I went to countless anti-war marches, got shot at with wooden bullets, got arrested, had the charges dropped, and generally just looked for ways to take out my anger and frustrations on. Things are better now. But that's another way of saying that they suck less.