Paris or Baghdad?

[Daveparts]

How is it, why is it, what is it that makes us worry so much over a spoiled heiress? I don’t dislike the woman, I don’t even know her and in a way I almost even feel sorry for her. She is trapped in her life’s reality just as you and I are trapped in ours. Sure she’s rich and lives in a huge house with all the accoutrement's of success but she knows she’s not successful.

She’ll never have real friends or know what it’s like to achieve on her own merits and conversely this shows by her inability to function in the real world. The crying jags and stomping her feet and holding her breath until she turns blue that got her released from jail which was in all probability her last chance to grow up.

But Hilton is an obvious target, easy prey but she is only a target it’s the system we are really angry at. A system that holds up lofty ideals of class free society yet reminds us on a daily basis that those of us not of the same zip code have a better chance of meeting Baghdad than Paris.

The thousands of boys and girls men and women who joined the military to serve their country and better themselves find instead a hell on earth that no shriek or cries can relieve. But because they are made of sterner stuff and were taught the meaning of no at an early age and the understanding of fidelity it’s so they fight on to support each other even if they don’t support the war.

Hilton’s release is just more manure thrown in our faces by the playboy’s and party girl’s whose only aspirations are in pleasing themselves. Drinking Cristal from etched crystal they will never know how good a glass of cold-water tastes after cutting the grass on a hot day. Or how much more fulfilling a talk with a good friend is over a talk with a high paid psychiatrist.

Her high visibility brought on by a media that seeks to sensationalize decadence and trivialize the sincere. To expound on the cost of her dresses and pet food and to ignore the price that the widowed and wounded must pay. To dangle her like a shiny bobble to distract us from those who truly suffer and suffer not because of the wrongs thieve done but the rights.

While we the working folk seethe, the politicians scratch their heads and ask, “What’s their problem?” or “I read about something like this once while in prep school.” They can’t get their hands around it and understand that a free pass for Paris is saying to every man and woman serving in the military or anyone ever arrested that you don’t count for as much as a rich spoiled baby.

Maybe she has become a symbol for the system of tax breaks for the rich and out sourcing for the poor. Of executive bonuses and golden parachutes verses job cuts and lowered expectations. But then who is our chief executive if not a role model for the Paris Hilton’s of the world why if it wasn’t for free passes and dropped charges they might even be drinking buddies.

It’s too easy to hate Paris Hilton, in the next ten years her looks will fade and her addictions increase and she will more than likely join the Anna Nichole Smith foundation of wasted lives and wasted film and wasted attention.

While the wounded of a senseless war will return looking to fill the missing pieces of their lives and will be told what Hilton should have been told in her cell, “Tough.” They will seethe with anger as well and take it out on those around them unable to reach those responsible.

The millionaires, the media and the political elites will fail to see the important correlation any more than Marie Antoinette could see the correlation between cake and hunger.

That the system is a lie; study and hard work don’t matter nearly as much as influence and money in the bank. And certainly it’s always been so but just this time we are getting our noses rubbed in it and maybe we should learn from the experience.

[ixion]

1. great piece, Dave

I was having a similar discussion with someone at work today that went right along these lines. :hi:

[fasttense]

2. Well said Daveparts. n/t

[Sukie1941]

3. We all need some relief from Baghdad

and to go to Paris for some R & R.

Your post is very thoughtful and I agree with most of it.

I don't like bringing up the troops because they all volunteered to be where they are, and more go in each day. In fact, just recently a married couple left for Iraq together, leaving their kids at home with friends. Where are their priorities?

And what are Paris Hilton's priorities? Maybe boot camp would be good for her without shipping her off to a war. Boot camp would be good for all of our kids. Just a year or so between 18 and 21 to teach them some basics about life they aren't getting from their parents.

I went fishing yesterday with neighbors. It was so nice to get away from all the negative stuff on TV and in the papers. But I am back in the same old rut today!