Is there anything so utterly repellent as popular culture adopting camouflage as a clothes pattern during a time of “war”?

It strikes me as a blatant symbol of how out of touch popular culture can be with the geopolitical developments of more substance.  It gives me the shivers in a terrible sort of way.

What makes the Iraq conflict so odd is how, with the exception of military personnel, most people have not had to sacrifice anything, ration themselves, or otherwise change their life as a result.  And now wearing camo has become fashionable, while other people wearing camo are being shot at.  What a mad, mad world!

My feeling is that if a conflict is not worth sacrificing for, then it’s not worth waging.  Although the war has gradually become more and more unpopular, I am left wondering how unpopular it could be (and how much less free reign the current administration would have) if people were actually having to sacrifice something to allow the indiscriminant use of our armed forces to continue.  But hey, war is just something on TV, right?  Put rock music against explosions, and you have a summer blockbuster.

Put another way, Bushonomics has somehow created the notion that you don’t have to pay for what you buy.  The Iraq war is being financed while we give tax breaks and slide further into national debt.

Today an analyst estimated that the bailout for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may cost $25 billion.  How many $80 billion packages have we approved for Iraq?  I lost count a long time ago.

Camo is cool, man.