I had gone with my dad, probably more than 20 years ago, to see the air show when visiting my grandma who lived a couple blocks from the lake. For the last decade I have always worked on weekends and the extent of the air show that I have experienced since has been a few random jets screaming by while down at UIC.
On Thursday, not realizing that the time was upon us again, I did a quick search to see if the world was going to hell (Korean nukes in the air, Gatorade device made it through, etc.), and quickly found out that the time was again upon us for the skies to fill with our city's own military demo.
So I went to check it out. Partially because it was free. Partially for nostalgia reasons. Partially to just see some crazed action in the sky.
And I was scared and horrified.
I should have expected that I would have that reaction. I know my feelings about this war and war in general, but I had been to one of these before. In my mind it was going to be more like the memories of a McCormick place auto show or a Cubs game (I guess instead of them saying, 'Buy this car,' it is more like...'Look at this refueling jet...Look at this F-16 that you ALREADY BOUGHT, taxpayer!') I could not help but feel terrified by the military jets in ways that I had never been before.
"They are like spaceships."
"It's like Star Wars."
That was a snippet of the conversation between April and myself yesterday as we sat in awe of the billion-dollar jet spiraling through the sky. And they were. As a kid, the jets were just another variety of airplane. They were what Maverick and Goose flew in. They were Iron Eagle. They were protectors. Video game tools for defeating the evil MIGs who wanted to get us...for what...well...that part of the movie is all and forgotten if it ever was brought up at all.
And they are stunning to watch from a purely technological point-of-view. Seeing anything move that fast with such delicate maneuvering and quick response is certainly something you don't see very often in America. To see the sound racing to catch up to the machine that is firing by and then erupting till the ground shakes is indescribable without seeing it firsthand. They fly like X-wing fighters and I couldn't help being overwhelmed by their power and grace, way back when and yesterday, too.
On Saturday, however, they were the very same machines that have made a mess of a country and left us with nothing to say to the world regarding foreign policy and responsible governing. The apache helicopters and F-16's, unlike during the time of my childhood experience, are currently being used on a daily basis to maintain a skewed order in chaos, to murder the 'enemy,' to put holes in people.
I tried to divorce the two lines of thinking, to remove the grace and beauty from the killing, and found it impossible. No way to polish that off or forget the machine's main objective.
If there was a market for publicly displayed ingenuity...like a circus made up of great feats of industrial expertise, I think I could appreciate it. If everyone gathered by the lake to see people jump two hundred feet due to some new boot creation, I could applaud. Or to watch pilots fly impossible maneuvers in celebration of just how advanced our air travel innovations have developed in 100 years, I could cheer and dream about all the good that waits to be invented.
Unfortunately, the only real areas we have advanced so far are militarily (even NASA has its political agendas). There is no money in making people happy...giving them something to dream about. Even the most benign advances in technology will be made malicious if it leads to more efficient methods of combat. And that is where the money is, so the moral choices become clouded in gray areas and green.
Scary shit. I wish I could have watched for those four hours through my eight-year-old eyes with my eight-year-old understanding, and my eight-year-old desire to go home and simulate what I saw with my micro machines.
On Thursday, not realizing that the time was upon us again, I did a quick search to see if the world was going to hell (Korean nukes in the air, Gatorade device made it through, etc.), and quickly found out that the time was again upon us for the skies to fill with our city's own military demo.
So I went to check it out. Partially because it was free. Partially for nostalgia reasons. Partially to just see some crazed action in the sky.
And I was scared and horrified.
I should have expected that I would have that reaction. I know my feelings about this war and war in general, but I had been to one of these before. In my mind it was going to be more like the memories of a McCormick place auto show or a Cubs game (I guess instead of them saying, 'Buy this car,' it is more like...'Look at this refueling jet...Look at this F-16 that you ALREADY BOUGHT, taxpayer!') I could not help but feel terrified by the military jets in ways that I had never been before.
"They are like spaceships."
"It's like Star Wars."
That was a snippet of the conversation between April and myself yesterday as we sat in awe of the billion-dollar jet spiraling through the sky. And they were. As a kid, the jets were just another variety of airplane. They were what Maverick and Goose flew in. They were Iron Eagle. They were protectors. Video game tools for defeating the evil MIGs who wanted to get us...for what...well...that part of the movie is all and forgotten if it ever was brought up at all.
And they are stunning to watch from a purely technological point-of-view. Seeing anything move that fast with such delicate maneuvering and quick response is certainly something you don't see very often in America. To see the sound racing to catch up to the machine that is firing by and then erupting till the ground shakes is indescribable without seeing it firsthand. They fly like X-wing fighters and I couldn't help being overwhelmed by their power and grace, way back when and yesterday, too.
On Saturday, however, they were the very same machines that have made a mess of a country and left us with nothing to say to the world regarding foreign policy and responsible governing. The apache helicopters and F-16's, unlike during the time of my childhood experience, are currently being used on a daily basis to maintain a skewed order in chaos, to murder the 'enemy,' to put holes in people.
I tried to divorce the two lines of thinking, to remove the grace and beauty from the killing, and found it impossible. No way to polish that off or forget the machine's main objective.
If there was a market for publicly displayed ingenuity...like a circus made up of great feats of industrial expertise, I think I could appreciate it. If everyone gathered by the lake to see people jump two hundred feet due to some new boot creation, I could applaud. Or to watch pilots fly impossible maneuvers in celebration of just how advanced our air travel innovations have developed in 100 years, I could cheer and dream about all the good that waits to be invented.
Unfortunately, the only real areas we have advanced so far are militarily (even NASA has its political agendas). There is no money in making people happy...giving them something to dream about. Even the most benign advances in technology will be made malicious if it leads to more efficient methods of combat. And that is where the money is, so the moral choices become clouded in gray areas and green.
Scary shit. I wish I could have watched for those four hours through my eight-year-old eyes with my eight-year-old understanding, and my eight-year-old desire to go home and simulate what I saw with my micro machines.
