I went to see Fahrenheit 9/11 tonight with a friend. And I kind of think that this whole situation -- not just Iraq, but also our administration as well -- is turning into this generation's Vietnam. The quagmire of doubt and dissension we're slowly sinking into is starting to, bit by bit, eat away at the country and cause the same kind of internal and emotional strife that was going on in the '70s. However, as my friend who saw the movie with me commented, there's no real unifying point, no rallies of hundreds of thousands of people descending on Washington, no one leader to lead the masses. I responded that that kind of protest almost seems to have become commonplace, what with everyone getting Million Man Marches and Million Mom Marches and whatnot together. It just doesn't have the impact it had anymore. One of the topics the film dealt with is fear, and I think that fear is running rampant through this country right now. Hell, I'll fully admit that there are moments when I'm gripped by it -- I remember seeing a Reuters story a few weeks ago that quoted experts saying that we should expect a terrorist radiological attack on a U.S. city soon, and that terrified the crap out of me. But we've become a nation driven by fear, where every day we're warned about the hidden dangers of society. If it's not terrorists and looking out for people who might be suspicious, it's whatever the local news can come up with to shock us for the night to make us watch -- how your babies can drink your household cleansers, how plastic bags can kill, how escalators can maim. I sometimes wonder how people living in places like Israel manage living in that kind of situation on a daily basis, where their lives truly are threatened. They're not going to die because some escalator sucked them in, they're going to die because of a truck or car bomb or a suicide bomber. My moviegoing friend was in Jerusalem three years ago and literally missed being killed by five minutes -- he was late to a café where he was meeting a friend, and five minutes before he got there, a suicide bomber blew up the café. Had he been on time, he would've died. Three years later, after living in Jerusalem for several months and being on edge, he still suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, where even the explosions in the film tonight made him tense up even though they were only on the screen... but then again, he's told me that ever since he came back from Israel, he hasn't been able to watch the news. I think that I've made it pretty clear that I don't support our president or his reasons for going to Iraq. But I do support our people overseas, and I hate to sound so wishy-washy, but I really do wish for world peace. I've never understood why people are so willing to fight and kill and die for something. And that old saying of "if we all took an eye for an eye, we'd all be blind" really is true. What we all need to do is just stop. Hate and anger just breeds more hate and anger, and violence begets violence. If you're so hell-bent on going out and blowing up some people -- these people who are someone's son or daughter or sister or husband or parent -- why not think about how you'd feel if someone killed one of your loved ones?