Wake Me Up When September Ends
#TC107
Welcome to Third Cultured – a foreign policy and LGBTQIA+ politics newsletter – published by yours truly, Kyle Borland. My goal is to highlight the unique role Queer people play in the politics of the United States and the world-at-large.
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This edition:
Opinion Essay
Quotes
Opinion Essay
Twenty years ago, I was still getting used to living in central Georgia. We had just moved there after four years at Ramstein Air Base, Germany because of my dad’s new orders to pick up and head to Robins Air Force Base.
I was living as strange dichotomy that only now do I recognize for the queerness that it was. At home, with the neighborhood kids, I was older than them and so we could focus on playing games and pretending to be super heroes. At school, stateside third graders knew what gay was already and they knew I was it when they looked at me.
To be fair, they clocked me, but it wasn’t exactly spotting Carmen San Diego.
At the time, I thought the difference was because there was a “Germany Kyle” and a “States Kyle.” Even in elementary school, I understood what was acceptable in my little bubble of western Germany would not fly in the United States. To many of my friends at the time’s credit, what I took as revulsion was probably just confusion. I can still see my fellow military kid friend Matt’s face, when he arrived for one particular sleepover, reacting to me dancing around my room to the Pokémon: 2.B.A. Master soundtrack.
Like a true fag, I was overly obsessed with “Misty’s Song,” where she sang about her unrequited love for Ash, and “Together Forever” because it’s kid crack. (Truthfully, I wore that whole album out.)
Unfortunately, that look was enough for me to know that what I was doing was not okay, or at least wasn’t a normal thing for boys to do, and from then on I didn’t dance anywhere but behind a locked door in my own bedroom. (One time I forced myself to go out by myself in Memphis and got drunk enough to dance alone in the middle of the dance floor until a guy came up to say he, “loved my confidence.” It’d be years later that I’d realized he was more than likely hitting on me and not making fun of me.)
I got through Georgia like I’d get through most things in my life, by telling myself it was all temporary. I’d only be there for so long, and then I’d get a fresh start somewhere else. One of the double-edged perks of a military upbringing. Originally, my parents thought my dad would retire at 20 years, which would’ve kept me in middle Georgia for 3rd–12th grade. That was the plan at the start of September 2001.
Then, 9/11.
More than anything else, I remember my parents sitting my sister and I down at our kitchen table. It was a small brown, circular table that fit perfectly in the Georgia house’s breakfast nook. They told us that they had decided together that now was not the right time to retire. My sister was devastated because it meant a guarantee her high school years would be broken up in two.
Whereas, I was thrilled. I would get to leave Georgia! I feel so silly, numb is probably more apt, when I look back at this now. To be excited about a move that would only occur because of a history-shaking event that would drain the United States and the entire world of so many people and even more human potential.
The war that started 20 years ago ended yesterday. What started with a bang, what caused so much devastation and turmoil, what moved my family all over the world and back again…ended with a whimper. Other than the tears I held back listening to President Biden tell America that 18 veterans commit suicide every day, the ending of this war held no sway over my day-to-day.
However, much like the country and world at large, I can’t shake the feeling that the reason I can’t imagine a future personally or professionally, that I find myself in such a gray stasis as I watch the world burn, flood, and succumb to plague after plague, is because of the hole that war ripped out of us all that’s only begun to bleed out.
Stay safe and get vaccinated, beautiful people. (It’s FDA approved!)
Thanks for reading.
Roll Tide,
Kyle (@kgborland)
PS – Here are some stories worth your time.
$6.4 Trillion = costs of US Forever Wars (People’s World)
In financial terms, the costs to the United States for the four wars are as follows: – Korea: $67 billion (equivalent to $685 billion in 2021 dollars)
Vietnam: $200 billion (or greater than $1 trillion in 2021 dollars)
Iraq: $1.922 trillion, according to the best estimate, which is by Neta Crawford, chair of the political science department at Boston University, in her Costs of War project.
Afghanistan: $2.261 trillion, according to the Watson Institute of International Public Affairs at Brown University. Their estimate for the overall post-9/11 “War on Terrorism” is $6.4 trillion.
A Conversation with Brandon Taylor (Adriot Journal)
A couple of ways to help Afghanistan (Win Without War)
Please consider donating directly or otherwise supporting established, vetted, and reputable organizations working in support of the Afghan people to deliver aid and help with evacuations.
AFGHANAID is a UK charity that works in conflict and disaster-affected provinces many other organizations don’t have a presence in.
The Afghan-American Artists & Writers Association is raising money to help people leave the country and find safety. The money raised will go toward preparing documentation for leaving, cost of food, cost of travel, and basic subsistence.
Doctors Without Borders has been on the ground across the globe in places of crisis and conflict, including Afghanistan, for decades. They provide desperately needed medical care and assistance, and their work will be crucial in the coming days and weeks.
International Refugee Assistance Project works to defend the legal and human rights of refugees and displaced people around the world and has multiple programs right now specifically for Afghan refugees.
Miles4Migrants is a non-profit organization that helps refugees, asylum-seekers, and their immediate family members who have legal approval to travel but cannot afford airfare.
Muslim Aid USA is working with partners on the ground to provide emergency food and non-food assistance to internally displaced individuals (IDPs) in Kabul and the Kunar Province, including tents, meals and hygiene kits.
Panah Charity Foundation is dedicated to helping the needy and less fortunate people of Afghanistan.
U.S. Committee for Refugees & Immigrants (USCRI) is helping refugees and immigrants achieve financial independence—building better lives for themselves and their families.
World Orphan Foundation is working to provide emergency food, water, and shelter (blankets and tents) to those in need.
A Strategy for Avoiding Two-Front War (National Interest)
Afghanistan: 3 Unlearned Lessons (Nonzero)
Afghanistan: The Defeat of U.S. Imperialism and the Road Ahead (Counterpunch)
Afghanistan Withdrawal: This is what Decolonization looks like (Pursuit)
All These Artworks Have Been Censored By Instagram (Hyperallergic)
Anti-LGBT ideology zones’ are being enacted in Polish towns (PBS Newshour)
The American empire is ready to end (Jerusalem Post)
Assassinations and invasions – how the US and France shaped Haiti's long history of political turmoil (The Conversation)
Bernie Sanders’s Third Campaign (The Nation)
Biden Won't Free The Last Two Afghans at Guantanamo Bay (Forever Wars)
Could Queer-Inclusive Sex Ed Halt Trans Homicides? Advocates Say Yes (Ms. Magazine)
Creating The Visual Canon Of America’s Longest War (Wars of Future Past)
Forget emoji, the real Unicode drama is over an endangered Indian script (Rest of World)
Going to War Over Taiwan and the 'Gas Tank of Will' (Eunomia)
Here’s What Bama Rush Is Really Like (The Cut)
How the PRC is processing the Taliban takeover (ChinaTalk)
Incels, incel ascension, incel chasers. (Default Wisdom)
Inside Social Media’s War on Sex Workers (Bitch Media)
JRR Tolkien Invented the Term “Eucatastrophe.” What Does It Mean? (LitHub)
Lawyer says brothers returned to Chechnya have been tortured (LA Blade)
LGBT family that fled Russia says advert brought more hope than hatred (Reuters)
Love Louisiana? Here are ways to help recover from Hurricane Ida (NOLA.com)
Nick Saban, 7 Titles in, on Offenses, Defenses and Changes in College Sport (NYTimes)
On TikTok, LGBTQ Creators Push Back Against Sponsors Who Just Want Their Identity (The Verge)
Queer Icon Josephine Baker to Be First Black Woman Buried in France’s Panthéon (them.)
Queer, sex worker rights advocates sound off on OnlyFans (Bay Area Reporter)
Queer SF districts to honor trans history (Bay Area Reporter)
Responding to a Crisis: Insights From OutRight’s COVID-19 Global LGBTIQ Emergency Fund 2021 (OutRight)
Romania’s LGBT community sees gains, ongoing rights struggle (Seattle Times)
The American Maginot Line (Foreign Exchanges)
The Gentrification of Blue America (NYTimes)
The hidden costs of American imperialism (The Week)
The Queer Past Gets Deleted on eBay (New Yorker)
The Taliban’s Struggle to Control Kabul (NewLines)
The US is using a Cold War rule to airlift Afghan evacuees (Quartz)
'They will kill us if they find us': LGBT Afghans fear Taliban regime (The Hill)
To Stop War, America Needs a Third Party (TK News)
Top 5 military contractors ate $2 trillion in Afghanistan War (Speaking Security)
(Source: Stephen Semler, Speaking Security) Two LGBT marches held in Poland under heavy police security (AP)
US VP Kamala Harris criticises Beijing intimidation in South China Sea (BBC)
What I Learned from Writing Outside’s Pride Newsletter (Outside)
What Israelis Really Think About Civil Marriage, Surrogacy and Dating Foreigners (Haaretz)
Quotes
“We are ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries … trying to create a democratic, cohesive and united Afghanistan — something that has never been done over centuries in Afghanistan history.
We spent $300 million a day for 20 year. What have we lost as a consequence in terms of opportunities?
So we were left with a simple decision: Either follow through on the commitment made by the last administration and leave Afghanistan, or say we weren’t leaving and commit another tens of thousands more troops going back to war.
That was the choice — the real choice — between leaving or escalating.
I was not going to extend this forever war, and I was not extending a forever exit.”
– President Joe Biden defends his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan and end the war.
