After The Pomp What Will Be the Circumstances?

On election night there were tears in my eyes when it was announced Barack Obama had been elected as the first black President of the United States. I’m 60 and the memories of Jim Crow, dogs and water hoses are still there for me, even though I’m a white male.

Today I watch as Obama is about to be sworn in on the grounds of the Capitol which was built by slaves considered non-human and not worthy of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I look at the podium and still see the predominance of white faces, hear the jets of militarism fly overhead and see former Presidents who have led this nation on the path of imperialism over the past three decades.

I’d like to say I finally have great hopes of the “change” promised us by Obama and all the others during an excruciating campaign for the Presidency. I don’t. I look at the announced cabinet members of the “new” President and see the "same old" faces of our past three or four decades responsible for a culture of death Americans have endorsed for too long. The friends of Zionism have prevailed in these choices. The friends of aggression and imperialism have prevailed. The friends of injustice have prevailed. There are few friends of the impoverished, the downtrodden and all those mentioned on the Statute of Liberty.

The speech is about to be given and it will no doubt be stirring and inspirational. There is no doubt Obama is the most gifted orator since John Kennedy. His deliverance of words is compared to Martin Luther King. These are fair comparisons but words spoken aren’t necessarily actions taken.

John Kennedy was the President that inspired me to join the Marine Corps, asking not what my country could do for me but asking what I could do for my country. The truth is Kennedy was an imperialistic leader that took a militaristic path rather than a one of justice and fairness. I was a young fool when I joined the Marine Corps to fight an imperialistic war in Southeast Asia. The inspiration I took from Kennedy was based on deceit and aggression. I failed to seek the truth. Instead I accepted the propaganda of a government intent on world dominance.

Yesterday I marched with thousands from the City Park of Denver to the Civic Center in honor of Martin Luther King. The 3.1 mile march was one with hopeful and proud faces. Young and old seemed to have even greater enthusiasm than the previous marches I’ve taken part in. The election and inauguration of Barack Obama was clearly on their minds and expressed in shirts bearing Obama’s likeness, buttons with his name and chants of, "Obama".

"Black Pride" is rightfully and finally acknowledged by a nation with a long and inglorious history of racism. As Obama is about to be sworn in as the next President at this very moment, our hopes for him are overwhelmingly high and unrealistic. No one man can possibly live up to such expectations of hope.

Even sadder, now that his speech is completed, I heard the same saber rattling of previous Presidents. I heard the intention to continue the same path of materialism and militarism. I heard more attention paid the economy of the country than the moral soul of the nation. Have we become such a shallow nation we fail to recognize the humanity that suffers throughout the world is our primary problem? Sadly, the answer remains the same as it has always been. We’ve always been a nation that only reacts when poverty is facing us not when it remains the permanent condition of far too many humans on this planet.

I don’t deny the symbolism of the first non-white President in the American republic’s history. It is, indeed, a step forward in the history of a nation that has pretended to cherish equality and justice. Anyone my age knows it is just a pretense. Any who listened and observed carefully during the campaign know the seeds of hatred are still very much alive in this nation toward any candidate who is non-white or female with the ambition to lead our country.

I don’t hate my country but I’ve come to understand there’s a difference between the government of this nation and the people. Most Americans are like most people in the world. They want peace, security and to provide for their families. They want justice. They want the equality stated in the Bill of Rights and throughout the Constitution. This is a generous nation of people but a people that has failed to understand the misery of those outside the American lifestyle, however.

Recently Abu Jamal Mumia made a statement about the possible election of a black man to the American Presidency. He reminded us that the masters of the plantation are still in control despite the pigmentation of the man elected. He reminded us the state of our nation remains in crisis caused by the leaders of the government and one man in the figure head role of President will not be able to do the necessary work to bring the needed changes.

We’ve seen in the recent assault of Gaza by Zionist forces of the Israeli government a reminder to the world that the government of the US remains firmly entrenched in supporting the oppression of the Palestinian people. Our government continues to endorse concentration camps full of Palestinians because we continue to be cowed by AIPAC and other Zionist groups.

We will soon see the build up of forces in Afghanistan that will drain even more blood and vast potential of our young from our nation. Afghanistan will be the quagmire for Obama that Iraq was for George W. Bush. The continued military occupation of nations in the Middle East will continue to be the greatest recruitment tool for those fanatical groups bent on continued terrorism toward the American people. The failure of the American people to understand “why they hate us”, keeps the hatred fueled without any possible end in our future.

We continue to allow a child to die every 15-30 seconds as a result of poverty while we consume more than any nation on the planet. We continue to spend vast amounts of money for destruction instead of construction. We continue to ignore our complicity in allowing tyrants to oppress by our financial and military support. We allow a school at Ft. Benning, GA to train the forces of tyrants in the Americas and many other oppressed nations of our world. We continue to ignore the threat of nuclear destruction despite the ever growing risk of it happening. We fail to acknowledge the physically and mentally challenged here in our nation. We fail to acknowledge the impoverished, the hungry and homeless here in our own country. Ten billion dollars a month has gone to a war every month since 2003 while the programs for the weakest and most at risk citizens have been cut to the bare bone and face even greater cuts.

I want to hope President Obama will bring the changes he promised but his decisions so far make me pessimistic there will be any substantial changes at all. I had a discussion yesterday about the need of the activist community to remain focused and assertive in demanding the needed changes. It seems ever since the election of Obama there’s been a blindness about the choices he’s made. We seem to accept the historical event of his presidency without questioning the morality of his intentions.

Obama's speech today is a dark cloud of misguided priorities aimed at our financial well being while dismissing the tough moral choices that are needed. I heard the words of a man who has brought great hope to a nation but seems intent on carrying out the same policies of the well heeled and self proclaimed aristocrats that have caused this nation great harm.

I look at the faces of hope in the huge crowds of people that came to see the history of Obama sworn into office and fear they will be terribly disappointed when their lives fail to improve. The disappointment of the idealistic young and old will further weaken a nation of people who have allowed their government to be taken from them. The American republic could well be in the final stages of existence if the people fail to recognize and reject the deception of the special interests of an oligarchic government.

Sadly, President Obama failed to inspire me and gives me little hope. With George W. Bush I had lowered expectations but should the hope Obama gives so many prove a failure it will be much crueler than Bush and Cheney being in power. I pray and hope I’m wrong.

Failure to Compromise Dooms Us

Over the past fifty years I've sadly observed the continuous hate between Palestinians and the nation of Israel. Palestinians have lived in concentration camps ever since the beginning of the modern nation of Israel. Zionist politicians have maintained control of the Israeli government all this time.

The reaction and response cycle of death continues unabated. Innocent people continue to starve and die lacking the basic needs of survival while only a short distance away the oppressors live in relative luxury. Children continue to perish for lack of potable water. Teens continue to be indoctrinated in the hate of their ancestors without questioning the rationale. Adults continue acting like anything but adults.

An eye for an eye mentality makes it impossible to be neutral or objective because should one attempt to look logically at the newest holocausts being perpetrated you are judged to be against one or the other side. Zionists will condemn you as a friend of Islamic terrorists and Palestinians and supporters of a free Palestine will condemn you as a Zionist should you refuse to choose a side.

I've read and heard and watched all the arguments and rationales that could possibly be made for the continued killing and maiming but fail to agree with either side in their choice of solutions.

It is perfectly clear the Palestinian people had their ancestral land stolen from them in the rush to create the state of Israel. It is clear the planning for the "homeland" of Israel started well before the Holocaust of WWII and the intentions were clearly to rid the homeland of the indigenous peoples who might object.

It is clear the tactic of mass punishment and retaliation was used, continues to be used and has no likely future of ending if Zionists continue to rule the government of Israel. Political influence and American desire to maintain control of the Middle East has fueled the violence and hate.

Americans rubber stamps the actions of oppressors using the lame excuse Israel has the right to defend itself. Looking any further to determine Israel isn't defending itself; it is perpetrating the very conditions so many Jews fled from during the Nazi reign of terror- is beyond the cognition of most Americans.

Time after time Israeli jets, artillery and soldiers invade, destroy and kill with the endorsement of the American government that has provided the bombs, shells and weaponry for the killing to happen. The Israeli government will tell the world they are a humane and scrupulous force that drops leaflets over their intended targets that warn any innocents to flee from their homes if they want to live. Otherwise they will be considered terrorists and the enemy.

Where will the Palestinian people flee? How does a family with nothing but a hovel for a home flee to a "safe" place? Who will take them in and provide them the basic needs they're already missing? Will Israel allow them to cross into Israel? How would the people of Tel Aviv or Chicago react to such a leaflet being dropped on their cities?

How can any sane person question the reasons the Palestinian people rebel against the oppression of the Zionists? The bully would like us to believe it is they who are the victim. The rebellious oppressed people fight back with rocks, homemade rockets and weapons provided by arms dealers of other nations and the bully says if only they submit to being oppressed all this killing could stop.

The more fanatical fringes of the rebellious oppressed people have decided to play by the same rules of the oppressor. Suicide bombers are actually homicide bombers when they kill a busload of school children. The use of innocent civilians as shields in the ongoing violence is a tactic long used in guerilla warfare but it is just as evil and wrong as the use of white phosphorous and cluster bombs.

Gino Strada, a noted surgeon and founder of the NGO, EMERGENCY, tells his audiences and the readers of his book, Green Parrots, 90 percent of the casualties of war since WWII are innocent civilians. Of that group 40 percent are children not in their teens.

Dr. Strada has refused to align himself with either side of conflicts in setting up surgical units to treat casualties of war in the areas of conflict. His organizations stays constantly busy and in need of more funding as more and more wars are perpetrated.

Gino Strada hates war. He hates the senseless carnage of fools with weapons exerting their terror on the children and innocent humans his surgical units have had to treat over the years. He and his EMERGENCY team have seen the darkest side of war. The torn flesh, crushed bones and horrific bleeding no doubt haunts them and compels them to do the work they do.

I find it particularly sad more people don’t understand the thinking of Gino Strada’s refusal to choose sides. But that is the nature of the hate caused by the displacement of Palestinians from their homes to create the nation of Israel.

Surely the Zionists must be condemned for their failures to resolve harm done to the Palestinian people. Zionism, like nationalism, is a plague that discounts and vilifies groups of people in order to carry out a plan of oppression and aggression.

Murder of children and innocent people who may or may not agree with the Israeli government’s actions should be condemned as well. It’s absurd to think small children have any political agenda. The thinking that a bomb in a school bus or in an area with children is an act of a freedom fighter is insanity.

This past weekend here in Denver the supporters of the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza and throughout the area occupied by Palestinians lined one side of a major street in front of the state capitol. On the other side was a crowd nearly as large supporting the Palestinian freedom movement. Police presence no doubt kept violence from occurring by the more fanatical participants.

I chose not to attend because I knew I would have found myself figuratively standing in the middle of the street. My family has a history that dates back to the Russian pogroms. My grandfather’s family was forced from their land by government forces in a purge of Jews from Russia. This history does not make my family or me Zionists. In fact my grandfather was raised as a Christian to protect him from the anti-Semitism his mother and father were exposed to throughout their lives.

I abhor the Zionist movement that’s created the occupied territories which are no different than the Warsaw ghetto or concentration camps. But I know the Zionist movement is not fully endorsed by all Israelis any more than the policies of Bush and Cheney were endorsed by the American people.

I have friends who are now only acquaintances because I refuse to choose a side. One friend lived with my wife and me over six months but has since disavowed me because I apparently didn’t agree with their avid belief all Palestinians are freedom fighters. They constantly recalled the life of Rachel Corrie as a life to be admired but took the militant stance that led one to believe all Israelis were Zionists and all Palestinians were oppressed and without any fault for the continued violence. I don’t believe Rachel Corrie died believing the violence perpetrated by either side was acceptable.

I have former friends who feel a violent response is an act of acceptable rebellion to oppression even if it means the murder of children. Of course, these people never got to see the aftermath of a war. And though some are people of color and have experienced great oppression and violence, retaliation will not bring them justice.

The friend who lived with me grew up in relative wealth, going to private schools and exclusive universities. Now they pass themselves off as one of the oppressed because they have family members living in the war torn area in the Middle East. I beg to differ. The family members are oppressed. A rich and pampered American with family in a war zone is an imposter even if they visited twice. They never saw the dead bodies of war or even a shot fired in anger.

It frustrates me that Americans have blindly supported Zionism despite the horrors that have been perpetrated in the name of the Zionist movement. For most, Israel is merely another American state. It frustrates me Americans in the liberal and progressive movement rail against Zionism but refuse to admit the actions of fanatics in the name of the Palestinian movement are immoral and wrong as well.

There seems to be no future for compromise that will end the slaughters. It seems we’re destined to witness and take part in the continued insanity of war between forces that have allowed hate to fuel their entire lives. As long as there is no chance for compromise and peaceful resolution of differences, the entire world is held captive. The future for Palestine and Israel will never be peace and with the continued hate and violence and the failure of Americans to end their government’s involvement. It’s not about choosing sides anymore. It’s about choosing life for the children of our world.