The story of Tomas Young is one of the forgotten warriors of American wars of occupation.Wars that are illegal and immoral and do nothing to bring honor to this nation. Wars that disgrace our concept of democracy and the false belief that we give a damn about the troops.
Americans want their troops to come home to waiting families, all smiles and joy. They want to hear how it was an honor to "serve" their country. And now they're expected to ease back into civilian life and pick up where they left off.
Remember all those yellow ribbons on the bumper sticker with the words "SUPPORT THE TROOPS"? What did they actually mean? They mean about as much as someone coming up to a combat veteran, tortured by the memories of carnage, to say "thank you for your service". Do you really think that's what they want to hear? Do you think a veteran of combat wants thanks for killing other humans, for witnessing the death of children and other innocents, for seeing good friends killed and maimed? Maybe Americans could ask us how they might help. What we need. Patronizing bullshit slogans do nothing for the welfare of returning troops. Parades last an hour or so and then what?
For all those who think men like Tomas Young are going to be taken care of because it was part of the nation's promise, get real. I always ask the patriotic flag waving war mongers if they're going to be there for the troops paralyzed or missing limbs in twenty years. Will they still be around to cheer the veteran with a TBI and the nightmares of PTSD?
Tomas Young is the new Johnny Got His Gun. If we could we would put him off in some obscure room hidden away from the rest of us. He reminds us of what we have done in our zeal for wars. He reminds us there are horrible costs to the glory of war.
Tomas enlisted just days after the attack of 9-11. His intent was to go to Afghanistan to fight against those who attacked his country. Instead in 2004 he went to Iraq. He went to a war based on lies and illegal and immoral. Only a short time after entering Iraq he was shot with his spine severed. He was paralyzed from the waist down. On his return to his country he found inadequate and overwhelmed care at the VAMC. On one occasion he went to a VA ER with a swollen and painful arm. He was given narcotics for the pain and sent home. The swelling was caused by a clot that dislodged and caused a stroke. That caused Tomas to lose control of his upper torso. He could no longer feed himself or clothe himself. His life went from bad to worse.
Today Tomas has stated he will "go away" in the near future. He's tired of the struggle that will be unchanged for the rest of his life. His doctors give him no hope of improvement. Tomas intends on refusing nutrition and fluids. He intends on killing himself.
There will be some who will condemn this decision. Let them be in Tomas' situation for a week. Let them face the hopelessness of a body they can no longer control and pain that is constant. I understand his decision completely. I've spent the last 40 years with one foot in the here and now and one foot living and reliving the 13 months of my war. The images are horrific and they never change. What I did and what I saw will never change. There were many times I thought eating a gun was the best way to end the moral and emotional agony. Now, my body has started to fail me and those thoughts are back. I can only imagine the agony Tomas has had to endure. I can understand his decision. I wish him peace.
For those who have failed to carry through on the promises made to the sons and daughters you sent to your senseless wars, I curse you. From the Congress and Presidents to the comfortable rich and middle class ....I curse you. All you who have let yourself forget the veterans of your stupid wars deserve to burn in hell. Many of you consider yourself righteous and spiritual but you lie to yourself. Like Dylan sang in his masterpiece, MASTERS OF WAR, I will rejoice the deaths of all you who have been part of the killing fields of war. And those who remained silent are as guilty as those who demanded the wars go forth in all their death and destruction.
Saturday, March 23
Tuesday, March 19
March 19, A Day of American Shame
What was accomplished? Ten years ago today George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell started the war in Iraq after blatantly lying about Saddam Hussein having "weapons of mass destruction". Nearly 4500 Americans died by the time the war was declared over. Millions of Iraqis have been killed as a result of the war starting. Most died as a result of American arms, many died due to the sectarian violence the American occupation created. Thousands upon thousands of the Iraqi victims have been children.
American occupation of Iraq was a matter of the Cheney Cabal wanting to control the oil in the ground of Iraq. It has the second largest oil reserves in the world and Cheney and his stooges were salivating. The largest American embassy was built. Schools and hospitals were built and paid for by American taxpayers but never used. Billions after billions were spent every month to support the war. Paul Bremer lost approximately 8 billion dollars in cash sent to Iraq for expenses to work with local Iraq leaders. He also decided native Iraqi seeds should be replaced by American seeds courtesy of companies like Monsanto. Depleted uranium has left a trail of health problems wherever we used it. And we used it everywhere. The symptoms of radiation poisoning were among the signs found in local areas of Iraq where the weapons of DU were used. Childhood cancers and birth deformities skyrocketed in number wherever the DU was used.
We can't understand the cost to the Iraqi people unless we have family in Iraq. Dr. Dahlia Wasfi has family there. She saw the costs up close the two times she journeyed to Basra to visit family. She continues today speaking about the costs of this unnecessary and illegal war. This immoral war.
We can understand the costs to American troops who faced multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. PTSD, TBI, MST and horrible physical wounds are the costs. Poor care due to lack of funding is the cost. The military hides behind the acronyms. They don't like to say MST (aka Military sexual assault) is rape perpetrated against female and male troops by troops in their own branch of the military. The don't like to say post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) will cost this nation in multiple ways costing billions of dollars. They don't like to say traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the signature wound of the two wars and will affect the lives of young men and women for the rest of their lives.
At the time of the war's start millions marched in the streets around the world in protest. Once it started the bulk of the American peace movement seemed to wilt away in a depressive state. Only a mother, Cindy Sheehan, seemed to revive the movement temporarily. Young veterans like Kelly Daugherty and Garrett Reppenhagen saw the truth and organized to oppose the war. Old veterans like Bill Perry, Stan Goff and Dave Cline spoke out and organized opposition. The religious community failed to respond with few exceptions. Student movements were non-existent with few exceptions. The immorality of the war was seldom challenged by most Americans.
The mainstream media followed along like pet dogs to be the megaphones for the American occupation. They got in bed with the military by means of "embedding" themselves with units. But only units the military wanted them to be with. Their reports were boosterism and jingoism. Dhar Jamail was the true voice of the war. He reported on Fallujah and other atrocities of the war. He refused to embed. Dhar and a few brave whistle blowers exposed the torture chambers of the American government. Water boarding was highly publicized but rapes and brutal physical assaults were hardly mentioned except by reporters such as Dhar. Water boarding was not new. I saw it used on a patrol in Vietnam against a female informant who balked in taking us to a suspect enemy hiding place.
Americans have been told our war is over in Iraq. Ask the Iraqi people if that's the case. We left behind a puppet government afraid to leave the security of well entrenched compounds. In the streets there's chaos with lack of security, lack of electricity, lack of potable water and an ever increased risk of danger to women. Sectarian violence and fanaticism by religious zealots makes it dangerous for any female to journey outside the home without male companionship and without her head covered.
The tragedy of our war in Iraq hits hard here in this nation but it hits much harder in Iraq. Iraqis can truthfully say they were better off under the boot of Saddam Hussein than under the alleged democracy we imported. A people that once loved the American people now look at us with suspicion and anger for what we brought them. And reports from criminals like Dick Cheney stating they'd "do it again" and admitting they wanted Iraqi oil can only make this nation seem criminal and immoral. This nation will never admit the war was illegal just as it never admitted the illegality of Vietnam.
March 19th should be a day of shame for Americans. Not a day to look back in triumph and satisfaction.
American occupation of Iraq was a matter of the Cheney Cabal wanting to control the oil in the ground of Iraq. It has the second largest oil reserves in the world and Cheney and his stooges were salivating. The largest American embassy was built. Schools and hospitals were built and paid for by American taxpayers but never used. Billions after billions were spent every month to support the war. Paul Bremer lost approximately 8 billion dollars in cash sent to Iraq for expenses to work with local Iraq leaders. He also decided native Iraqi seeds should be replaced by American seeds courtesy of companies like Monsanto. Depleted uranium has left a trail of health problems wherever we used it. And we used it everywhere. The symptoms of radiation poisoning were among the signs found in local areas of Iraq where the weapons of DU were used. Childhood cancers and birth deformities skyrocketed in number wherever the DU was used.
We can't understand the cost to the Iraqi people unless we have family in Iraq. Dr. Dahlia Wasfi has family there. She saw the costs up close the two times she journeyed to Basra to visit family. She continues today speaking about the costs of this unnecessary and illegal war. This immoral war.
We can understand the costs to American troops who faced multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. PTSD, TBI, MST and horrible physical wounds are the costs. Poor care due to lack of funding is the cost. The military hides behind the acronyms. They don't like to say MST (aka Military sexual assault) is rape perpetrated against female and male troops by troops in their own branch of the military. The don't like to say post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) will cost this nation in multiple ways costing billions of dollars. They don't like to say traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the signature wound of the two wars and will affect the lives of young men and women for the rest of their lives.
At the time of the war's start millions marched in the streets around the world in protest. Once it started the bulk of the American peace movement seemed to wilt away in a depressive state. Only a mother, Cindy Sheehan, seemed to revive the movement temporarily. Young veterans like Kelly Daugherty and Garrett Reppenhagen saw the truth and organized to oppose the war. Old veterans like Bill Perry, Stan Goff and Dave Cline spoke out and organized opposition. The religious community failed to respond with few exceptions. Student movements were non-existent with few exceptions. The immorality of the war was seldom challenged by most Americans.
The mainstream media followed along like pet dogs to be the megaphones for the American occupation. They got in bed with the military by means of "embedding" themselves with units. But only units the military wanted them to be with. Their reports were boosterism and jingoism. Dhar Jamail was the true voice of the war. He reported on Fallujah and other atrocities of the war. He refused to embed. Dhar and a few brave whistle blowers exposed the torture chambers of the American government. Water boarding was highly publicized but rapes and brutal physical assaults were hardly mentioned except by reporters such as Dhar. Water boarding was not new. I saw it used on a patrol in Vietnam against a female informant who balked in taking us to a suspect enemy hiding place.
Americans have been told our war is over in Iraq. Ask the Iraqi people if that's the case. We left behind a puppet government afraid to leave the security of well entrenched compounds. In the streets there's chaos with lack of security, lack of electricity, lack of potable water and an ever increased risk of danger to women. Sectarian violence and fanaticism by religious zealots makes it dangerous for any female to journey outside the home without male companionship and without her head covered.
The tragedy of our war in Iraq hits hard here in this nation but it hits much harder in Iraq. Iraqis can truthfully say they were better off under the boot of Saddam Hussein than under the alleged democracy we imported. A people that once loved the American people now look at us with suspicion and anger for what we brought them. And reports from criminals like Dick Cheney stating they'd "do it again" and admitting they wanted Iraqi oil can only make this nation seem criminal and immoral. This nation will never admit the war was illegal just as it never admitted the illegality of Vietnam.
March 19th should be a day of shame for Americans. Not a day to look back in triumph and satisfaction.
Monday, March 18
Connections to Polarize the 90%
So, just heard about someone I know making a remark the reason a family member couldn't get disability was because "they" only give it to blacks. Yikes! Really?
Here's the facts. Whites on disability outnumber blacks by a 3-1 ratio even when we consider the astronomic unemployment rates for black males. Even when we consider the astronomic wealth disparity between whites and blacks. Even when we consider the percentage of blacks admitted to universities versus whites.
What does this say about us? Maybe we are a racist country? Could be. Since Obama was elected President threats against the Presidency were ten times greater than all other Presidencies. Weapon purchases increased dramatically both times the man was elected. The number of filibusters in the US Senate broke records of all previous Congresses. The number of economic "crises" created by Congress since Obama's elections are unheard of. Never before has simple budget approval for the government to pay its current bills been held up by Congress for political reason. This action resulted in the reduction of the US government's credit rating for the first time in history. Why? Remember back before the first inauguration of Obama, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner stated their primary goal was to make sure he was a one term President. A group of GOP Congress members met before that inauguration to plot the strategy of obstructing anything that might make him look good.
Is this racism or politics of angry white men who lost an election? Why has there been more racially motivated threats and crimes since the man was elected? Why did we see white voters standing in line at their precincts with Obama monkeys on their shoulders?
What's even more telling about the visceral reaction to the black guy being in the White House is by all accounts he's done everything the bankers, brokers and right wing could ask for to ensure the status-quo of the rich staying rich remained in place. He's compromised most of his promises made during his "dream" campaign of 2007. He's alienated even the liberal and progressive base that helped elect him. He was re-elected more out of the fear Romney would be so much worse than confidence he would actually bolster the middle class or champion liberal causes.
Looking at this time of history reminds me so much of the days of the civil rights movement in the late 60s. There is a "new" Jim Crow happening throughout this nation. Code words, overt racist remarks made among white only groups and subtle and not so subtle ways of perpetuating discrimination are easily found everywhere I go. And this racism does not only pertain to the black community. Latinos and Arabic communities have the same stories. Communities of color know there's racism in America.
Voter suppression directed at the communities of non-whites and identified Democratic whites is a repeat of the days of the toll tax and literacy testing that prevented blacks from participating in elections. Targeting of the voting rights laws by states and now in the Supreme Court are attempts to bring us back to the days of segregation. "Illegal" immigration laws are pretense to protect the nation's borders. If that's so why do those laws seem to target only humans with brown skin?
History demonstrates the white aristocracy in this nation has constantly used race as a way to keep the poor and middle class distracted and polarized. But it's not just race. Gay rights, women's control of their own bodies, claims of welfare cheats only in poor communities and religious fanaticism are all used as wedge issues to polarize those not in the upper income brackets. In all the internecine bickering and fighting the poor and middle class have not called out the rich for the incredible disparity of wealth. The richest 2% of Americans hold over 40% of all the wealth. The wealthiest10% in this nation hold 80% of the total assets of wealth.
Companies like Exxon, BP, Goldman-Sachs, Citibank and Chase pay little or no taxes. In fact some of the companies making the greatest profits actually get tax rebates or refunds! The typical American worker pays close to 28% of their income in taxes. That's before paying into health benefits..if available....Medicare and Social Security. Tax loopholes allowing the wealthiest to avoid paying anything, outsourcing jobs but still reaping great profits and all the other government give-aways aren't called welfare. A couple on disability making less than 20,000 each year, living in squalor, eating poorly, unable to get preventative health care are accused of leeching off the taxpayers. They're called welfare queens and resented by some who "work for a living". Who's really the welfare leeches?
So, this rant drifted from racism to economics. It is necessary to see the connection and the manipulation. The poor and middle class are pitted against each other through hateful issues like racism to obscure the deplorable behavior of the plutocrats. They seek to strip all power, financial and political, from the masses. They want to indenture the masses with debt and dependency on working in jobs that barely keep them in homes, buying food and buying on credit. They control the mainstream media. That gives them the power of controlling the information. The power to plant the seeds of hate and consumerism.
If we fail to challenge comments that are palpably racist,sexist or anyway disparaging and polarizing we only play into the plan of the oligarchy that has stolen our democracy and the freedoms alleged to be included.
Here's the facts. Whites on disability outnumber blacks by a 3-1 ratio even when we consider the astronomic unemployment rates for black males. Even when we consider the astronomic wealth disparity between whites and blacks. Even when we consider the percentage of blacks admitted to universities versus whites.
What does this say about us? Maybe we are a racist country? Could be. Since Obama was elected President threats against the Presidency were ten times greater than all other Presidencies. Weapon purchases increased dramatically both times the man was elected. The number of filibusters in the US Senate broke records of all previous Congresses. The number of economic "crises" created by Congress since Obama's elections are unheard of. Never before has simple budget approval for the government to pay its current bills been held up by Congress for political reason. This action resulted in the reduction of the US government's credit rating for the first time in history. Why? Remember back before the first inauguration of Obama, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner stated their primary goal was to make sure he was a one term President. A group of GOP Congress members met before that inauguration to plot the strategy of obstructing anything that might make him look good.
Is this racism or politics of angry white men who lost an election? Why has there been more racially motivated threats and crimes since the man was elected? Why did we see white voters standing in line at their precincts with Obama monkeys on their shoulders?
What's even more telling about the visceral reaction to the black guy being in the White House is by all accounts he's done everything the bankers, brokers and right wing could ask for to ensure the status-quo of the rich staying rich remained in place. He's compromised most of his promises made during his "dream" campaign of 2007. He's alienated even the liberal and progressive base that helped elect him. He was re-elected more out of the fear Romney would be so much worse than confidence he would actually bolster the middle class or champion liberal causes.
Looking at this time of history reminds me so much of the days of the civil rights movement in the late 60s. There is a "new" Jim Crow happening throughout this nation. Code words, overt racist remarks made among white only groups and subtle and not so subtle ways of perpetuating discrimination are easily found everywhere I go. And this racism does not only pertain to the black community. Latinos and Arabic communities have the same stories. Communities of color know there's racism in America.
Voter suppression directed at the communities of non-whites and identified Democratic whites is a repeat of the days of the toll tax and literacy testing that prevented blacks from participating in elections. Targeting of the voting rights laws by states and now in the Supreme Court are attempts to bring us back to the days of segregation. "Illegal" immigration laws are pretense to protect the nation's borders. If that's so why do those laws seem to target only humans with brown skin?
History demonstrates the white aristocracy in this nation has constantly used race as a way to keep the poor and middle class distracted and polarized. But it's not just race. Gay rights, women's control of their own bodies, claims of welfare cheats only in poor communities and religious fanaticism are all used as wedge issues to polarize those not in the upper income brackets. In all the internecine bickering and fighting the poor and middle class have not called out the rich for the incredible disparity of wealth. The richest 2% of Americans hold over 40% of all the wealth. The wealthiest10% in this nation hold 80% of the total assets of wealth.
Companies like Exxon, BP, Goldman-Sachs, Citibank and Chase pay little or no taxes. In fact some of the companies making the greatest profits actually get tax rebates or refunds! The typical American worker pays close to 28% of their income in taxes. That's before paying into health benefits..if available....Medicare and Social Security. Tax loopholes allowing the wealthiest to avoid paying anything, outsourcing jobs but still reaping great profits and all the other government give-aways aren't called welfare. A couple on disability making less than 20,000 each year, living in squalor, eating poorly, unable to get preventative health care are accused of leeching off the taxpayers. They're called welfare queens and resented by some who "work for a living". Who's really the welfare leeches?
So, this rant drifted from racism to economics. It is necessary to see the connection and the manipulation. The poor and middle class are pitted against each other through hateful issues like racism to obscure the deplorable behavior of the plutocrats. They seek to strip all power, financial and political, from the masses. They want to indenture the masses with debt and dependency on working in jobs that barely keep them in homes, buying food and buying on credit. They control the mainstream media. That gives them the power of controlling the information. The power to plant the seeds of hate and consumerism.
If we fail to challenge comments that are palpably racist,sexist or anyway disparaging and polarizing we only play into the plan of the oligarchy that has stolen our democracy and the freedoms alleged to be included.
Sunday, March 17
Random Thoughts Number.....hell I don't know...they're random!
Just a few random thoughts for the day.
My wife came back from a Catholic mass and told me the Knights of Columbus in all their regal glory came to present 924.00 for the parish school. Really??? They spend that much for their costumes making believe they are some royal guard of Christ. These are men in the Catholic Church who refuse to understand Columbus was a participant in the slaughter and enslavement of all the indigenous people he and his minions came across. He was about as Christian as Satan himself as he killed, tortured and enslaved a peaceful population of people. He stole their land and possessions in his obsessive need to bring a large bounty back to his queen.
So why do men in the 21st century continue to honor such a man? Why does the good Christian Catholic church allow and endorse this sect of men who also refuse to view women as their equals?
Another thought occurred to me about the new Pope. He professes to care about the impoverished and most in need. Does this mean he will take some of the huge wealth of his church to a pawn shop or auction to get the money needed to feed the people? Does this mean he will look at the epidemic HIV in parts of Africa and tell the Catholic NGOs and other representatives to provide condoms to help stem the epidemic? Will he look at the Catholic NGOs running health care institutions....like the Sisters of Mercy....or mercenaries...:? Will he demand they cease the harassment of the poor to pay the over-inflated hospital bills? Will he demand they stop charging the poor more for their medical care than any other population group because they lack insurance? I think not.
Another thought. There's a lot of discussion about new spending on mental health care here in Colorado. Thanks in part to the repeated slaughters of children and innocents by crazed killers wielding assault rifles, politicians (and the NRA) have decided the mentally ill need some attention. Of course few are stating the mentally ill are at least ten times more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrate violence. It's the alleged sane among us that are killing wives, children, bosses and any who have pissed them off. It's the negligence of adults who ignore the wars in the hoods of the poor that have gone on since the 60s. They're black and brown kids, so who gives a damn?
But blaming the gun violence and culture of violence on the mentally ill is easier than addressing the reasons for the constant killing or limiting access to assault weapons like most other civilized nations.
I wonder if all this money will go to treating the mentally ill in need of expanded services or if the local centers will carry on with the ineffective care of just providing pills and the discrimination against those without benefits.Working in the field, I sincerely doubt the money will improve the level of care or go to pay staff better or increase staff and lower case-loads.
Ok, another thought. Do the people realize they've been duped into austerity and draconian cuts to programs to help the poor and middle class? Research for TBI has been delayed because of the sequestration initiated by the neo-cons in Congress and acquiesced to by the liberals. Do the people realize state governments are being controlled by these rich neo-cons and they intend of giving the rich 1-2% large tax cuts at the expense of the middle class and poor? They intend on dismantling Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security at a local level as much as they can. They intend on taking over elected local governments like the city of Detroit and replacing the government with "managers" of the neo-con governor's choice. Managers who just happen to have thousands of dollars of liens on his own home. OOPS....how'd that happen? But surely he will bring Detroit out of financial hell better than the elected mayor and city council. Just has to break a few union agreements, take away from the poor and redistribute the wealth and power to the rich. And chase those black folks out of the city.
So, my racing thoughts and tangential thinking really disturb me. I think something's happening here. What is is ain't exactly clear. There's a man over there who tells me "beware".......while we sleep there are dark forces who intend we'll sleep less peacefully and have great anxiety in our lives. They intend on making the majority of us their economic slaves that never question the system of oligarchy. Or is that just paranoia?
My wife came back from a Catholic mass and told me the Knights of Columbus in all their regal glory came to present 924.00 for the parish school. Really??? They spend that much for their costumes making believe they are some royal guard of Christ. These are men in the Catholic Church who refuse to understand Columbus was a participant in the slaughter and enslavement of all the indigenous people he and his minions came across. He was about as Christian as Satan himself as he killed, tortured and enslaved a peaceful population of people. He stole their land and possessions in his obsessive need to bring a large bounty back to his queen.
So why do men in the 21st century continue to honor such a man? Why does the good Christian Catholic church allow and endorse this sect of men who also refuse to view women as their equals?
Another thought occurred to me about the new Pope. He professes to care about the impoverished and most in need. Does this mean he will take some of the huge wealth of his church to a pawn shop or auction to get the money needed to feed the people? Does this mean he will look at the epidemic HIV in parts of Africa and tell the Catholic NGOs and other representatives to provide condoms to help stem the epidemic? Will he look at the Catholic NGOs running health care institutions....like the Sisters of Mercy....or mercenaries...:? Will he demand they cease the harassment of the poor to pay the over-inflated hospital bills? Will he demand they stop charging the poor more for their medical care than any other population group because they lack insurance? I think not.
Another thought. There's a lot of discussion about new spending on mental health care here in Colorado. Thanks in part to the repeated slaughters of children and innocents by crazed killers wielding assault rifles, politicians (and the NRA) have decided the mentally ill need some attention. Of course few are stating the mentally ill are at least ten times more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrate violence. It's the alleged sane among us that are killing wives, children, bosses and any who have pissed them off. It's the negligence of adults who ignore the wars in the hoods of the poor that have gone on since the 60s. They're black and brown kids, so who gives a damn?
But blaming the gun violence and culture of violence on the mentally ill is easier than addressing the reasons for the constant killing or limiting access to assault weapons like most other civilized nations.
I wonder if all this money will go to treating the mentally ill in need of expanded services or if the local centers will carry on with the ineffective care of just providing pills and the discrimination against those without benefits.Working in the field, I sincerely doubt the money will improve the level of care or go to pay staff better or increase staff and lower case-loads.
Ok, another thought. Do the people realize they've been duped into austerity and draconian cuts to programs to help the poor and middle class? Research for TBI has been delayed because of the sequestration initiated by the neo-cons in Congress and acquiesced to by the liberals. Do the people realize state governments are being controlled by these rich neo-cons and they intend of giving the rich 1-2% large tax cuts at the expense of the middle class and poor? They intend on dismantling Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security at a local level as much as they can. They intend on taking over elected local governments like the city of Detroit and replacing the government with "managers" of the neo-con governor's choice. Managers who just happen to have thousands of dollars of liens on his own home. OOPS....how'd that happen? But surely he will bring Detroit out of financial hell better than the elected mayor and city council. Just has to break a few union agreements, take away from the poor and redistribute the wealth and power to the rich. And chase those black folks out of the city.
So, my racing thoughts and tangential thinking really disturb me. I think something's happening here. What is is ain't exactly clear. There's a man over there who tells me "beware".......while we sleep there are dark forces who intend we'll sleep less peacefully and have great anxiety in our lives. They intend on making the majority of us their economic slaves that never question the system of oligarchy. Or is that just paranoia?
Friday, March 15
Goodbye to Facebook
This past week I closed my facebook account. Why? Because FB has become a tool of consumerism and the very world I want to see changed. It consumes time but does little to help affect the changes we need to bring peace and justice to our world. Too many copy and paste news items that are already available to any who seek the truth. Too many box themselves in to only one perspective and fail to understand there are forces needing our attention in person not online. So, there was a choice to spend my time online seeking approval of my thoughts or to venture out into the world and let my voice be heard and to listen to other voices while I look the person in the eye. That's called face to face.
Welcome Jackson Conrad....grandson
Welcome to the world, Jackson Conrad...my newest grandson. I hope the world will become a better place because of you. I hope we will make it a better place for you to live. Some say we should not bring children into a world so hateful and violent. One where 1 of every 5 or 6 children live in poverty and go to bed hungry. One where war seems perpetual. One where humans fail to honor the glory of nature and instead have brought us to the brink of destruction through pollution and horrible ignorance of the environmental damage we do. It is a dangerous world and one that truly needs change. One that needs true peace and justice for all. One that needs true democracy and true freedom.
So, Jackson, we leave a world for you that needs your help when you're able to help. May you grow up with a moral view of the world. A view that doesn't allow all the negatives to overwhelm you. May you become a person who resists against the tyranny and oppression of the materialistic world of corporate and governmental corruption. May you see others as your brothers and sisters and like another JC find joy in humility and helping others.
I wish I could have helped bring a better world to you, grandson. But, I think the world will be better because you have arrived.
So, Jackson, we leave a world for you that needs your help when you're able to help. May you grow up with a moral view of the world. A view that doesn't allow all the negatives to overwhelm you. May you become a person who resists against the tyranny and oppression of the materialistic world of corporate and governmental corruption. May you see others as your brothers and sisters and like another JC find joy in humility and helping others.
I wish I could have helped bring a better world to you, grandson. But, I think the world will be better because you have arrived.
Monday, January 21
Imagine (Again)
Every so often I feel the need to re-post what I wrote 7 plus years ago...and sadly still relevant.
Imagine (Written August 22 05)
Can you imagine what it would be like to see them come up to your door?
In uniforms and grim looks on their faces, and your child in the war.
Can you imagine how it must feel when they say those five words?
We regret to inform you…do you hear anything but those five words?
Can you imagine telling your husband or wife your child is gone?
Your child whose birth gave your greatest joy is gone.
I’m sitting here in the middle of the night wondering how someone could question a mother or father who lost a child to this war. How could someone in good conscience accuse a mother of politicizing the death of their child? Have we grown so disconnected with our humanity we can’t imagine the day a parent sees the dark colored car drive up to their street, up to their house and uniformed men emerge?
If you’re a parent, maybe you can imagine hearing those five words. It’s your greatest nightmare. You lie awake at night wondering where your child is at tonight.
You hate hearing the phone late at night. You hate seeing strange dark cars in your neighborhood. You can’t stand the newspaper or television news.
Then imagine the five words. Will you hear beyond them? Will you know before they say them?
Then there will be telling the rest of the family. You tell it over and over again…you child is gone. You want to scream out insanely. How can they be gone!!!!!?
Imagine the memories of your child first walking. The first words from their lips. The first worrisome cold. How can they be gone?
Imagine when you watched them swim, or skate or play baseball or football. Imagine playing basketball with them in the driveway in the fall as the leaves turned gold. Imagine the graduation and the joy in their face.
Imagine the day they leave your house to enter boot camp. The next time you see them their hair is short and they seem different and changed.
Imagine the last flight you see them off at the airport. The last phone call from the place of the war. The last letter.
Imagine the day when, with a broken heart and empty soul, you follow the dark hearse with your beloved child inside a casket. Imagine the numb feeling as you get out and see the burial plot where your child will be lowered into the earth. There will be words from the Bible, the Torah or Koran. They don’t bring your child alive.
There will be family all around you but you’ll be as lonely as you’ll ever be. They’ll hand you a triangle in red, white and blue like it will replace your child or there is something there to comfort you.
Imagine the final moments as the casket is lowered into the ground. The thought of your child leaving this earth before you rips at your heart. You hear over and over the words of sympathy and comfort and they are arrows that smash into your spirit in reminder of your child.
Then everybody leaves, you’re alone with only the terrible thoughts of the death of your child. You wonder how it really happened. You wonder if your child suffered. You wonder if they died alone. Death for you would be a welcome thing instead of these thoughts you have.
Imagine after the first month or so, everybody seems to think you’re able to be yourself again. They’ll never understand you’ll never be yourself again; you’ll never be whole again. Your child is gone and each day is a struggle to get up and each day the sorrow begins again.
Imagine returning to work and seeing the looks and the avoidance of some and the overbearing presence of others. They don’t know.
Imagine going to the grocery store and seeing a child with a smile like the smile of your child. You want to scream out your child is gone!! They’ll look the other way to avoid the sadness you hold in your heart.
Imagine the silence between you and other family members. You’re left to think of the moments of each day when your child would get up, go to school, return from school, go to a friends, eat dinner, go to practice, get ready for bed. Each moment so damn precious and you failed to recognize it at the time.
Imagine hearing a song and becoming tearful because it was your child’s favorite. Seeing a book and the memory of discussing the plot and characters with such joy.
That’s all I can do. Imagine it. My mom and dad feared it each day of 1968. They imagined it but they never heard those five words.
I imagined my sons being that dead child as I sat here this late, late night. My heart ached from just the thought of it. I had memories of them swimming and running. I remembered the day of each birth. I remembered reading Mark Twain or Watership Down to them.
All those memories of my children came flooding back to me and I couldn’t really imagine how gut wrenching awful it would be to hear those five fucking words!!!
“We regret to inform you….”
Imagine (Written August 22 05)
Can you imagine what it would be like to see them come up to your door?
In uniforms and grim looks on their faces, and your child in the war.
Can you imagine how it must feel when they say those five words?
We regret to inform you…do you hear anything but those five words?
Can you imagine telling your husband or wife your child is gone?
Your child whose birth gave your greatest joy is gone.
I’m sitting here in the middle of the night wondering how someone could question a mother or father who lost a child to this war. How could someone in good conscience accuse a mother of politicizing the death of their child? Have we grown so disconnected with our humanity we can’t imagine the day a parent sees the dark colored car drive up to their street, up to their house and uniformed men emerge?
If you’re a parent, maybe you can imagine hearing those five words. It’s your greatest nightmare. You lie awake at night wondering where your child is at tonight.
You hate hearing the phone late at night. You hate seeing strange dark cars in your neighborhood. You can’t stand the newspaper or television news.
Then imagine the five words. Will you hear beyond them? Will you know before they say them?
Then there will be telling the rest of the family. You tell it over and over again…you child is gone. You want to scream out insanely. How can they be gone!!!!!?
Imagine the memories of your child first walking. The first words from their lips. The first worrisome cold. How can they be gone?
Imagine when you watched them swim, or skate or play baseball or football. Imagine playing basketball with them in the driveway in the fall as the leaves turned gold. Imagine the graduation and the joy in their face.
Imagine the day they leave your house to enter boot camp. The next time you see them their hair is short and they seem different and changed.
Imagine the last flight you see them off at the airport. The last phone call from the place of the war. The last letter.
Imagine the day when, with a broken heart and empty soul, you follow the dark hearse with your beloved child inside a casket. Imagine the numb feeling as you get out and see the burial plot where your child will be lowered into the earth. There will be words from the Bible, the Torah or Koran. They don’t bring your child alive.
There will be family all around you but you’ll be as lonely as you’ll ever be. They’ll hand you a triangle in red, white and blue like it will replace your child or there is something there to comfort you.
Imagine the final moments as the casket is lowered into the ground. The thought of your child leaving this earth before you rips at your heart. You hear over and over the words of sympathy and comfort and they are arrows that smash into your spirit in reminder of your child.
Then everybody leaves, you’re alone with only the terrible thoughts of the death of your child. You wonder how it really happened. You wonder if your child suffered. You wonder if they died alone. Death for you would be a welcome thing instead of these thoughts you have.
Imagine after the first month or so, everybody seems to think you’re able to be yourself again. They’ll never understand you’ll never be yourself again; you’ll never be whole again. Your child is gone and each day is a struggle to get up and each day the sorrow begins again.
Imagine returning to work and seeing the looks and the avoidance of some and the overbearing presence of others. They don’t know.
Imagine going to the grocery store and seeing a child with a smile like the smile of your child. You want to scream out your child is gone!! They’ll look the other way to avoid the sadness you hold in your heart.
Imagine the silence between you and other family members. You’re left to think of the moments of each day when your child would get up, go to school, return from school, go to a friends, eat dinner, go to practice, get ready for bed. Each moment so damn precious and you failed to recognize it at the time.
Imagine hearing a song and becoming tearful because it was your child’s favorite. Seeing a book and the memory of discussing the plot and characters with such joy.
That’s all I can do. Imagine it. My mom and dad feared it each day of 1968. They imagined it but they never heard those five words.
I imagined my sons being that dead child as I sat here this late, late night. My heart ached from just the thought of it. I had memories of them swimming and running. I remembered the day of each birth. I remembered reading Mark Twain or Watership Down to them.
All those memories of my children came flooding back to me and I couldn’t really imagine how gut wrenching awful it would be to hear those five fucking words!!!
“We regret to inform you….”
Random Thoughts (from Facebook)
My wife and I are both RNs caught up in the constant struggle to provide compassionate and appropriate care to the most severe and persistently disturbed people in our community struggling with mental health issues. A struggle made all the worse by big pharma and big insurance.
Americans are constantly rejecting the single payer method of health care used in Europe and Canada. They want to believe the American health care system is the greatest system in the world. They want to believe they have "choices" in their health care. We're either naive or stupid!
Every day we are forced to deal with private companies acting as alleged case managers to control costs of government funded health care such as Medicaid and Medicare. They create formularies for medicines that are often slanted toward certain drug companies. They deny payment for drugs prescribed by the doctors of patients and force the patient to accept drugs that may cause severe side effects leading to muscle contractions, diabetes, excessive cholesterol, higher risk of strokes and heart attacks and assorted other health problems. And the private companies who are in truth, insurance companies, base medical decisions on how much they can save for themselves. How much profit they can make in deciding what care, what drugs patients are allowed.
So it begs the question of how much choice in our medical care do we really have? And why do we allow private insurance companies to run up costs to our care by creating a third party for profit between us and our doctors?
Recently I had labs done. They were routine labs for an old guy like myself. I got the explanation of benefits from the insurance company extolling how much I saved because I had insurance. They showed the total costs of the basic lab tests I had done were over 500 dollars but I didn't pay anything and the lab company was paid less than 1/4 that five hundred dollars based on a "discount" paid to the provider lab company. I also noticed my blood had been sent to the lab company's California lab when I know of at least 10 offices here in Denver owned by the same company. I use the company as a RN to send my clients to for their labs.
I fill out purchase orders for the same labs I had done and the actual costs of the tests are about fifty dollars. But if I had no insurance the costs of those labs would have been that five hundred dollar charge.
Another example is the charge my doctor sent to the insurance company for my physical was absurdly high. The insurance company invoked the "discount" rate for payment to my doctor. He ended up getting paid half the charge his office sent to the insurance company. I ended up paying a 25 dollar co-pay. That discounted payment was the true price the doctor should have received. Without insurance I'd have paid the higher price charged by my doctor if I could have afforded to even gone to him for a preventative care physical.
That's the game. Doctors over-charge so they actually get a fair payment for their services. A psychiatrist charges 280 dollars for a 45 minute session and gets 25 dollars in co-pay and the discounted payment of 125 dollars. Total payment 150 dollars for 45 minutes. Unless the patient is medically indigent (uninsured). Then it would be the full 280 dollars.
If you follow this out, you come to realize the doctors and insurance companies play a game that artificially inflates the cost of medical care for all of us. And I'm not even talking pharmacy costs yet.
So, this is the greatest medical care in the world as opposed to the care in the rest of the developed world? So why do Americans die at younger ages, have the highest infant mortality rates in the developed world? Why do Americans rate the lowest in all aspects of outcomes in their medical care and pay close to 20 times more than these "socialist" nations with single payer health care? Why does 1 out of every 5 or 6 children live in poverty and lack medical benefits? Why do we still have 48 million without benefits? Even after the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is implemented, why will there stil be millions without benefits?
This isn't the greatest medical care in the world. This is the biggest medical scam in the world. Inflicted on, apparently, the most misinformed patients in the world.
While we fight the battles caused by polarization, hate, racism, sexism, anti-GLBT rights and rejection of basic human rights (and the list goes on and on), it would behoove us to remember the true war melts down to the issue of economics. The haves and have-nots. The wealth disparity of rich and poor. Elitism as opposed to poverty. When we look at what fuels the polarization, inevitably we'll find the rich are the culprits funding it. The masters of war and those that would be king want us afraid, indentured and dependent. As long as we continue the internecine battles promoted and exploited by the plutocracy we give them the power they constantly seek.
So...when the politicians finally come up with their "gun control" laws do we think there will be any legal sanctions about occupations of nations, weapons supply to Zionist apartheid, rocket and gatling gun equipped drones, five hundred pound bombs or cruise missiles? Does the death of a young, unarmed Palestinian crossing the artificial barrier between a ghetto and an alleged "free" land equate with the death of a young child in a white suburban neighborhood? Are the deaths of young men in a gang infested area of South Los Angeles or Chicago's housing projects equal to movie-goers in Aurora?
Does the violence of poverty and injustice have a connection to a culture of violence that allows guns to be so freely available? Does the hypocrisy of politicians bought off by rich lobbyists have any connection to the sustained violence in this nation? Does the trade of more weapons around the world than all other nations combined have a connection to mad-men with automatic weapons and 30 round clips killing children and any other human they can find?
What's worse, a five hundred pound bomb indiscriminately dropped on a neighborhood in Fallujah or the hand gun deaths of kids in an American high school? What's more insane...the military budget consuming 56% of the budget or cuts in mental health care, care for the poor and children or ignoring the issues of returning veterans? Do the choices and priorities of elected politicians have a connection to the violence in this nation?
All the rhetoric and impassioned talk about curbing the gun violence in America is a ruse. The laws and sanctions being suggested are like band aids on an arterial bleed. Unless we make the connections leading to the problem of our cultural violence this nation will continue to bleed out.
When I returned from Vietnam I ended up homeless for six months. It meant living on the streets, finding shelter at the library, bus stations and other public places. Cops would wake me up in the bus station. They would do sweeps of the restrooms to make sure the homeless didn't loiter. The shelters were always scarce in those days. And the few shelters here in Denver were dangerous places, places filled with despair . I remember always being tired, always depressed, my feet always hurting, the cold always biting to the bone. I remember being downtown and watching the American landing on the moon. I didn't marvel at the accomplishment. I laughed in scorn that a nation could spend billions on such an endeavor while I roamed my city in the darkness of night along with countless other homeless.
Today, many of my clients are homeless. There are more shelters but there are more homeless. Governments from city to federal try to hide them more than they try to help them. These are the "untouchables" of America. More and more they are families and veterans. More children are becoming homeless. And our response to our homeless Americans is to stigmatize and ignore. We're all guilty of looking away as we pass them on the streets.
If I had one wish about the way we approach the homeless it would be that every elected official spend a week on the streets without resources. That every politician would have a special "moon landing experience" like I had.
I'm beginning to think all the "moments of silence" and all the "spontaneous memorials" for victims of our American violence aren't going to have enough hours in the day or flowers and teddy bears to go around. Maybe contemplation and real problem solving would serve us better.
You know the gun freaks who think they need to be armed for some stupid ass revolution they think they'll start against some bogus UN government run by Karl Marx will die and there will be no one to pry their guns from their cold, dead fingers. When all their wells are polluted by the chemicals of big oil and gas, when all their forests are dead as a result of opportunistic bugs and diseases, when all their oceans have finally become total sewage and all their air kills humans all their guns won't mean a damn thing. Their guns didn't help them in NOLA during Katrina. Didn't help them when Sandy destroyed so much of NYC and other Eastern seaboard areas. They can't shoot the super storms caused by the melted ice of the Artic and Antartica or the destroyed rain forests of Brazil. It's only a matter of time until their guns will be held in their cold, dead fingers. Most likely won't be anyone to pry their toys from those fingers, though.
As the sun sets in the west here in Denver, the GOP whines they didn't get a good deal and might just send us over the fiscal cliff. Question....didn't they accomplish that in 2008 when they crashed the economy? Or was it the two wars they started without raising the taxes needed to pay for them? Not to mention the human costs they managed to inflict. Don't know about the rest of the progressive community but I applaud the GOP for refusing the sell out deal Obama and Biden brokered. It's time to draw the line in the sand and let the GOP show their traitorous colors of elitism. John Huntsman was correct in stating the GOP is devoid of a soul. The actions of the GOP stooges clearly show they have no concern for the middle class or poor in this nation. They are bought and paid for by the likes of the Kochs, Edelstein, big oil, big pharma and the military industrial complex. They fail to realize how much 2000 dollars extra a year will impact the average family. Hell most of them haven't been in grocery store in years except to campaign. They don't worry about healthcare because they have "government" insurance paid for by the tax payers. Don't suppose their hate for big government extends to the freebies of insurance and pension they get from big government.
There really are no word to describe the detestable behaviors of the likes of Cantor, Ryan, Boehner and McConnell. Nor are their words to describe the sell out of Obama and the Democratic leadership.
My wife's best friend won't go out with her this week because the election has shown Americans have become "faithless and immoral". WTF??? My wife is the kindest person I know. She believes in Catholicism but isn't a zombie that accepts the dogma without thoughtful consideration. She stayed clear of politics with the friend to maintain the friendship. But because of my willingness to oppose the Church the friend knows we are two of "those people".
The zombie Catholic sect that believes the dogma of the misogynists is willing to elect a man who is a blatant liar, a ruthless job-killer, a war-monger and truly immoral. Why? Because he and his Opus Dei running mate are saying they will oppose all abortion, gay marriage and the right of "moral" employers to refuse insuring women who choose to use "THE PILL".
The local archbishop sent a letter wailing freedom of religion is in jeopardy if certain politicians are elected. And the zombies all fell in line. Apparently including the "friend".
This thinking is why I will not return to the Catholic church. Yeah, I know there are the progressive and liberal groups in the Church but they refuse to directly oppose Papal authority. I tell my patients to leave abusive relationships if the abuse has no chance of stopping. Why think the abuses of the Papal authority will ever stop? Yeah, I am a heretic.
This is the sad fact of political debate in this nation. We can't talk with one another. We propagate hatefulness instead. We see whites at "Ole Miss" riot when the black guy wins. And had he lost would there have been riots from the other side?
Most folks dismissed the poignant thoughts of a man horribly abused by police, Rodney King. When the cops were found not guilty of their crime riots began. Rodney appealed to all of us when he asked "can't we all get along?"
Some of the new age folks tell me the end of the Mayan calendar would herald a new age of peace and harmony. I can tell that's coming by watching the parents in Newtown bury their six and seven year old children or hearing about two deaths caused by someone pushing a human off a subway station wait area into the path of the oncoming train. Or the brutal rape of a woman on a bus in India by six men. Brutal enough she died from the horrific physical trauma. Or the continued budget of this nation giving the military more funding than most of the other programs combined. Or the jailing of Bradley Manning for speaking the truth.
Yep, as we approach the new year I can feel a new age coming for sure.
If we want to honor the children killed by the insanity of violence, we must connect their deaths to the social conditions fomenting that violence. It isn't just about guns, it's about a culture of violence we've allowed to percolate for decade after decade. It's about failing the oppressed, the addicted, the mentally ill while providing obscene amounts of tax money on militarism and prisons. Year after year mental health budgets are cut while year after year the military budget grows. Year after year prevention programs disappear while more and more prisons are funded.
To those who prefer calling the mentally ill wackos, nuts or loons, I say shut the fuck up until you understand psychosis, mania, major depression, auditory and visual hallucinations, delusions and personality disorders. You have no clue how parents of children struggling with mental health issues have to fight to get treatment. How some professionals tell them to give up parental rights in order for their children to get placed with social services. Or allow them to be imprisoned because jails and prisons provide more care than any other institutional entity in most states.
It's the failure of a culture when time after time children are slaughtered. A government that condones killing children as collateral damage of their wars shouldn't be surprised when there are mass killings at home. A culture that allows childhood to be tainted on a daily basis with images of brutal killings from television to movies to video games shouldn't be surprised children grow up with violent tendencies. Proliferation of weapons intended only to kill other humans can only lead to the horrible fact this nation has more gun deaths than any other nation in the industrialized world. By far.
If we want to honor the children, maybe we should think about changing their role models.....us adults.
We want to think we love our children but if we stop and think about it there is an ugly truth about the way children are treated around the world. Child soldiers, child prostitution, child slavery, child abuse are affecting millions of our children. When I worked with adolescents at a mental health facility the stories of abuse were horrific. Beatings and sexual abuse were a given for most of the girls. Beatings and often sexual abuse were givens for most of the boys.
It's always the same when we lose children we don't expect to die or be abused. There's outrage and horror. But then it recedes and we forget. We seldom think about the disenfranchised children enduring the daily horror, though. Who speaks for them?
I don't want to diminish the deaths of 20 young children and 6 adults to another American madman toting semi-automatic weapons to shoot his prey. I have grandkids close to the age of the children killed. I'd be enraged and bereaved beyond description.
I do have to agree with a young veteran friend who asks the question why these children warrant so much of our attention when there's been so many thousands upon thousands killed by other American armaments. Where was the outcry when our bombs killed entire villages and whole blocks that were inhabited by far more children?
Where was the outcry for the children of Fallujah, a city battered by multiple American assaults of artillery and bombs? Where's the outcry for the children killed all too often in drone attacks by American and Israeli military?
Where's the outcry for the youth sent to the failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Oh people will say there's a difference between all those I mention and the children in Newtown, CT. No, there's not. They all have one thing in common. Far too many victims are children and the weapons used are predominately sold by American arms companies.
If it is people who kill people then we need to look at the means by which they are killing them. And, without a doubt, there is a culture of violence that permeates this nation from the time of childhood until we die prematurely or of old age.
The enduring image of my war was the day I walked through a village the day after a napalm bombing. There was a smell of ham from the incinerated pot belly pig but there was also the smell of burned human flesh. As I found out as I got deeper into the village, it was primarily the burned flesh of infants, young children and mothers. How does another human grasp such a scene? How do we reconcile the dead children with our sense of morality?
At least once or twice a year, we find ourselves asking the same questions. Why do we allow the children to be killed without acting to change the culture of violence we've allowed? And that goes without asking why we allow the children of foreign lands to be butchered at the hand of those using "our weapons".
All the cretins and apologists for the NRA will try to justify the continued availability of assault weapons as a right of all Americans under the Second Amendment. They decry any attempt to control deadly weapons used to kill our children. And we refuse to identify them as the terrorist organization they are. They don't give a damn about our rights. They only care about further promoting the violence culture so their masters, the weapons industry, continue to reap huge profits on the backs of those massacred by their implements of death.
If the past is any indication, the deaths of the 20 children and 6 adults on December 14, 12 will only join the massacres at Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora's theatres and all the other tragedies caused by a person, usually male, who has some deranged or psychotic impulse to kill and ready access to weapons to carry out that impulse. There will be weeks of reaction but when it comes time for courage and action very few will stand up in the halls of Congress, the White House or state legislatures.
And that makes us a nation willing to sacrifice the potential of young lives simply to maintain the means to carry out the violence so deeply steeped in the American psyche
If only Americans felt the same compassion for the innocents killed by automatic weapons, cluster bombs, artillery shells, rocket fire, napalm, white phosphorous, bunker busters, drones and all the other multiple ways that we, the people, have been complicit in using.
If only they understood parents around the world feel the same agony and grief as those who lose children at the hands of killers here in the U.S.. Does it matter if the child is Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, Buddhist or Sikh? Does it matter what the race of the child is? Does it matter if the child is shot by a cartel in Mexico or by a gang in Chicago?
When the history of this time is written it will be the Boehners, McCains, McConnells, Cantors, Grahams and their simple minded weaseling friends who are portrayed as the traitors of the American people. But it will be Obama and his presidency that will be seen as war criminals along the lines of George W. Bush, Henry Kissinger and Ronald Reagan. Yes, Ronnie had wars few Americans knew about. Obama will be seen as the president that imprisoned young soldiers for revealing ugly truths about his military actions and those of his predecesor. He will be the black president that was responsible for stripping away the civil rights of all Americans in the name of national security. While we would like to believe our brave new world of social media revolutionizes our world, the revolution may well be the ability of government to intrude fully into our thoughts and ideals in a way no other government has ever been able to in the past. The priorities of environment and peace and justice have once again taken the back seats of the bus. The Zionists of Israel continue to enslave Palestinians as the American government feeds them the tools to do so. Obama and every other president has failed to acknowledge the correlation between that slavery and the one here in this nation or the gulags and ghettoes the Jewish people escaped. And don't buy the bullshit there's no comparison because there's no gas chambers. Death is simply dealt out in more sophisticated ways with weapons made in the USA. Or by starvation or buldozer. Why do we think ourselves the land of the free or a nation of justice when there is so much to contradict these beliefs?
There's a tendency to think rape is confined to female victims but that's really not the case. Over the last 28 years working in emergency rooms and adolescent units I discovered over half the males I worked with had been sexually assaulted. And many don't report assaults due to the stigma involved just as most women don't report it. Rape is rape regardless of who the victim may be. We really need to understand what causes such rage and hate to inflict such horrible pain and suffering on other humans. The outrage toward the rape and killing of the woman on a bus in India should be world wide. And we must remember her male friend was also a victim.
Please don't misunderstand, I'm well aware of the culture of hate toward women that goes far beyond rape and murder. I just want us to remember not all men are rapists and not all are free of rape.
Thursday, December 27
Every Action Has a Reaction
Every action has a reaction. Or so they say. For example.....an eighteen year old goes to a war. He's a combat infantryman. He witnesses brutality and death beyond anything he could ever imagine. He takes part because there would be hell to pay if he refused. After a while the brutality becomes common place. The eighteen year old turns nineteen and compartmentalizes his feelings while violating most of his moral beliefs. He believes he's only responsible for having the back of the Marines in his platoon and company. By any means necessary. By the time he goes home he's numb and lacks the empathy he once had before enlisting.
Upon return to stateside Marine life the grunt determines he won't take part in training others to do as he did and he won't play the Marine game anymore. For over a year he fights the Corps. He's sent to brigs and jails and upon return to his unit continues to fight against the Corps. After 13 months in a combat zone he's discovered the war against the Marines is just as tough. They threaten him, jail him and try to bully him. He doesn't care. One time they had him see a mental health professional. He spends 15 minutes with him. They say he's not crazy. They finally discharge him with a less than honorable discharge.
Going forward the grunt becomes an activist with other veterans. He meets his wife. He has two sons. His second son cries a lot during the night. It wakes the grunt from his nightmare. He runs into the room to quiet the son. He's flashing back to a baby killed in a bunker that had cried right before a frag was thrown into the confined area. He holds his hand over the baby son to quiet him.
The grunt continues to stay with his family. He's often times a gentle and loving husband and father. It's the times of rage that makes his family afraid of him. His two sons never know which father will show up. The father that reads to them or the father that pins them up against the wall with hand around their throats and screaming. His rage is terrifying.
Twelve years after the grunt leaves combat he discovers there's a new diagnosis for grunts like him. PTSD. He's amazed how many grunts have similar stories. How many become enraged without apparent reason. How many have nightmares. It's good there's treatment for the grunts. It's too bad there isn't treatment for the families they terrorized. The families become the hidden casualties.
The grunt's sons begin using pot when they're twelve. By twenty they're trying cocaine, LSD, meth and ecstasy. By thirty the second son is addicted to crack. Two days ago he told his parents he felt suicidal. He's said it before. It's usually after a binge on crack and the following depression. For years the grunt and his wife have tried to get him to go to groups. He doesn't like groups. They make him want to use. But he continues to use without groups.
Every action has a reaction. Sometimes it takes years of repetitive actions for the full reaction to occur. Sometimes the actions result in tragic reactions.
If you're a grunt and think you're in it by yourself, think again. Look around to see how many people surround you with care and loving. Don't wait until your kid's reaction becomes crack or booze or meth. Or suicide. Act with love. The same love you had for your shooting buds in the bush or sandbox.
Upon return to stateside Marine life the grunt determines he won't take part in training others to do as he did and he won't play the Marine game anymore. For over a year he fights the Corps. He's sent to brigs and jails and upon return to his unit continues to fight against the Corps. After 13 months in a combat zone he's discovered the war against the Marines is just as tough. They threaten him, jail him and try to bully him. He doesn't care. One time they had him see a mental health professional. He spends 15 minutes with him. They say he's not crazy. They finally discharge him with a less than honorable discharge.
Going forward the grunt becomes an activist with other veterans. He meets his wife. He has two sons. His second son cries a lot during the night. It wakes the grunt from his nightmare. He runs into the room to quiet the son. He's flashing back to a baby killed in a bunker that had cried right before a frag was thrown into the confined area. He holds his hand over the baby son to quiet him.
The grunt continues to stay with his family. He's often times a gentle and loving husband and father. It's the times of rage that makes his family afraid of him. His two sons never know which father will show up. The father that reads to them or the father that pins them up against the wall with hand around their throats and screaming. His rage is terrifying.
Twelve years after the grunt leaves combat he discovers there's a new diagnosis for grunts like him. PTSD. He's amazed how many grunts have similar stories. How many become enraged without apparent reason. How many have nightmares. It's good there's treatment for the grunts. It's too bad there isn't treatment for the families they terrorized. The families become the hidden casualties.
The grunt's sons begin using pot when they're twelve. By twenty they're trying cocaine, LSD, meth and ecstasy. By thirty the second son is addicted to crack. Two days ago he told his parents he felt suicidal. He's said it before. It's usually after a binge on crack and the following depression. For years the grunt and his wife have tried to get him to go to groups. He doesn't like groups. They make him want to use. But he continues to use without groups.
Every action has a reaction. Sometimes it takes years of repetitive actions for the full reaction to occur. Sometimes the actions result in tragic reactions.
If you're a grunt and think you're in it by yourself, think again. Look around to see how many people surround you with care and loving. Don't wait until your kid's reaction becomes crack or booze or meth. Or suicide. Act with love. The same love you had for your shooting buds in the bush or sandbox.
Saturday, November 3
There's A Storm A'Coming
The first Earth Day took place in the 1970s. The issues then are pretty much the same today. Only we've allowed the potential of environmental disaster to become the reality. There's no prevention of what's to come. Not anymore. When Hurricane Katrina hit the shores of the Gulf we watched the citizens of New Orleans struggle to survive and waited to respond. Even though it was an American city, it was a mostly "black" city.
It seemed New Orleans was more like a Haiti or Bangladesh than part of the US. Cops and the military were more apt to kill perceived looters than help hungry, thirsty humans. Once help arrived the horrors of the Super Dome had already been allowed. Seven years later the city is still waiting for true relief. A large portion of the homes owned by the poor and middle class have been condemned and scraped off so gentrifiers and rich developers could make one of the largest land grabs since the Europeans arrived in North America to steal the lands of the indigenous people.
This past week the bill came due for the neglect of our ecosystems. Our failure to acknowledge the harm done by greenhouse gases, polluted water, pesticides, plastics and other environmental wounds to the planet has resulted in the melting of ice caps and rising oceans. Which has led to bigger, more deadly weather occurrences.
Tornadoes have become more frequent and larger in size and areas of deadly destruction. Droughts and wildfires have become commonplace. Infestations of insects and destructive weeds have changed the landscape of our mountain forests. Fracking and other industrial polluters have put major potable water supply in jeopardy for generations to come. Hurricanes have increased in number, size and locations they strike.
New Orleans has been a frequent target of hurricanes. So, the neglect toward the city seemed palatable to some. Some even said New Orleans should be allowed to die because of the frequency of hurricane destruction. But this past week Americans woke up to the new reality of environmental payback. The Big Apple, Hoboken, Coney Island and all the iconic areas of the greatest megalopolis of the US were inundated by a "perfect storm" called Sandy. A huge tropical hurricane joined with a "Nor'easter" and a western storm front to strike at the heart of America like no terrorist had ever done.
The NYC subway was flooded. Staten Island was cut off for days with streets flooded and homes ripped apart by water and wind. Relief was slow to come as crews raced to restore power in Manhattan and the center of American commerce. Ordinary people would have to wait for their communities to be taken care of. Even with dramatic response by FEMA and the Red Cross, the damage was so great there was no possible way to alleviate the suffering of all the survivors.
What's unfolded in the days after the "super storm" has been an apocalyptic scene of things to come. New Yorkers were observed going through garbage for food, gas lines for cars were many miles long, drinking water was scarce and electricity was missing.
Some communities joined together to help one another but others seemed helpless to do much except complain about their plight. Images of beach homes worth millions became a common sight on the evening news. The once well off middle class neighborhoods were destroyed and the survivors became angry because their needs weren't instantaneously met by the government many wanted to do away with. The demand for instant gratification by this nation's people has been epitomized by men and women making unreasonable complaints following the greatest storm in the history of the nation.
The scenes of demanding Americans shows an ugly side of this nation many in the world have come to expect. Entitlement and American exceptionalism have become the norm.
When natural disasters occur in other parts of the world Americans often come to the aid with money and boots on the ground. We often make huge promises of aid only to renege when it becomes time to pay up. The political climate has created polarization so great we can't come together for other humans.
But when the disasters occur in American cities and towns, with the exception of New Orleans, the syndrome of the great American victim comes onto the scene. Like our losses in wars we create, our losses of life and property in natural disasters are much more egregious and significant than all the other nations that have suffered every bit as much. At least in our own minds. We don't remember the earthquake in Haiti that still awaits the aid we promised. New Orleans is no longer a city of black residents. And the black neighborhoods have been ignored for years.
The most important issue about the "perfect storm" hasn't been discussed by most people waiting in line to get gas for their internal combustion engine driven cars. The survivors who bemoan the total destruction of homes built too close to shore lines or in flood plains, don't accept their wasteful habits helped contribute to their plight. For two plus centuries the American people have believed they could rape the land of this nation and nations around the world without having to pay a price. They refuse to acknowledge the warnings of environmentalists about the continued use of fossil fuels creating global warming that would cause super storms. They refuse to acknowledge there is drought so wide-spread the food supply is in jeopardy. They refuse to admit allowing greedy corporate entities a free pass to pollute in every imaginable way has led to an environmental crisis of epic proportions. A crisis that may well lead to the eradication of human life on the planet.
The American people want to believe they are a nation of people with ideas and ideals. They believe they can do anything but haven't done anything to change since the end of World War II. The great myth we have created an "information age" transforming the world has played out to be an age of misinformation and polarity.
Change for this nation is a foolish notion reflected by the actions of the American government gridlocked in perpetual war and failure to maintain and rebuild the nation. Change is impossible when our Supreme Court gives corporations person hood and the ability to literally buy elections, judgeships and local rule. Change is impossible as long as corporate interests are allowed to dictate science for their own profits instead of the good of humans living on the planet, Earth. It's impossible if we continue to deny the obvious exemplified by Hurricane/Super Storm Sandy.
Environmental armageddon is quickly approaching and we won't connect the climate changes with the destruction of Katrina or Sandy. The irony of the relief efforts going on today is the bottled water being handed out by the Red Cross and other relief workers. The environmental damage caused in the name of relief only ensures there are much darker clouds waiting out in the oceans headed our way.
It seemed New Orleans was more like a Haiti or Bangladesh than part of the US. Cops and the military were more apt to kill perceived looters than help hungry, thirsty humans. Once help arrived the horrors of the Super Dome had already been allowed. Seven years later the city is still waiting for true relief. A large portion of the homes owned by the poor and middle class have been condemned and scraped off so gentrifiers and rich developers could make one of the largest land grabs since the Europeans arrived in North America to steal the lands of the indigenous people.
This past week the bill came due for the neglect of our ecosystems. Our failure to acknowledge the harm done by greenhouse gases, polluted water, pesticides, plastics and other environmental wounds to the planet has resulted in the melting of ice caps and rising oceans. Which has led to bigger, more deadly weather occurrences.
Tornadoes have become more frequent and larger in size and areas of deadly destruction. Droughts and wildfires have become commonplace. Infestations of insects and destructive weeds have changed the landscape of our mountain forests. Fracking and other industrial polluters have put major potable water supply in jeopardy for generations to come. Hurricanes have increased in number, size and locations they strike.
New Orleans has been a frequent target of hurricanes. So, the neglect toward the city seemed palatable to some. Some even said New Orleans should be allowed to die because of the frequency of hurricane destruction. But this past week Americans woke up to the new reality of environmental payback. The Big Apple, Hoboken, Coney Island and all the iconic areas of the greatest megalopolis of the US were inundated by a "perfect storm" called Sandy. A huge tropical hurricane joined with a "Nor'easter" and a western storm front to strike at the heart of America like no terrorist had ever done.
The NYC subway was flooded. Staten Island was cut off for days with streets flooded and homes ripped apart by water and wind. Relief was slow to come as crews raced to restore power in Manhattan and the center of American commerce. Ordinary people would have to wait for their communities to be taken care of. Even with dramatic response by FEMA and the Red Cross, the damage was so great there was no possible way to alleviate the suffering of all the survivors.
What's unfolded in the days after the "super storm" has been an apocalyptic scene of things to come. New Yorkers were observed going through garbage for food, gas lines for cars were many miles long, drinking water was scarce and electricity was missing.
Some communities joined together to help one another but others seemed helpless to do much except complain about their plight. Images of beach homes worth millions became a common sight on the evening news. The once well off middle class neighborhoods were destroyed and the survivors became angry because their needs weren't instantaneously met by the government many wanted to do away with. The demand for instant gratification by this nation's people has been epitomized by men and women making unreasonable complaints following the greatest storm in the history of the nation.
The scenes of demanding Americans shows an ugly side of this nation many in the world have come to expect. Entitlement and American exceptionalism have become the norm.
When natural disasters occur in other parts of the world Americans often come to the aid with money and boots on the ground. We often make huge promises of aid only to renege when it becomes time to pay up. The political climate has created polarization so great we can't come together for other humans.
But when the disasters occur in American cities and towns, with the exception of New Orleans, the syndrome of the great American victim comes onto the scene. Like our losses in wars we create, our losses of life and property in natural disasters are much more egregious and significant than all the other nations that have suffered every bit as much. At least in our own minds. We don't remember the earthquake in Haiti that still awaits the aid we promised. New Orleans is no longer a city of black residents. And the black neighborhoods have been ignored for years.
The most important issue about the "perfect storm" hasn't been discussed by most people waiting in line to get gas for their internal combustion engine driven cars. The survivors who bemoan the total destruction of homes built too close to shore lines or in flood plains, don't accept their wasteful habits helped contribute to their plight. For two plus centuries the American people have believed they could rape the land of this nation and nations around the world without having to pay a price. They refuse to acknowledge the warnings of environmentalists about the continued use of fossil fuels creating global warming that would cause super storms. They refuse to acknowledge there is drought so wide-spread the food supply is in jeopardy. They refuse to admit allowing greedy corporate entities a free pass to pollute in every imaginable way has led to an environmental crisis of epic proportions. A crisis that may well lead to the eradication of human life on the planet.
The American people want to believe they are a nation of people with ideas and ideals. They believe they can do anything but haven't done anything to change since the end of World War II. The great myth we have created an "information age" transforming the world has played out to be an age of misinformation and polarity.
Change for this nation is a foolish notion reflected by the actions of the American government gridlocked in perpetual war and failure to maintain and rebuild the nation. Change is impossible when our Supreme Court gives corporations person hood and the ability to literally buy elections, judgeships and local rule. Change is impossible as long as corporate interests are allowed to dictate science for their own profits instead of the good of humans living on the planet, Earth. It's impossible if we continue to deny the obvious exemplified by Hurricane/Super Storm Sandy.
Environmental armageddon is quickly approaching and we won't connect the climate changes with the destruction of Katrina or Sandy. The irony of the relief efforts going on today is the bottled water being handed out by the Red Cross and other relief workers. The environmental damage caused in the name of relief only ensures there are much darker clouds waiting out in the oceans headed our way.
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