So there it was again. Television cameras showing students running from a local suburban school because someone with a rifle had shot two students. The middle school was only 3 miles from Columbine High School here in the Denver metropolitan area.
The local media hopped right on the story and has continued to highlight it for the last four days. Two students were shot. One was injured with a wound to her arm. Another was shot in the chest but the wound wasn't lethal. He will recover.
Now the school is shown with aggreived parents and school staff hugging and sobbing as the school comes back together. And everywhere there's a personal story of trauma or shock. And everywhere a camera is present there seems to be a crowd of people willing to play the role of victim and hero for surviving the shooting of a madman.
Turns out the shooter really is an insane young man who fell through the cracks of the pathetically underfunded mental health system. His father talks about his son's daily conversations with his hallucinatory "friends" that only he heard or saw. The father talks about his son trying to get help but being unable to afford the costs. The police record of the young man is lengthy and full of violence and yet he only spent time in jail but was never hospitalized for his psychotic thinking.
Maybe I've reached the end of my compassion for the almost weekly shootings that go on in this nation by people who should never have had access to weapons. Maybe I've become desensitized to the violence of our culture. But you know the first thing I begin to think when the shootings are at a school and I see the mad rush of parents to the scene to make sure their children are safe? I wonder why they are so panicked about the safety of their children when they're in school but think it's normal and quite ok when their children are sent off to one of our incessant wars of aggression. I wonder why they aren't as protective when at age 18 or 19 their children are sent into combat with a much more likely chance of death and irreparable harm?
Call me cruel and heartless if you want but this has become my thinking because I believe we live in a time where the nations of the world are interconnected so closely that the violence of a culture in North America can result in the violence against a culture in Iraq or Afghanistan.
I can't help but wonder why parents are shocked when violence comes to their local schools when their kids are frequently mesmerized by games of war such as Call of Duty I and II. War games are prevalent in the market of games our children play on X-Box and other gaming systems. I even had my younger son, who very well knows my hatred for war, tell me he knows it's not cool but the graphics of the latest war game are so realistic he feels he's right there in the middle of the war.
I tell my son there will never be a game that can simulate the true feeling of combat. But, I sadly realize all across this nation there are young men who are obsessed by the games of violence. They will argue they're only games and they would never lead them to real violence. Some argue the games actually help relieve their aggression.
I won't argue the vague psychology of violent video games being causative factors of real life violence. What I will argue is the acceptance of violence in our daily lives has reached the level we should not be shocked when our children become targets in real life. The violence of our words and interactions with one another have a ripple effect. All across the blogoshere it's become totally acceptable to belittle one another with racist, misogynistic and threatening responses that are so easy when they remain anonymous.
Almost weekly the media of television and movies seems to find newer and more violently graphic forms of human carnage. NCIS, CSI, Criminal Minds, etc. are favorite forms of entertainment. Hollywood continues to churn out the bloodletting of horror movies so graphic that the idea of a "snuff" film seem tame. We don't need snuff films when we can watch real life events of violence on programs documenting car wrecks, near death and death experiences and attacks by animals.
And yet the Pentagon and Presidency worries about showing dead American soldiers, the return of their caskets and the graphic nature of the wars we're involved in out of "respect". Mainstream media outlets continue to censor film or photos of the aftermath of drone attacks on innocent civilians in remote Afghan villages or the aftermath of 500 pound bombs on neighborhoods in Baghdad during the start of the war in Iraq. Are they seriously worried about the American people being unable to stomach what they might see if they showed the true nature of the wars they send their sons and daughters to fight?
It's more likely the censorship of the true reality of war has more to do with the fall out of media showing such scenes during the Vietnam war. If the true nature of war is allowed to be seen it might cause some Americans to start thinking about the reasons we're in these wars.
I believe there are connections between the costs of war and the spiritual health of a nation. I believe there's a connection between the costs of war and the collapse of the economy, the failure of government to maintain a safety net for Americans most in need, adequate housing and schooling, healthcare for all and the way the people of this nation are perceived around the world. I beleive there is a connection between the accidental killings of innocents and the continued number of insurgents and groups of people who hate America.
I believe there's a connection between the shooting of two students at a middle school here in the Denver area to the culture of violence we've allowed to fester and infect so many of our people. There is a connection of an American to a Palestinian to an Israeli to an African to a Chinese to all other people of all other nations. Our reliance on violence affects all humans. It diminishes us all.
Saturday, February 27
Saturday, January 30
The Sad Failure to Seize the Moment
I try to like Barack Obama but every time I give in to that particular feeling he reminds me he is first of all part of the cabal of the rich and elite ripping this nation apart.
In his recent State of the Union message Obama once again displayed his great oratory skills. A few times he actually challenged the system he is so much a part of. He commented on the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision to grant "personhood" to giant corporations, effectively opening the door for even more money of special interests being able to buy the American elections. Justice Scalia was seen vigorously shaking his head "no" and mouthing the words, "you're wrong". Of course Scalia is one of the intellectual giants in his own mind.
Then Obama noted it was George W. Bush's presidency that brought the disaster of the financial collapse to the people of the nation and that he, Obama, was left the task of cleaning up the mess. There's a certain cruel irony that the first black President would have to clean up the huge mess of a white man whose policies were among the most damaging to blacks in America since the 60's and 70's.
Obama even made note of the lock step obstruction of the Republicans in the Senate making 60 votes necessary to pass any bill. He scolded them for their obvious attempt to destroy his presidency without giving a damn about the American people. And, he put the burden of governing back on their shoulders if obstruction of his policies was to continue.
Obama didn't let the Democrats off easy either when he reminded them they had the biggest majority in Congress in some time and now was not the time to "head for the hills". Of course, it's obviously clear, both parties are pretty much the same in their lack of courage. All elected officials play to the polls and the big money financing their campaigns. The people can clearly be inundated with talking points and sloganeering that will make them accept anything the rich bastards decide they should accept.
So, Obama did make me like him for some of the things he said but his actions and the rest of his speech just fortified my outrage for his failure to seize the moment in history to make changes that will actually push the agenda of those most in need. His continued failure to look at the excessive spending on the military industrial complex continues my lack of respect for this man who has so much potential that's been wasted.
Obama talks about a freeze on spending to bring down the national debt but excludes the spending on the military and all the ancillary funding that's involved in keeping the military going. The exclusions from spending freezes amount to 70% of all spending by the government with tax payer dollars! All that's left to freeze are programs that could actually bring positive changes to the lives of everyday people.
All around this nation schools are facing huge budget problems that will result in closing schools and laying off teachers. Higher education budgets are being cut so drastically the tuition for a state university is prohibitive for most citizens' children. Community colleges are being touted as the "new" way to get a college education. Of course after getting an associate degree most students won't be able to go any further in pursuing higher education.
Homelessness, mental health and substance abuse treatment, treatment for the disabled young and old, child care, early education, hunger and all the many problems faced by more and more Americans will be more and more ignored in state and local budgets. Already cities and states are telling the poor, the newly foreclosed and unemployed they can't help. Already schools and programs meant to help the at-risk students are being chopped from budgets.
But, never fear, Obama is here. We can still send our children and grandchildren to war! The wars will continue on and more and more young people will be needed to do the bidding of the masters of war. As Smedley Butler so correctly stated, "war is a racket". We manufacture little in this nation except the tools of war and the equipment needed to keep wars going. In Slidell, LA there's a company making Bradley armored vehicles. That's the major industry of the town. All over America there are these types of companies dependent on the wars continuing. Just today there was a story that the US sold 7 billion dollars of arms to Taipei. Imagine how much we are selling Israel!
Obama can make nice speeches and tell us he's for the common citizen but his actions refute his words. And, watching the mostly white contingent of Republicans in Congress, I can't help but think many of their leaders would be wearing white sheets and robes and burning crosses just a few decades ago.
The hatefulness and obvious distaste shown by their faces and body language are telling. These are the looks of the racist whites who beat down and hosed civil rights workers in the 60's. These white elected officials of the Republican Party are the descendants of the KKK and those who lynched blacks. They'd deny they're racists and accuse anybody who called them racists as being anti-white and using the race card. They will rail against the burden placed on white men with the use of equal opportunity laws and affirmative action. And they will never get it. These are the representatives of the deluded who can't accept the US will become a nation in which the majority will not be white.
It's been clear Obama would encounter the racists as the first black President. But, the extent of the Republican obstruction in Congress is unparalleled. And, the coporate media refuses to comment on it. In America, we don't talk about racism, sexism, homophobia and anything diferent from the Euro-centric "norm".
I live in a neighborhood where the residents were almost completely Anglo. Over the 26 years I've been here I've seen the neighborhood change to one that is at least 50% Spanish speaking. A large influx of immigrants has come to this lower middle class neighborhood. No doubt many lack proprer "papers". Many live with more than one family in a single family dwelling. Many park their cars on their lawns and don't necessarily believe growing and watering grass is absolutely needed.
I like my neighborhood except for some of the old-timers who have talked with me in the local stores griping about how the neighborhood has "changed". They ask me how I like living next door to "them". They talk about the number of cars or people that live in some of the homes. What's really clear to me is the innuendo of these neighbors. They're talking code. Racist code. They don't talk with "them". They only assume about "them".
This is America today and try as I might to like Obama I can't. I can't like him because he has sold us out to the very people who would have gladly lynched him 30 years ago. He has sold us out to the robber barons and gangsters who have oppressed the poor, the people of color and the worker for a century or more. And they will not change simply because we now have a black President. They'll eventually make Obama the scape goat for all that has happened since Ronald Reagan's disastrous reign. They'll point to the first black American President as proof the black man can't govern. Nor play quarterback.
In my sixty years on this planet I have seen much. But the one unshakeable truth has always been the racism that prevails in far too many minds of Americans.
In his recent State of the Union message Obama once again displayed his great oratory skills. A few times he actually challenged the system he is so much a part of. He commented on the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision to grant "personhood" to giant corporations, effectively opening the door for even more money of special interests being able to buy the American elections. Justice Scalia was seen vigorously shaking his head "no" and mouthing the words, "you're wrong". Of course Scalia is one of the intellectual giants in his own mind.
Then Obama noted it was George W. Bush's presidency that brought the disaster of the financial collapse to the people of the nation and that he, Obama, was left the task of cleaning up the mess. There's a certain cruel irony that the first black President would have to clean up the huge mess of a white man whose policies were among the most damaging to blacks in America since the 60's and 70's.
Obama even made note of the lock step obstruction of the Republicans in the Senate making 60 votes necessary to pass any bill. He scolded them for their obvious attempt to destroy his presidency without giving a damn about the American people. And, he put the burden of governing back on their shoulders if obstruction of his policies was to continue.
Obama didn't let the Democrats off easy either when he reminded them they had the biggest majority in Congress in some time and now was not the time to "head for the hills". Of course, it's obviously clear, both parties are pretty much the same in their lack of courage. All elected officials play to the polls and the big money financing their campaigns. The people can clearly be inundated with talking points and sloganeering that will make them accept anything the rich bastards decide they should accept.
So, Obama did make me like him for some of the things he said but his actions and the rest of his speech just fortified my outrage for his failure to seize the moment in history to make changes that will actually push the agenda of those most in need. His continued failure to look at the excessive spending on the military industrial complex continues my lack of respect for this man who has so much potential that's been wasted.
Obama talks about a freeze on spending to bring down the national debt but excludes the spending on the military and all the ancillary funding that's involved in keeping the military going. The exclusions from spending freezes amount to 70% of all spending by the government with tax payer dollars! All that's left to freeze are programs that could actually bring positive changes to the lives of everyday people.
All around this nation schools are facing huge budget problems that will result in closing schools and laying off teachers. Higher education budgets are being cut so drastically the tuition for a state university is prohibitive for most citizens' children. Community colleges are being touted as the "new" way to get a college education. Of course after getting an associate degree most students won't be able to go any further in pursuing higher education.
Homelessness, mental health and substance abuse treatment, treatment for the disabled young and old, child care, early education, hunger and all the many problems faced by more and more Americans will be more and more ignored in state and local budgets. Already cities and states are telling the poor, the newly foreclosed and unemployed they can't help. Already schools and programs meant to help the at-risk students are being chopped from budgets.
But, never fear, Obama is here. We can still send our children and grandchildren to war! The wars will continue on and more and more young people will be needed to do the bidding of the masters of war. As Smedley Butler so correctly stated, "war is a racket". We manufacture little in this nation except the tools of war and the equipment needed to keep wars going. In Slidell, LA there's a company making Bradley armored vehicles. That's the major industry of the town. All over America there are these types of companies dependent on the wars continuing. Just today there was a story that the US sold 7 billion dollars of arms to Taipei. Imagine how much we are selling Israel!
Obama can make nice speeches and tell us he's for the common citizen but his actions refute his words. And, watching the mostly white contingent of Republicans in Congress, I can't help but think many of their leaders would be wearing white sheets and robes and burning crosses just a few decades ago.
The hatefulness and obvious distaste shown by their faces and body language are telling. These are the looks of the racist whites who beat down and hosed civil rights workers in the 60's. These white elected officials of the Republican Party are the descendants of the KKK and those who lynched blacks. They'd deny they're racists and accuse anybody who called them racists as being anti-white and using the race card. They will rail against the burden placed on white men with the use of equal opportunity laws and affirmative action. And they will never get it. These are the representatives of the deluded who can't accept the US will become a nation in which the majority will not be white.
It's been clear Obama would encounter the racists as the first black President. But, the extent of the Republican obstruction in Congress is unparalleled. And, the coporate media refuses to comment on it. In America, we don't talk about racism, sexism, homophobia and anything diferent from the Euro-centric "norm".
I live in a neighborhood where the residents were almost completely Anglo. Over the 26 years I've been here I've seen the neighborhood change to one that is at least 50% Spanish speaking. A large influx of immigrants has come to this lower middle class neighborhood. No doubt many lack proprer "papers". Many live with more than one family in a single family dwelling. Many park their cars on their lawns and don't necessarily believe growing and watering grass is absolutely needed.
I like my neighborhood except for some of the old-timers who have talked with me in the local stores griping about how the neighborhood has "changed". They ask me how I like living next door to "them". They talk about the number of cars or people that live in some of the homes. What's really clear to me is the innuendo of these neighbors. They're talking code. Racist code. They don't talk with "them". They only assume about "them".
This is America today and try as I might to like Obama I can't. I can't like him because he has sold us out to the very people who would have gladly lynched him 30 years ago. He has sold us out to the robber barons and gangsters who have oppressed the poor, the people of color and the worker for a century or more. And they will not change simply because we now have a black President. They'll eventually make Obama the scape goat for all that has happened since Ronald Reagan's disastrous reign. They'll point to the first black American President as proof the black man can't govern. Nor play quarterback.
In my sixty years on this planet I have seen much. But the one unshakeable truth has always been the racism that prevails in far too many minds of Americans.
Wednesday, January 27
The Sorry State of Obama
Obama will give the "state of the union" address tonight, hoping to pacify and appease all sides of the political spectrum but will likely please none. He'll mouth platitudes toward the "middle class" and "mainstreet" but not once offer a realistic plan to help the families facing foreclosure on homes or joblessness. Does he seriously feel the general public living in the US gives a damn about his meager proposals in the face of the massive bailouts and handouts to banks and Wall Street racketeers?
Here's the state of the union Mr. President. The banksters, gangsters and racketeers have your testes squeezed tight and you'll do whatever they say if you want to stay in office another term. You and your cronies, along with George W. Bush and his cronies, perpetrated the biggest theft from the American tax payers in history when you gave away money to the failures of the banking and investment systems without conditions or regulations.
Mr. President, the state of the union is you plan on pumping billions of dollars into the military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Pentagon budget and fighting terrorism but are allowing schools, social safety nets such as Medicare, mental health, addiction treatment, healthcare for all and housing for the poor to go to hell in a hand basket.
The question is how in the hell do you expect to put Americans back to work this way? Are we all supposed to join the military to get a job? Don't tell us you're giving a few hundred million to some job programs or educational initiatives while you continue to pour billions after billions into wars unwarranted and unwinnable.
The state of the union is Americans are sick and tired of a Congress that obstructs any attempt to change things despite a majority number in both houses of Congress held by the alleged party of change, the Democratic Party. Why aren't 51 votes enough to pass a bill in the Senate? It's enough to elect a Senator but not enough to pass a simple bill giving Americans needed health care.
Why isn't the Republican Party called out by you, President Obama, for the un-American tactic of opposing any and all legislation proposed by a Democrat? Why did the Republicans, when they controlled Congress, jam bill after bill down the throats of Americans taking away basic rights, undoing years of social programs to protect the poor and needy and providing massive handouts to the already rich?
The destructive policies of greed continue and will only worsen once the Neocons retake the Congress in the near future. They will bring fear to the idiots willing to listen to their lies in the next elections and only the rich will benefit.
The state of the union is my son will lose his home soon, my wife and I will never be able to pay off our debts in our lifetime and we will join the millions of other families destitute and angry. We will be like the scenes we see in Haiti following the deadly earthquake. People will be in the streets hungry and angry. More so than the thousands upon thousands already at that point.
The truth is, Mr. Obama, there isn't a middle class left in this nation. Your bankster and racketeer friends speculating the wealth of this nation have made sure of the destruction of the middle class. Families can't send sons and daughters to college. They can't get needed health care that will prevent illness. They can't afford their homes.
Get out of the DC Beltway and really look at this nation, Mr. President. If you aren't outraged by what you find, then you have sold us all out.
Here's the state of the union Mr. President. The banksters, gangsters and racketeers have your testes squeezed tight and you'll do whatever they say if you want to stay in office another term. You and your cronies, along with George W. Bush and his cronies, perpetrated the biggest theft from the American tax payers in history when you gave away money to the failures of the banking and investment systems without conditions or regulations.
Mr. President, the state of the union is you plan on pumping billions of dollars into the military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Pentagon budget and fighting terrorism but are allowing schools, social safety nets such as Medicare, mental health, addiction treatment, healthcare for all and housing for the poor to go to hell in a hand basket.
The question is how in the hell do you expect to put Americans back to work this way? Are we all supposed to join the military to get a job? Don't tell us you're giving a few hundred million to some job programs or educational initiatives while you continue to pour billions after billions into wars unwarranted and unwinnable.
The state of the union is Americans are sick and tired of a Congress that obstructs any attempt to change things despite a majority number in both houses of Congress held by the alleged party of change, the Democratic Party. Why aren't 51 votes enough to pass a bill in the Senate? It's enough to elect a Senator but not enough to pass a simple bill giving Americans needed health care.
Why isn't the Republican Party called out by you, President Obama, for the un-American tactic of opposing any and all legislation proposed by a Democrat? Why did the Republicans, when they controlled Congress, jam bill after bill down the throats of Americans taking away basic rights, undoing years of social programs to protect the poor and needy and providing massive handouts to the already rich?
The destructive policies of greed continue and will only worsen once the Neocons retake the Congress in the near future. They will bring fear to the idiots willing to listen to their lies in the next elections and only the rich will benefit.
The state of the union is my son will lose his home soon, my wife and I will never be able to pay off our debts in our lifetime and we will join the millions of other families destitute and angry. We will be like the scenes we see in Haiti following the deadly earthquake. People will be in the streets hungry and angry. More so than the thousands upon thousands already at that point.
The truth is, Mr. Obama, there isn't a middle class left in this nation. Your bankster and racketeer friends speculating the wealth of this nation have made sure of the destruction of the middle class. Families can't send sons and daughters to college. They can't get needed health care that will prevent illness. They can't afford their homes.
Get out of the DC Beltway and really look at this nation, Mr. President. If you aren't outraged by what you find, then you have sold us all out.
Tuesday, January 26
And So it Goes
I've been gone from blogging since June of 09. Not much has changed personally since the blog of June about myself. Depression and all it entails remains pretty much the same. Or worse.
Much has changed since the election of Obama. Or has it really just stayed the same? There's an argument to be made for both thoughts.
Obama the new fresh face of democracy has turned out pretty much as I expected. He's really like Abu Jamal Mumia suggested; just a black face doing the bidding of the masters at the plantation. He'll be tagged with all the political and economic disasters of the Neo-Cons and then they'll return espousing a "new" direction for America. It's already happening as shown by the election of a neocon in Massachusetts to replace the Senate seat of the late Ted Kennedy.
Obama came into the Presidency with the hopes of the world that thngs would change but quickly showed it would be the same old thing of the banksters and corporate icons running the show. He continued and expanded the war in Afghanistan while making believe we have reduced our presence in Iraq. Whenever someone asks why we are in either place the terrifying reply starts out with terrorism.
But does terrorism really justify us bombing and strafing villages thought to have the Taliban or the ever elusive Al Queida roaming around in them? How does the drone rocket attack on a wedding party or the home full of children endear the American people to the people of these nations we occupy?
Just as Dubya continually raised the level of risk everytime his ratings seemed to fall, Obama has continued to use terrorism like we used to use the term communism during the war in Vietnam. And just like that war turned out, so too will these wars turn out. We might as well start the memorial wall for the dead Americans duped into thinking they were protecting democracy when in fact the mission they were given has had the opposite effect.
I know a little about being duped by my government. I am coming up on the 42nd anniversary of the 1968 Tet Offensive this weekend on January 30-31. I learned one month after my arrival in Vietnam as a combat infantryman in the Marines what insanity I had volunteered to be part of. JFK and his charismatic oratory along with his martyrdom at the hands of an assassin made it seem I must give up my life to "protect" our country from the scourge of communism.
Instead, what we did in Vietnam was occupy a nation that really didn't want us there except for the Westernized dictators who ruled the South. We terrorized by day and night with the mightiest display of weaponry the world had ever seen. We kicked in hootch doors and insulted and bullied villagers from Saigon to the DMZ. We did all this in the name of democracy. We insisted the Vietnamese wanted our democracy. Like Iraq and Afghanistan, what the Vietnamese people wanted was security from the insanity of war so they could live in peace, work in peace, take care of their kids in peace and live free of violence. We provided none of this for them. Nor did the armies of the other side. What we did was put the general population of Vietnam in the middle of a violent game of power. They couldn't win if they supported the Americans or the North Vietnamese and NVA.
Sure this is a simplification of Vietnam and the current wars but we still must ask ourselves why we were ever there and why we are still there (in Iraq and Afghanistan)? What have we accomplished by importing violence to nations already overwhelmed with violence? C'mon, the truth is we went to these nations to demonstrate our power and to have strategic control of areas in the world we could exploit for natural resources and the fear we could bring to our perceived enemies such as China, Russia and Iran.
Our presence on their doorsteps and the control of oil fields, deep water ports and other vital resources was meant to intimidate. We have become the class bully and in classic Orwellian terms classified our actions as fighting for freedom and democracy.
Why is it we Americans trail all the other industrialized nations in literacy and the knowledge of languages other than our own? Why is it the rest of the industrialized nations have better infant mortality rates and can manage to give all their citizens decent health care? We have slowly descended into the depths of stupidity and ignorance while all around us see our emperor has no clothes while he marches in his pompous parade of oligarchic power.
Just this past week another Orwellian twist has occurred. The justices of the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to designate corporations as being individual people, having the same rights as an individual. This concept has been fought against for over a hundred years to prevent coporations from further buying off our elected officals. Now that the justices appointed by Reagan and the Bushes have opened the door to this personhood of big businesses we are offically without true democracy. Money talks, poverty walks. If we close our eyes and imagine Wal-Mart is a person do we see a predominately American or Chinese person? Where will the campaign funding come from, American tycoons or the centralized government of China, a nation once called our greatest enemy?
If we have become sickened by the lies, the innuendoes and distortions of campaign ads in past years, wait until this election season. Big money willl flood the airways with attack and counter-attack ads. And ignorant Americans will buy into the lies and distortions without finding the truth for themselves. Any attempt to hold a conversation of original thought will be difficult to find. Buzz words and talking points will be used to counter any rational argument against the lies of America, Incorporated.
So, yes, the more things change the more they stay the same. Who will break the cycle? Certainly not the "greatest generation" of my father who have gotten theirs but don't want anybody else to have the same. Certainly not my generation who claimed they would change the world but instead copped out and cut their hair and became "the man". My progressive friends like to believe the coalitions of the Vietnam moratorium movement changed the course of the war but conveniently forget after 1968, the bombing and deaths increased rather than decreased. Nixon used the war for four years to ensure his reelection. The genocide in Cambodia occurred because Americans refused to stop the war.
Who will break the cycle? I don't think my sons' generation will do it because they are the result of my generation's pampering and infantilzing. They became self absorbed and so materialistic they couldn't escape the debt trap of the corporations. They failed to understand the death trap of the military.
And so it goes. Welcome back to my cynical and disparging blog about the country I try dearly to love but become repulsed by every day. Like the old folk song asks, "when will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?". I ask myself that almost every day and can't come up with a hopeful answer.
Much has changed since the election of Obama. Or has it really just stayed the same? There's an argument to be made for both thoughts.
Obama the new fresh face of democracy has turned out pretty much as I expected. He's really like Abu Jamal Mumia suggested; just a black face doing the bidding of the masters at the plantation. He'll be tagged with all the political and economic disasters of the Neo-Cons and then they'll return espousing a "new" direction for America. It's already happening as shown by the election of a neocon in Massachusetts to replace the Senate seat of the late Ted Kennedy.
Obama came into the Presidency with the hopes of the world that thngs would change but quickly showed it would be the same old thing of the banksters and corporate icons running the show. He continued and expanded the war in Afghanistan while making believe we have reduced our presence in Iraq. Whenever someone asks why we are in either place the terrifying reply starts out with terrorism.
But does terrorism really justify us bombing and strafing villages thought to have the Taliban or the ever elusive Al Queida roaming around in them? How does the drone rocket attack on a wedding party or the home full of children endear the American people to the people of these nations we occupy?
Just as Dubya continually raised the level of risk everytime his ratings seemed to fall, Obama has continued to use terrorism like we used to use the term communism during the war in Vietnam. And just like that war turned out, so too will these wars turn out. We might as well start the memorial wall for the dead Americans duped into thinking they were protecting democracy when in fact the mission they were given has had the opposite effect.
I know a little about being duped by my government. I am coming up on the 42nd anniversary of the 1968 Tet Offensive this weekend on January 30-31. I learned one month after my arrival in Vietnam as a combat infantryman in the Marines what insanity I had volunteered to be part of. JFK and his charismatic oratory along with his martyrdom at the hands of an assassin made it seem I must give up my life to "protect" our country from the scourge of communism.
Instead, what we did in Vietnam was occupy a nation that really didn't want us there except for the Westernized dictators who ruled the South. We terrorized by day and night with the mightiest display of weaponry the world had ever seen. We kicked in hootch doors and insulted and bullied villagers from Saigon to the DMZ. We did all this in the name of democracy. We insisted the Vietnamese wanted our democracy. Like Iraq and Afghanistan, what the Vietnamese people wanted was security from the insanity of war so they could live in peace, work in peace, take care of their kids in peace and live free of violence. We provided none of this for them. Nor did the armies of the other side. What we did was put the general population of Vietnam in the middle of a violent game of power. They couldn't win if they supported the Americans or the North Vietnamese and NVA.
Sure this is a simplification of Vietnam and the current wars but we still must ask ourselves why we were ever there and why we are still there (in Iraq and Afghanistan)? What have we accomplished by importing violence to nations already overwhelmed with violence? C'mon, the truth is we went to these nations to demonstrate our power and to have strategic control of areas in the world we could exploit for natural resources and the fear we could bring to our perceived enemies such as China, Russia and Iran.
Our presence on their doorsteps and the control of oil fields, deep water ports and other vital resources was meant to intimidate. We have become the class bully and in classic Orwellian terms classified our actions as fighting for freedom and democracy.
Why is it we Americans trail all the other industrialized nations in literacy and the knowledge of languages other than our own? Why is it the rest of the industrialized nations have better infant mortality rates and can manage to give all their citizens decent health care? We have slowly descended into the depths of stupidity and ignorance while all around us see our emperor has no clothes while he marches in his pompous parade of oligarchic power.
Just this past week another Orwellian twist has occurred. The justices of the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to designate corporations as being individual people, having the same rights as an individual. This concept has been fought against for over a hundred years to prevent coporations from further buying off our elected officals. Now that the justices appointed by Reagan and the Bushes have opened the door to this personhood of big businesses we are offically without true democracy. Money talks, poverty walks. If we close our eyes and imagine Wal-Mart is a person do we see a predominately American or Chinese person? Where will the campaign funding come from, American tycoons or the centralized government of China, a nation once called our greatest enemy?
If we have become sickened by the lies, the innuendoes and distortions of campaign ads in past years, wait until this election season. Big money willl flood the airways with attack and counter-attack ads. And ignorant Americans will buy into the lies and distortions without finding the truth for themselves. Any attempt to hold a conversation of original thought will be difficult to find. Buzz words and talking points will be used to counter any rational argument against the lies of America, Incorporated.
So, yes, the more things change the more they stay the same. Who will break the cycle? Certainly not the "greatest generation" of my father who have gotten theirs but don't want anybody else to have the same. Certainly not my generation who claimed they would change the world but instead copped out and cut their hair and became "the man". My progressive friends like to believe the coalitions of the Vietnam moratorium movement changed the course of the war but conveniently forget after 1968, the bombing and deaths increased rather than decreased. Nixon used the war for four years to ensure his reelection. The genocide in Cambodia occurred because Americans refused to stop the war.
Who will break the cycle? I don't think my sons' generation will do it because they are the result of my generation's pampering and infantilzing. They became self absorbed and so materialistic they couldn't escape the debt trap of the corporations. They failed to understand the death trap of the military.
And so it goes. Welcome back to my cynical and disparging blog about the country I try dearly to love but become repulsed by every day. Like the old folk song asks, "when will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?". I ask myself that almost every day and can't come up with a hopeful answer.
Saturday, June 6
That's Me
The past months have been hard. Life doesn't always go on as always. Sometimes it goes on in spite of us. Sometimes despite our wishes. But life does go on. Having reached 60 for the first time in my life, I've suddenly wondered where my life went. I look back and find all the wasted time and wish I had it back. I look back and say, "if only". If only I had made a better decision when I was 17 enlisting in the Marines. If only I had refused to fight in a war I found intolerable and wrong but was trapped in. If only I had not been the bastard toward wife and kids as I fought the demons trapped in my mind. If only I had bought into the materialistic, self-centered life of Americans maybe I could feel better about my life.
Did I ever think I'd spend more than 40 years ruminating and obsessing on what I did when I was 18 and 19? I doubt I did. Decisions in life at an early age can haunt us for the rest of our lives. I never expected to be 60. Hell, I never expected to be 30. I can't say whether it is a sense of survival or just a cowardly fear of death that has kept me alive. Maybe both. There certainly have been times I wished I could off myself and leave this world a better place. And there have been times when I felt I had to do something to make this place a better world.
Since January of this year depression has been the most descriptive part of my life. Sometimes immobilizing, sometimes suicidal and sometimes just enough to make it hard to do anything of importance or with meaning. Anhedonia is a word used by us in the "psych" world to describe an inability to experience pleasure. Do I experience pleasure? Yes. But I find myself always the person looking through a window at life inside apart from the warmth of family and friends. I see life but I'm never quite completely part of it. I'm the little kid with their nose pressed up against the store window wanting the candy inside but unable to get it.
I don't know if things will get better. I look back at all the sabotaged relationships I've had. I can't stand getting close to anybody. I don't want them to know my darkest secrets. I don't want them to expect too much of me. I don't want to be responsible for their feelings.
I've talked about war, violence, peace and justice ad nauseam to an empty room. I've wanted to make a difference through my words but found I'm just one of millions wanting the same thing. Blogs are a dime a dozen full of inane thoughts of the writer. Why should someone care what I think? Why should I care what someone else thinks?
I used to think I should care what someone else thinks but found it caused me too much discomfort. If I cared what they felt I took on some of their burden as well as the good things they brought with them. If I cared about the thoughts of others I might become human. I don't want to feel the pain of a child soldier in some third world country like Sudan. I don't want to take on the depression of a Palestinian family oppressed by Zionists. I don't want to hear about the families in Basrah or Baghdad living in fear of bombs, bullets and destruction.
I'm American. I have enough angst wondering if they'll foreclose on my home which is too large for just me and the wife. I worry too much about the debt I incurred buying into the American nightmare of instant gratification and consumption to give a damn about a starving child two oceans away.
We here in this country wonder how anybody could dislike us. We are the greatest nation in the world we tell ourselves and to question that is to become a pariah, a communist, a terrorist and an enemy of all that is American. I go to functions my wife wants me to go to with her and find myself so completely alienated by all the excess I find around me I can hardly keep from erupting in a profanity laced rage. I wonder if she wants all that her friends seem to have. The big pictures, the lofts, the urban lifestyle with good furniture and all the latest trendy items to only look at and never touch. I've certainly failed her if that's what she wanted.
I look at my kids as the hardest part of my life. How did I fail them so badly? Crack cocaine became their refuge from me. One still fights the addiction and the other is so closed off I never know what he thinks. My grandkids are beautiful but I am aloof and detached with them just like I am with everybody in my life. The kid with his nose pressed against the store window of life never able to enter and take part in the sweetness of life. That's me.
Did I ever think I'd spend more than 40 years ruminating and obsessing on what I did when I was 18 and 19? I doubt I did. Decisions in life at an early age can haunt us for the rest of our lives. I never expected to be 60. Hell, I never expected to be 30. I can't say whether it is a sense of survival or just a cowardly fear of death that has kept me alive. Maybe both. There certainly have been times I wished I could off myself and leave this world a better place. And there have been times when I felt I had to do something to make this place a better world.
Since January of this year depression has been the most descriptive part of my life. Sometimes immobilizing, sometimes suicidal and sometimes just enough to make it hard to do anything of importance or with meaning. Anhedonia is a word used by us in the "psych" world to describe an inability to experience pleasure. Do I experience pleasure? Yes. But I find myself always the person looking through a window at life inside apart from the warmth of family and friends. I see life but I'm never quite completely part of it. I'm the little kid with their nose pressed up against the store window wanting the candy inside but unable to get it.
I don't know if things will get better. I look back at all the sabotaged relationships I've had. I can't stand getting close to anybody. I don't want them to know my darkest secrets. I don't want them to expect too much of me. I don't want to be responsible for their feelings.
I've talked about war, violence, peace and justice ad nauseam to an empty room. I've wanted to make a difference through my words but found I'm just one of millions wanting the same thing. Blogs are a dime a dozen full of inane thoughts of the writer. Why should someone care what I think? Why should I care what someone else thinks?
I used to think I should care what someone else thinks but found it caused me too much discomfort. If I cared what they felt I took on some of their burden as well as the good things they brought with them. If I cared about the thoughts of others I might become human. I don't want to feel the pain of a child soldier in some third world country like Sudan. I don't want to take on the depression of a Palestinian family oppressed by Zionists. I don't want to hear about the families in Basrah or Baghdad living in fear of bombs, bullets and destruction.
I'm American. I have enough angst wondering if they'll foreclose on my home which is too large for just me and the wife. I worry too much about the debt I incurred buying into the American nightmare of instant gratification and consumption to give a damn about a starving child two oceans away.
We here in this country wonder how anybody could dislike us. We are the greatest nation in the world we tell ourselves and to question that is to become a pariah, a communist, a terrorist and an enemy of all that is American. I go to functions my wife wants me to go to with her and find myself so completely alienated by all the excess I find around me I can hardly keep from erupting in a profanity laced rage. I wonder if she wants all that her friends seem to have. The big pictures, the lofts, the urban lifestyle with good furniture and all the latest trendy items to only look at and never touch. I've certainly failed her if that's what she wanted.
I look at my kids as the hardest part of my life. How did I fail them so badly? Crack cocaine became their refuge from me. One still fights the addiction and the other is so closed off I never know what he thinks. My grandkids are beautiful but I am aloof and detached with them just like I am with everybody in my life. The kid with his nose pressed against the store window of life never able to enter and take part in the sweetness of life. That's me.
Tool of The Rich
What part of Obama's speech in Cairo should give us hope for a new relationship with the Islamic world? Rhetoric is just rhetoric when actions contradict. Obama has become the new salesman for the American royalty of rich power brokers and entitled elitists.
The significance of Obama's journey to the Middle East to give a polished speech he began writing before his election is window dressing and disingenuous. His destinations of Saudi Arabia and Egypt are the cues to his lack of sincerity toward the Muslim world. He chose the two most repressive regimes of the region to curry favor with the long misunderstood and vilified people of Islamic faith. He spoke eloquently about peace in Palestine and even dared to challenge Israel but his failure to speak of the repression of Egypt's Mubarak and the Saudi royal family makes his words hollow and hypocritical.
Progressives and liberals may want us to give Obama time but families sending their sons and daughters off to the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan war wonder when enough is enough after multiple deployments of their loved ones. Yes, there is still two wars being waged in the name of this nation and billions each month is being spent to fund them. Billions that could be spent to "bail-out" the millions who have lost jobs due to the handling of the phony economic crisis.
What goodwill is being gained by this nation when we continue to wage illegal and immoral wars in nations of large Islamic populations? And how do we stem the hatred toward Americans when we send drones into Pakistan and make multiple mistakes in bombing the homes of innocent civilians instead of the alleged enemy?
As expected the new deal of Obama has turned out to be the same old deal of oligarchy, imperialism and nationalistic insanity. As expected Obama has sold out to the self appointed "royalty" of America. The richest families and multi-national corporations continue to wield the greatest influence and power in this alleged democracy. Locally and nationally special interests buy the elected political prostitutes while the poor and diminishing middle class go begging for table scraps of the great American dream.
While Obama speaks with a charisma not heard since JFK, like JFK he is merely a tool of a corrupted system never meant to be about "we, the people".
Wm. Terry Leichner, RN
Denver VVAW member
The significance of Obama's journey to the Middle East to give a polished speech he began writing before his election is window dressing and disingenuous. His destinations of Saudi Arabia and Egypt are the cues to his lack of sincerity toward the Muslim world. He chose the two most repressive regimes of the region to curry favor with the long misunderstood and vilified people of Islamic faith. He spoke eloquently about peace in Palestine and even dared to challenge Israel but his failure to speak of the repression of Egypt's Mubarak and the Saudi royal family makes his words hollow and hypocritical.
Progressives and liberals may want us to give Obama time but families sending their sons and daughters off to the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan war wonder when enough is enough after multiple deployments of their loved ones. Yes, there is still two wars being waged in the name of this nation and billions each month is being spent to fund them. Billions that could be spent to "bail-out" the millions who have lost jobs due to the handling of the phony economic crisis.
What goodwill is being gained by this nation when we continue to wage illegal and immoral wars in nations of large Islamic populations? And how do we stem the hatred toward Americans when we send drones into Pakistan and make multiple mistakes in bombing the homes of innocent civilians instead of the alleged enemy?
As expected the new deal of Obama has turned out to be the same old deal of oligarchy, imperialism and nationalistic insanity. As expected Obama has sold out to the self appointed "royalty" of America. The richest families and multi-national corporations continue to wield the greatest influence and power in this alleged democracy. Locally and nationally special interests buy the elected political prostitutes while the poor and diminishing middle class go begging for table scraps of the great American dream.
While Obama speaks with a charisma not heard since JFK, like JFK he is merely a tool of a corrupted system never meant to be about "we, the people".
Wm. Terry Leichner, RN
Denver VVAW member
Tuesday, January 20
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 13
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.
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.
Wednesday, December 31
Nonviolence Is Not Passive
The logical challenge to the nonviolent philosophy of activism is the one asking if we'd be nonviolent if our community or families were being attacked. My personal answer would be, of course not. My immediate reaction would be to defend my community, my family and myself. Even the beloved Gandhi speaks about this situation and says much the same.
The difference between protecting ourselves against attack and initiating violence against others is the difference between morality and immorality. Being the aggressors takes away any moral standing we may have had in a struggle. That's not to say being assertive isn't a moral path. Nonviolent resistance is probably the ultimate form of assertiveness.
Nonviolent resistance doesn't mean passivity. It is the direct opposite of passivity. Nonviolent resistance doesn't mean sitting in streets being ceremoniously arrested in a plan worked out ahead of time with the police. It means taking to the streets to resist the oppressor and the agents of oppression like the police.
For too long the activist movement has wanted to play by the rules of the oppressor in their resistance. They've bowed to getting permits to allow them the "right" to march against oppression. They've coordinated with police to ensure things are "orderly" when the resistance is meant to bring disorder to a failed system. Activists have allowed police to be part of their strategy in resistance. This leads me to the analogy of inviting the fox into the henhouse to help plan a defense against the intrusion and violence of the fox.
Nonviolent resistance can and should target the icons of oppression. Companies like Shell, Halliburton and Fox are all complicit partners in oppression. Wal-Mart and other corporate giants have oppressed workers since the founding of their companies. Political action groups like AIPAC have bastardized access to elected officials and bought public policy. Foreign policy has been dictated by companies and organizations that make huge profits from the policies of never-ending wars.
Martin Luther King and the civil rights workers targeted Woolworths' refusing to seat blacks at their lunch counters. They didn't target the federal government or local government first. They started at the local and corporate level. They started at the level that would ignite the flame of perceived injustice being carried out in the everyday lives of people oppressed.
The flame was lighted by Rosa Parks being forced to stand when empty seats were available in the "white only" part of the bus. She was tired from working hard and for wages that hardly paid the bills. She challenged an oppressive and injust law by taking a seat in the "front" of the bus. Her arrest clearly highlighted the oppression of the segregated South. Her simple, noviolent action was heard around the community and around the nation.
The differences between the civil rights movement and the current movement are dramatic. The eventual diversity of the civil rights movement compared to the current activist movement stand out. The strategies of organizing locally and building by actions that address local issues are different from the march and rally shows against national policies today.
But the issue is Iraq and Afghanistan....Israel and Palestine the movement says. Those issues are surely foremost in a global sense but they trickle down to our local communities. Young men and women are induced into the military locally because they can't find adequate jobs or education. The money for such programs go into the war machine. Crippling the war machine has to be done by preventing it from taking our young people in a back door draft. Crippling the war machine has to be done by insisting local companies take precendence over huge corporate giants that contribute heavily toward war. Crippling the war machine has to be done by demanding local officials refrain from supporting the war economy. It has to be done by fighting for those oppressed locally so they can be enlisted to move on a grander scale against the larger oppressors.
It certainly isn't hard to find local oppression. Police brutality, substandard housing, substandard wages, substandard schools and the ongoing decline of inner cities while rich oppressors flee to the suburbs are but a small example of local injustices and oppression. The most oppresed locally and nationally are people of color and those of non-European ethnicity. Supporting this diverse population only makes sense to build any activist community. It's like planting seeds in the spring to see the the harvest in the fall. If we plant the seed of community caring and support that comes from all sectors of the community we have a rich harvest of activists.
Unfortunately, professional activists from the old Vietnam era movement has taken root and failed to remember the diversity needed to get the attention on the national level. Martin Luther King rallied his followers to join against the war. The Black Panthers were included in the movement. The Brown Berets and LaRaza were part of the movement.
Today we seem to work in separate issue groups that seldom acknowledge the need to connect all the issues as part of the overall oppression going on in this nation and around the world. Gay rights are part of human rights. Immigration rights are part of human rights and the labor struggle. Police brutality is part of racism and violence toward the disenfranchised. Police brutality is part of overall fear to dissent and challenge oppression and injustice. The issues are all interconnected and the activists should be as well for a movement to actually be effective.
Nonviolent action and resistance is not passive. It is assertive and doesn't back down even when violence is directed toward it. I feel strongly about protecting myself and others against violence directed toward us. I'm not going to sit at the curb and allow myself or others to be brutalized without attempting to stop the attacker. But I won't join in the planned attack of others to effect a temporary victory for change. That mentality of retaliation and reprisal is the problem we see in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and Gaza, among other places in the world. Violence truly does beget violence and I can't work with organizations that include violence as part of the strategy of effecting change. I did that once. It was called the Marine Corps.
The difference between protecting ourselves against attack and initiating violence against others is the difference between morality and immorality. Being the aggressors takes away any moral standing we may have had in a struggle. That's not to say being assertive isn't a moral path. Nonviolent resistance is probably the ultimate form of assertiveness.
Nonviolent resistance doesn't mean passivity. It is the direct opposite of passivity. Nonviolent resistance doesn't mean sitting in streets being ceremoniously arrested in a plan worked out ahead of time with the police. It means taking to the streets to resist the oppressor and the agents of oppression like the police.
For too long the activist movement has wanted to play by the rules of the oppressor in their resistance. They've bowed to getting permits to allow them the "right" to march against oppression. They've coordinated with police to ensure things are "orderly" when the resistance is meant to bring disorder to a failed system. Activists have allowed police to be part of their strategy in resistance. This leads me to the analogy of inviting the fox into the henhouse to help plan a defense against the intrusion and violence of the fox.
Nonviolent resistance can and should target the icons of oppression. Companies like Shell, Halliburton and Fox are all complicit partners in oppression. Wal-Mart and other corporate giants have oppressed workers since the founding of their companies. Political action groups like AIPAC have bastardized access to elected officials and bought public policy. Foreign policy has been dictated by companies and organizations that make huge profits from the policies of never-ending wars.
Martin Luther King and the civil rights workers targeted Woolworths' refusing to seat blacks at their lunch counters. They didn't target the federal government or local government first. They started at the local and corporate level. They started at the level that would ignite the flame of perceived injustice being carried out in the everyday lives of people oppressed.
The flame was lighted by Rosa Parks being forced to stand when empty seats were available in the "white only" part of the bus. She was tired from working hard and for wages that hardly paid the bills. She challenged an oppressive and injust law by taking a seat in the "front" of the bus. Her arrest clearly highlighted the oppression of the segregated South. Her simple, noviolent action was heard around the community and around the nation.
The differences between the civil rights movement and the current movement are dramatic. The eventual diversity of the civil rights movement compared to the current activist movement stand out. The strategies of organizing locally and building by actions that address local issues are different from the march and rally shows against national policies today.
But the issue is Iraq and Afghanistan....Israel and Palestine the movement says. Those issues are surely foremost in a global sense but they trickle down to our local communities. Young men and women are induced into the military locally because they can't find adequate jobs or education. The money for such programs go into the war machine. Crippling the war machine has to be done by preventing it from taking our young people in a back door draft. Crippling the war machine has to be done by insisting local companies take precendence over huge corporate giants that contribute heavily toward war. Crippling the war machine has to be done by demanding local officials refrain from supporting the war economy. It has to be done by fighting for those oppressed locally so they can be enlisted to move on a grander scale against the larger oppressors.
It certainly isn't hard to find local oppression. Police brutality, substandard housing, substandard wages, substandard schools and the ongoing decline of inner cities while rich oppressors flee to the suburbs are but a small example of local injustices and oppression. The most oppresed locally and nationally are people of color and those of non-European ethnicity. Supporting this diverse population only makes sense to build any activist community. It's like planting seeds in the spring to see the the harvest in the fall. If we plant the seed of community caring and support that comes from all sectors of the community we have a rich harvest of activists.
Unfortunately, professional activists from the old Vietnam era movement has taken root and failed to remember the diversity needed to get the attention on the national level. Martin Luther King rallied his followers to join against the war. The Black Panthers were included in the movement. The Brown Berets and LaRaza were part of the movement.
Today we seem to work in separate issue groups that seldom acknowledge the need to connect all the issues as part of the overall oppression going on in this nation and around the world. Gay rights are part of human rights. Immigration rights are part of human rights and the labor struggle. Police brutality is part of racism and violence toward the disenfranchised. Police brutality is part of overall fear to dissent and challenge oppression and injustice. The issues are all interconnected and the activists should be as well for a movement to actually be effective.
Nonviolent action and resistance is not passive. It is assertive and doesn't back down even when violence is directed toward it. I feel strongly about protecting myself and others against violence directed toward us. I'm not going to sit at the curb and allow myself or others to be brutalized without attempting to stop the attacker. But I won't join in the planned attack of others to effect a temporary victory for change. That mentality of retaliation and reprisal is the problem we see in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and Gaza, among other places in the world. Violence truly does beget violence and I can't work with organizations that include violence as part of the strategy of effecting change. I did that once. It was called the Marine Corps.
Tuesday, December 30
I'm Not Endorsing The Path of Violence
As death continues to reign in Gaza, the Israeli army prepares for invasion and the US and allies stand idly by with the same old refrain...."Israel has the right to defend itself". The new face of change, Obama, is included in this Greek chorus of the ongoing tragedy being carried out.
The rationale for killing over 300 and destroying entire communities by accounts of the mainstream media is 7 dead Israeli citizens from the rocket attacks of groups in the Gaza strip. The truth, of course, is Israel is challenging the new President's loyalty to Zionist causes before he even takes the oath of office. The invasion and bombings were every bit as planned as was the war in Iraq. It was inevitable Israel would start the violence once again and continue it until they get what they want; a government they can control rather than one "democratically" elected.
Of course, the US can't condemn Israel's actions since they are so much like the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. The military strategy is simple; pound the target area with bombs and artillery killing indiscriminately to soften things up. Once the chaos, death and destroyed infrastructure is completed, the ground troops aided by helicopter gunships and on call air support enter and occupy. It's the Falllujah strategy. It was refined in Vietnam and carried over to the Middle East.
We fool ourselves, however, if we think voicing our outrage will do much more than validate that we care about the inhumanity of our biggest ally in the world stage. I don't say we shouldn't voice outrage however futile it is. I do suggest we not forget the great urgency we have to build a stronger coalition of activist that spans all cultures and ethnic groups.We have AIPAC and the military industrial complex to overcome to have our voices heard. Only when the numbers reach the scale of the Vietnam moratorium days or the days of Dr. King will the reasonable voices of peace and justice be heard.
I've worked with many activists in my 60 years of life. The most effective have been the men and women who decried the violence of all sides of conflict. The continued killing of those people caught between the two or more political forces at war isn't true revolution or peace and justice. The eye for an eye mentality so often demontrated by the warring sides is a vile repudiation of peace and justice for anyone.
I've been a participant in this insanity of war. The code was retribution for any of our Marines killed by the other side. If a sniper in a village killed one of us, that village was likely to disappear and evacuation of the innocent wasn't part of the deal. My Lai wasn't an isolated incident of war. That fact is finally coming out forty years after the war in Vietnam.
Retribution and revenge killing is common in wars. If I am to offer my support for the insurgents of Iraq, Afghanistan or Gaza, I'm forgetting the concept of peace and justice. Killing and destruction may make us feel good if it is inflicted on the "bad guys" but we give up a large chunk of our humanity to feel satisfaction about killing other humans.
I read and hear anarchists, liberals, progressives, Marxists, socialists and others talk enthusiastically about the struggle with the thinking violence is a logical tool of the struggle. I hardly ever hear that from the combat veterans who have gone that route. Young idealists with rage and frustration in their heart are misdirected in thinking violence will get them peace and justice. They're quick to recall Malcolm X and other radical figures in the past but forget Malcolm came to the conclusion violence wasn't the path.
Rhetoric about violent revolution is one thing, carrying out violence against a stronger and larger force is another. Entering the battle with spears against tanks, artillery and air power may be brave of those who actually engage but it's pretty damn stupid and a waste of life.
I've heard young radicals talk a good story of resistance and struggle but seen them disappear when heads started getting bashed. I've seen vocal leaders encourage their followers to act in violent ways but they always seem to be missing when the violence they encouraged happens. I've listened to impassioned speakers encourage others to resist and act but the only part they take is their words. They don't face the guns or the prisons. They seldom even risk arrest.
I'm not inclined to listen to rhetoric of phonies encouraging us to act violently, to resist and risk prison or to confront the oppressors if they don't walk their talk. And there's a lot of them out there. Now, folks like Kathy Kelly, Roy Bourgeois, Ardeth Platte, Carol Gilbert and Jackie Hudson walk the talk and do it nonviolently. Their voices are strong and determined.
So, salute the leaders of violent means of change if you choose but don't expect things to change all that much. The power of the gun is a false god that leads only to more violence.
The rationale for killing over 300 and destroying entire communities by accounts of the mainstream media is 7 dead Israeli citizens from the rocket attacks of groups in the Gaza strip. The truth, of course, is Israel is challenging the new President's loyalty to Zionist causes before he even takes the oath of office. The invasion and bombings were every bit as planned as was the war in Iraq. It was inevitable Israel would start the violence once again and continue it until they get what they want; a government they can control rather than one "democratically" elected.
Of course, the US can't condemn Israel's actions since they are so much like the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. The military strategy is simple; pound the target area with bombs and artillery killing indiscriminately to soften things up. Once the chaos, death and destroyed infrastructure is completed, the ground troops aided by helicopter gunships and on call air support enter and occupy. It's the Falllujah strategy. It was refined in Vietnam and carried over to the Middle East.
We fool ourselves, however, if we think voicing our outrage will do much more than validate that we care about the inhumanity of our biggest ally in the world stage. I don't say we shouldn't voice outrage however futile it is. I do suggest we not forget the great urgency we have to build a stronger coalition of activist that spans all cultures and ethnic groups.We have AIPAC and the military industrial complex to overcome to have our voices heard. Only when the numbers reach the scale of the Vietnam moratorium days or the days of Dr. King will the reasonable voices of peace and justice be heard.
I've worked with many activists in my 60 years of life. The most effective have been the men and women who decried the violence of all sides of conflict. The continued killing of those people caught between the two or more political forces at war isn't true revolution or peace and justice. The eye for an eye mentality so often demontrated by the warring sides is a vile repudiation of peace and justice for anyone.
I've been a participant in this insanity of war. The code was retribution for any of our Marines killed by the other side. If a sniper in a village killed one of us, that village was likely to disappear and evacuation of the innocent wasn't part of the deal. My Lai wasn't an isolated incident of war. That fact is finally coming out forty years after the war in Vietnam.
Retribution and revenge killing is common in wars. If I am to offer my support for the insurgents of Iraq, Afghanistan or Gaza, I'm forgetting the concept of peace and justice. Killing and destruction may make us feel good if it is inflicted on the "bad guys" but we give up a large chunk of our humanity to feel satisfaction about killing other humans.
I read and hear anarchists, liberals, progressives, Marxists, socialists and others talk enthusiastically about the struggle with the thinking violence is a logical tool of the struggle. I hardly ever hear that from the combat veterans who have gone that route. Young idealists with rage and frustration in their heart are misdirected in thinking violence will get them peace and justice. They're quick to recall Malcolm X and other radical figures in the past but forget Malcolm came to the conclusion violence wasn't the path.
Rhetoric about violent revolution is one thing, carrying out violence against a stronger and larger force is another. Entering the battle with spears against tanks, artillery and air power may be brave of those who actually engage but it's pretty damn stupid and a waste of life.
I've heard young radicals talk a good story of resistance and struggle but seen them disappear when heads started getting bashed. I've seen vocal leaders encourage their followers to act in violent ways but they always seem to be missing when the violence they encouraged happens. I've listened to impassioned speakers encourage others to resist and act but the only part they take is their words. They don't face the guns or the prisons. They seldom even risk arrest.
I'm not inclined to listen to rhetoric of phonies encouraging us to act violently, to resist and risk prison or to confront the oppressors if they don't walk their talk. And there's a lot of them out there. Now, folks like Kathy Kelly, Roy Bourgeois, Ardeth Platte, Carol Gilbert and Jackie Hudson walk the talk and do it nonviolently. Their voices are strong and determined.
So, salute the leaders of violent means of change if you choose but don't expect things to change all that much. The power of the gun is a false god that leads only to more violence.
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