Interesting Stuff

I haven't written in a very long time. In fact, I purged most of the entries on this blog some time ago, only keeping the ones I felt weren't silly. I look at it now, and it brings me back to how angry I was at the time, accumulating since the "war" began, my chosen template and Internet font erupting in 2004, joining, arguing, ridiculing, commenting, lamenting. I still am angry about politics I suppose in many ways, but something has shifted... it's probably me.

I even purged all my links and contacts to other blogs, of which I have restored a few today, but then again I am not as interested these days in getting all heated up about things. Blogging as therapy worked for me I suppose; some measure of catharsis was apparently achieved, and one doesn't need to always and forever be advertising one's convictions. Occasionally I do miss the thrill of logging in to outrageous, incendiary commentary and sparring with it, but really it all seemed a bit pointless after awhile - the Internet is a poor place for fostering trust between those who disagree, and as they say, 93% of communication takes place in tone of voice and body language - a bit difficult to discern whilst online. And why argue to no measurable effect?

I think my blog wants to be about violence, that most-visceral (other than childbirth, I would argue) of human manifestations - and has been a recurring battle in my life, for sure. Or maybe I am being too self-conscious about it all - should I just let flow again all sorts of nonsense as other folks do? I was quite good at that for a time, but I can't even tell you how many hours in the day it consumed. That was likely the point at the time; an escape from the circumstances of my life. But really, can't I just write here occasionally, however rarely, and just be happy with it? Must I slave at "developing" a readership again in order to foster lively conversation, to keep up with the blog next door? It would be nice if folks would just allow me to be that lazy.

But as you see I still didn't delete this blog. Something in me wanted to keep part of it, that small offshoot of my person plastered up, the part I didn't mind showing the world. Maybe I will write some more soon. A blog after all can be a very safe way of spewing one's opinion - nobody can really do anything about what you say, can they? Or then again maybe I won't. In the end if I felt like it, I could just retreat to safety and ignore logging in again until next year.

Incidentally, in one of those deleted posts from years ago I had mentioned a very interesting Evangelical sort, the Rev. Jim Wallis, and his book God's Politics. Today I stumbled across a website that put him in mind for me again: Leaving Fundamentalism. Very interesting stuff.

Revolution

There's noise out here. I can't escape a pervasive, ongoing undercurrent of feeling that something big is happening. Only none of us can quite see it yet. Something immense is changing; some momentous, revolutionary shift in world conciousness, as though the forces of good and evil are battling somewhere above, and its outcome will determine how this change happens... and it is frightening. Not for the Earth, but for us. Maybe we are all reacting to this in our own ways. Some of us peer out and write and hold our breath and try to guess what to do; some of us evangelize our fear using religious books and faith in "signs" and End Times; some of us try to bury it in alcohol or fantasy or distraction; yet others of us grasp at power and attempt to control the forces of the world...only to see our targets slip away again and again...

But do you feel it? There is something coming. And I have a feeling it's not going to be what any of us thinks it is.

Silence And Safety

Light many lamps and gather round his bed.
Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live.
Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet.
He's young; he hated War; how should he die
When cruel old campaigners win safe through?

But death replied: " I choose him." So he went,
And there was silence in the summer night;
Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep.
Then, far away, the thudding of the guns.

Siegfried Sassoon, 1886-1967, officer in World War I

Since He's Been Here

I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.

Illusions

What American, if our country were bombed and invaded, our families shot, burned, maimed, and raped, our environment destroyed and our wealth stolen, would not feel the same anger Iraqis feel? Americans in particular, so geographically and culturally isolated from most of the world, seem to have an inability to face our common humanity with others who look, seem, so different from ourselves. It is a fearful effect, and Iraqi anger falls on deaf ears here.

"Even if you are an American with a weak stomach, it would be cowardly to avoid looking at what you voted for. If you can't bear to look, skip the pictures and read the text, and remember that if you cannot bear to even look at the suffering, how dare you insist anyone else bear the reality of it." - Mindprod.com

The argument that the act of talking about the reality of war, of showing pictures of the violence of war, or of speaking out against war, hurts our soldiers is... well, panicky. It is irrational. Soldiers in combat see war every day, they need no education on pain and violence. They are already experts, whether they like it or not. And those soldiers will bring their pain home with them. So why is it that those who argue this would not allow non-soldiers to see it? Why create this buffer of ignorance? Why pretend that what is happening is not? The American public shrinks from confronting the truth about war, and we allow our government; allow the television, to lie to us every day and every night, year after year. In Iraq human bodies are burned, shot, blown to pieces, while at home we play pretend-soldier in fancy Hummers, ribbon magnets on display, and make up mythologies about ourselves.

Why do we do this?

The other day I heard an interview on NPR with a certain Gunnery Sargeant Jack Coughlin, Marine sniper, and apparently one of their "best" snipers. He is obviously an intelligent man, and was able to finely articulate his own internal justifications for having killed so many other human beings. He mentioned the particular strain of being able to see his target's face before pulling the trigger, and the later emotional impact upon himself as a result. He was clearly a mature man, and has children at home that he is now caring for lovingly as a single dad. He obviously has thought a great deal about his role as a sniper. But even after his explanations, I believe he was not being fully honest. His interviewer was careful not to step on toes by asking any provocative questions, and he was careful to say that he reserves a certain gallantry in his shielding us, and his fellow soldiers, from the wrench of seeing up close the destruction of the bodies and faces he hit. And then he said this: "Nobody has more respect for human life than I do."

Really? Nobody?

He meant for us to know how much he values life, in effect he was saying "I am not that kind of killer," and "I was protecting the other soldiers," and, "I feel this deeply and it has hurt me, but I will bear it for all of our sakes." But to say this is to assume we owe him a debt for making his choices. It is an illusion that he has that kind of power, and the truth is that neither he nor any other soldier can really protect any of us. We all must finally admit powerlessness, it is ultimately unavoidable. Our fates, and our children's fates, always lie with God and nowhere else. And he and the radio interviewer pretended there were no other questions that might be asked.

God has given us the capacity to decide - the free will to choose our course. I cannot accept the obligation this nobility Coughlin clearly feels demands, and I believe it is wrong for us to imagine we owe him something for having killed on the battlefield. Aggression is never necessary, it is only desired. War is never demanded by God. We did not have to be there in that desert. Jack Coughlin did not have to be there in that desert, and no death associated with this war had to happen.

I have never blamed our young men and women in combat for the obscene governmental policies that put them in Iraq (or any other war), and have been more than willing to understand the nature of the terrible instability and insecurity they daily experience. They are faced with a veritable Hell on Earth, a man-made monstrosity of failure, and once there, must somehow survive to come home. But I find it far easier to understand the 19-year-old on hair-trigger adrenaline alert mistakenly opening fire at a roadside checkpoint than I do this mature Gunnery Sargeant. At least the jittery young soldier thinks he is protecting himself. The thing is, Coughlin clearly knows his acts of killing were morally wrong, and not only that, he knows just how wrong it was. He knows what pain it caused, to himself and to others. He knows how it feels to love his children, and yet has made himself able to kill others' families. To know this and do it anyway, is merely obedience. It would have taken far more courage to walk away from it. His attempts to explain merely illustrates his own understanding of the moral distortion it took to perform his job. He made his justifications in order to allow himself to continue. As he describes the "necessity" of conciously choosing to dehumanize another person in order to kill them, he admits he must lie to himself about these human beings in order to take the shot. But why?

Really, I want to understand why. What for? What is it that a soldier gets out of it? What payoff does battle bring? People do not do difficult things for no reason. And killing is a difficult thing, as the military knows so well - it is the reason for their indoctrination of recruits - a soldier must undergo a separation of their free will, a divorce from their human nature, in order to allow themselves to be trained to kill. There is always a payoff of some sort, no matter how bad the deal may turn out to be in the end. There is a reason soldiers do this, choose this profession, choose to pull the trigger. But what is that reason? What benefit do they get? What benefit did Jack Coughlin get out of going to war?

Leaving aside the many, many enlisted soldiers who are there for the college money only and never thought they would end up in Iraq, there are also many, many enlisted soldiers who are there because they wanted to be. They wanted to fly to another country, engage it's people, bomb them, shoot them, and take over their land. They wanted to be a part of that, and said so, some quite gleefully. Many were not so gleeful, but wanted to go just as intensely. And this cannot be completely explained by having ingested so much propaganda from the Bush administration, although those lies sunk in deeply, no doubt.

I do not feel I owe any soldier my gratitude. I do not thank them for killing any more than I thank our government for killing. I do believe I owe the soldiers respect, but I also believe we all owe each other respect. I respect them, but no more than I respect the teen-age single mother raising children in poverty. No more than I respect the farmer, the firefighter, the schoolteacher. No more than I respect the dignity of the citizens of all countries. No more than I respect myself. I believe speaking the truth about war is showing respect for the soldiers. They deserve for us all to know the facts of what they have been through.

But I am not grateful for the deaths, or for their willingness to kill. God grants me my freedom, not soldiers, not politicians, not governments, not false power. God gives us these gifts, and we are the ones who choose war, death and destruction - we are the ones who use God as a justification for inflicting pain upon others.

I understand the pride of marksmanship, of true mastery of a skill, even if that skill is keeping a steady hand and detaching oneself from one's own moral integrity in order to "perform." It is difficult, quite an accomplishment even, this division of an intelligent self, this absolute, pathological self-control, this action in spite of one's own moral awareness. But I think there are other compelling emotional factors at work. War is about power, and because of that, it means that at the heart of it, it's about fear. Fear of the loss of power. Fear of worthlessness. Fear of ridicule. Fear of being insignificant. Fear of insecurity. The plain and simple truth is, and has been for all of human history, that young soldiers go eagerly off to war because they see no better (or perhaps easier) way to gain recognition, to gain a little bit of societal power. To make their mark on the world. To hold a bit of influence in their hands (and what seems more immediately influential than a firearm?)

What does this say about us as a people, that our children do not already see God's love and creation in themselves, just as they are? That it becomes possible for them to see the death of others as a valid path to acceptance, glory, and righteousness?

I find myself asking why we Americans have developed such a blind spot. Why have we seemed to have dissociated ourselves as citizens, as human beings even, from our own self-professed religious beliefs? From our own founding ideals? We say we believe in things like "love", "Jesus", and "moral values." We say we believe in "Democracy." But as a society, we virtually ignore the very real, hateful, violent consequences of our actions. As "news" shows like the one on NPR drone on, we citizens have given ourselves a pass.

This is why soldiers will scream at someone like me, or even at their fellow soldiers, for pointing out the truths of what happens in war. This is why soldiers, if they live through war, will pretend that the "honor" they received was worth all the death, dismemberment, and destruction. It is because it is too hard to bear: they were duped into thinking that to kill another human being was an honorable duty, a worthy endeavor. Perhaps they were too practiced in self-deception to begin with. Or, perhaps they were too young to know, and now must bear the weight of their own selves for the rest of their lives, while the community around them remains willfully ignorant of the truth, polite niceties serving as a poor substitute for understanding.

Deep down inside they have traded something of the best part of themselves, something far greater for that scrap of recognition. They have traded their own peace of mind, their own sense of humanity. They have traded the love they were born with, traded it for an empty medal. Some combat veterans manage to get it back, but it is a long hard road, and it is no small wonder that many do not make it, or end up alcoholic and full of rage. It is no small wonder the veteran suicide rate is so high.

There are many people who scream (and they always scream) "the soldiers are preserving YOUR freedom!" and "you should shut up!" but to me this simply shows the everyday face of fear. When people say such things, all I hear is "Please please don't say these things out loud. Please don't rock the boat." They forget that war doesn't just affect the soldier; violence created in the world begets more violence in the world for all of us. His pain is spread in the theatre of the battlefield, then brought home with him, and we must all pay the cost of his losses. What might he have become otherwise? Who might he have been? And will he be able to fight himself back to peace of mind, to loving acceptance of himself ?

Aggression, war, firearms, bombs; these are not real power. These things are simply tools used by the fearful, by those who have lost their faith in the love of God. Because no matter what a soldier has done, no matter what crimes were committed, no matter what mistakes were made, no matter how many innocents died, there is forgiveness in God. And because no matter what lies a politician tells, no matter who gets to deposit great amounts of money, in the end they are only human and they are subject to the same Creator as the rest of us. And no matter how blind we allow ourselves to be, no matter how hard we strive for security, we will none of us escape death, pain, and suffering. There exists no guarantee, and as human beings we can never really Know. There may never be forgiveness from other human beings, but in faith, God always, always, always brings us back. Even those of us who voted for something we refuse to look at. In the end the only thing we have to call our own is faith. And the only real power is in that faith. All else is an illusion. Winning is an illusion. And so is defeat.

"Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person." --Tennessee Williams

Base Details

If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You'd see me with my puffy, petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honour. 'Poor young chap,
'I'd say --- 'I used to know his father well;
Yes, we've lost heavily in this last scrap.'
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I'd toddle safely home and die --- in bed.

- Seigfreid Sassoon, 1886-1967, English poet and novelist, officer in World War I.

The Unjustifiable

Hiroshima

America's Mortal Secret, by James Carroll

The blind impulse to respond to hurt by striking back is part of human make-up, yet the urge, opening into the forbidden irrational, is a deep source of shame, too. Humans clothe the act of vengeance in all sorts of other justifications. When we go to war, or then behave savagely in combat, we hardly ever explain the act by saying we simply must settle the score. But once, we did. When Harry S. Truman announced the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima in an Aug. 9 radio address, he offered three justifications: the second was to shorten the war, and the third was to save American lives. But the first thing he said was that the atom bomb was used ''against those who have starved and beaten American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare."

Hiroshima was yet more punishment for the brutalities of die-hard island combat across the Pacific, and for Pearl Harbor. Never mind that the 900,000 killed by American bombing of nearly all Japanese cities, from the Tokyo raid in March to the Nagasaki bombing in August, were almost all civilians. In the American memory, they were justifiably killed to shorten the war, to save American lives, not for the unworthy motive of revenge.

Sept. 11, 2001, left the United States in the grip of an unarticulated need for payback. No one takes a blow like that without wanting to strike out. Stated justifications aside, that need fueled the subsequent American attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, which is why it meant so little when those justifications (bin Laden dead-or-alive, WMD, etc.) evaporated. And why it meant so little when the brutalities of American methods were made plain, from torture to hair-trigger checkpoints to ruined cities.

Read more...

Are the lives of our children worth this ancient immaturity?

Does It Matter?

Does it matter? - losing your legs?...
For people will always be kind,
And you need not show that you mind
When the others come in after hunting
To gobble their muffins and eggs.

Does it matter? - losing your sight?...
There's such splendid work for the blind;
And people will always be kind,
As you sit on the terrace remembering
And turning your face to the light.

Do they matter? - those dreams from the pit?...
You can drink and forget and be glad,
And people won't say that you're mad;
For they'll know you've fought for your country
And no one will worry a bit. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxPhoto of Iraq Veteran Randall Clunen by Nina Berman

Siegfried Sassoon, 1886-1967, officer in World War I

Political Consequence

I call bullshit on anyone who thinks U.S. soldiers belong in Iraq right now. We cannot separate the demands of the moment from the larger ethical picture, unless we wish to abandon our own moral principles. The truth about war is that it equals terror, generates it, and like all violence, begets itself. Where do decency, integrity, and the love of Jesus Christ come into play in these justifications of this war so many Americans are making? People still think, all evidence to the contrary, that there were good reasons to invade Iraq. People are still making the false Iraq/911 connection. What is this subscription to the spiritually corrupt and deprecated "an eye for an eye" philosophy? Are we not capable of reviewing our own history and studying our past actions for insight into creating peace? And please spare me the "you must hate America" crap. I love America dearly, and any idiot knows we only argue with those we love.

So what about this Western interventionist history of ours? Some folks ask why the Iraqi "insurgents" are attacking their own people. Since the "insurgents" are the Iraqi themselves, it is obvious there is a division within the people - as in most Arab countries and of course, in the US as well (why do liberals and conservatives attack each other?) - regarding philosophy of government, especially as it relates to religion. Why are they so desperate? Please note that in every Middle Eastern country where there is "insurgent" activity (car bombs, suicide bombings, etc.) you also find heavy-handed Western influence, money, military intervention (Iraq and Israel in particular) and especially American meddling, both overt and covert, in the political process. Even before this war, most Arab people were quite rightly sick to death of our self-serving, disruptive aggression towards them. It has been going on for decades. Thousands of Palestinian people have seen their homes and families destroyed and their land taken because of Western insistence upon creating Jewish settlements there. Before the American invasion of Iraq, thousands of Iraqi families watched their children die of malnutrition and lack of clean water because of our sanctions and our policies which encouraged Saddam. Now however, our cluster-bombings, our checkpoint shootings, our razing of whole cities, our napalm, our American-flag-raising, our incredible ignorance and disregard for their culture, and don't forget our insulting, bullying rhetoric....do you think this might have changed the context of the "debate" just a bit?

We cannot simply ignore the Arab point of view. Saddam Hussein was a dictator who for decades was propped up by the Americans (yes Donald Rumsfeld), but who was also secular. He was brutal in his elimination of those who were against him, but he also allowed large measures of freedom for women and did not impose Sharia law. He was a horrible leader to be sure. But this was supported by us, by Americans. We gave him arms, chemicals, technology and money, and his rule stood in direct conflict with the Islamic fundamentalist mullahs who rule in Iran and other Arab countries. When Saddam got uppity and fell out of American favor, we imposed those sanctions upon the Iraqi people and started bombing the country-side in 1991. How is that for fucking with the citizen's heads? Do you think the Iraqi people were dancing in the streets then either? Of course not. They knew damned well, just as they do now, that American foreign policy gives not one shit about them, and that the U.S. has used them as pawns repeatedly. Our own American goals, whatever they may be, are all that seem matter to us, and the people of the Middle East have it burned into their flesh.

There is a huge, powerful Arab population that fervently believes in government run by fundamentalist Muslim law. (This is also why all those blue fingers in Iraq voted for a Muslim fundamentalist slate.) This is a fact of their culture, and must be taken into account, no matter how much we may disagree with their beliefs. The very presence of the American military in the Middle East is an affront, it is a humiliation to them, and many Iraqis, having so little to lose, having lost so much already, have become desperate. If there is one thing the Holocaust should have taught those of us of European descent, it's to never underestimate the human impulse for dignity and self-determination. It is time for us to recognize our shared humanity with the Arab people. They have as much right to elect right-wing conservative idealogues as we do, and have the right to run their countries themselves (just as we supposedly do.) Their citizens have the same needs for security, same desire for a better life, same wishes for their children as our citizens do. There exists no "us" and no "them" except in our own minds and our own governmental policies.

We created this hellish situation. We must take responsibility for it or we cannot call ourselves a moral people. Simply put, no Iraqi wants us in their country. It's just that some of them are willing to use violence to pursue that objective. Willing to use violence, just like those of you who think our soldiers should be there.

So it never ends. If Israel and Palestine teach us anything, it is that you cannot fight violence with violence. Is this such a difficult concept? Is humanity so juvenile that it cannot ever get past spiteful reaction and unquestioning support of the macho ego? Why do we so blindly believe what those who would hold on to their militant power tell us? Why are we so easily led by our fears?

So what can we do now? We can stop the violence most effectively by stopping it within ourselves. Now. That is what we can do.

"It is impossible to simultaneously prepare for war and for peace at the same time." -unknown

A Kindling Eye

Suicide In The Trenches

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

- Siegfried Sassoon 1886-1967, officer in World War I

"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake." - Jeannette Rankin

Ignorance On Fire

From December 2004.

I have had it. No more bullshit from the right wing neo-conservative Christians of this country. No more smirking, pretentious superiority from Republicans. No more hand-wringing, lets-re-evaluate crap from Democrats either. No more excuses. No more banalities about moral values. No more fear-mongering speeches designed to induce anxiety in the heartland. No more propaganda television, seeing dress-up Bush in his disgraceful, fake military uniform, banners of red, white and blue on MSM news stations attempting to sanitize the blood on our hands, Jerry Falwell on CNN saying "Blow them all away in the name of the Lord," the Humvees pavement-parked in suburban America owned by wanna-play-soldier, fat, impotent, soft, rich, white guys. They know who they are. They would be the ones who are angry that someone said that out loud. And I have had it with the stupid, arrogant God Bless America magnets, as though He is nationalistic. I have had it with the sanctimonious lectures about God and Jesus being on "our" side. And I am angry at the mentally lazy citizens of this country who swallow it whole. No more lies now.

Did you ever hear about the two campers whose tent was attacked by a bear? One started putting on his boots. The other said, "You can't out-run a bear!" The other said, "I don't have to out-run the bear, I just have to out run you..."

That joke is a perfect example of the currently fashionable mentality in White America. There are lots and lots of folks in America who think that all they need to do is outsmart the next guy to "get ahead." I am sick of hearing from them. They complain about taxes being too high. They complain about welfare "queens." They complain about public schools - not about being under-funded, but about teachers not being "good enough." They complain about affirmative action. They feel put-upon and think they can't get a break. They think they are poor. They think that somewhere, someone is getting something they themselves deserve more. They watch Fox News. They vote Republican. They buy lottery tickets, a lot. And they always identify themselves as Christian.

But what they never trouble themselves with, is facts. I want to know how they sleep at night, claiming Jesus while succumbing to this "survival of the fittest" attitude. What encourages them to believe that their good fortune is proof of Godliness, that prosperity is evidence of virtue? There is a giddy atmosphere in this country right now, promoted by neo-conservatives and their media, of downright glee when sermonizing about their Mission to bring Democracy (and Christianity) to the Muslim world. And folks like this love it, because feeling righteous actually makes them righteous, right? As though no one were being killed and maimed for it. As if it were a Sunday school story. As if war was a video game.

Some company made one of the assault on Falluja. Yes, a video GAME of what the rest of the world is calling a war crime on a massive scale. They are actually producing and selling this repulsive evil, and Americans are actually buying it. The level of hypocrisy, and the depth of fear and hate in this country is astounding. If this is not the work of evil, then what is? Have we no shame?

War is Hell? Yes, we know. Our soldiers over in Iraq were systematically indoctrinated and lied to, in order to get them there. And now that they are stuck there, stuck in that nightmare reality of battling "insurgents," now there is no way out for them except to kill, and to kill a lot. They are mostly kids, captive themselves, in a country that hates them, with inadequate equipment thank you Donald Rumsfeld, and they are in a battle of life and death, locked in self-preservation. They were set up.

Cluster-bombs are being dropped on cities full of human beings, unarmed captives are being executed by our soldiers, whole families machine-gunned in their cars at checkpoints, prisoners are being systematically abused, and these folks so unconcerned with facts, safe at home on their Barca Loungers, smug in their conservative Christian virtue, are cheering it on. Some are even quoting all the Old Testament crap about God visiting his wrath and war upon cities, and somehow this means those women and children being napalmed in Falluja, oh they probably deserved it. Then they point to al-Qaeda and say "those barbarians."

I want to vomit. That these same people call themselves right, call themselves patriotic, call themselves incredibly, "Real Americans," call themselves Christians at all, is soul-sickening.

I have had it with being asked to give them the benefit of the doubt. There are no excuses for being ignorant and hateful. If anyone Christian is reading this, you have a profound obligation to speak out against this war, and against the people who have lied about it, waged it, profited from it, celebrated it. To do anything less is to dishonor yourself, to damn yourself as an embarrassment to decent humanity everywhere. Let's just be really clear what you are sanctioning with your silence: The dehumanization, humiliation, torture, rape, maiming, bombing, burning, napalming, running over with tanks, and shooting like dogs, the human inhabitants of a country that did nothing to us. Nothing.

The soldiers are carrying out your orders. Our orders. We created it, we supported it, we are allowing it to continue. This obscene blood is on our hands.

Americans who think this war is necessary, or think it's a good idea, deserve everything they are going to get. We have incurred the anger of the entire Muslim world - over a billion people - and painted them all with a "Terrorist" brush. We are murdering their citizens, and this is the truth: What goes around does come around. Everything you do does come back to you. You reap what you sow.

Like Rome, we are witnessing an America in decline. And the willfully-ignorant-and-proud-of-it are busy congratulating themselves. Some even think it's a sign of the Second Coming. I say, good luck selling that to the 1.4 billion Buddhist Chinese. And if Christians can't get a forum in this right-wing media machine, then who else do they think will? You "born-agains" are in power. It is your Christian duty to stop this horror from being perpetrated in the name of your Lord Jesus you proselytize so damned often. Are you so busy finding End Time clues that you can't see your complicity in these crimes? So step up, Pro-lifers. Now is your chance. This is YOUR opportunity to speak up and prove you are not hypocrites. Where is your sanctimonious outcry? Where are your signs and demonstrations? Where are your judges' laws against this genocide?

How much evil are you willing to swallow before you can no longer look at yourselves in the mirror? When do you plan on walking your Jesus talk?

That's what I thought. Dead silence.

And genocide is the correct word for it, for dogs are now eating the corpses in Falluja. Only 9 more killing days until Christmas.

Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices -- Voltaire, 1767

Sorry World

This site sorryeverybody.com, caught my eye last year. This is what I wrote then:

I started clicking on the pictures that people have sent in, and was surprised at the myriad feelings it brought up. Much of the world still loves America, and it is evident here. Apparently within just a few days of setting up his site, he got 27 million hits and since then at least 2,200 pictures have been posted, with over a 1000 more waiting. He got so many hits his school had to ask him to move the site to another server, because it was eating up all their bandwidth. No matter how much the American mainstream media brays on about this election being decided by "moral values," this site testifies to the fact, over and over, that there is another side to the United States, of people who realize our interdependence with the rest of the world and who do not buy the picture that Fox News paints. It made me realize how many warm, thoughtful, loving people there are out there....in stark contrast to the crowing coming lately from Bush-voters who call themselves the "real Americans" and claim they have a mandate. I truly feel sorry for those folks - they fear so much, and use hate and war to express that fear. They seem not to realize the danger of protectionism and ignorance. There are millions of us out here who did not vote for George Bush, we love our country as much as the ones who did, we are just as American, and just as moral.