note: Since I wrote this blog my feelings against the Clintons have intensified. Hearing the sound cut of Bill Clinton go on about what a great leader McCain is and then saying wouldn't it be great if in November we had two candidates to choose from who both love America. By suggesting Obama does not love America and by putting McCain above Obama AGAIN, Bill is sinking to the lowest level of 'us before the party'.! Damn it. And you know these words are carefully planned, not just some off the cuff remark. They seriously are telling people that McCain (basically a repeat of the past 7 years with Bush but even worse as McCain is much more of a hawk than Bush) is better than Obama. Now in a time when we need someone who can bring people together the Clintons are actually dividing the democratic party! (And of course if you look at Obama's RECORD you will see he has incredible success in bringing republicans over to his side to pass pretty liberal legislation). The sense of entitlement they have is astounding and the level to which they will stoop has caused me to loose any shred of respect I had for them. I respect SOME of the things they have done but as politicians and as a people they crossed the line for me. Plus the continual use of mis truths to slander Obama and the fear mongering. Well before I repeat myself you might as well just read what I already wrote:
Well everyone should be used to me speaking out when I see our political leaders doing things I disagree with. 7 years of criticizing Bush and you should all be used to that by now. Lately I have been critical of Hillary Clinton and I find the reaction I get interesting. I have been told to look in a mirror because when we criticize we are merely putting our own faults on others and I have been compared to an Evangelical Christian trying to ram Obama down people's throats. I have been warned that by criticizing Hillary I am contributing to the division within the democratic party and I have been warned that I am turning people off of Obama by going after Hillary and that I may be turning people off of Hillary, either way helping to elect McCain in November.
Now we need to be clear here. I am not searching for things to criticize Hillary on. I want to like her and to support her. I am not inventing things in order to devalue her bid for the nomination or to boost Obama's chances. I am, however, speaking out when I see Hillary do things that I think are wrong. And her recent fear mongering and untruths have been over the top, and force me, once again, to comment. While Hillary has virtually no chance of winning the nomination unless Obama is somehow disqualified or the remaining unpledged superdelagates decide to go against the winner of the primaries she (and her husband) continue to use dirty politics to discredit Obama, the nearly guaranteed winner of her party's primary.
Two of the things I dislike most about the Bush administration is their use of fear and lies to convince the American people to go along with them. Now Hillary is day after day using these same tactics. Not only do I deplore these tactics in the race against Obama but I dread a President who chooses to uses such tactics to control the American people. Plus Hillary continues to predict the downfall of the democratic party if she is not the nominee (and since she has little chance of winning...) and continues to prop up McCain as a viable candidate. This defeatist talk may come back to bite her and her party in the end.
The fear mongering came out the other day once again. (not to forget the 3AM phone call ad). Hillary actually said that 'We cannot end the war in Iraq, we cannot solve the health care issue, and we cannot solve the economic problems we have if we do not seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida' THIS IS RIDICULOUS!!!!! First off implying that we will lose in November if we do not seat the delegates is predicting failure in a scenario that might just happen. Plus her position on these two states is so backwards. What happened to Michigan and Florida was between the state and national parties. All the candidates at the time agreed to go along with the DNC and to not campaign in these states and to accept that the delegates would not be seated. Every candidate but Hillary actually took their names off the ballot in Michigan. Only now that she needs those delegates is she putting up such a fight. And to say the votes were fair when only she was on the ballot! And to say that Obama is bad because he wants to disenfranchise these states. Come on, Obama has been consistent the ENTIRE time, saying he will support whatever the DNC decides to do. He is just playing by the rules of his party so why attack him on this?
Bill Clinton just asked people whether or not they would prefer to have two candidates fighting it out in November who both love America, once again implying that even McCain is better than Obama. This was after he went on and on about how we all know that McCain is an honorable man and a good leader and that he loves America. Of course Hillary has suggested McCain is better than Obama more than once. The extent to which they have elevated McCain over Obama makes me think they might support McCain in November.
Since the beginning the Clinton Campaign has labeled Obama as inexperienced compared to her and that people should judge the candidates on their actions and not their words and speeches. Well what she should say is "judge me by my actions and Obama by my words against him" or more accurately "judge me by my words about my actions ..." For now that her schedules have been released to the public we see a very different reality from what she has told us.
While contacting the Canadian government and spreading lies about Obama and his alleged meeting with the Canadians regarding NAFTA just before the Ohio vote, Hillary claimed she was an internal critic of NAFTA in the Clinton White house. Now we see that she gave many speeches to the public, business people, and members of congress, praising NAFTA and urging people to support it. So either she lied about being an internal critic or she put on a public facade on the issue, either way troubling. Especially since this is a key factor in the most fundamental aspect of our current and future economic discussion. We need honesty about NAFTA free trade and such issues, not what Hillary is giving us. Obama? Time for another speech like your one on race to let us know candidly where you stand on trade issues.
Other claims made by Hillary about her involvement during her husbands presidency were unsubstantiated by the released documents. And of course there was the recent claim that Hillary went to Bosnia on a foreign relations mission because it was too dangerous for Bill and that she exited the plane under sniper fire. Now that testimony from Sinbad (the actor who was with her) and video of her exiting the plane has surfaced she admits she mis spoke about the incident.
Of course I am not too concerned about little lies like being under sniper fire when you weren't, she may have actually remembered it a different way, but on issues like NAFTA the truth is important and by far, even more important is NOT THROWING OBAMA UNDER THE BUS JUST BECAUSE YOU FEEL ENTITLED TO THE PRESIDENCY BECAUSE YOUR HUSBAND HELD THE POSITION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
McCain is gonna be the easiest candidate to beat ever, but the longer this democratic primary drags on and the longer Hillary puts Obama down and boosts up McCain the less our chances will be in November. And McCain is more aggressive militarily than Bush ever was, he wants to expand the war in the Middle East to Iran and beyond, he is hostile towards Russia, he supports massive deregulation that has helped bring our economy and environment to its knees, he says he will appoint conservative judges tot he supreme court who will over turn Roe Vs Wade, etc, etc. We gotta win in November. So come on Hillary and stop the vile politics of division.
Of course all this being said if in November we must choose between McCain and Clinton I will vote for Clinton. I will no longer be proud to do so but I would rather vote for someone who likes McCain than to vote for McCain himself. I will not let my vote be a vote for McCain in any way but if Hillary is the nominee by some coup of super delegates at the convention I will vote for her regretfully. She has revieled to me her character and while politicians have some innate character flaws and I am not assuming Obama is an angel, she has lost my respect.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
60's flashback on racism and war
Hi there y'all,
As I wrote this blog we passed the 5 year anniversary of the Iraq war, the 4,000 th soldier killed in Iraq (95% killed since Bush's mission accomplished speech), and by some estimates the millionth Iraqi civilian killed.
On the fifth anniversary of our invasion I thought back to the isolated Baja beach on which I was camped five years before. I was leading a kayak trip and we were camped on the beautiful beach of Porto Gato with an emerald green bay and red sandstone cliffs. The news came by boat. The Mexican fishermen told me that we had began bombing Iraq. Soon after receiving the news I collapsed in the sand dunes and sobbed. I had put so much energy into preventing the war in what small ways I could, down to the second night of the kayak trip when we held a candle light vigil along with millions around the world.
It has been years since I have cried about the war, I guess like most Americans, I am a bit numb and a lot ignorant of the realities of the war, it is strangely theoretical, which is why the Winter Soldier testimonies I speak about in this blog are SO IMPORTANT.
Wow, I feel like I am living in a flashback to the 60's. Of course I only know the 60's from second hand accounts. I am not talking about the free sex and drugs of the 60's, being a family man it is best to avoid that kind of flashback. But I am talking about a resurgence of issues that were front and center back then, the issues of war and peace, of justice and inequality, of hope and despair. This past weekend we had two landmark moments regarding these issues: the Winter Soldier testimonies and Obama's speech on race and politics. Now because these two events seem to be replicas of events from the 60's, it made me think; "boy we have not come very far in 40 years". But I guess Fife Dog was right when he said "yo daddy-o, don't you know, things go in cycles".
It is true that in main stream politics we rarely address the dark truths of our history। Genocide of the Native Americans, Slavery, Internment during WWII, our overthrow of numerous democratically elected governments around the globe। But our dark truths do not live just in our history. Look at the fact we have more people in prison than any other country on Earth and look at the disparity between incarceration rates between blacks and whites. Our nation's schools are as segregated as they were in the 60's and they are even more unequal. We still have prisons full of people who have not been charged of any crime, people imprisoned and targeted because of their religion or ethnicity. We still have racially motivated hate crimes. The gap between the haves and have-nots has increased since the 60's and race still plays a huge factor in who belongs to these two groups.
Obama just made a speech (http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031808A.shtml ) that could have been straight out of the civil rights movement. He spoke of the legacy of slavery and Jim crow. He was addressing racism that exists and facing some of the factors that have contributed to the anger of many blacks in this country. He did not shy away from this tough topic, he embraced it. He owned it. He made the point that this is all a part of America, the country he loves, and that only after recognizing that this is all a part of who we are as a nation can we go forward and perfect our nation. He offered us stories of hope and inspiration, he presented us with the possibility that we can come together to change the way we are and right the injustices that still exist. It was a message that Dr. King delivered 40 years ago, a message that has been swept under the rug, as if it was no longer relevant. But is has once again resurfaced and it will be interesting to see how it manifests itself in the coming weeks, months, and years.
Also like the 60's our government has entangled us in a foreign occupation. Once again we find ourselves stuck in a war that seems unwinnable in a far away land we do not try to understand. We are fighting a war we began in a part of the world that does not want our presence. Even when the majority of Americans want our troops to come home and the majority of Iraqis want us gone, our politicians make no move to end the occupation. Like the Vietnam war, the story is the same, "we are making progress","we can't surrender to defeat". "If we lose they will follow us home". Our government is using the Iraq war as an excuse to pursue military action against other nations in the region with whom we disagree just as we did during Vietnam with countries like Cambodia. Just as before the government is doing all they can to mislead and cover up the truths of war so the American people do not really understand the horrors we are responsible for. Just as with the Vietnam war we now have hundreds of thousands of Veterans returning home with the physical and mental traumas of war. And just as before, these patriots who sacrificed so much, have been neglected by the very government responsible for sending them into hell in the first place.
And now once again we have the Winter Soldiers. Veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars that are testifying about the horrors they witnessed, just as the Winter Soldiers from Vietnam did 37 years ago. The slaughtering of civilians, the racism towards the Iraqis that the military perpetuates. The 'Gooks' of the 60's are the 'Hajis' of today. (see http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/61/20749/printer ) These brave soldiers are speaking out in order to educate those at home about what war is really like. They are desperately hoping to help bring the end to a war they see as doing more harm than good. Their testimonies are first hand accounts of the crimes of war and are delivered from the heart of our soldiers that the bumper stickers always tell us to support. Of course the mainstream media who was complicit in ramming the Iraq war down our throats did not cover the Winter Soldier event and the mainstream Democratic groups like Move-On.org and the Democratic politicians who have also been more or less in cahoots on the war and occupation have also ignored the testimonies of these soldiers. See Truthout.org or Democracy now for coverage: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/19/half_a_decade_of_war_five and http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030108Z.shtml
Well we as citizens should not ignore such testimony nor should we ignore the facts of war and racism and how these things effect the world our nation claims to lead.
Of course even as I prepare to publish this blog it seems like we have already sobered up from the 60's flashback and we seem to be back to the modern reality of the ... great depression?
As I wrote this blog we passed the 5 year anniversary of the Iraq war, the 4,000 th soldier killed in Iraq (95% killed since Bush's mission accomplished speech), and by some estimates the millionth Iraqi civilian killed.
On the fifth anniversary of our invasion I thought back to the isolated Baja beach on which I was camped five years before. I was leading a kayak trip and we were camped on the beautiful beach of Porto Gato with an emerald green bay and red sandstone cliffs. The news came by boat. The Mexican fishermen told me that we had began bombing Iraq. Soon after receiving the news I collapsed in the sand dunes and sobbed. I had put so much energy into preventing the war in what small ways I could, down to the second night of the kayak trip when we held a candle light vigil along with millions around the world.
It has been years since I have cried about the war, I guess like most Americans, I am a bit numb and a lot ignorant of the realities of the war, it is strangely theoretical, which is why the Winter Soldier testimonies I speak about in this blog are SO IMPORTANT.
Wow, I feel like I am living in a flashback to the 60's. Of course I only know the 60's from second hand accounts. I am not talking about the free sex and drugs of the 60's, being a family man it is best to avoid that kind of flashback. But I am talking about a resurgence of issues that were front and center back then, the issues of war and peace, of justice and inequality, of hope and despair. This past weekend we had two landmark moments regarding these issues: the Winter Soldier testimonies and Obama's speech on race and politics. Now because these two events seem to be replicas of events from the 60's, it made me think; "boy we have not come very far in 40 years". But I guess Fife Dog was right when he said "yo daddy-o, don't you know, things go in cycles".
It is true that in main stream politics we rarely address the dark truths of our history। Genocide of the Native Americans, Slavery, Internment during WWII, our overthrow of numerous democratically elected governments around the globe। But our dark truths do not live just in our history. Look at the fact we have more people in prison than any other country on Earth and look at the disparity between incarceration rates between blacks and whites. Our nation's schools are as segregated as they were in the 60's and they are even more unequal. We still have prisons full of people who have not been charged of any crime, people imprisoned and targeted because of their religion or ethnicity. We still have racially motivated hate crimes. The gap between the haves and have-nots has increased since the 60's and race still plays a huge factor in who belongs to these two groups.
Obama just made a speech (http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031808A.shtml ) that could have been straight out of the civil rights movement. He spoke of the legacy of slavery and Jim crow. He was addressing racism that exists and facing some of the factors that have contributed to the anger of many blacks in this country. He did not shy away from this tough topic, he embraced it. He owned it. He made the point that this is all a part of America, the country he loves, and that only after recognizing that this is all a part of who we are as a nation can we go forward and perfect our nation. He offered us stories of hope and inspiration, he presented us with the possibility that we can come together to change the way we are and right the injustices that still exist. It was a message that Dr. King delivered 40 years ago, a message that has been swept under the rug, as if it was no longer relevant. But is has once again resurfaced and it will be interesting to see how it manifests itself in the coming weeks, months, and years.
Also like the 60's our government has entangled us in a foreign occupation. Once again we find ourselves stuck in a war that seems unwinnable in a far away land we do not try to understand. We are fighting a war we began in a part of the world that does not want our presence. Even when the majority of Americans want our troops to come home and the majority of Iraqis want us gone, our politicians make no move to end the occupation. Like the Vietnam war, the story is the same, "we are making progress","we can't surrender to defeat". "If we lose they will follow us home". Our government is using the Iraq war as an excuse to pursue military action against other nations in the region with whom we disagree just as we did during Vietnam with countries like Cambodia. Just as before the government is doing all they can to mislead and cover up the truths of war so the American people do not really understand the horrors we are responsible for. Just as with the Vietnam war we now have hundreds of thousands of Veterans returning home with the physical and mental traumas of war. And just as before, these patriots who sacrificed so much, have been neglected by the very government responsible for sending them into hell in the first place.
And now once again we have the Winter Soldiers. Veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars that are testifying about the horrors they witnessed, just as the Winter Soldiers from Vietnam did 37 years ago. The slaughtering of civilians, the racism towards the Iraqis that the military perpetuates. The 'Gooks' of the 60's are the 'Hajis' of today. (see http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/61/20749/printer ) These brave soldiers are speaking out in order to educate those at home about what war is really like. They are desperately hoping to help bring the end to a war they see as doing more harm than good. Their testimonies are first hand accounts of the crimes of war and are delivered from the heart of our soldiers that the bumper stickers always tell us to support. Of course the mainstream media who was complicit in ramming the Iraq war down our throats did not cover the Winter Soldier event and the mainstream Democratic groups like Move-On.org and the Democratic politicians who have also been more or less in cahoots on the war and occupation have also ignored the testimonies of these soldiers. See Truthout.org or Democracy now for coverage: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/19/half_a_decade_of_war_five and http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030108Z.shtml
Well we as citizens should not ignore such testimony nor should we ignore the facts of war and racism and how these things effect the world our nation claims to lead.
Of course even as I prepare to publish this blog it seems like we have already sobered up from the 60's flashback and we seem to be back to the modern reality of the ... great depression?
Sunday, March 2, 2008
United We MUST Stand
OK, I have just about had enough of Democrats saying they won't vote for Hillary or they won't vote for Obama! The biggest difference between them is that one has a cock and the other a vijayjay, the other difference is skin color. After that there isn't that much different about them. Their policies are 95% similar and they are choosing more or less from the same set of advisers.
Now I don't agree with everything they are for, neither one is planning to withdrawl all our troops from Iraq for instance and both are very corporate friendly but compared with the alternative...
McCain has all sorts of problems but the main thing for me is the fact that he was a champion of pre-emptive war before G.W.Bush was even in office. He is an ultra hawk who's foreign policy is to talk shit to everyone and bomb a bunch of 'em. We do NOT need this.
I have had friends say they will NEVER vote for Hillary, they say she seems untrustworthy, too ambitious, or they don't want Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton. I believe Hillary does care about the country and would do a good job as President.
Then there are those who say they will never vote for Obama because he is too inexperienced or too preacher sounding or whatever. The lack of experience claim is just an untruth. He has as much legislative experience as Hillary, he is an expert in constitutional law (just that would be a nice change from the current constitution wrecker. And besides that's what advisers are for. He has more experience than Abraham Lincoln had and he turned out to do an alright job.
Also if you think of the national campaign that Obama waged I think he proved he is a competent leader. He went up against the Clinton MACHINE and kicked some ass. He didn't run out of money like Hillary, he had a plan after super Tuesday, he didn't have top campaign managers resigning, he proved he is capable.
But again it all comes down to "think of the alternative".
The primary season was rough, but that is how our system is set up. Soon it will be time to get behind the candidate that was chosen by our democratic process and go forward with momentum and take back the white house.
Also realize that congress is who sends the laws to the President to get signed. Imagine if the democrats have a president who will actually sign the laws they make, good things will get done and congress may even be able to push Obama or Hillary to do even more liberal things than they talk about on the campaign trail. A Republican president would just mean more deadlock.
Come on folks!!!!!!! Just vote for the democrat, whoever it is, unless you like war so much that you want even more.
peace
Now I don't agree with everything they are for, neither one is planning to withdrawl all our troops from Iraq for instance and both are very corporate friendly but compared with the alternative...
McCain has all sorts of problems but the main thing for me is the fact that he was a champion of pre-emptive war before G.W.Bush was even in office. He is an ultra hawk who's foreign policy is to talk shit to everyone and bomb a bunch of 'em. We do NOT need this.
I have had friends say they will NEVER vote for Hillary, they say she seems untrustworthy, too ambitious, or they don't want Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton. I believe Hillary does care about the country and would do a good job as President.
Then there are those who say they will never vote for Obama because he is too inexperienced or too preacher sounding or whatever. The lack of experience claim is just an untruth. He has as much legislative experience as Hillary, he is an expert in constitutional law (just that would be a nice change from the current constitution wrecker. And besides that's what advisers are for. He has more experience than Abraham Lincoln had and he turned out to do an alright job.
Also if you think of the national campaign that Obama waged I think he proved he is a competent leader. He went up against the Clinton MACHINE and kicked some ass. He didn't run out of money like Hillary, he had a plan after super Tuesday, he didn't have top campaign managers resigning, he proved he is capable.
But again it all comes down to "think of the alternative".
The primary season was rough, but that is how our system is set up. Soon it will be time to get behind the candidate that was chosen by our democratic process and go forward with momentum and take back the white house.
Also realize that congress is who sends the laws to the President to get signed. Imagine if the democrats have a president who will actually sign the laws they make, good things will get done and congress may even be able to push Obama or Hillary to do even more liberal things than they talk about on the campaign trail. A Republican president would just mean more deadlock.
Come on folks!!!!!!! Just vote for the democrat, whoever it is, unless you like war so much that you want even more.
peace
Dear fellow global citizens August 2002
I am writing this in desperate times. I have much to say about our war on the environment but what I want to focus on today is our war on the world. Folks, World War Three may have already begun. So please forward the following letter if you think WW III is a bad idea.
Dear fellow global citizens,
I am writing this letter in August of 2002 to call people into action to help stop the current military rampage of the
This letter comes as a response to a speech Vice Pres. Dick Cheney gave to a group in
Think about the implications of what our second in command said. 60 nations!! We Americans need to wake up out of our patriotic fog and realize that the agenda of our government isn’t good for
The people calling the shots right now are in the war business. Cheney, as Secretary of the Army hired the Halliburton Corp to come up with a plan to privatize the military. Then when he left office he became CEO of that very company making himself $30,000,000 in just two years. And now he’s back and he is waging a war with NO END! We must stop them.
Anyone who believes that military aggression on our part will end the terrorism we are claiming to fight only needs to look at the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians to see they are wrong. Military action by Israel only increased the number of suicide bombings.
And our government wants to fight a dirty war without any accountability. Bush has said that America will not be a part of an international court to try crimes of war and that if any American is brought before that court the US military will invade The Hague! Invade the Netherlands.
People must begin to speak out, to yell out, in opposition to what is going on. The Bush administration has the overwhelming support of congress and is doing his best to ruin this country and destroy the world. We recently passed the largest military budget in history. This means less money for education, environmental programs, social programs, etc. Bush is driving this country into financial debt in his “war on terrorism.”
We are letting crooked greedy, and evil people run the show and it has to stop. Bush and Cheney are both corporate criminals. They both broke the very laws that are in the “corporate reform” bill. Insider trading, insider loans, misstating profits, they did it all. And in his same San Fran speech Cheney said that his war and oil company which misstated its profits by $430,000,000 dollars to trick the stock market while he was CEO is a fine company which he is proud to be a part of.
Many people are even unaware of the way in which these people came into power. They were not elected! The Bush clan had thousands of African American voters erased from the voter registries of Florida (thanks Jeb) before the elections. This is why they won. There is an NAACP law suit on the matter which our Attorney General Ashcroft is doing his best to squash. Good luck hearing about this in the corporate owned media.
I can go on complaining about these people all day but I’ll stop. But we must speak out against the war machine in this country. No country in the World is behind us in our war on Sadam. Expanding our War of Terrorism to 60 nations throughout the world is insane. We are talking about killing millions upon millions of people. The scariest thing for me is the fact that the people running our government right now come from the religious right. They BELIEVE in ARMAGEDDON as prophesized in the Bible. They believe that the East and West are destined to go to war, that the world we know will be destroyed, and that they, the chosen few, will be saved and allowed onto heaven. Manifest Destiny for the new millennium. Remember, WE are the only country that has ever used “weapons of mass destruction”, and we used them twice. Lets not strike out.
Please speak out in opposition of the War in Iraq, the War on Terrorism, and the Bush regime.
Thanks for your time,
Danny Boyer, a concerned citizen of the WorldMy post 9/11 thoughts sent september 29, 2001
Hi there,
Many of you are familiar with my Friends and Family letters. After September 11, 2001 they turned more and more political. As I begin my political blog I thought I would include some of my old letters. Here is an excerpt from the one I wrote a few weeks after the September 11 attacks:
Since the September 11th tragedy I have taken a lot of people out into nature on kayak trips. Especially during the early days of the media onslaught people were very happy to get away from it all and enjoy a healing day on the bay. When one client mentioned how good it was to "get away from reality" I agreed but added, "perhaps rather than getting away from reality we are getting back to reality."
Reality is something that cannot be defined, I suppose. Everyone lives in their own reality and one person's reality can be completely different than another's. I think this is something we all need to remember when reacting to the recent events. I don't know much about politics, especially in the middle east. What I do know is that I will never know the true reality of the situation over there. Of course I was greatly saddened by all the innocent people who's lives were ended or changed that day but since then I have become even more saddened by the apparent eagerness of Americans to support our government in the killing of more people in retaliation. Revenge is a natural instinct, I suppose, but as compassionate and free thinking people we should be able to over ride the urge to lash out in anger and think things through before we react. The LA gang mentality of killing someone as revenge for another death will only perpetuate the cycle of violence. If we go on a killing spree in the middle east we will only be adding to the hatred that is already there. Fuel to the fire, which by the way we started.
I don't know what the
It seems that our government's motivation for its involvement in the region should also be thought about. Are we over there fighting to protect freedom? Or, as a country so reliant on oil are we there to protect our financial interests? And now that we are turning control over to Bush Jr. and giving him free reign to fight a "secret and subversive" war, what will he be fighting for? This is a man that a few months ago was portrayed in much of the mainstream press as an "idiot". Now the press is portraying him as an incredible leader and supporting him in whatever he decides to do (and his actions are promised to be in a large part unknown to us). This frightens me because Bush has already demonstrated he holds very different values than me. Mr. Capital Punishment himself, he has represented the US to the world by refusing to sign the Kyoto agreement despite the fact the we produce 25% of the world's air pollution because it would cost American business too much money and he walked out of the international meeting on racism held in Durban, hand in hand with Israel. He has attacked public welfare and environmental programs and pushed for oil drilling in
It is worth looking at the targets chosen as well. The pentagon and world trade center. The US military and US business, two symbols of oppression throughout the world. I recently had a republican explaining to me that because we are the wealthiest nation and have the strongest military that we are the best and that it is our innate right to drive a Porse and to consume half the world's resources. Throughout history people in poverty have revolted against the rich. In a world of globalization and the WTO where 1.5 billion people live in abject poverty who will they revolt against? In the middle east 40% of the people are under the age of 17, 20% of the young men are unemployed, in
Just as the innocent people who were killed September 11th shouldn't have been held responsible for our government's actions throughout the world, neither should we support the killing of people in response to this attack just because they belong to a certain country, region, or religion. And let's be careful who we choose to hold the gun. Should we trust Bush? I don't. Justice should be served for this crime but lets try not to create further injustice in the process. During times like this I like to look towards moral leaders like Ghandi, Jesus, and Martin Luther King Jr. for guidance. The first quote to be painted on my van was one from Ghandi. "An eye for an eye will make the world blind".
While the actions of our government may be out of our hands at the moment we must remember that we create the world around us. Each of us may feel helpless when it comes to world affairs but we all have an influence in our own spheres of existence. What kind of world do you want to live in? The more we talk about love, peace, compassion, tolerance, understanding, generosity, happiness, and forgiveness; and the less we allow hate, greed, anger, aggression, ignorance, and revenge to control our lives; the better our world will be.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
