"'Scuse me but. . .have we somehow unwittingly morphed into a "rogue state?"" she asks sheepishly. . .
This is an embellished version of something I wrote last week in response to a woman who was in tears over the reports emerging regarding what had transpired in Haditha. For some reason I'm deeply compelled to share it again. Though I know most here are fully aware of most of its contents. Sometimes it's fun to preach to the choir.
I had great cause to go to a presentation a few months ago at a local university. I had been drawn into attendance to support a dear friend and former coworker who had tragically lost her only son in Iraq last Thanksgiving. Her son had sustained a leg injury in boot camp that was never treated properly. He gimped his way through two tours of the former garden spot and cradle of civilization of Iraq, before his most unfortunate demise. The DOD won't even definitively tell her where in Iraq he happened to have died. They've issued two glaringly contradictory reports.
I've learned that all one can say to a friend in a time of great loss is, "I love you." Cursory condolences can sometimes be so vacuous.
At that event, my friend made her first speech after the tragic death of her son. It was somewhat early in her grieving process for her to do so. She did an amazingly moving presentation nonetheless.
Another speaker appearing there had served in our government for several decades. She had resigned from her well earned esteemed post upon the commencement of our tragic and illegal invasion of Iraq.
When I presented this nearly life long public servant with some plaintiff and deeply held national concerns she had a very concise response. She simply said, "This is what happens under rogue states." I was uncharacteristically rendered speechless. That gave me enormous pause but I felt upon a modicum of reflection that her assessment was more than likely totally accurate.
We've all been raised with glorified wholesome visions of Mom, apple pie, "truth. justice, and the American way," life, liberty, and the often illusive pursuit of happiness. Yet the loftiness of the American Dream, and our oft presumed moral supremacy has gradually seemed to have lost the luster of it's illustrious former veneer of late.
It's as though the energetic curtain has been pulled back and what is revealed, as another poster said yesterday, is "unrecognizable" as the America in which we once reveled and for which we once would have rallied in a heartbeat.
A Canadian started a thread on this site several weeks ago challenging us to stop complaining and create a new improved American Dream. I loved that notion.
I like many, truly treasure and hold near and dear to my heart the democratic ideals and fundamental qualities of equality for all, upon which our Constitution and Bill of Rights were so soulfully and idealistically based. In most recent years, even those basic principles have been summarily and most sadly somewhat systematically trashed.
Let's perhaps take a few steps backwards and take a moment or two to reflect upon a few undeniable facts. Consider our very origins. We decimated and committed genocide on those that were inherently native to this land. We enslaved innocents from another culture, kept them in bondage and built our initial wealth largely upon the backs of their servitude. Back then, the gunslingers won and perchance, sowed the seeds of the very military industrial complex under which we now find ourselves ever increasingly taxingly oppressed. Where is the moral supremacy in all of that. . . .?
We collectively feign and espouse so called "Christian/family values" when we in reality we routinely encourage selfishness and in fact, laud and reward unadulterated greed. We haplessly believe "In God We Trust" when in truth, we all too often worship the allegedly "all mighty dollar" frequently disregarding the sometimes questionable means through which it may or may not have been acquired.
Our celebrity obsessed culture is in some regards focused on escapism, and in others, idolatrous. It would appear from a certain perspective that we are a desperate culture in decline, clinging to a fallacy that only was a fleeting reality for short intervals during our somewhat checkered past. Perhaps we might consider no longer kidding ourselves so much and perhaps focus on restoration and amelioration of a more honest, redemptive, and humble core essence of our culture.
This current wave of racism masquerading as "immigration reform" and overt bigotry veiled disingenuously as being in "the defense of marriage" would appear to be fanning further flames of hatred, small minded judgement, and is creating even more collective fear and divisiveness. Perhaps it is doing so by design. Ya never know for sure.
These recently exposed atrocities in Haditha and elsewhere being likened to My Lai are no worse in some aspects than what has always been true of war. The RW's rationalization that "oh but in My Lai there were hundreds of deaths but in Haditha there were only two dozen" belies the truth that we've really no clue of how many innocents have been killed in Iraq. "We don't do body counts" is perhaps the ultimate in grossly blatant inhumanity.
Precious human lives of innocents of all ages and genders have routinely been dismissed as no more than "collateral damage." I've seen estimates range from 250,000 to a million dead Iraqis but we might not have that verified nor will we know how many have had their lives, bodies, and families shattered for a very long time. Though I do firmly believe and have fervent faith that the truth will ultimately emerge over time. It may take a while.
I've heard it said that more often in war, it's the innocent civilians who pay the ultimate price far more often than the real or presumed combatants. Though I haven't studied war any further than instinctually knowing from birth if not longer that violence does nothing more than "beget more violence" and has done so "from time immemorial," but perhaps never previously with such heinous weaponry or with such potentially long lasting repercussions.
I cried for part of Memorial day as it was the first Memorial Day of my many years when I actually knew someone personally who had lost their life in combat. Though I cannot claim to have known him well. It palpably did cast a weightier and more personal pallor on a holiday I've always inherently felt was so solemnly sad but had previously been somewhat of an abstraction.
In what way are we fighting for our freedom in a land that in no way ever encroached upon it? The so called Patriot Act did more to limit our freedoms than Iraq ever did. It's such total bull.
I once read in a scientific journal that there are chemically two distinctly different kinds of tears. It said that emotional tears are actually a toxin we need to release for ocular health and they are far chemically different than those we shed from physical pain.
Yet beyond our collective grief, we could perhaps act in whatever way we are capable to speak the truth of election fraud which is the root cause of our bullying, blustering, bombastic, and bumbling "rogue state." It will undoubtedly fall over time as every imperial power all have throughout recorded history. . .by their own hubris.
We could perhaps find more creative and non linear means of rectifying this colossal disaster our National nightmare has wrought domestically and furthermore, upon the world.
Basing the plausibility of solutions for self correction over time on predictable models would hinge on something we no longer have.
That would be a functioning democracy with free and fair elections wherein common sense and conventional wisdom would inevitably prevail. The will of "we the people" has been thwarted by a comparative handful of greedy and unenlightened individuals who routinely, blatantly, systematically, habitually, and invariably put self interest before the greater good.
There is an urgent need to transcend the intractable dualism of conservative/liberal schisms when few are really not a somewhat mixed bag of beliefs. There is obviously nothing remotely conservative inherent in the Neocons in charge. These are antiquated labels in a land of diversity which certainly is inclusive of far more than two points of view.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=2637905We have the opportunity and challenge to find the things upon which most genuine human beings can all agree. The most primary of which, from my admittedly deluded idealistic perspective, would be that basic human kindness is a far better attribute to be encouraged than routinely rewarding selfishness and greed almost exclusively. Of conservatism, fascism, libralism, socialism, wouldn't basic humanism have far more universal appeal?
The secondary of which might be the belief that laws long established should be restored and maintained with fervent ardor by all who still have a voice despite what our disingenuous and complicit sensationalistic and petty corporately controlled media would reflect.
Most of that ilk would appear to care far more for their excessive lifestyles, and access to our alleged representatives who repeatedly stand up staunchly and exclusively for their corporate contributors at all of our expense. All too many appear to be entirely divorced from the greater good. These handsomely paid so called journalists mostly masquerade as truth tellers and seekers. They are far from it.
Furthermore, the catch all excuse of "being in a time of war" the cassus belli for which was born solely of the deranged imaginings and invention of a very few, coupled with the say so of some dude curiously called "Curveball" and a notorious convicted extortionist, does not grant automatic or implied impunity for any leader. Nor should it over time.
At least it hasn't supposed to have done so ever since the Magna Carta or so. That was en potentia, great and lasting legislation. So were the Geneva Conventions and the stipulations of habeas corpus. IMHO How dare they trifle or diminish these obvious, practical and most necessary laws long established?
"America, those who now control our country have changed and ended law. "
That particular "war time" excuse is a perfect example of the pretzel logic of pResidential apologists. The absolute mind boggling reaction to and minimization of Feingold's noble and much warranted suggestion of pResidential censure of "Well we can't hold him accountable nor should he be scrutinized when we are "at war" (when it's not even been declared) the cassus belli for which was born solely of the deranged imaginings and invention of a very few, coupled with the say so of some dude curiously called "Curveball" and a notorious convicted extortionist. That's pretzel logic for ya.
These apologists call themselves Christians yet wouldn't one imagine that one of the most notorious victims of capital punishment throughout time probably have thought that habeas corpus was really a grand idea?
Yes I too am pained and saddened by these recent revelations of the senseless killing of innocents, especially the young and those unable to defend themselves. But I know from the depth of my soul such recurrent incidents have been vastly under reported and are far more widespread than we are misled to believe or comprehend.
So shed your tears and then steel your resolve because we're up against something far more nefarious than we've yet to see in this land.
I've a deep abiding sense that there will be only unifying spiritual solutions to our collective conundrum, not political, traditional, linear, or dogmatic ones exclusively. Silly me.
Grieve and feel better soon, then proceed as you truly feel is appropriate but consider being outrageously creative about it because perhaps we need a whole new paradigm for this still new millennium.
It's up to all of us to create it as one. I'm currently envisioning one. Hope you are too.
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