hmmmm.... yeah. i guess i wonder where it's moving. can someone check its pulse? that's my second cuppa snark this morning. there are many folks in this country who want peace- no doubt. and there are some who actually engage with the rest of humanity on a quest to get it. but there is a biiiiigggg obstacle to peace in this country- and no it isn't just the neocons and obstructionist dems- americans themselves don't really want peace. not really.
how else to explain the abysmal way we treat each other? most folks have heard by now of fellow americans being tased to death- i think we may be getting closer to 3 digits every time i post- and we have heard of police beatings of people who weren't resisting and of the huge ice roundups that just herd everyone together to sort out later (and detain indefinitely). but what about our daily lives? looking at how we treat each other or talk about each other- and those around the world- it's indicative of where we really are at.
i read a piece in national geographic about iran. what struck me was the people. the government actually sounds like ours but the people- they have this sense of identity and stubborn will to be who they are despite millennia of invasions- it's incredible. and yet, americans would be content to bomb them and their beautiful country to smithereens for oil. without taking a moment to think about the humanity lost and the thousands of years of world history. these folks speak farsi and are fairly anti-arab. they have their own identity and they aren't terribly interested in america- except for the fact we keep threatening to annihilate them. anyhoo- i thought while reading- what an exceptional people and what an ally they would have made if we hadn't fucked things up with our greedy foreign policy. sigh.
anyhoo- read the article- and really take a look at the people. we didn't bother to do that with iraq or anywhere else in the world actually. the world isn't our oyster and we don't have the right to take what isn't ours'. we need to take a hard look at our own culture and see it for what it is and isn't. people who can be so callous as to let a man die after ignoring him for 22 hours or people who can stand by while a pet dies- and say that it's only an animal get another- well, that gives me pause. these are everyday people- neighbors, family members, friends, co-workers- americans. if this is the real face of who we are- it is not only disillusioning- it's frightening.
2 comments:
I am frustrated that neither the government, the media, nor the people pay enough attention to the peace movement. In Sept. '05 there were more than 100,000 of us in DC and barely a blip on the news. It seems that back in the '60s way BEFORE the advent of the 24 hour news cycle, we got to see items about the peace movement on a daily basis, but now, it's like we don't even exist. I've been to Washington several times over the last few years, but the most media I ever saw on the movement was when we were in Crawford with Cindy Sheehan. It really makes me ill.
Most "people" think peace is a figment of our imaginations (if we actually had any). They find peace to be so far removed from reality due to poverty, war, murder, rape, foreclosures, speeding tickets, job loss, price of food and gas and electricity and water and gas, did I mention that already? Well it's worth repeating. We the people have become so inundated with spin and resentment and hunger and the lack of insurance to cover our illnesses that we have forgotten about peace. We've forgotten that it is possible, hell that it even is as tangible as war, that it is its opposite, that we now believe it is not even real. Just a word. A lofty term intended for poetry or novels or liberal college professors. It is almost as if you mention "peace" and there is a collective sigh of resignation.
Disturbing and most foul...and planned by the powers that be so great loads of money can be made from conquest and its need for weaponry and more weaponry. God forbid we ever run out of fucking weapons!
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