Afghan women under starry skies (By Natasha Mayers)
My heart is hurting this morning as I intensely feel the reverb from all the back-and-forth about tonight's announcement from Obama to escalate the war in "Af-Pak". They talk about troop levels, surging, counterinsurgency, supply lines, UAV's, hellfire missiles, national security interests, and more. I think about the babies, the old people, the innocent people at weddings and funerals that keep getting killed by our "brave hero soldiers." The billions of dollars wasted for corporate domination.
I also think about the working class American kids who join the military because of the economic draft - they have few other options besides flipping burgers. 75,000 of them have come back from Iraq injured....75,000 of them.....I want to scream.
We have become heartless in our endless war making. We do it without a blink and then some people, who say they oppose wars (at least when Republicans are in office anyway), say things like, "We'll it's all very complicated now and Obama just can't pull up and leave. He'd be accused of being weak." That kind of talk makes me want to be sick.
I cast about like a fisherman looking for disappearing stocks of fish and wonder what we can do to reach the public. Maybe we can open their hearts, at least get them to worry as much about war spending as they do about "big gobment spending on socialism" and the like.... That takes alot of work and I wonder who might be willing to make the effort.....
I wonder if the American people have it in them to feel it all anymore or have they become "comfortably numb"?
It's just an ongoing trend that has been snowballing since the rise of mass media. Guy DeBord, Jerry Mander, etc. have been talking about the willful self-opiating of the public for years, only to have a sudden eruption like Seattle 1999 prove the exception to the rule. But it's always useful to have very low expectations, because bread, circuses, Tiger Woods, and Lady Gaga usually win out.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your always wise comments Loring.....
ReplyDeleteGreat comments. I feel your frustration brother. It's really easy to give in to despair and the overwhelming sense of isolation. But you are not alone. Keep fighting.
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