The Effects of War

August 2, 2009 at 10:09 am · Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged , , , , ,

Normally when reading the NY Times, I get aggravated at the sight of a many-paged article. The writers for the Times babble these days. Today, taking three or four pages to say what – in my opinion – could be accomplished in half that. Such was the case today, when I opened this article (an article I wanted to read as soon as I read the title “Suicide’s Rising Toll: After Combat, Victims of an Inner War”) and saw that it was six pages; however, after reading the first half page I was moved almost to tears, and therefore had to continue. At this point, having just finished said piece, I am beyond words. The fact that our brothers and sisters are all over this globe, needlessly killing people, ruining lives, and destroying themselves, doesn’t seem to permeate anyone’s daily thoughts. We see the number of people dying because of the Iraq/AfPak war every day, but how much is it penetrating the average citizens daily thoughts? We are brainwashed into not thinking about any of this stuff, only about what effects us. We are told that we have to be at war in order to protect ourselves and most of us do think about it beyond that point. We turn on the TV and its filled with brain dead people hosting their own reality shows, sporting events, and local 24-hour news channels telling us that what’s going on is needed and we shouldn’t question anything our commanders tell us. Literally millions (and I wouldn’t be surprised if the number was in the billions) of lives have been ruined or otherwise deeply affected by just the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thousands of US and “Ally” soldiers have died, thousands more have committed suicide, and millions of Iraqis and Afghans (and now Pakistanis) have been killed. Now consider the fact that many or most of these dead people had friends, husbands, wives, children, parents, neighbors, co-workers, and spouses whose lives are all deeply effected. If we can find a way to push aside all the internal walls that this society forces us to build and actually feel what is happening, change – real change, not Obama change – will happen almost immediately.

Another collateral effect of the vast USian majority not paying attention or feeling any of this, is that a select group of people (mostly old, white, males with Satanic tendencies) are making a shit load of money. There was a month or two where many people – even some mainstream reporters – were all up in arms about the fact that companies like KBR and Blackwater were making billions of dollars from no-bid contracts and were allowed to wander the streets of Iraq and Afghanistan with immunity; killing, raping, and doing whatever the hell else they wanted. The great changer, Mr. Obama put an end to this- KBR and Blackwater are getting the boot, being kicked out of our major war zones. (I’m not sure about the other few dozen mini-wars that we’re involved in!) This is good news, a positive step, unless you keep reading. If you do that, you see that these two companies are being replaced with two more, identical corporations who supply everything that the military used to, including trained killers.

How do we stop all of this? We replaced Bush with Obama, Iraq with Afghanistan, Guantanamo with Bagram, and yet the same shit is still going on. We cannot make this change from the top down; any person whose goal it is to become president has something wrong with them. Anyone who actually makes to the level of supreme leader of the world, has to be – per job description – legally insane. The only way to make this change is from the bottom up; if no one signed up for the military and the people who are already a part of it refused to fight, there would be no more of this. If the people applying for jobs at KBR or one of these new companies opened their eyes, their hearts, and allowed some truth to enter in, maybe these companies would collapse. On a bigger scale, the citizens of other countries have to make sure the US gets no support. This article – to paraphrase – discusses the fact that the UK is the slave of the US. If citizens of the UK somehow assured that the US would not be supported by their fighters, and other countries did the same, what would happen?

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A Couple Quick Notes About Obusha

July 31, 2009 at 7:38 am · Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

Usually when writing this blog I reference a couple or few other blogs and/or articles that have formed part or all of my opinion on whatever the day’s topic is. I also post the articles – and more – on Facebook, sometimes with a little comment. As I have done in here in the past, I often use the term Obusha when talking about our president, Barrack Obama. Whenever I get into the habit of doing this, people tend to ask me why, most of them with angry looks in their eyes. Although it is much more complicated than this, the main reason I use this term is to get people angry. The people who were in the streets demanding Bush be ousted are often the same people who sit casually by as Obama commits genocide in the Middle East or OK’s torture. I am anti-war; I think one life taken for any grounds – especially monetary reasons – is completely unacceptable. I would not care if Obama was perfect in every other category (which he is not), as long as he is making decisions that are costing hundreds of lives per week, the fact that he is better than Bush does not allow me to sleep any easier at night.

I believe that during the Obama presidency I may get to see a doctor when I’m sick, gay people will probably get more and more rights (although, not necessarily with the help of Obama) and marijuana will get into the hands of sick people with no legal consequences. These things (and, I’m sure, more) are great, but there are also domestic policies that are completely unacceptable. I won’t go into too much detail since I don’t have an editor today, but I’ll refer you to Chris Floyd, who has written about Obama’s appointments for various US diplomat positions. While it has always been that case that those who end up as diplomats often end up in those positions because of the amount of money they donated to a campaign, Obama is being very unwise in his decisions. He has promised dozens – if not hundreds – of times, to be transparent. Appointing a Goldman Sachs executive to a position he has no experience in and then pressuring the German’s (who were refusing to accept him) into acquiescence sounds like something our former president would have done.

My other example is something that appeared in The Distant Ocean yesterday; again, I’ll let a real writer explain things better, but the premise of the blog is that Obama is strengthening law enforcement’s ability to racially profile. I’m not pointing this out because Obama is black (although I think that does make it worse), but because he is supposed to be this great liberal; this freer of all people. When Bush did things like this people were up in arms, but when it’s prince Obama, not many people seem to do anything.

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Why do we need a government again?

July 29, 2009 at 8:52 am · Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged , , , , , ,

I normally like reading Glenn Greenwald because even though he is not what one would call a radical, he still does his best to hold politicians accountable, regardless of what side of the aisle they sit on. Today however, I have a bit of a problem with what he wrote. I don’t want to go into too much detail (you can read it yourself) but it seems to me that he is pushing the whole Democrat vs Republican thing in today’s blog. He talks about whether Democrats will gain more seats or Republicans will make a bit of a comeback in the 2010 midterm elections. I say, first of all, that the elections are still over 15 months away, but more importantly they don’t really mean anything. These things go in cycles; Democrat president with Democratic majority, Democrat president with Republican majority, Republican president with Republican majority and so on and so forth for the past couple hundred years or so. Hundreds of “reporters” and talk show hosts get a paycheck because of this back and forth and they therefore fuel the fire. Greenwald uses the following poll to try to prove to us that the Democrats are in better shape than there so-called opponents:

A Wall St. Journal/NBC News poll from just last month also found:  ”25 percent hold a favorable view of the Republican Party, which is an all-time low for it in the poll.”  By contrast, “45 percent hold a favorable view of the Democratic Party”

People were only given two choices and yet neither party received more than 45% approval- what does that say? There are a growing number of people who would never vote Republican, yet are getting more and more dis-satisfied with Obama; does this mean that a third party finally has a chance?

Tariq Ali is an activist/writer whose books I’ve been meaning to read for a while now. Every once in a while I read an article or blog by him, and it is usually along the lines of my thought process. Today is no exception, as he talks about the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, or AfPak as it is slowly starting to be called. Obama shows concern about protestors getting beat in Iran or the people not being heard in Honduras, while at the same time not blinking an eye when commanding a manless drone to kill dozens of innocent Pakistanis. As I’ve said a dozen times before (and I’m sure I’ll repeat at least another dozen dozen) Obama has made attempts at improving some facets of our lives, but for the most part he is no different than Bush II, Clinton, Bush I and so on. I find it very confusing that most of the people who elected Obama claim to understand that change comes from below, and they only way their savior is going to actually do anything is if we put pressure on him, yet hardly anyone is making a stink of the wars that he is expanding. Not many Obama supporters are in the street demanding that he stop torture, give prisoners back their rights, at least make an attempt to restore some of our civil liberties back here at home. If they truly understood that the only way things change is if the people make them, why would they even think they need a president? We are not going to stop the killing, oppression and torture happening in our names with our money until we start realizing the power we have.

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The Evil We Know

July 26, 2009 at 8:02 am · Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

Things were so much easier when Bush and Cheney were maniacally destroying the world. Sure, things are still coming out about the secret programs they authorized. For the most part, the country – no matter which side you were on – knew what was happening. Some of us knew they were destroying lives all over the world and taking away our rights in the US because they didn’t try to hide it. The rest of people accepted what was being done because they thought it made the country safer. Now, we have a guy in office who says he will restore our constitutional rights, but his actions communicate something different. We have a leader who promised to shut down Guantanamo (which, itself isn’t that big of a deal, since we have dozens of other Guantanamos throughout the world), but is making no progress. In fact, he has made it so more people can be locked up with less chance of getting out. He led people to believe that he was – while maybe not anti-war – appalled by what was happening in the Middle East and would do everything in his power to end it. However, the war in Iraq has no end in sight (with more bases being built every time I blink my eyes) and the “good” war in Afghanistan is causing more and more deaths. Some people saw this coming, but the vast, vast majority of the country was blinded by this smooth talking, liberal president and what he represents (or seemed/seems to represent). Obama is trying to ensure that we all have health care (or most of us anyway), and that would be a good thing, it’s just that I have trouble celebrating the fact that I may be able to go to the doctor one day, while hundreds of people are dying, losing family members, being tortured, or disappearing every single day because of the orders of this same person.

I always get called naive when I point out the fact that politicians are politicians. For example, Obama got angry when he witnessed the incident with the Harvard professor. Obama should get angry when he has to comment on an incident like this. If this was something that happened once in a while, he should get as angry as he did, but knowing (as I’m sure he does) that this happens in every city, probably every day; one would be hard pressed to find a person of color who hasn’t been harassed by the police, his initial response was extremely subdued. When I tell more mainstream people that I think Obama under reacted, that he should be in front of the press pointing out that police are inherently corrupt (despite the fact that the majority of police officers may be good individual people). He should be pointing out that there is still slavery in this country. But he won’t because – as my mainstream friends and family tell me – he would lose votes, he would lose support on other things he is trying to accomplish. When I try to point out that maybe, possibly, there is a small chance that our whole system is beyond repair and if Obama was 1/10th of what people have made him out to be, he would not care about re-election or gaining more support from right wingers; he would represent the people on the bottom, and not just in the US, but around the globe. We spent eight years with a guy who was unapologetic about his racism, sexism, classism, and genocidical tendencies. And maybe that way was better because at least we began to open to the things actually happening.

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Humanity (or, I hate titles)

July 23, 2009 at 7:33 am · Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged , , , , ,

There is a concept that I have written about quite a few times in this blog; it is a simple concept, yet the vast majority of people do not seem to understand it. What I’m talking about is recognizing that each and every human being is just that- a human being. This means not only your immediate family and friends, but also that guy on the corner asking for some spare change or that little girl in Afghanistan who doesn’t have a school to go to because some unpersoned drone blew it up, thinking it was Bin Laden. This also means seeing the humanity in the Marine who gave the command to kill a whole village and the “Terrorist” sitting in a shed, building IEDs. It is as easy as it seems- if we understood this, it would be a lot harder to continue our complacency when it comes to things like this. If president Obama truly grasped this concept, would he be able to send people into some dark cage to be tortured for an undetermined amount of time? I am against war in almost all situations, but I understand the POW concept- if two countries or groups are fighting and there are people captured (which is better than being killed, if the correct laws are followed), then it makes sense that these people are held until the war is over. However, what the US has been doing – and what Obama has declared he will continue to approve – is not following any recognized laws. What the US has been doing is paying corrupt people to bring them prisoners and make up rules about what can and cannot be done to these prisoners. We are not fighting a war against another government which will end when one side surrenders, but rather a War On Terror against an enemy who gets bigger every time we kill or torture one of their members.

Another example of where humanity could come into play is the recent battle between the New Black Panthers and the KKK. It would be obvious for me to say that members of the KKK need to see black people as human, not much different than themselves (or as different as a random white, yellow, or gay person), but it goes deeper than that. I know it’s hard, but imagine the New BPP members – who, in the video, are wearing masks and making disparaging comments – could see the angry, hateful KKK members as human. If they were able to try and understand how these people end up where they are- was it taught? Were they picked on by a black person at school? Do hateful people even know where their hate comes from? I’m not taking sides here (although if I had to, you better believe that I wouldn’t stand with any KKK members), but some group has to be the bigger one.

I’m not trying to say that all of life’s problems will be solved if the majority of the world’s citizens could understand what I have been discussing, but there sure would be a big change. Even if everyone could try it for a week- or even a day; next time you are walking down the street and see a homeless person, think about that person taking a shit or losing their spouse. Next time you are traveling by subway or bus and a group of “scary looking” people get on, ask yourself why you perceive them as scary. Are they trying to be accepted? Are they trying to cover up their fear? The majority of people only want to be happy and lead a secure life and even if a very small minority of us can see that, the world will start changing without a single protest or rally.

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I’m Back

July 21, 2009 at 7:21 am · Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged , , , , , ,

My style has changed since I first started writing these blogs a year and a half ago. I have been waking up early and reading a number of different blogs and newspapers for a few years now; I used to send articles that I thought were important to a select number of people. As that group began to get larger, I decided to write something about the news I was ingesting, giving brief summaries that appeared on one page, so people could choose what to read. I would give links to the articles, while at the same time letting the reader know a little about what I thought. Slowly, my opinion started to take up more words, while talking about specific articles began to take up less. While doing things that way was more fun, it was also more work and possibly the reason why I discontinued it. I have wanted to start writing again for a little while now, but have been too lazy to think of my own ideas. Therefore, I have decided to try going back to the way things were.

I have heard and read snippets about the “C Street House” for a couple days now and I have to say that I don’t really give a shit. This will just be a tool for the left side of the Republicrat party to use, in order to convince the public that they are different than the right side of the same party. If we could just think for ourselves, we would see that this house is not in existence because the “Republican party” is crazy, but because politics and organized religion (and especially the mixing of the two) are inherently corrupt.

I read Chris-Floyd’s blog on this house, but I don’t want to dwell on the actual conspiracy. Instead, I want to talk briefly about something that Floyd brought up; the fact that a lot of people in this house have gotten in trouble for sexual misconduct. I do think it’s funny that politicians who publicly speak out against gay people are the ones who end up being gay, and that the religious zealots who focus on family values are – more often than not – banging someone 20 years their junior, behind the backs of their wives. However, I think this is a huge distraction. The media jumps all over these things- former presidents getting head from their interns, Representatives soliciting gay sex in public bathrooms, and Senators (or was it a governor) who run off with their mistress and disappear for a few days. These are definitely all things that most people would agree are morally wrong, but have nothing to do with public policy. George Bush is responsible for millions of deaths, Dick Cheney devised all sorts of secret plans that costs numerous lives, Barrack Obama sends robots into foreign countries to kill entire villages, and only a select few give a shit. It would be too much work to convene juries and hire special prosecutors to look into these acts of genocide, but let it come out that any of these three men had a homosexual experience in college or cheated on their wives with a younger women and I bet people would be leaping out of their seats calling for impeachments and beheadings. How long can this country survive when members of the news media – the people around for the sole purpose of keeping the people in power honest – are dumbing down their reports? I have asked this question in the past, but is the media making the population dumber by the day or are they (the media) just feeding the already dumbed down population all that they can handle?

Finally, I have been reading Distant Ocean for a few weeks now and, although the writings are very short, I have become addicted. Today, it talks about our economic situation. I can tell you from personal experience that more and more people are losing their jobs, getting their hours cut, and falling behind on their mortgages. The unemployment rate is the highest it has been in a long time, the amount of empty property in NYC is passing the rates of the 1980’s, and the amount of intersections (in perfect little Boulder, Colorado anyway) that feature beggars is literally growing by the day. This is nothing new- this was the problem six months ago, when our new Commander-in-Queef decided to bail out the already rich bankers with a few billion dollars. Now, here I am reading about the record breaking profits these banks are making and the bonuses these already rich executives are bringing home, and I’m trying to figure out how and where this is trickling down to Main Street. Unemployment is going up every month, the amount of foreclosed houses are not leveling off, and stores are still shutting down by the minute. Again, we seem to find a way to ignore this (maybe because the mainstream “news” channels refuse to devote much time to coverage) while getting worked up about dog owners not picking up their poop.

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What Now

May 20, 2009 at 2:57 pm · Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged , ,

Yesterday I wrote (and thought a bunch) about what the proper way is to go about bringing change. I still have not come to a conclusion as to which is more productive- working within the system to change it for the better, tearing down the structure we have in place with more controversial (yet still nonviolent) means, or building something new, thereby collapsing what we have in place now. I don’t think I’ll ever come to a conclusion; in fact, I don’t think there is an answer- all of these strategies are valid and people acting in either way are contributing to the betterment of humanity. I guess what my question has become is ‘where is my place’ or ‘how does one find their place?’ I have not been involved in activism for too long – five or six years total and only in the past couple have I been at it full time – but most of the actions I have taken have been working within the system. I have participated in marches, rallies, fund raisers, I have handed out fliers, held signs, and written letters to my representatives. There are times – when a law that I was trying to change actually gets changed or when I have a conversation with someone and leave them with new seeds in their brain – where I have felt that this is the way to bring about the revolution, but lately I have been having my doubts. As I said earlier, there definitely need to be people with a presence at large gatherings; handing out fliers and getting into conversations with the public, but more needs to be done. Our so-called leaders have lobbyists with billions of dollars telling them what they should be doing, why would a couple hundred phone calls telling them the opposite have much of an effect? Also, like I said yesterday, this is keeping the same corrupt system in place.

I read a number of different blogs every morning and it’s usually – usually (with one of the only exceptions being Arthur Silber) – the same thing: there are some bloggers who praised Bush while he was president and now criticize everything Obama does simply because he is Obama; there are some who used to spent all their energy ripping on Bush, but now defend Obama from some of the same accusations; and there are those who criticize anyone in power, but still think that our voices can make a difference. None of these blogs offer any real solutions- the conservatives think we need to oust Obama, the liberals think we should get an even higher majority in Congress and convince Obama to stop compromising, and the more ‘radical’ bloggers think we should keep putting pressure on whomever is president or in the majority in congress. Will any of this really end the military-industrial complex? Will they open the jails and end this sick form of modern day slavery? I really don’t think so. I wish I could offer a real solution (instead of just writing a couple paragraphs of complaints every few days), but I’m still trying to figure out what it is and how to implement it.

If I had ever done any sort of illegal direct action, I would not write about it in here, but I imagine it would be fun. However, is it really reaching more people? If low-income people were getting kicked out of their homes, in order for them to be demolished and replaced with tract housing, what would make things better? Working within the system to stop this from happening could work (and has worked), but doesn’t do much about the bigger picture. By getting petitions signed, knocking on doors, showing up at city council meetings, and passing out fliers, these hundred or so people’s houses can be saved and that’s great, but did it really accomplish anything in the long run? Are these people going to not be struggling anymore? Are they going to be able to quit the job that they probably hate (and get grossly underpaid for)? Are they going to be able to stop worrying about the bills each and every month? Or, are their lives going to continue more or less the same, while whatever developer planned on building the tract housing will simply move onto a less defended community and build there? What about direction action? The above situation is actually happening down the street from me: the owner of a trailer park is trying to force the residents (some of whom have lived there for up to 40 years) out, so he can sell to a developer, who will then build affordable housing that not one person currently in the park can afford. DA does not seem to be an action, as desperate as these people are: some are too old, some are undocumented, some just don’t care enough. So, what do I do? Do I grab a couple of friends and occupy the place for them? Do I confront the owner in their names? What if they one day did decide to occupy their park, would it actually accomplish anything? Or, would they just all get arrested, making the job of the landlord that much easier? Lately, I have been gravitating toward building my own community: something that resists/ignores the crazy system we have in place. The goal being to have more and more people resisting the system, until eventually what we have no collapses. While this is sort of an option for someone like me – a young, straight, white, (formerly) middle-class, man – can the people in the situation described above really afford to do this? I don’t know any more… if I ever did.

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Which Path?

May 19, 2009 at 7:21 am · Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged , ,

The more I become immersed in activism and Peace Studies, the more I see the connection in all that ails us. We shouldn’t be working one way to end the war in Iraq while doing something completely different to stop foreclosures- they both exist because of the system we have in place. The question then becomes, do I work within the system to try and change it, do I focus my energy on destruction of the current way of life, do I ignore the system and try to build an alternative, hoping that causes the collapse of the current structure…or is there something I’m missing? I understand the value of focusing on one issue at a time, of standing on a corner and handing out fliers explaining why the war in Afghanistan is a bad thing. However, does this really accomplish anything? It was (in my opinion) nonviolent direct action – including the refusal of soldiers to fight anymore – that ended the war in Vietnam. It is good that people rose their voices and put their lives on the line in order to end an unjust war, but what happened after that? Has there been a day that has gone by since then that some innocent person somewhere on the earth wasn’t killed or maimed because of some US foreign or domestic policy? Are we not involved in multiple illegal wars all these years later? Is our Military-Industrial Complex not a hundred times stronger than it was when we “ended” our involvement in Vietnam?

I believe that the only way to take down the system we have in place or build something else is to change people’s minds, one at a time. We have to dedicate our individual lives to making this change within ourselves, all the while talking to as many people as possible and hoping that we rub off on them. Is this better accomplished by standing at the end of a Memorial Day foot race and handing out fliers concerning the Afghanistan war or by dropping a banner and illegally posting fliers explaining how everything ties in together? Is it better to convince ten people who have never been involved in making change, that the wars are wrong and they should do something about it, or would more be accomplished by showing one person that the whole system is a mess and needs to be changed? I don’t think that either one is more valid than the other, nor do I think people are working harder on one side.

Maybe the problem is not what we do, but how we do it; for example, what do we do about the problem of foreclosure that millions of families are facing? Do we talk to the banks, set up meetings with our local sheriffs and city councils, and demand that these people get new, affordable mortgages? Or, do we skip that step –  since each and every human being has the right to food, shelter, clothing, education, and security – and realize that true freedom will not be accomplished through lobbying some politician? Or, maybe we do both…and more. I don’t know what any of the answers are; in fact, in the twenty minutes it took me to write this, a dozen new questions have come up. I also know that hardly anyone will read this, but if you are one of the few and you have any opinion on this, please let me know.

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Immunity for Some, Jail for Others

February 17, 2009 at 8:04 am · Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged , , , , , ,

Today Glenn Greenwald talks again about what to do about the numerous laws and treaties that were broken by the Bush administration over their eight years in power. Greenwald (from what I can gather) wants full investigations, leading up to criminal prosecutions for everyone – from Bush all the way down to a lowly Army Private. While I dream of the day George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzalez and a lot of other people are behind bars, I’m not sure going after everyone is the way to go. We would spend hundreds of millions of dollars (that probably don’t even exist) of our tax money, but the better lawyers will be on the defense side. If we waste years trying to prosecute these people, and in the end the only people who go to jail are a few 25 year olds from Kansas who thought they were doing what is right, we will be in an even worse position than we are now. Greenwald makes a criticism of Joe Conason:

On Friday in Salon, Joe Conason argued that there should be no criminal investigations of any kind for Bush officials “who authorized torture or other outrages in the ‘war on terror’.”  Instead, Conason suggests that there be a presidential commission created that is “purely investigative,” and Obama should “promis[e] a complete pardon to anyone who testifies fully, honestly and publicly.”  So, under this proposal, not only would we adopt an absolute bar against prosecuting war criminals and other Bush administration felons, we would go in the other direction and pardon them from any criminal liability of any kind.

I don’t know if Greenwald is misunderstanding Conason or if Conason himself is confused and would be willing to pardon anyone – including Rumsfeld or Bush – who admits to what they did. I think both of these men are wrong- we should neither go after every single person involved nor pardon everyone who tells the truth. My opinion is that we should follow the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (or at least follow the TRC as I understand it; which isn’t very great). Under no circumstance should we even entertain the idea of pardoning the top tier people- Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, etc. but the only way there is a chance in proving their guilt is if we offer immunity to lower-tier people who are willing to admit what they did and tell the truth. This means, if someone not on the highest level is willing to sit in a courtroom and spill everything (s)he did, while showing at least some remorse for his or her actions, then they get immunity. I would be willing to bet that there would be dozens – if not hundreds – of people coming forward to take advantage of this.

This is all a moot point however because the Obama administration (perhaps out of fear of what will happen to them in 4 or 8 years) has repeatedly said that they will not go after anyone for any kind of war crime charges (not only that, but they are actually sticking up for a number of people from the Bush administration). Why is Obama ignoring the law and his obligation as president? Because he is the bridge building, bipartisan, 21st century Abe Lincoln. I understand the need to work with the opposition, I understand that if we have a country of “us and them” we are doomed to fail, but there comes a certain point where you have to draw the line. When the Allied forces defeated the Nazi army, did they appoint a new government that would work with old Nazis? When the US took out the government of Saddam Hussein did they have a meeting with all the old Ba’ath members to see how bridges could be built? No, of course not. While it is necessary for Obama and the Democrats to work with Congressional Republicans in order to have a less divided country, it is not necessary to protect war criminals.

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Obedience

February 14, 2009 at 9:10 am · Filed under Blogroll ·Tagged , , , , , ,

The concept of obedience is something that is constantly bouncing around in my tiny brain (in my strangely large head). I constantly wonder why the majority of human beings – especially USers – go along with the status quo. Even when I end up liking or agreeing with something that the majority of other people like or agree with, I begin to question myself. The politicians and corporations who run this country generally make decisions based on how much money they can make or how much power they can gain. The wars that we are in right now are not because we are trying to make the world safer, but because there is money to be made. We the people, even though most of us know this at some level, simply go along with things the way we are. We tell ourselves that, even if it’s not great, this is the system we have and we just have to deal with it until it somehow changes.

Arthur Silber has been writing lately of tribalism (I linked to part three, but I seriously recommend checking out parts one and two as well) and it makes things slightly clearer. I’ll start with a quote:

When the person in the inferior position obeys, he does so because of his certain knowledge that if he does not, he will be punished in some form: psychologically, legally, socially, or in some other way. Thus, the primary (although not the sole) motivation that ensures obedience is negative in nature: it is not the promise of a reward (even though certain rewards may be offered), but the assurance that he will not suffer consequences that are painful in varying degrees, i.e., that he will not be punished.

the fear of being punished; I don’t want to focus too much on the fear of being legally punished, but rather the psychological and – especially – social punishments are what interest me. When we first began occupying Iraq and Afghanistan (despite the protests that occurred right before the occupations) the great majority of USers supported what we were doing. Almost every place I went – with the exception of school – people were talking about getting revenge for 9/11 or finally killing Saddam. Anyone who dared speak out against what we were doing was un-American or, if they had brown or black skin, a terrorist. There were plenty of people (I’d say a much higher percentage than most people think) who were – somewhere in their mind or heart – against what was happening, but were too afraid to speak up. When you are part of the majority, life is good- you can sit in a big group and all laugh together, all get angry together, and all mock outsiders. However, when you have the courage to voice an opinion that goes against what the majority think, it is not a fun place to be. Try going into a bar sometime, listening to what a big group of people are talking about, and then disagreeing. Try going to a protest or rally somewhere where you are in the high minority; again, not fun. This is the reason why we have a two party system; we are trained so well to obey and go along with what the majority thinks that not many people can handle the isolation that comes with supporting a non-mainstream politician or going against a bi-partisan bill. While George W Bush was president, I heard many people calling his supporters sheeps; he was a monster, a war criminal, and a liar and yet these people mindlessly followed him. However, most of the people who were mocking the Bushites are now doing the exact same thing for Obama.

I don’t know how we can reverse this trend of obedience that is killing the once greatest country in the world. As hippie as this sounds; people need to get in touch with their hearts, their Truth, and then follow it. People need to take time to learn; don’t just read the headline that tells you whether the stimulus plan is good or bad- read the whole article, read articles with different opinions, study the past, and then make your own decision. If your decision is off the wall or different than the mainstream, who cares? If you hear arguments by friends, family, and pundits as to why torture is a necessary evil, yet you know in your heart that it just doesn’t feel right, then speak out against it. If you drive past a rally, or are having lunch at a restaurant and see a band of protestors walk by and you want to join them- JOIN THEM. Everything good that has happened in this country has started with a few people refusing to be obedient and, instead of following laws, following their hearts. We are in two never-ending wars, we are occupying dozens of other countries (some directly some not so much), our economy is falling apart, the majority of the things we buy are made by exploiting other people or entire cultures, we are destroying the earth for our offspring- now is the time to speak out. Do you see the wave coming? Do you feel the ground rumbling? Do you hear people starting to get angry? I do.

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