Ryan Ruminates

I sometimes get angry while watching Mr. Obama because he seems genuine; he rarely looks down at his notes (if he has any), seems to talk from his heart, and doesn’t look like he is trying to figure out what he’s supposed to say. I get angry because I know he’s still part of the empire and although the economy might grow a tiny bit and we may keep less troops in Iraq and talk less shit to Iran, things will still generally be the same. Luckily, the hegemonist in him comes out every once in a while. In a speech given on Friday, Obama said that his foreign policy decisions will be more like former presidents JF Kennedy, George HW Bush, and even a little like Ronald Reagan. It’s fine that he’s distancing himself from the likes of the people who run our country now, but saying he will do the same things as three other war criminals is not exactly comforting to someone like me, someone who thinks there should be no empire. Kennedy is the man who was behind the Bay of Pigs invasion; a horribly failed attack (one of many) directed at Fidel Castro. Not because Castro was threatening the United States, not because Castro had actually attempted war on the United States, but simply because Cuba is a seemingly weak country, located very close to the United States and refuses to bow down and kiss our feet. As far as Ronald Reagan goes; when a Democrat says he wants to be more like the man conservatives worship, it may be time to be worried. Forget about all the domestic issues Reagan was inhuman about, forget about the fact that he put a rose on the grave of a former SS soldier, lets look at some of his foreign policies. Reagan paid money to the Iranians to not release the US hostages (during the US embassy in Iran crisis) until right around election time; he shipped massive amounts of weapons to our enemies in Iran and extremists in Nicaragua; he invaded Lebanon and Grenada for no apparent reason. The list goes on, but what has been listed should be enough for a “liberal” Democrat to not want to be like Mr. Reagan. Finally we have the esteemed father of our wonderful current president, George HW Bush. This is the man who armed and funded Saddam Hussein; remember him? He’s the guy who had weapons of mass destruction and ties to 9/11; he’s the reason why we are in a war that is causing the rest of the world to hate us and our own country to fall apart at the seams. The lists on the war crimes committed by all three of these men is long and disgusting; do some research and you’ll see who these people really are. I don’t know whether Obama is saying all of this in order to get the votes of centrists and right leaning people in Pennsylvania or if he really believes them and intends to follow in the footsteps of the three evil former presidents, but neither reason is going to get me to cast a vote for this man. I’m starting to think that fighting to end the empire, to end the endless wars and puppets we support all over the world, to end the massive inequality within our own country, is pointless. Nothing we say or do is going to get someone outside of the three nutbags running for president elected. All we can do now is build alternative structures and make sure that we can survive when we look down and see the bottom rushing up at us.

My intention this past week was to take a nice vacation to New Mexico (one of the four states the wife and I have never been), to shut off the political section of my brain, and to just enjoy the pleasure of being alive and living in a beautiful area of the world. The drive from Boulder to Moriarty was nice; the town was a little run down, but the views and the people made us both feel happy. The next morning we decided to wake up and head to Santa Fe because everyone told us what a great place it was to visit. Things started out pretty well; we got a great room for really cheap, we walked around looking at all the pretty crafts, ate some good food, and found a cool bar to hang out in. After a couple 1pm beers however, my attitude started to change. I looked at the Native Americans and (New?) Mexicans dressed shabbily, driving shitty cars (if they were driving at all), and looking out of place in their home. Then I saw the white tourists driving Lexus’s, Beamers, and Benz’s, wearing outfits that cost more than most of the native’s rents, and spending ridiculous amounts of money on things that most people would find unnecessary. It started to dawn on me that this was occupied territory; the land I was standing on used to be full of Native Americans and then (after they were slaughtered and raped by the Spanish) Mexicans who lived off the land. Now, they are being exploited; and people come from all over to enjoy the old historical buildings, native looking people, and buy all their ‘authentic’ crafts (mostly made by white people). Once in a while I would see a young Mexican or Native American boy driving a giant pick-up truck with $5,000 rims and a system that would make the entire block shake and it would make me even more depressed. After twenty minutes of watching this, I had to go back into the bar and drink away my sorrows. Luckily, we ran into a cool Peruvian/Incan man named Lorenzo who explained that he wasn’t angry about what was happening; all he can do is what he can do and he can’t control what the occupiers do. After that, we ended up spending a couple days in the pretty much untouched by white people, Las Vegas, New Mexico. We met a couple people (who were very poor, but happier than any of the Benz drivers that I saw a day earlier), spent a bunch of time with them, and left feeling in high spirits about the whole experience. Then I got home and decided it was time to jump back into real life; so I read all the papers this morning. The US is still doing everything in it’s power to control the Iraqi people, while building a bunch of permanent bases in the country, in order to eventually control the whole area. In Pakistan, an area that has been pretty much controlled by the US for the past 8 years, the new government is voicing its rebellion to US control. This – as evidenced by a recent visit by members of our government – is not acceptable to the hegemonic goals of our country. I turned the page to Israel/Palestine to see that Israel – on land that is not theirs – is banning Palestinians from certain roads; basically committing apartheid. That was the last article I read, although I know that if I want to I can spend the rest of the day reading articles and essays about all the lands that are currently occupied throughout the world. It’s a dog eat dog world where whoever has the bigger weapons and the more ruthless leaders, takes over land from the weak. It’s not even the taking over of the land that makes me want to scream; it’s the killing of the natives, it’s the brainwashing of whoever survives to become more like the occupier. Due to the massive amounts of marijuana and beer that have entered my system in the past six days, I cannot further develop these thoughts. However, I will be returning back to normal over the next few days and hope to write more about this.

I do not have much time to write today, but I refer you to a long, scary article by William R Polk about Iran. According to Mr. Polk – who was a member of the Policy Planning Council responsible for Africa and the Middle East from 1961-65 and is currently a teacher of history and the founder of Middle Eastern Study Center – war with Iran is imminent. Everything is in place for Iran to be bombed; the US navy is occupying much of the waters, threats are still being made, politician war-hawks are making visits to the area, and we have over a dozen bases set up throughout Iraq, giving us easy access to the area. Iran is bigger than Iraq, and their so-called nukes are spread throughout the country – some even in urban areas – so therefore, the million or so dead in Iraq would be a paltry number compared to what we would do to their neighbors. Polk’s article obviously gives better reasons as to why war is imminent, why it will not work, and what the Iranian (and other nations in the area) response will be. What he does not mention is that we the people can stop it; all we have to do is actually give a shit. The movement to end the war in Iraq has to grow by leaps and bounds – who cares if 80% of the public is against the war if they just sit home and watch TV? – and has to start including (as it often does) demands that we do not go into Iran. Pressure has to start being dumped on top of not only our local politicians, but also especially the three candidates for Bush’s replacement. John McCain we already know has his mind set on war (in fact, I would argue that the only way he will get elected is if we are already at war with Iran come November), but we should still be able to pressure both Obama and Clinton. They have both said that all options are on the table (in fact Polk has a good quote from Obama in his article). This can not be accepted; when are we going to have a president that can put his or her ego to the side and make decisions based on common sense, not about fear of the rest of the world calling us pussies?

In 2003 the population of the United States took to the streets to let the world know that we will not support an invasion of Iraq. Then, after we were ignored and Iraq was occupied, we went back to our every day lives for the next few years (just over five to be exact). Occasionally there is a protest here or an occupying of a Representatives office there, but there is no movement, there is no awareness. Almost 4,000 US troops are dead, over one million Iraqi civilians are dead, countless families are missing loved ones, the infrastructure in Iraq is destroyed (and in the US it is crumbling), and we are doing nothing. Perhaps it is because of this that Iran is next on the list; the lunatics occupying the White House know that there might be a bit of resistance when we go in there, but eventually the people of Iran will start blending in with the people of Iraq (and Afghanistan) as a bunch of crazy, Islamic, brown people a half a world away that have to be killed in order for us to continue to have the comfortability that we have. Most people have not been to Iran; in fact most reporters are only repeating what the war mongers are saying instead of taking trips over there and interviewing the people. Ahmademinejad is being portrayed as a Hitler, when in reality he is the George Bush of Iran; the people do not like him very much (as evidenced by the elections held a couple days ago) and he doesn’t have as much power as we are led to believe. Iran is not full of crazy fundamentalists who are set on the destruction of the US and Israel; rather, the land is full of human beings just like in the US. They are more oppressed than us, but are fighting to get their rights. They have more women in higher learning institutions than either of the countries that we are helping to become free. We all need to come to the realization that these people are just like us – they breathe, they eat, they bleed, they love, and so on – we need to realize that they are working things out for themselves and are not bothering anyone. Read this article from someone who actually went over there, not just watched videos of what we are allowed (and encouraged) to see. The most important thing we can do right now is realize that a war with Iran is planned; Dick Cheney just visited the area, John McCain just visited the area, Joe Leibermann just visited the area – these are the biggest cheerleaders for more war. We cannot let this happen; if we continue to sit around and ignore this very real possibility, the blood will be on our hands.

As the few people who read this thing I call a blog know, I go back and forth between wanting to vote for Obama and not voting at all. After watching a debate between him and Mrs. Clinton I was excited by him and – although not fooled into thinking he is the savior – thought I might throw my vote his way. This past week has made me think differently, and I will give a brief summary. On Wednesday of last week I picked up a former priest and current self-proclaimed Christian Anarchist from the airport so he could give a speech (along with a fired professor from the University of Colorado) for a few fellow students. I sat in the car with this man for an hour on the way home from the airport, had lunch with him, watched him speak, and then had dinner with him. He has been arrested over 20 times, parted ways with the Catholic church because of his refusal to assuage the leadership, spent a total of five years in jail, and has dedicated his life to living below the poverty line and nonviolently helping to change our entire structure. The next day I was interviewed for a documentary called Love Everybody and was made to talk about my dedication to a life of service, about this thing I have inside of me, forcing me to get an expensive college degree in the field of Peace Studies, knowing that I will never make my money back. It was the first time I ever really talked about it and it gave me a shot of energy that has not gone away yet. After that, I saw a spiritual man speak of revolutions within the self. On Friday I got up in front of a crowd and – for the first time in my life – delivered an impassioned speech about the hegemony of the United States; in doing the research I couldn’t help but focus on the 1,000,000 people who have been killed with our money, in our name, in only Iraq, only in the past five years. Saturday there was a rally and march which – although not at all inspiring – led to conversations with other people who found the fact that we were stopping at red lights and abiding by a permit, slightly counterproductive. Sunday was a day off, but yesterday I watched two documentaries; one which inspired me (and filled me with fear) greatly and another that again pointed out the reach and many armness of the US government. I sit here today and I realize that there is no point in voting for any of these three people who have been put before us, on varying degrees they all support the US empire; they all will continue to prop up puppet dictators throughout the world, they all will keep bases and soldiers throughout the middle east, and they will all add millions to the list of people who die at the hands of the US every single year. Many people teach me that I can only do what I can do; I can choose not to vote and instead work for the building of alternate structures within our existing government, but I cannot make others do the same. Despite this knowledge, it still frustrates me that people attend a march on the anniversary of the war or vote in an election every four years and consider their duty as USers done. They refuse to acknowledge that these are things that the government lets us do so we feel like we are participating in world affairs, so we won’t think about the fact that our weapons, paid for with our tax dollars, are being used by people trained in the US to kill innocent people who happen to get in the way of our government’s long term goals. Occasionally we will see a blurb in the newspaper about 50 people dying in a car bomb in Iraq or a bomb that was intended for a terrorist in Somalia accidentally (of course they never use that word) killing half a village, but that’s as far as it goes. There is never any outrage, never any demand that the people who orchestrate these attacks be held accountable. I have said it before and I’ll say it again; it is because we look at these people as less than human. Name ten of the million people who have died in Iraq over the last five years. Name ten of the million people who died due to US sanctions in Iraq before we invaded them. Name three monks who died in Burma last year without the US doing a thing about it. Name one person who lived in the village in Somalia that got bombed earlier this month. Most people will not be able to do this (myself included) because these people are not looked at as human. The day we wake up and put faces to explosions and then names and stories to those faces is the day that we take back our country and let the rest of the people take back theirs.

Although the US media’s coverage of the occupation of Iraq has been minimal and coverage of what’s really going on in Afghanistan has been almost non-existent, coverage of the rest of the “War on Terror” has been almost impossible to find. By calling this expansion of empire the War on Terror, it gives the United States Government free reign to do whatever they want, wherever they want as long as the pawns who call themselves soldiers continue to obey. As you read this, people in Somalia are dying and running – thousands have been killed and a million have been displaced – because US backed Ethiopian troops are wreaking havoc on their neighbors. US troops have actually been sent into towns to kill people who did not die from the (US made) bombs being dropped by Ethiopian forces, and US planes are dropping bombs on villages – killing dozens of innocents – in order to kill ‘dangerous’ people on the FBI’s most wanted list. I don’t know why I’m writing this and I’m sure to be just as confused as I preach about it to anyone who will listen, but here I am doing it anyway. This weekend is the fifth anniversary of the US occupying Iraq, so there should be much focus on the protest and rallies (and especially the Iraq Veterans Against the War who will be testifying in Washington DC), but that does not mean we can’t be aware of what else is being done. Most of us already know John McCain’s position on matters of this nature, but what about the two liberal Democrats? Both Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama would like to expand out military; although they are both claiming they would remove (most) troops from Iraq, they haven’t ruled out attacking Iran, they haven’t mentioned getting troops out of Afghanistan, they haven’t said a word about ending military support to the corrupt regime in Pakistan, and it would probably be political suicide to promise to end US backed action in countries like Somalia. Sure, in my opinion Obama is the best candidate of the three, and Hillary is better than McCain, but what does that even mean. They would all like to expand our empire of racism, sexism, homophobia, war mongering, and shitting on the poor. I saw a man speak last night and I will leave you with a (paraphrased) quote from him: “Our democracy is like a game of poker, and voting for president is like putting in your ante. If all you did was sit at a table, throw in your ante, and then never pick up your cards, what chance would you have at winning?”

According to an article I just read in the always unbiased Politico, 53% of registered US voters believe that “the US will ultimately succeed in achieving its goals” in Iraq. I will ignore – for the time being – the fact that there are no statistics to back up this poll; where was it conducted, how many people were interviewed, what was the exact wording of the question, how was it conducted, and so on. Pew could have asked 100 people coming out of a Wal-Mart in Alabama for all we know. That is beside the point however; it’s fine if people think that the US will ultimately succeed in achieving its goals. The next question should have been, “what – in your opinion – are the US’s goals in Iraq?” If the US’s goals in Iraq are to kill the majority of Iraqis, build the world’s biggest base, and solidify access to an oil pipeline, and the way the US intends to go about achieving this goal is to keep troops over there until it happens (even if it takes 100 years), then I too believe that the US will ultimately succeed in achieving its goals in Iraq. Maybe this question was asked fairly, maybe it was asked of a random sample of all kinds of people, maybe it was asked via means that include every one (what I mean by that is if it was done via email, it only involves people lucky enough to have a computer, an email account, and time to sit back and fill out a survey; if it was done by telephone it includes only those who have a landline, which most people under 30 or below the poverty line do not), maybe 53% percent of US voters really believe that the US will ultimately succeed in achieving its goals of spreading Democracy throughout Iraq. The question I have (and that should have been asked by these ‘reporters’) is, why? When they called Joe Blow and asked him if he thinks that the US will ultimately succeed, what was he basing his “yes” on? Was it because he read an article that morning in the Politico telling him that the US will succeed? Was it because he watched a John Bush or George W McCain speech in which they guaranteed success over there? Was it because he just got off the phone with his smart uncle who told him that – contrary to popular belief – everything is going fine over there? What if the poll was conducted by asking people who have first hand knowledge? What if the first question was, “have you, or a loved one who you are in contact with, been to Iraq (outside of the Green Zone) recently? My final question is this: once again, if it is true that when asked a non-loaded question, 53% of the educated public believes that the US will ultimately achieve success in Iraq, does that mean it’s true? If we would have done a poll in February of 2003, a great majority of people asked – no matter what part of the country people went – would have said that Saddam Hussein possesses Weapons of Mass Destruction and played a part in the attacks of 9/11. That – as most of us (although not all) know – turned out to be greatly false. I guess the majority of people thinking something, does not make it come to fruition.

Somewhere between a half a million and a million and a half people – depending on who one listens to – are dead in Iraq (a war that is going to cost us three trillion dollars); the country is in ruins and no one’s life there will ever be the same. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, thousands of people are dead, the Taliban is back in charge and no one’s life there will ever be the same. All across the globe, there are US troops, money, and/or weapons controlling governments, paying death squads, and no one’s lives in any of those places will ever be the same. Here in the United States, our economy is in the toilet, record amounts of people are losing their homes, wealth is being consolidated like never before, families are losing their loved ones overseas for reasons they don’t understand, the dollar is at an all time low, gas is at an all time high, and no one’s lives will ever be the same. Each one of these examples – some more than others – are crimes; we were lied to about the reasons troops were sent to Iraq and Afghanistan, directly resulting in over a million deaths. The destruction of our economy could have been prevented, but was not because poor people do not matter, and so on and so forth. Who is being held accountable? When new information is discovered, which newspapers run article after article day after day? Maybe it isn’t the fault of the media; maybe they have been saving their energy for something big, something huge, something that will change the world. On Monday, they finally got what they were looking for, the story to end all stories, the scoop that will surely win some people some awards: Elliot Spitzer paid for sex!!! Whatever the affiliation- Republican, Democrat, or some third party; I could not care less if a grown man pays a grown woman to have sex with him, therefore I tried to focus on the other news. I thought to myself, surely the papers will run a couple quick articles about this and then move on to more pressing things. However, for the past three days all I have been able to read or hear about is that Elliot Spitzer paid a grown woman to have sex with him. The question, why was Elliot Spitzer being watched, was not asked in any of the mainstream newspapers or news programs, and I will not go into it here; mainly because I don’t really know, because it hasn’t been covered. Here is what I do know; prostitution is illegal. If I were to leave my home today, drive down to Denver, pick up a prostitute, and then get caught, I would expect to be arrested, maybe even fined. The fact that Elliot Spitzer made his reputation from being a prosecutor – even busting a few prostitution rings – makes the matter even worse; he broke the law and he should pay the consequences. My point is not that this should be ignored or he should get off (haha, get it?) without any sort of charges. My point is that there are much bigger criminals, still in the middle of their criminal acts (which are causing millions of deaths, not just sex), in much higher positions of leadership; and they are – for the most part – being ignored. When George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, and the rest are in jail serving life sentences or awaiting the same fate as Saddam Hussein, then I wouldn’t mind a front page article on a grown man paying a grown woman to have sex with him. We should all (I’m assuming you’re just as disgusted as I am) be writing letters to our local and national newspapers demanding this.

I have been trying not to write about the upcoming presidential race; mainly because I have no say right now. Maybe once it gets closer to November (assuming we aren’t in a state of emergency) I will start to get more into it, but right now I really don’t care. When Hilary spread rumors about Obama being a Muslim, I rolled my eyes at the stupidity of our country, which gave her the ability to spread such a rumor. When she used the fear tactic by talking about the 3am phone call, I had the same reaction. I know she is a wolf in sheep’s clothing; a Republican who just happens to have a D after her name. However, when I saw her press conference the other day and heard what she said, it taught me that – despite the fact that I know about her disguise – she still has the ability to disgust and anger me at the same time. She said that if she is elected she will bring a lifetime of experience to the White House, which is fine; she is running on experience (like it’s automatically a good thing, forgetting that Bush has experience, Hitler had experience…) so that is what she’s using. The next two sentences out of her mouth are what did it; in sentence one she claimed that Senator McCain would also bring a lifetime of experience to the White House. That got my blood boiling a little bit, mostly because I feel that being a prisoner of war (while I probably wouldn’t survive it) does not equal experience; the homeless guy on the corner was probably also a POW. The final sentence, the nail in the coffin, the revealer, was “Senator Obama brings a speech he gave in 2004.” Did she really say that? Is she really supporting the other parties’ nomination for president over a progressive candidate from her own party? Is she really dirty enough to ignore Obama’s years of organizing work, time in the Illinois State Senate, time in the US Senate, and vote against the war? Does she think that her experience – or, even worse, McCain’s experience – outweighs that? Does she think that a tinier, grayer George Bush who wants to keep troops in Iraq for 100 years and “bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” is a better choice for President than someone who supposedly shares her beliefs in almost everything? Are there actually people in this country who call themselves progressives, liberals, or Democrats who say they want change, who claim to be against the war, that can truly support this woman? While I am hoping for some kind of revolution that saves us from these choices (because while I believe Obama is better than Clinton and McCain combined, I still think he’s part of the status quo), right now, while faced with the reality of Obama vs Clinton, I will be putting all my powers and free time behind Mr. Obama.

No time to write anything today (I heard that sigh of relief) but you must read this article

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/03/01/18482849.php

More to come regarding this issue and May 1st as a whole.