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Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2002 / 8:07 p.m. ~Anti-America Spewing, Read At Your Own Risk~
I disturbed Gurdnest from her bliss upon my lap to come in here and type whatever pops in my mind. I'm racked with guilt. Maybe not racked, maybe I feel a twinge. Then I think of all the times she runs when I reach for her, or she bounces around on the bed when I'm trying to sleep, and suddenly I don't feel so bad.
Why is there such good TV to watch on week nights? I need to watch "GL" on tape, and crash, but "Jungle Book" is on, the Disney live action, and yes, I own it, but still. Last night they showed "Alice In Wonderland", the Disney animated version, as they did on Saturday, late, 3:00 in the morning late, which actually would have been Sunday, and who is 'they'? Different channels. UPN locally the latter, and WGN the former. Wait, last night was WGN, Sunday morning UPN, tonight is WGN. Either way, TV. Good. "Anatomy of a Murder" is on. A "Gilmore Girls" repeat. "Blackboard Jungle" is what I left it on, to come here. Sidney Poitier, young, beautiful......
I'm hating my country lately, but I love our culture. I hate the government, the military complex that is Washington, D.C., but I love American movies. I love American food. I love America the Beautiful. I just wish the Native people could've survived to live here with us, not be put away on reservations. And I wish we hadn't felt the need to import African people to pick our crops. But I'm glad we come in colors now.
Today at work I addressed Christmas cards, and I actually mailed them. I wrote a bit in each, at least putting 'Love,' in front of my name, except the cards I gave to Quincey and Listerine at work...
I came home to find a card from my sister-in-law, and brother, I guess. She wrote both their names, nothing else. NOTHING ELSE. This is a first. NOTHING ELSE. Shit, fuck, I at least wrote "I hope you're well and you have a great Christmas" or something very nearly exactly similar. And I thanked her for the dress, which I will never wear, the one in the package I was never going to open, but did, and tried on to find that it sucks, and I hate it, but I thanked her. Parenthetically, but yeah.
He couldn't even write his fucking name on a fucking Christmas card to send to his only family within miles? And within miles, just a few. Fucker. Fuck them.
Sandy was asking me about them again on Sunday, what about my brother, have I talked to him?, blah, blah, blah.
Anyway, after the Christmas cards, I had reading material sitting on my desk, smallest on top, etc. A mini version of the Tao Te Ching, Entertainment Weekly, a Soap Opera Digest I bought at Publix last night (I NEVER buy it, but it had a cover all about my soap, my "GL", so yeah, impulse, I paid and took it), an illustrated book that Sandy gave me, sort of graphic novel-ish, but with a lot more text, almost like that cartoon history of the world book, large format paperback, about the US military obsession. It's fascinating, it's disturbing, it's ironically funny, it has blurbs on the back from Howard Zinn and Susan Sarandon, etc. It's good, it's really good, but it's freaking me out.
It reminds me of when I first discovered what the early settlers did to the 'Indians'. You know how you feel when you go from thinking Thanksgiving is this great holiday for celebrating with family, sharing a huge meal and being thankful for the Earth's bounty, to being ashamed for being white, for being even distantly related to people who slaughtered a race of people who lived here long before they ever thought of leaving their homes in the 'Old World' to seek out a 'better life'? Do you remember how you felt when you studied, or watched a PBS documentary, or picked up a book at the bookstore, and read, heard, watched, listened to what REALLY happened? That sick sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach?
Oh god, we did what?! The blankets had smallpox? We raped the women? We murdered them all, but just a few, and we took their land? You mean Columbus didn't 'discover' America, people already lived here? And we took all that was theirs and called it our own???!
The guilt, the horror.
Well, I'm reading even more, now, about our systematic attempt at world domination, as a result of our Founding Fathers' belief in the white man's Manifest Destiny!
Oh, fuck will I get search engine hits for that or what? Who the fuck cares?
But notice I will not name the book Sandy gave me. Noooooooo. I may help with 'tabling' at the Demonstration next month, help him sell a bunch, just to make sure as many people as possible see this book, read this anti-war propaganda. And it is propaganda, not that propaganda is always negative, it's not. And I keep thinking maybe there's a middle ground. It can't possibly be a 'fight for freedom' versus the systematic destruction of the world for our own gain.
I was simply born. I really didn't have anything to do with any of it. Really. I just live here. But part of me wants nothing to do with a society that condones the murder of so many thousands, millions of people in the name of 'freedom'. And to sit by silently now while we prepare to kill tens of thousands more? Holy shit!
The 'new boy' told me today that it's our soldiers fighting, preparing to fight, that assures me the freedom to protest their very fight. What? Where is the logic? Bombing the fuck out of Iraq, denying food to their people, killing their children by starving them to death, assures me freedom?
UNICEF estimates 7,500 people die in Iraq every month as a direct result of our sanctions against them, and most of those are children. I told the 'new boy' and he says that's the birthplace of civilization, a rich land, they should grow their own food. I said over time the geography has evolved, it's desert, it's not sustainable land, or the people don't have the means, and the need is urgent, they can't wait several years to work the land. He's a father, he should know the importance of being able to provide food for his children.
No one is even thinking about the children in Iraq. No one cares. (Okay, there is a growing number of concerned citizens) They're so fucking brainwashed by the nightly news, Hussein=Evil=Kill=Now. There's no thought process involved. It's spoonfed pablum. People have to think, think for themselves, question.
From the Tao Te Ching:
Weapons are the tools of violence; Weapons are the tools of fear; He enters a battle gravely, I almost just quoted Osama bin Laden too, but that is too extreme. There is an excerpt from one of his tapes, from October of '01, that really hits home, wherein he speaks of injustices the Islamic people have faced for 80 years, murder, humiliation, degradation, how America is getting a taste of it now. Of course he wants to destroy us, and that's not the appropriate solution, but then again, Bush would just as soon destroy his land, his people.....
I wish I could educate people, I wish I could do more, to open people's eyes, and if Sandy thinks selling this book to protestors will help, I may help him do it. He knows the author, and is not out to make much of a profit, he's selling the book for $3 less than the printed price, but he feels so passionately about the 'truth' being exposed that he is willing to focus his energies on getting it out to as many as possible.
I think selling it in D.C. is the proverbial 'preaching to the choir', but it's a start.
I'm learning things about Presidents I thought I respected, liked, I voted for, Clinton, Carter. Jimmy Carter, my man, who accepted his Nobel Prize for efforts in the realm of Peaceful Negotiations today, once set up the "Rapid Deployment Force", declaring that any threat to Persian Gulf oil...."...will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."
What makes us so arrogant to think we own the fucking world? That Middle East oil belongs to us? That we can possess 'weapons of mass destruction', but no other nation can? Who are we to think we are superior?
The 'new boy' says we're getting rid of our weapons of mass destruction. Oh yeah, it's documented, he says. ???? What? We're spending billions, if not trillions, on building the mightiest military in the whole world! Army bases in every country possible. The most state of the art weapons, jets, bombs. You try to tell me we're dismantling? I said, "Who is inspecting our weapons facilities?"
I'm so disgusted, it's awful.
I can hear the right, "So you don't like it here, why don't you leave, just shut up and leave?". Right now I'm writing in my diary, and that's it. I am hoping one person reads this, and starts to think, picks up a book, or checks out a web site, talks to some friends, asks some questions, and starts to use his/her head a bit, to not swallow so easily what he/she hears, but to think maybe there's more to the story, that maybe we did fund the Contra Rebels, that maybe we did provide weapons to Iraq to fight against Iran, that maybe we did train bin Laden all those years ago, to stop and THINK for a minute about the facts and put together what's really going on, that it's not about stopping an evil dictator at all, it's not about securing our freedom, it's about installing our military and US friendly governments in as many oil rich countries as possible so our fat cat oil company execs, who may just fund political campaigns, can profit.
THERE's your fucking capitalism, Qwert. Stop being so fucking selfish, talking about how you deserve pity and a free ride, and think about the big picture.
I wish I could promote this book, and it's just one of many, surely, but it's so well done, really. Eye opening.
Anyway....whew.
I have a headache. No wonder, huh? Nah, it was work, bright fluorescents, and without a headset having to hold the phone in the crook between ear and shoulder. Sore muscles, tired brain. Desire to educate, but no ability. I do want to 'table', I do. But my emotions will get in the way, no doubt. Sandy is no better at articulating, so I'm not sure how it would go. We'll see, we will see. Cost of the War in Iraq
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