Return To The Center

oh yeah - and for all you investors out there...

In light of the recent decision by our war president to send more of our children to Afghanistan, I'm sure there are some free marketeers out there that are looking for a dollar upside.  My dear investors, if you think you'll be making a killing (so to speak) by buying into in a publicly traded body bag company, or 'human remains pouch' as the Army prefers to call them, forget it.  The Pentagon planned way ahead of you on this one.  In 2001, they stocked up on 23,000 body bags.  In 2003, they increased their inventory to around 34,000. 

Gotta think ahead if you want to make money people.

Will Matt, Meredith, and Al Sit Down & Shut the Fuck Up?

The war president I help elect has gathered his staff and his generals and sent them out to sell our country's latest tragedy to us: 30,000 more of our children will be sent to the graveyard of empires for a no win, no exit strategy, no plan expedition.  They've even enlisted the aid of the "50 Ways to Cook Your Holiday Turkey!" crowd of the Today show, Matt Lauer, Meredith Viera and Al Roker to market Barack's "thoughtful approach to the crisis in Afghanistan."

Yesterday, while eating my fake eggs and swilling French-roast at my kitchen table, I watched as softball questions were tossed to Secretary Gates.  No followup, no probing, no challenge, no nuttin. Then there was the truly vomit-inducing scene of Matt getting all erect over an Army MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicle.  Matt showed us the keen way the bottom was shaped to direct the blasts outward from the vehicle.  He gushed that the windows were "this thick!", indicating about three inches with his well manicured fingers.

What none of them said of course is that we shouldn't be in Afghanistan at all. Period.  They didn't even raise it as a possibility.  War is a given.  Their job is to socialize the notion of perpetual war to the nation.  Of course, they can't come right out and say that because their parent company is G.E. whose Ecoimagineers make a pant load from mil-spec aircraft engines etc.  Wouldn't it be just a bit of bloom off that earth-friendly flower to link their interest in war profits to "bringing good things to life?"

Oh yes - one other thing friendly, handsome Matt forgot to mention about the studly MRAPS: While they certainly have saved lives, they also crush spines and cause blunt force trauma head injuries.  These injuries stem from when the explosions lift the vehicle into the air and it gets slammed back down to earth (as a 16 ton item is wont to do). Human bodies contained in these "cool-o" machines don't do well while they're being tossed around.  Matt didn't mention that spinal cord injuries were way way up for troops in both of Barack's wars.  Why would he do that though? That would be such a buzz-kill.

My point is this.  We shouldn't be in Afghanistan.  We are wasting our children's lives and our national treasure in an unwinnable situation.  The government must be harassed on all sides to account for itself.  The press used to help do that.  If they can no longer do that then I dearly wish that they would cease and desist from puff pieces.  We could start with the Today show sticking to what they do best, rehashing mindless banalities like "The new trend in socks with toes, rainbow patterns!!" 

Please don't take this the wrong way Matt, Meredith, and Al, but when it comes to Barack's wars,  sit down and shut the fuck up.

Nothing says school and playground ornament like a m60 main battle tank..

I suppose it’s good to get children used to war paraphernalia as soon as possible..

Hoo – Ahh!!

It looks like Mr Obama is on the verge of sending 34,000 more kids to Stanley “let’s fast-track the fraudulent account of Pat Tillman” McChrystal’s shining moment in Afghanistan limelight.  Such a tragedy, and one brought on merely for the purposes of reelections in 2010 and beyond, because it will matter not a whit in deflecting the arc of the war..  Democrats have to look manly..have to look ToughOnTerror, have to FightThemOverThereSoWeDon’tHaveToFightThemOverHere...

Iraq War:

American Dead 5,359
Coalition Dead 325
Contractor Employee Dead 1,395
Journalists Dead 335
Academics Dead 431
Iraq Dead 1,339,771

Afghanistan War:

American Dead 916
Coalition Dead 597

$929,557,360,985

 

Father John Dear SJ Visits the Peace Abbey

 

“With many others, the news last week that President Obama had received the Nobel Peace Prize left me dismayed. Out he stepped from the Oval Office to accept the prize, then back in he went to continue his preparations to send tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan. There, under his orders, they’ll drop bombs, follow their drones, make sweeps through villages and terrorize children. Not my idea of a peacemaker.

In fact, he’s conducting two wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq, and rumors continue of an attack on Iran. Obama’s war budget exceeds that of even George W. Bush. No peace can come from this, only decades more of brutal war, poverty, terrorism, and fear.

A new president, a shiny peace prize dangling off his neck -- but little has changed. I understand why Europeans support him so earnestly, but his administration maintains our imperial war machine. It wreaks havoc, wastes billions, breeds terrorists, rewards corrupt bankers, and plants the seeds of our own economic collapse. Over 4,000 American lives have been lost, and who knows how many Iraqi and Afghani. A day of war in Iraq costs us $720 million. On the Afghani conflict, since 2001, we’ve spent $223 billion.

It baffles many of us that the head of such a warlike juggernaut should win a prize ordained for those who make peace. But then I remember: Gandhi never received one; neither did Thich Nhat Hanh, Dorothy Day, nor Dan and Phil Berrigan. On the other hand, they handed one to Henry Kissinger and, in 1938, they thought seriously about awarding one to Hitler.” 

Father John Dear SJ – Conflator of the Gospel, Peace, and Non-Violence 

Father John Dear SJ, peace activist and brother conflator, visited the Peace Abbey last month to receive The Courage of Conscience Award.  You can read about his visit here.   To see other recipients of the Courage of Conscience Award, click here.

 

under any pretense whatsoever

 

William Stafford

Poet, Activist, Conscientious Objector
(1914 – 1993)

“My impulse, even in protest, is some kind of redemptive move towards the opposition.”

 

George Fox

Founder of the Society of Friends, Quaker
(1664 – 1691)

“We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end under any pretense whatsoever.  And this is our testimony to the whole world.”

 

Thomas Merton
Cistercian Monk – Abbey of Gethsemane

“When I pray for peace, I pray not only that the enemies of my own country may cease to want war, but above all, that my country will cease to do the things that make war inevitable.”

I should know by now that the unusual happens whenever I drop off the Rosaries at the Peace Abbey.  Yesterday was no exception.  Still, I was surprised.  Running late, I got there about 11:30am.  After parking the car, I followed a large group of students from Assumption College into the Peace Abbey offices.  When I got into the building, they were all circled around a long table.  I saw Dot Walsh at the other end of the room. 

“Oh hi Roy!” she said in front of the group and then gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“Hi Dot.”, I replied uneasily – sensing something was up.

“I want to introduce you to the group.”

“Okaaay.”

Dot went on to tell the kids that I made rosaries for the Abbey as a gift to them.  I looked around the room at a bunch of non-plussed faces.  I mumbled something about “Well it’s really a gift to me Dot.”  and disappeared into the safety of the basement to drop off the rosaries and restock on beads. 

With my canvas bag full of the walnut-brown wooden beads, I made my way back up the narrow staircase to the conference room with the Assumption College students.   By this time, they were all sitting around the table.

“Roy – can you stay?  Would you like to join us?”  Dot called.

“Sure – what are we doing?” I asked.

Dot said something but I couldn’t hear except for the part of “Why don’t you get a chair and squeeze into the end?”

Turned out, I had come right at the very end of the kids’ visit to the abbey.  Dot pulled out a large brass bowl, a pitcher of water and a towel.  She had the group perform a handwashing ritual (Much like the foot washing on Maundy Thursday), where one person dips their hands into the water and the person next to them dries their hands,  then the bowl and towel are passed to the next person around the table.  Very intimate, and based on the reactions of some of the students – a bit uncomfortable too – especially with a strange  old geezer crashing their visit…

At the very end – Dot had everyone sit in silence for 5 minutes.  

As I was putting away my chair afterward,  Dot came up to me again and said “You didn’t think you could just come and drop them off and leave did you?”  I smiled “No.”  A hug goodbye and I left her with the kids. 

Outside it was a broken grey sky, breezy and raw  – just the way I like it.   

 

all so small...

Another batch of Peace Seeds Rosaries is nearly ready for delivery to my friends at the Peace Abbey in Sherborn MA.   They’re all hanging from a special multi-level hanger, drying in front of a small fan.  Another batch is another 100.  It’s 100 medals, 1300 beads, 1900 barrel knots, and about 700 feet of nylon twine.  Another batch is about another 60 hours of work.

It’s all so small really, bits of wood, and metal, and knots, and glue.  Even the time it took is so small.  I often think to myself when I make them, “I am so lucky to be able to do this.  I am so lucky to have the time to do this.  I am so lucky to have this connection with the Peace Abbey.”  Then I think, “But what good do these Rosaries do?  What good does praying do?  What good do peace vigils do for that matter?”

Looking around at what happens in the world every day, I come close to feeling like “They do no good at all.  None of what I do matters.”  On a more local level though, there are hints that the rosaries are much more than ‘no good at all’…  Little stories of people who receive the Rosaries and what they mean to them come to me.  Like rain, drop by drop, these small stories soften the hard bitten doubt that gnaws at me.

On a very personal level I am convinced that making these Rosaries and keeping vigils with the good people who let me stand with them have caused a part of me to wither and die.  Since my childhood, I’ve dreamt of war, of being a soldier, of battle, of killing, of torture.  War dreams scared me as a boy.  As I grew into adulthood, I took them more or less for granted, figuring that it was just how my brain is wired. 

They’ve stopped. 

I can’t remember that last time I’ve had one.  Maybe making the rosaries and standing out on streets holding signs and getting yelled at are the medicines that helped my brain let go.  Or maybe the dreams were prods to do something *anything*, even something so small as tying pieces of wood and metal together, to counter the violence that soaks our world blood red.  Maybe my brain’s wiring has just changed with plodding middle age

I don’t know.

What I do know is that tomorrow, I’ll make the trip to the Abbey to drop these off and get some more beads.  I’ll wander around the buildings and the grounds for a bit, say hi to the animals, take some pictures, re-read some of the plaques under the Gandhi statue, and I’ll let the peace and safety of the place wash over me.

And then I’ll come home – and begin again.

 

It sure is a 'call to action' Mr President

Barrack termed his Nobel Peace Prize a call to action.  I’d say so – especially since there’s been none to date on the peace front. 

The irony must be armpit deep in the West Wing as Barrack tries to balance receiving the Peace Prize (which Gandhi never even received mind you) with the following:

• US Still in Iraq
   
• US Escalating Afghanistan – no clear exit strategy
   
• US Drone Bombing Pakistan – you *know* this is only the beginning
   
• US still engaged in Extraordinary Rendition
   
• US still hosting our lovely Guantanemo Bay B&B – complete with hot and cold running prisoner abuse.
   
• Still has not restored habeus corpus.

It was a lovely day in Reading Center.  I joined the great folks of Reading People for Peace at their monthly peace vigil.  My best friend Brewster was there of course. 

I asked him if I could take his picture.  He asked “Doesn’t that thing have a wide-angle lens on it?”

“Well – yeah,”  I replied.

B: “Won’t it make my nose look huge in these closeup shots?”

R: “Nah – nothing to worry about.”

B: “You’re sure?”

R: “Positively.”

B: “Okaay.. go ahead.”

Sorry Brewster, you were right..

 

8 plus 1 to grow on

 

never again

  

 

 Civil War Memorial – West Point Military Academy 

 

War and Collective Amnesia

“War memorials and museums are temples to the god of war. The hushed voices, the well-tended grass, the flapping of the flags allow us to ignore how and why our young died. They hide the futility and waste of war. They sanitize the savage instruments of death that turn young soldiers and Marines into killers, and small villages in Vietnam or Afghanistan or Iraq into hellish bonfires. There are no images in these memorials of men or women with their guts hanging out of their bellies, screaming pathetically for their mothers. We do not see mangled corpses being shoved in body bags. There are no sights of children burned beyond recognition or moaning in horrible pain. There are no blind and deformed wrecks of human beings limping through life. War, by the time it is collectively remembered, is glorified and heavily censored.”

Celebrating Slaughter: War and Collective Amnesia – Christopher Hedges

Iraq US War Dead – 4,347
Iraq US Wounded – 100,000+
Iraqi Dead – 1, 339,771
Iraq Coalition War Dead – 325
Iraq Contractor War Dead – 1395
Afghanistan US War Dead – 856
Aghanistan Coalition War Dead 573

Total cost of wars since 2001 $917,161,191,406

 

Origin of disappearences

“Thousands of unburied dead wander the Argentinian pampa.  They are the disappeared from the last military dictatorship.

General Jorge Videla and his henchmen used disappearance as a weapon of war on a scale never before seen.  He used it, but he did not invent it.  A century beforehand, against Argentina’s native peoples, General Julio Argentino Roca employed the same masterpiece of cruelty, which obliges each victim to die and die again and go on dying, while his loved ones lose their minds chasing his elusive shadow.

In Argentina as in all the Americas, the Indians were the first ones disappeared.  They disappeared before they even appeared.  General Roca called his invasion of Indian lands the “conquest of the desert.”  Patagonia was “an empty space,” a kingdom of nothing inhabited by no one.

After that, Indians continued disappearing.  Those who surrendered and gave up their land and everything else were called indios reducidos: reduced to the point of disappearing.  And those who did not surrender and were defeated by gunfire and sword blows disappeared into numbers, becoming the namless dead of military body counts.  And their children disappeared too: divvied up as war booty, called by other names, emptied of memory, they became little slaves for the murderers of their parents.”

From “Mirrors – Stories of Almost Everyone” by Eduardo Galeano

(Thanks for the tip Diana!)

 

here's an idea that's sure to move things along

According to an article in the Telegraph, the Afghan ‘government’ is being pressed by the US Armed Forces to triple the size of their army.  The goal is somewhere around 240,000 troops.  The Afghan ‘government’ is seriously considering a draft. 

This should move things along nicely. 

There’s nothing like a bolus of disgruntled, under-trained, under-lead conscripts being injected into what is now a highly unpopular war to change the direction of it.  Just wait until even more young Afghans come back to their villages in boxes.  Wait until the desertion rate skyrockets like it did with the ARVN in Vietnam who lost nearly 20,000 troops a month towards the end of that disgrace.  Oh yes, oh yes, oh YES, a draft is just the thing to precipitate the end of this blunder.

I stand by this position for the United States as well.  I think my country should re-enact the draft.  No deferments other than medical disability.  Everybody goes – men and women.  Women should be in combat roles.  We should start televising the killing and the dying as well.  Every night as families around this great land sit down to their hamburger helper and mac ‘n cheese, they should be treated to Hi-Def summaries of the day’s bloodshed.  Every night.  Caskets should be filmed when they are unloaded from the cargo planes back from Germany.  The country needs its nose rubbed in the gore.  Otherwise, we will all just be heads down on “justleavemealoneiamtryingtogetthroughtheendofthisday”, the war will drag on, and the burden for this terrible mistake will continue to born by a relative few.

Bring on the draft – here and in Afghanistan.

hoo-ah.

 

Much Love to Bill Maher.. and some advice for Mr Kristol

creating a culture of peace - some hints from grownups

From the the Buddhist Peace Fellowship website – where Dharma and Peace Activism combine we see the following:

“Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, His Holiness the Dalai Lama offered these words to then President George W. Bush: “We need to think seriously whether a violent action is the right thing to do and in the greater interest of the nation and people in the long run. I believe violence will only increase the cycle of violence.”

President Bush responded by attacking Afghanistan and, less than eighteen months later, Iraq. He said his country’s mission was “to rid the world of evil,” emphasizing a “crusade” against the “Axis of evil”—Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. I cringed when I heard his words, remembering that Hitler and Stalin also wanted to rid the world of evil. The great Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote:

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere,
insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate
them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good
and evil cuts through the heart of every human being, and who is willing
to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Excerpted from “Creating a Culture of Peace” by Sulak Sivaraksa

 

hey parents - more children needed for barack's war.

There could only have been one way for Admiral Mullen to go today -to ask for more troops on top of the 62,000 he already has to win the Afghan war – as if that is not a complete impossibility.  More young men and women, more of our babies will be sent to the no-man’s land that is Afghanistan.  Many will end up dying, in an effort to do what has never been done before with much larger armies – conquer and pacify Afghanistan.  Some brave neo conservatives and grown-up steely-eyed pragmatic souls who will never be put in harm’s way (or have anyone they love be put in harm’s way) say that the United States might have to be there for 30 or 40 years.  These are the same people who sniff at a public option for healtcare and explain to me in that tone that is usually reserved for very young children and dogs:

“Well, you see Roy, we really can’t afford a public option for healthcare because we are fighting two wars.  Do you understand Roy?  And besides, Roy, a public option is socialism.  Do you know what socialism is Roy?”

I digress. 

This post is really aimed at you young parents out there.  Leave the birth control on the nightstand, throw a leg over and help your country wage war by having kids, lots of kids, boys especially.  Our country loves its boys for its wars.  And don’t worry if you’ve not started yet.  There’s plenty of time.  We’re going to be there for decades.

And if by chance you young parents don’t want to be giving birth to cannon fodder – allow me to make a suggestion – get up – get out of your houses and apartments – tear yourselves away from your TV’s and protest. 

Show up – for the babies.

 

courage

Representative Barbara Lee was the one voice in the House and Senate in a vote of 420–1 that spoke against the invasion of Afghanistan.

(Thanks to Karen for the tip)

 

conversations with sister

Last month at the Reading Dogs (and People) for Peace Vigil on Reading common, it seemed that the emotions of our pro-war, pro-killing fellow citizens were running high.  As soon as Sister Linda (Catholic Nun – working at a Catholic Worker house in the Boston Area) stepped to the sidewalk at the beginning of the hour, a young man in a large SUV slowed down and yelled at Sister, “Go home you fucking faggot!”  Unfazed, Sister called out to the young man “God bless you!” as she made the sign of the cross in the air.

I asked Sister how long she had been protesting the war.  She told me that she was put in prison during the Vietnam war for her protest activities.  Then I asked her, “So Sister, you’ve no doubt been the focus of quite a bit of anger over the years.  How do you deal with it?”  She replied, “I just let go of it, and ask God to bless them.”  During that hour, a couple of other young men expressed their displeasure with our presence with a combination of fingers and “fuck yous!”   True to her word, Sister called out to them “God bless you!” as she made the sign of the cross in the air.

Later in the vigil, I was able to ask Sister about a situation that had been vexing me for some time.  A person who identifies as a Buddhist practitioner took me to task on one of my blog posts about the US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.  His position was (and I am paraphrasing) “Well, the Taliban and Muslim extremists do terrible things too.  Why don’t you ever write about them?”  I responded that I can’t do anything about Muslim extremists, but I can – in a small way – do something about what happens in my own country.  This never really satisfied the visitor.  He said in one of his comments that those extremists needed to be ‘stopped,’ as if the US was justified in its export of violence and death, as if we could kill our way out of Afghanistan.

When I finished explaining all of this to Sister, she said to me, “Well, I don’t know about anyone else’s tradition, but I am a Catholic Nun.  I am crystal clear on what I supposed to do and not do with regards to my enemies and killing.  As for taking other players to task for atrocities in the world, we need to clean up our own country first, before we focus on others.”

A few minutes later, another finger went up as a car horn sounded.  “God bless you!” Sister called out, making the sign of the cross in the air.

 

a little rain never hurt no one

I’m back.  I still can’t stand my writing voice.  Such is life.  We is what we is.

For those who cluck to themselves “I thought he said he would not be back for a looooong time”  I have only this to say – It was a long time for me.

It was a blustery rainy day on Reading Common where five members of the “Reading Dogs (and People) for Peace” kept vigil from 11:00am to noon.

This month’s vigil was tranquil compared to last month’s.  Today there was only a ‘thumbs down’ – from a woman no less, a loud air horn accompanied by the archetypal ‘disapproving headshake’, and a former US Marine helpfully pointed out his USMC window decal on his rear pickup window.  (For the record, I love US Marines.  I just don’t want them to die in wars, and I don’t want them to kill anyone else.)  Last month’s vigil was full of “go home faggots”, “fuck you”, and several hearfelt fingers.  Maybe it was the rain that cooled things off this time around.

I’ve found it best not to dwell too long on the efficacy of Peace Vigils, writing government officials, writing here, for changing the direction of this country.  With Barack at the helm we seem determined to perpetuate the sins of our last president.  The biggest and scariest sin of all nowadays is Afghanistan.  It is a no man’s land with no central government.  Our ‘enemies’ fade into the mountains, wait for our attention to be placed elsewhere and then reconsitute themselves.  Yet, we are increasing the number of our young people in harms way there.  It’s a heartbreaker really.

The cost in lives and money in both of our wars so far is:

4,343 American Dead in Iraq
100,000+ American Wounded in Iraq
1,339,771 Iraqi Dead
554 Coalition Forces Dead in Iraq
1395 Contractor Employee Dead in Iraq
331 Journalists Dead in Iraq

825 American Dead in Afghanistan
554 Coalition Forces Dead in Afghanistan

Cost of Both Wars to date: $908,639,931,285