It comes near this time of year. The air becomes heavy; thicker and almost scented as autumn closes in. In the front of my mind I hardly ever know what month it is anymore. School schedules would pound that in nicely, my theoretical secretary would get the memo by the second day. How else to explain it but that each month tumbles into the next? Maybe I might notice.
But September always stands out.
I'm hoping and praying I don't have a someone else's old bills hanging over my head. I don't know where to even begin on that one. As to where I live now-- my parents usually seem far away, buried under debt of their own that only seem to deepen around this time of year.
Dammit macs don't crash, my ass.
On a plus note I stumbled into a collaborative blog and music forum the other day, centered on intellectual and eclectic varieties in music. It's refreshing to see others take music to another level other than a base form of entertainment. I see it as something to be celebrated as artistic, as a meaningful form of communication, sect of life, and a unique way to delve straight into the heart of any matter. Anyone who knows me knows that I can talk music for hours and hours... and hours after that. I'm thrilled because I'm already getting references for musical artists and groups that I've never heard of before. *grin* Had to geek out on this one.
God, my head hurts...
Earlier my dad and brother were watching a programming about the most recent conflicts in the middle east and how it could spell World War III. I sat there crosslegged on the floor completely spellbound and all at once screaming inside to discredit everything and claim ignorance. There was a segment on what the key element of chemical warfare could do. . .
I was asked to take a stance in an essay on the bombings on Hiroshima in an old history class. Unethical was my take... To me, nukes are way too powerful to be used as a means in human conflict. Woo hoo you brought a whole nation to opt out with repetitive crotch kicking. Who can call that victory?
I'm still a little out of the loop when it comes to the everchanging scene of this Holy Land. Yet if I got a pop quiz on the subject it would be easy to sum it all up, suicide bombings, evacutions, death toll, religious intolerance merging into genocide (if not xenocide at this point).
This country's war sometimes brings me to hang my head. My stance on the war can only be described as a photo-finish, one footfall making all the difference. That's beside the point.
I only wish that more was being done other than steal the flag. We need more social programs within the borders, not just treaties and military support. How is such an ethnocentric tunnelvisioned country supposed to be so warm and receptive to "Western" ways? If we don't take the time to fully comprehend what issues the public there is conflicted over, military efforts there will be in vain. If we don't do our part to best illustrate why the dramatic reforms are taking place, why they aren't an attack against their culture and religion then they will have everyright to join the resistance movements.
We're a diverse country, what we need is American Muslims and Americans with middle Eastern backgrounds to aid the changes of life there. Programs which promote religious tolerance, programs that respect Islam, programs that aid families and communities with the tools they need, programs to help feed the hungry there, programs to help the country to build political awareness. They're not going to listen to and relate very well with a bunch of white guys in suits. Why should they listen to politicians who may visit now and then, who come to speak only written words, who are mainly appearing for their own countries? Pro war or Anti War people need to see that dramatic shifts are taking place in a very closeminded arena. You don't storm into the operation room in the middle of your husband's brain surgery and cease all medical action. The incisions have been made.
While some military support is needed because we started the whole thing and leaving now would be rape, there should be more focus on internal aid and social reform, not military enforcement.
There's my two cents. I need to sleep before my body self destructs.
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5 comments:
So much to comment on and not nearly enough time.
I tried to squeeze you in for a phone call, but no one answered, as per normal.
I will do this only then:
I will comment at a later point, after sleeping, and when I can put forth tht time and effort due to this post.
A comment on Hiroshima:
Take a look, for a moment, as if decisions do not exist in a vacuum.
There's a reason why time is best described as a ripple, it's energies moving in all-complex directions, having oft predictable, and far more unpredictable interactions.
Take for a moment a simple decision:
You have to tell the American people that after years of fighting, we will need to spend months, if not further years, in a country accross the pacific, spending tens, hundreds of thousands, even millions of more lives.
Or:
You drop two bombs within one month, devestate a nation, spare your own kin, and make history as a mass-murdering superpower.
You would rather explain to the American public why millions of their sons and daughters had to die?
I'm not saying it's a perfect decision.
I think it was overkill as well, but I do think that it was necessary, as sick as it is. When it comes to the near, or total, anhialation of the peoples involved. I would rather have it be us living than them, and not because it's us.
Tell me what an empire of Japan and Germany would have done to this world under their rulers?
Now look at what we DID do.
It's rough, but in war, there are no easy decisions.
Do we pay the price, or do they?
They start the fight, they lose the fight, they pay the price, but that doesn't stop us from doing the right thing and helping them out.
Not the main topic of your post, but it touches on other points...
It's an important lesson in history and warfare, I think.
To touch on the remainder:
We have all of that.
For lack of a better term, PsyOps is in full swing in Iraq. Just like in every war.
We have 'propoganda' filling their media centers, things as small as comic books featuring Muslim anti-heros and heros to the top where we are keeping their people as the decision makers.
They have their own leadership. Their own police, their own everything.
We hold their hands, yes, but only a fool would not try to catch a child on training wheels, and what a way to learn: under constant bombardment of the bullies of the region.
By no means are they doing what's 'cool' or what's expected, or what everyone else is doing. They are doing what's right, they are peseviering under fire (litterally) and it is necessary.
In the long run, should they succeed, it will pay off thousands of times the effort we expend now.
Look to world war 2. Should we look back at the hundreds of thousands of lives of soldiers lost and say, "Damn, you know what? Hitler wasn't nearly that bad, I wish I could undo that..."
No.
Stand by what is right. I dare not say "at all costs", but realize that the immediate costs need to be put aside so that we may gain for the future, for our children.
Well... I did promise a comment.
At the overwhelming scale at which the damage covers, the long term medical effects on the survivors, and simply the fact that in a split second-- a SPLIT second thousands of lives, homes communities have been wiped into oblivion sickens me. Though the survivors probably mourned over the quickened deaths they I have no doubt in time wished they had been killed also because of the ailments of cancer from the exposure to downwind radiation.
i feel very strongly about this ever since I read the book Phoenix Rising when I was a kid. This follows the ailments and the fragile and scarred life of a young objecting boy who is bedridden after being exposed to high level radiation. The trials this boy faced were tremendous, and scarring.
Something that powerful should not be entrusted in human hands when it comes to warfare.
Yes it ended the war, yes it ended the need for draining the u.s. in war expenses. But what did it do? What upsets me is that moment in Hiroshima became a gateway, to the next step in total war. When war hits we shouldn't have to fear that one day a blinding light will pierce through us and our dust will be lifted up with the pressure of a mushroom cloud. It eliminates time and effort and that is the exact reason why I find it unethical.
Wars are going to continue, end just to be caused again. I don't think at this rate war is ever going to end. War is always being waged. Both sides will eventually blow each other to dust and the survivors well... they won't have much of a future after their victory will they? Of course in war it is vital to have the most state of the art weapons at your disposal, and because of that nukes will become commonplace.
What I fear is this type of thing becoming commonplace to ensure victory. In fact soon enough the armies won't be needed it will just be a contest to see how many contintients can be completely obliverated. It sickens me and enrages me.
Good point though what Japan and Germany would have done under their rulers at that time. Good point. There was a dire need for the war to end at that time, but I sorely sorely wished that the victory had come about through other means.
Yes I would rather explain the death toll to the public as excrucitingly difficult as it is to keep morale up with that, than complete the war through such a fearful apocalyptic weapon...
Another thing I am aware of the social efforts in Iraq. Yes. But I feel more can be done for integration and introduction to diversity.
I don't think that even the U.S. is doing enough to speculate on why it is so difficult for these people.
I don't think that our society--hold on let's reattach the European umbellical cord and zap back to good old England centuries before this one--would be much different.
Iraq and many of the Eastern countries snarling at us now need exposure to secularization, and by that I don't mean depletion of religion, to be able to grow more tolerant or just to be able to develop a mindset that even has the capability to evaluate the worth of non believers on a human scale.
England was no better in the Dark Ages with it's blood soaked crusades and legislative at times less than faith purposed religions either. We shouldn't forget that.
They are at that stage now, and the culture will need several elements such as more technology and separations between religion and state for those changes to begin.
Else they will continue to force their ways onto the rest of the world.
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