Evil is Being Done in Our Names
I was thinking of coming here and telling you how Schuyler and I shoveled snow for a combined 4 hours this morning and that I still have an hour or so of shoveling to do and how I hate Michigan. Then I sat down at the computer, clicked a bookmark for reddit and saw this picture. I changed my mind about what to write here, once I stopped sobbing. This is our fault. All of us. What are we doing to stop this? This is wrong. And we are doing nothing about it. It is all happening in our names and we let it. We are terrified that our kids might be exposed to lead tainted toys or that they might be kidnapped if we let them walk home from school. Meanwhile someone else's kids are being killed because of our presence in their country. A majority of Americans are against the war, but a majority of Americans are not voting for candidates that will end the war. Why the hell not? If you voted for (or are planning on voting for) McCain, Romney, Huckabee or even Clinton, please reexamine your priorities. Why did you cast that vote, and is it really worth it? On top of voting for an anti-war candidate, I feel like we should do more. I guess we should protest and make sure that they know we want it to stop, but that doesn't feel like enough. If it was our kids dying, we'd have a revolution, I don't think that's what we should do now, but when? At what point does it become appropriate? Is there something in between?
If you're angry or offended by what I've written, go ahead and let it out in the comments. Don't hold back. I can take it. I want to hear it.
If you're angry or offended by what I've written, go ahead and let it out in the comments. Don't hold back. I can take it. I want to hear it.
posted by Maggie | 1:04 PM
4 Comments:
You're not going to hear me push back one little bit, Maggie. I think you're right-- this kind of shit only happens when we value 'us' over 'them', then turn away. And your post reminds me of the nickname that soldiers have for Iraq: "The Sandbox". Makes me wonder if we aren't just little children acting selfishly.
This made me think, "I love Maggie." :-) You're absolutely right - and now that the Republican side is sown up (as of today), I'm really hoping for Obama, or at least Hillary. I also have a small amount of hope that if we do end up with President McCain, this former POW and frequent maverick will be much more reluctant to go to war than he's had to seem in recent years to please conservatives in the GOP. But not too much hope. Go Obama!
It's one thing to say (as I have been known to) that we can't put our hope in Caesar - Caesar will never live by the values of the Kingdom. It's another thing to excuse ourselves of responsibility for Caesar's atrocities. Thanks, Maggie.
evil *is* being done in our names... and our leaders are not listening and democracy is not working.
My push back (sorry Schuyler, I know you hate that term) isn't "if" we should be involved... it's more of a hopeless, helpless feeling of despair about how to fix it. I remember the pain caused by Vietnam. I'm not talking about the war itself. All war is hell. But I'm talking about the way America responded. I will never forget how we treated vets returning home... how these poor kids who had been plucked out of school and survived hell were treated as untouchable criminals. I don't want to ever see anything like that again and I certainly don't want to be a part of it. So I keep getting stuck on the dilemma (at least as I see it) - how do we create enough unrest and noise and the momentum necessary to cause the level of political discomfort required to make the government take action without creating an environment that fosters that kind of evilly unfair and despicable behavior towards people who really deserve our thanks and our support?
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