Discuss…

How do we convince people who do not derive power from it or lose out as a result of it that the White Male Privilege does exist and that it would be almost universally beneficial to eliminate it?

Christmas Cookies

Right in the middle of baking a type of cookie I haven’t made in nearly a decade a memory so vivid and strong roard through my entire body so quickly that I had to stop and sit.   There was a time when all of my hristmas cookies were for soldiers.  Some of them I knew, some of them I’d never met, but in the years following high school and well after I finished my Master’s degree, there wasn’t a batch of cookies that wasn’t sent, at least in part, to one base or another.  The revelation of what made me stop sending the cookies is what immobilized me this afternoon.

One by one the soldiers I knew came home, went off to war, and came back again, though not one of them returned whole.  One, in what many of us imagined to be a particularly difficult episode of PTSD, shot a Preacher’s wife sniper style, first in the wrist to “disarm” her, then in the head for the kill.  A few came home in boxes.  Some never went to war but were lost to me in other ways – failed relationships or friendships that just couldn’t survive the span of distance and time.  There came a time when I watched these men I had known so well become pieces of themselves, and selfishly, I just couldn’t watch anymore.

So I don’t have any soldiers to send cookies to, at least not this year.  My cousins, two in the Air Force and one in the Army, stopped speaking to me a year or two ago because they couldn’t understand that though I value the military and its sacrifice, I cannot get behind these wars we’ve been fighting for years.  They’re young.  Maybe they’ll learn to separate my opinion from me as an individual, but I don’t have much hope.  And I’m not sure the situation could be altered in any way by a box of cookies.

I Could Have Been A Soldier’s Wife…

I had two men propose to me in a very short period of time.  One, the soldier, I dated for over two years, spent time with his family, did the holiday shuffle, and tested our relationship with two road trips.  He is a great guy, incredibly intelligent, and never home.  Such is a soldier’s life.  I would have spent a lot of time on my own, raising my children practically on my own, putting in time at the Officer’s Club and the Ladies Auxiliary to prove I was worthy of my absent husband.  Only when I took a step back from that relationship did I realize that that would never have made me happy.  I loved him, but I would have lived a mostly solitary existance far away from my friends and family, and for someone who is clinically depressed, that is not a good idea.  The soldier now thinks I’m weak, slightly crazy, and a liar (since I said I would love hom forever and he thinks that ending a relationship means ending love as well).  That is the black-and-white thinking I could have been subjected to for the rest of my life.

The second, a musician, seems in many ways to be an antithesis of the first.  I met him a month after breaking up with the soldier, moved in three months later, and was engaged nine months after that.  It sounds like a rebound relationship, I know, but it’s lasted 7 years, so I think we’re okay.  I didn’t meet his family until after we were engaged.  He’s less than perfect, intelligent, incredibly funny, and always home.   I can always call him when I need something, he has an amazing relationship with our son, and most of our friends don’t give a damn about whether I wear appropriate clothing and jewelry for each occasion.  It was my relationship with the soldier that made me see what is truly important in my life.  The relationship I have with my family, the ability to do the work I love without being uprooted every few years, and a true partnership in child rearing is as close to happiness as clinical depression can get.  When I’m frustrated or tired, angry or sad, I remind myself of one simple and life altering decision – I could have been a soldier’s wife.

And For What?

I have to send a special shout out to Daniel on this one.  Writing is a catharsis indeed, but we cannot forget to write what we should as well as what we can.  All the posts on religion, education, and politics mean nothing if we DO nothing, and most importantly, we cannot forget that while we sit in front of our computers in cushy office chairs surrounded by air conditioning there are thousands of people suffering IN OUR NAME. 

Our government is torturing and detaining people for indeterminate lengths of time without giving any reasoning, and they say they’re doing it to make us safer.  What proof do we have?  What can we point to as the reason for even arresting these men?  We make excuses and we spout slogans, forgetting all the while that people are suffering, truly, deeply suffering – and for what?

4,123 US soldiers killed in Iraq, 30,409 US soldiers wounded in Iraq

Support This Troop

War does a lot of things to a lot of people.  Some find a renewal of faith and others lose it completely.  For nus, those who have stayed on the sidelines and watched this comedy of errors continue year after year, it is impossible to judge the young men and women who serve.  You would expect that fellow soldiers would understand and accept the changes in their comrades as “part of the experience”.  Many become more religious, more patriotic, more etc…, but some do not.  Some let go of their deeply ingrained beliefs, question what life is all about, and change who they are.  This soldier did just that, and because the Army and his fellow soldiers didn’t like what he was saying, it caused a shitstorm.

Army Spc. Jeremy Hall was told that “…because I can’t put my personal beliefs aside and pray with troops I wouldn’t make a good leader”.  He was asked to leave a table at Thanksgiving because he wouldn’t say Grace.  He is currently suing the military, not for money, but for the promise of religious freedom.  This poor young man joined the Army believing that he was doing something good for our nation and its people. All he has found is that he has to defend his own rights.  We owe him and all the other true defenders of freedom a collective apology.

4,114 US soldiers killed in Iraq (apparently not defending religious freedom), 30,275 US soldiers wounded in Iraq

Christianity in Iraq

I saw a piece on 60 Minutes about Christians in Iraq.  Before the war there were over one million Christians practicing openly in Iraq without being bothered because Saddam Hussien allowed for religious freedom.  That meant that women could drive, work, go to school, etc…  Since the beginning of the US occupation of Iraq the Christian population has dwindled significantly.  A young man in the story told of how his family split their time at mass so that if the church was bombed, only half of them would die. The Christians who survived the initial religious persecution by the Islamic Fundamentalists have mostly escaped to Syria.  All that are left are the women whose men have been killed, the very old, and children.  They practice their religion in secret.

My problem with this story was the spin.  60 Minutes detailed how the Christians were surviving in Iraq and how their lives had been better before the US invasion, but glossed over the part where their slaughter was largely our fault.  It is true that had we not invaded, these people would still be living under the rule of Saddam Hussein, who had NO ties to Osama bin Laden or Al Qaeda AND allowed his people some religious and social freedom that is wholly absent from the Iraq of today.  Now that is impossible.  The militants have made sure of that.  Good for us!

You Can’t Have Him

I fully agree that this ad seems a little contrived and is definitely cheesy, but the concept is correct.  People are not paying enough attention to McCain’s stance on the Iraq war.  I know the economy sucks and that’s a pressing issue for all of us, but while we’re being steered to pay attention to the economy, people are still dying in Iraq, and familes are separated.  According to McCain, things could be that way for a very long time.  Long enough that my son could actually be affected by this stupid, illegal, and immoral war.  I agree with Alex’s mom.  i will travel to the ends of the Earth if I have to, but Mr. McCain, YOU CANNOT HAVE MY SON. EVER.

4,110 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq (again, this number does not reflect those who have died of injuries once they have air-lifted out of the country) 30,247 Us soldiers have been wounded in Iraq

Flood of Incompetence

Wouldn’t it be nice if, during this time of a national environmental crisis, in which towns are being leveled by tornadoes and swept away by floods, we had some sort of force – a National Guard, perhaps – to help these towns and cities clean up and rebuild?  Wouldn’t it have been wonderful is some past President had thought of a situation in which we might need such a “Reserve Army” if you will, and had made provisions for such a thing?  And if a President had done so, wouldn’t it be a little irresponsible (maybe even slightly criminal) for a current President to commit that force elsewhere, out of the country which they had taken an oath to serve, to fight a foreign enemy on foreign soil and leave them there for an extended length of time, even when they are needed despareately at home?  Might that not be a reason for impeachment, especially if it had happened more than once during a particular President’s term?

4,000 and Still No Answers

The recent rash of violence in Iraq hasn’t been covered much in the news, but I feel it’s important to mention since many Americans still have friends and family fighting in this illegal and immoral war and the NNM is doing it’s best to distract us in every way possible.  Think about all the stupid things the NNM covers, while ignoring the important world events happening on a daily basis.  Who cares about Brittany Spears when their child is dying from a lack of health care?  Is the baseball steroid scandal all that important to those still rebuilding their lives from Hurricane Katrina?    When downtown Philadelphia is beginning to look and feel more like downtown Bogota, does it really matter that Obama gave a lightly poignant speech about race?  If our freedoms are eroding away and no one seems to notice, what exactly are our soldiers fighting for?

 4,000 US soldiers dead in Iraq (not including those who died of wounds after being airlifted to Kuwait, or those soldiers who have committed suicide at home because of PTSD),     29,451 US soldiers wounded in Iraq

We Need a Hero

When I was in college (sometime in 1997)  I read an opinion piece about the lack of heroes in America and I wrote a counterargument for a class I was taking.  I remember focusing on the small, everyday heroes (firemen, teachers, the occasional cop), probably unable to find the large scale heroes the piece was longing for, thus inadvertently proving the author’s point.  I wish I had that counterargument.  I think I would be amused at how naive and self-absorbed I was.  Here was this prophetic piece of writing in front of me and I dismissed it completely.  I actually believed the things my parents, teachers, politicians, and news anchors told me.  I didn’t look elsewhere because I had the opinion of everyone that mattered.  Even through college I remained ignorant of what was really going on around me.  I probably would be to this day if I hadn’t met my husband. (Man, that revelation is going to piss some people off.)  It terrifies me to think of how many things I missed in my youth.  But it horrifies me more to look ahead.

I see what this drop in the economy is doing to my city.  I’m watching my students get more depressed and angry by the day as their parents lose jobs, their rent goes unpaid, and they try to study on empty stomachs and lost hopes.  They’re afraid to graduate, knowing there’s not really anyplace to go.  We send some to college, but trade school is becoming a waste.  Who wants to get into student loan debt when there’s no promise of a job when you graduate?  They refuse to join the army and I’m torn between being proud that they won’t fight this pointless war and upset knowing that their salary would have provided them three meals a day and kept their family afloat, especially when supplemented with combat pay.  There’s an up-rise in violence, especially toward law enforcement.  This means that people are angry at the establishment, and as our nation degrades financially, the violence will get worse. 

There are no heroes in this city. There are no heroes in this country.  No one is standing up and saying, “Look around you. We are killing each other.  We are letting each other die.  Our children have little education and no health care.  Our young men and women are hustling on the streets to survive.  Our families are broken.  Unemployment is high.  Teenage pregnancy is high.  Truancy is high.  This has to stop.”  Not loud enough to be heard.  Maybe the problems seem so overwhelming that no one has any ideas(except Al Gore, Ron Paul, and Dennis Kucinich).  They’re stunned.  They’re looking at the wreckage of our city and our country and shaking their heads.  We need a hero.  Or maybe we have the heores, adn we just won’t listen.