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One Nation, Under a Heartless God
Why Is America So Mean?
"The 82nd," the man ahead of me in the security line at the Kansas City airport said. He was 64 and white, very Hank Hill and not the kind of guy you'd typically see chatting up a skinny 20-year-old Latino dude. But they were both veterans. Common ground is a given."I was in the 82nd too," the kid told the old man. I looked down. The kid's legs were gone. He was standing on metal. Implausibly and heartbreakingly, white Converses adorned the tips of his prosthetic legs. High tops.
On the other side of the metal detector, I caught up with the young vet (Iraq? Afghanistan?). HomeSec was giving him the whole treatment: arms stretched out, the wand, stern expressions and stupid questions. The wand beeped and beeped. The TSA guy scowled. "I've got titanium all the way up my spine," the kid explained.
You're kidding me, I thought. After what he's been through. After what he's done for his country. I wanted to scream: Bastards! You should wave him around the checkpoint. Here, sir, we'd like to offer you a seat in first class. No, no, no charge.
I bit my tongue. Here in the land of the twee and the craven, I know when to shut up. That's what we do now. Airports are nodes of high-intensity fascism in a nation settling into authoritarianism lite. Hassle the bastards and you might end up dead. I had a flight to catch, doncha know.
Have we, at long last, any decency?
In one respect, the three remaining presidential candidates say, "Yes, we do." They've promised to close Gitmo.
What ought to happen to the nearly 300 detainees is obvious. Hand each of them an apology, a bag of cash -- a million bucks wouldn't be nearly enough for what they've been through -- and a plane ticket home. Those who can't return to their countries of origin because their U.S.-backed dictatorships would murder them receive a penthouse suite in the U.S. city of their choice.
I'd let them switch places with their guards and 300 top-ranking members of the Bush Administration for a couple of days first. No questions asked. Just get on the plane, and don't forget your bag o' cash.
Anyway.
Here's how messed up, how separated from common sense justice the United States of America has become: We might close Gitmo. But we're keeping the inmates!
"When it comes to closing Guantánamo, talk is cheap," Columbia law professor Matthew Waxman tells The Los Angeles Times. Because, you see, the U.S. government has violated the victims' rights so egregiously for so long that there's no longer a legally appropriate way to process them.
"Especially vexing," says the paper, "are scores of foreign detainees: Officials lack evidence to prosecute, but warn against setting them free." It's an 800-year-old Western legal principle called habeas corpus: you can't hold a person in custody without charging them. Oh, wait -- Bush got rid of that.
"Because there is little evidence against them that could be used in a U.S. court, government officials fear that a federal judge could order them freed," the Times continues. Heaven forbid that we release people, even if there's no evidence they've done anything wrong. What's next? Taxing the rich?
"Then you would have 100-plus future sleeper-cell members unleashed in Kansas," a "midlevel official" told the Times. No grain silo would be safe.
Gitmo inmates have been waterboarded, urinated upon by U.S. soldiers, violently force-fed and driven to suicide. Some of the "dangerous terrorists" (John McCain's description) were 12 years old when Afghan warlords sold them to U.S. forces for cash bounties. They've grown up in Gitmo. When do we finally, at long last, decide that they've suffered enough?
Maybe we should just shoot them.
It's not just foreigners. Even for its own native-born wretches, America couldn't find a path to fundamental decency if it were lit up like Times Square on New Year's Eve.
In ancient Rome, executioners abided by a rule: If they failed to hack off your head after three swings of the blade, they set you free. Not here. Men condemned to lethal injection wake up screaming; the guards administer more poisons and barbiturates.
Veterinarians abandoned the three-drug cocktail used to kill inmates in most states because they considered it cruel to animals.
Many death row prisoners are innocent. Sometimes they even manage to prove it before their executions. "At least 205 men and one woman nationwide have been exonerated through DNA evidence since 1989, including 53 who...were convicted of murder," reports The New York Times. But what happens to those who are set free?
No compensation is enough for someone who serves years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. But society ought to come up with something.
There ought to be money. Millions and millions of dollars. So much that the victim of a judicial miscarriage never has to work again. It wouldn't bring back the lost years, the shattered relationships and murdered moments. But it would be a start.
Then again, this is America. We don't apologize, much less try to pay penance. Here's $24 and a cheap suit. Too bad about those 15 years. Thank you for playing. Want compensation? Find a lawyer who'll work for $24 and sue.
Ah, but there's a catch: you need a law under which to file a lawsuit. 36 of the 50 states have laws that specifically prevent innocent ex-prisoners from going to court to seek the damages they ought to have been given without asking. Twelve of the remaining 14 have limits. (New York and Maryland do not.) California caps total payouts at a stingy $100 a day, up to a maximum of $10,000 -- even if they lock you up for 20 years by mistake.
As individuals, Americans are generous to a fault. They do the right thing, or at least they try. The disconnect occurs when we express our collective will, through our courts and government officials. Our laws and our politicians are mean, cheap and callous.
How did a soft-hearted people wind up making such a hard-ass country?
Ted Rall is the author of the new book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.
© 2008 Ted Rall
73 Comments so far
Show AllWhy is America so mean? Who landed on Plymouth Rock? I've quoted this line from a Robert Lowell poem before; but I'll do it again:
We wrung our bread
From stocks and stones
And fenced our gardens
With the red man's bones.
America was founded by people like Anne Coulter, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the ass kicking, head smashing mafia, who back then called themselves the Pilgrims. The so-called Founding Fathers are anomalies in this sea of bottom feeding human beings. We are still living today with that dichotomy - and the Pilgrims are winning and winning big. Only now, the gardens are being fenced with the bones of the poor and the middle class.
The young man with the prosthetic legs - I want to just weep and scream at the same time. And so many more like him being maltreated by our nation. Damn those TSA employees who treated him so poorly. Damn all of us for our cruelty and our ACCEPTANCE of cruelty to all living creatures.
Our country was weaned on genocide, slavery, and exclusion of women. And you want to know why we are so mean? We were born mean. Mean to those not like us. Read our history books.
Hoa binh
America is not "mean" because there is some God that is "heartless". American is "mean" to the extent it has not and does not elect enough liberals to both its federal and state governments. (See next sentence.) America is gets "meaner" to the extent it does not reign in corporations including especially those in media businesses which are capable of swinging elections. (See previous sentence.)
I think the Civil War was an anomaly in terms of the north winning. The south woke up the next day and promised themselves they'd come up with 100 things to do each day to win the country back while the Yankees celebrated and got fat. I think the south is winning or actually won. Watch C-SPAN and see if you can hear a repug without a southern drawl. Yeeha. Point is, the repugs are still in control (60-vote in Senate, federal judges, MSM, etc) and look where we are.
Right On,Mordecai, the pilgrims were fanatical deviants from their home country and its beliefs and values, just like Jim Jones. Its interesting how America tends to throw up these types down through the ages.
The founding Fathers came out of the Enlightenment - but the educated and forward thinking level of Society is always the smallest, but periodically they tend to throw up their type, also. Unfortuanately they tend to get assassinated. Ideas about social justice dont go down big is the U.S. - no money in that.
fear and more fear. . .astonishing in a nation so wealthy and relatively safe. puzzling, no?
Give me a break. Americans are no more "soft hearted" than anyone else on the planet. I recently spoke with a supposedly educated, church-going person who told me the attack and occupation on Iraq was justified because 3,000 Americans died on 9/11.
I told her there were no Iraqis involved in the attack and that Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with it. She just looked at me with disbelief. This person doesn't have a TV, but she's still out of touch. People believe what they want to believe, I guess.
Mindless Robots of the Terrorist Support Agency (TSA) are like that. I have avoided then so far by refusing to fly at whatever my personal cost. If this government will not be brought to it's senses then it must be brought to it's knees. Call in 'well' and take the remaining days of this administration off.
What in the name of anything and everything does this article have to do with God?
"In one respect, the three remaining presidential candidates say, "Yes, we do." They've promised to close Gitmo."
And that's worth about as much as:
"I'd like to end Guantanamo. I'd like it to be over with," Bush said at a news conference..."
Meanwhile, re: "...high-intensity fascism in a nation settling into authoritarianism lite."
Got "pulled over" by the Dallas PD while walking back from the grocery store. Identification was demanded; I refused by explaining that, in America, I do not need to carry z-papers. My German impression didn't go over well - I was searched, threatened with arrest for failing to provide z-papers, and warned that my attitude was not "good."
Why was I randomly stopped? Cause I "fit a description" of course. In case you're wondering, the description must have been white male around forty years old carrying grocery bags. After twenty minutes of this nonsense, and the participation of a second cop, I was "allowed to go" but with this warning: we know who you are now.
The meanness of the USAns is the same arrogant, racist mentality one sees wherever, english-speaking Protestant fanatic settler types (and more recently Jews) decide a piece of land is theirs.
One saw it in the Ulster-Scots who ethnically-cleansed Ireland under Cromwell, then went across the ocean and did the same on a grater scale to the first nations, and even to the French Acadians (they hated Catholics more than even Indians).
Same thing went on in Australia, NZ, South Africa, and, is ongoing in Israel.
...
If we are suppose to be the good guys, then how do we let bad guys like Bush and Cheney into office to do evil? Is it that we have a dark side and they can carry it out for us?
Lots of people were ready to invade Iraq and did not want to hear anything about inspectors. Inspectors would have found no WMD, which would have ruined the whole excuse for invading Iraq in the first place. Better that we ignore the inspections, jump the gun and invade before truth spoils the whole lie.
Americans are no meaner than anybody else.
You are just very succefully enstranged - much due to your educational system - read John Taylor Gatto:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/
You have the most powerful artist and thinkers, rebels and dissendents - a most wonderful history.
Read your own history - about the constant struggle between the people and the elites. Start talking to people - you will find they are just like you!
While like Microsoft we are chocked full of absolutely wonderful people, our collective actions are often heartless and indefensible--such is often the emergent property of human systems.
We have never been soft hearted as a nation. We are a settler nation that has never felt secure and we keep creating (or inventing) new threats foreign and domestic to keep control of our unruly public.
How did we become so mean? It's easy: we reap what we sow.
And we sow it internationally, even cosmically. It's a creation of collective consciousness. There are not enough truly enlightened, peaceful souls among us.
Reminds me of the last verse in Tom Paxton's song, "What did you learn in School today?".
I learned that our government must be strong,
It's always right and never wrong,
Our leaders are the finest men,
And we elect them again and again.
Soft hearted? We must have been meeting different people over the years, you and I, Ted. I have met a lot of mean bastards, the type that shot Peter Fonda and his buddy at the end of Easy Rider.
People like Geraldine Ferraro who want to punish that uppity Barack Obama for taking unfair advantage of his dark skin.
Many Americans are kind and friendly.
Then there are the ones who came over because they were low lifes who couldn't get along with their neighbors. Look at the Pilgrims. They couldn't make it in England or Holland. They came here and founded religious states where they persecuted heretics and killed the natives who had land and such that they wanted. Our founding fathers put a stop to the official religious persecution, but left the Indian slaughter and slave holding as it was.
These military members who brag about their family history of military "service"? Howard Zinn quotes a soldier who wrote his family that shooting Filipinos was more fun than shooting rabbits. I guess he begat soldiers who begat soldiers who participated in war crimes in various wars to this day. I wonder who Oliver North's granddaddy was?
There are supposedly 18 veterans committing suicide a day now. This is like the 100,000 vets who survived Vietnam who couldn't take the guilt and killed themselves. You won't see veterans who enjoy raping, murdering and looting feeling any guilt. They'll reproduce.
Obviously, I'm not saying that all vets who live are psychopaths. My dad came out of WW2 a pacifist. The vets in Vietnam Vets and Iraq Vets Against the War are great people. But you have to wonder about the effect of endless wars of aggression and land grabbing on the character of the American people.
AnneBrit said: "a most wonderful history"
Say What??? Which history are you talking about? The genocide of the Native Americans? Or is it the slaughter Mexicans and expropriation of Mexican land? Or is it the brutal oppression of the working class by the elites over 2 1/2 centuries? Or could it be the senseless and unnecessary nuking of 2 Japanese cities... I know, it's the constant meddling and evil influence the CIA has had on numerous countries. All wonderful things.
"How did we become so mean?"
Hmmmm... The country of the United States of America was BORN mean. Plain and simple. It's like a "fetal alcohol" country... always angry and violent, and completely irrational.
Frank and whatfools: I take Amtrak to avoid the gestapo, but they have their own version now.
I was confronted by an armed guard demanding my "papers", and I resisted like Frank did. Well, the first thing I did was say, "Jesus Christ", to which the guard replied, "I'm not him. I'm his representative". Fascism and Christianity mixing, just like in Germany, Italy and Spain.
I wrote an angry letter to Amtrak pointing out what a farce it is to pretend that someone could hijack a train. What are they going to do, run it off the track and into a building? Give me a break. There are miles of tracks. You don't need to get onto a train to derail it!!
They never answered.
This is the government demanding that you register with them in order to travel. You can't travel without a government issued ID right now, unless you walk or hitchhike. And Frank proves that they're cracking down on unauthorized walking. Remember that in New Orleans, people on foot weren't allowed to leave, only those in cars.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/03/AR2007040301938.html
And speaking of Amtrak, an Amtrak employee told me that amtrak had 2 or 3 trains, with coaches only, no sleepers (to hold more people) ready to evacuate New Orleans. She said that employees had placed a pillow, a blanket and a bottle of water at each seat. FEMA told Amtrak not to use the trains.
Oh, great, just great. I'm flying out to visit my mom in a few days, and one of my great fears is being mistaken by the TSA for being something or someone I'm not. This article does little to reassure me.
On the other hand, I suppose I can cut the TSA a little slack. After all, being a double-amputee and a US veteran is a typical terrorist trick, right? Why, the titanium legs (hollowed) could easily accomodate more than three ounces of hair shampoo; cosmetic surgery to change one's "middle-east" visage to one of "latino" visage can be done at any tatoo parlor; military ID's are a cinch to forge.
Any chance Obama would abolish the DHS if elected? Now that would be progress.
Rall talks about a "heartless God" but says nothing when the young veteran is given the security treatment.
I guess that's heartfelt.
We were getting a LOT better,
right up until right after Kennedy was assassinated
"The disconnect occurs when we express our collective will, through our courts and government officials." There is no disconnect. You have to be outside the US to see it, maybe, but the American love affair with violence is there at every level. Start with guns and the tacit assumption that every American has the right to exact summary vengeance on any other American. Go on to the mindless patriotism and the brainwashed religion. Include the unshakeable assumption of superiority and god-given dominance over other nations. This is a country which is consistent from lowest labourer to Commander in Chief. Violence works, and the US has the right to use it on whoever it pleases.
Our country was founded by pirates. They exploited everybody, blacks, indians, children, women and men.
There are some pirates who are better than others, but he bottom line is that all the candidates are pirates. They want to take from everybody and only give to themselves, no matter who gets hurt.
so it goes...
Well not only has George W. made a tax law making war profits taxable at 7%, instead of the normal rate (which of course profit, can't be claimed offshore cause you can't build weapons for America but in Amerika, (sic...see Airbus-refueler,)) so this would be good if their were a competitive bidding yet it is consortium that price fix, as well as pay the 2 Georges, ie Carlyle group, and Lynn Cheney-(Lockheed Martin) as well as of course unbid contracts with her husband,,,, but I won't be surprised if he makes it a law that politicians can't be convicted of crimes, he has already exempted corprations from prosecution for actions outside the country, ie war crimes...Blackwater...Exxon, and on and on
To cope with the world as it is, I think you have to learn to be a "Happy Warrior" like the late great Hubert Humphrey. I finally learned what he was about by reading his book: The Education of a Public Man. A good and decent man who tried to make the world a better place. President Carter once addressed him directly and said: "You should have been president." The answers are out there if you will but be still, and listen....and try very hard to be wise. You won't need any fancy education to do it.
those references to old historical events the pilgrims etc. probably don't mean much anymore. the country changes- people change- with each generation so i don't think that stuff is what it's about. i don't even think u.s. people are much better or worse than other people. our xenophobia right now sets us apart from the rest of the world, so that we act hostile to strangers and immigrants and Arabs and Muslims. but we weren't always like this. that's why you see old guys like me shaking their heads in bewilderment, feeling like we stepped through a looking glass into this nightmare. but still vaguely remembering a different america.
The United States is controlled by "humans" who have evolved in a terribly perverse way. They have learned to manipulate technology to the point that their humanity is gone. Morally, they have devolved to the pre-slime era. The rest of us seem powerless to do anything about it even as we see society crumbling around us.
ceecee_em April 23rd, 2008 1:28 pm
What in the name of anything and everything does this article have to do with God?
____________________________
• Not a Godder, myself, but I quite agree that God is a non sequitur here. Probably the work of an inartful headline writer, though, not the author.
• I don't mean to go all retro in our Brave New World, where it's all about the Meds, but I personally can't usefully generalize whether entire nations, societies, or cultures are nice or not-nice; it's a transactional phenomenon, in any case. I mean, as a pacifist, and squeamish to boot, I'm horrified when I consider any number of ultra-violent practices-- so it creeps me out to think of Mayans ritually beheading people or yanking out their beating hearts or whatever. Or the Conquistadors' complementary atrocities (as I characterize them).
But I'm certain that if one could magically visit such brutal cultures and individuals, and magically understand their speech, one would find pleasant, good-humored, peaceful persons. And to extend the point, there are still shards and streaks of light flickering in even our debased Babylon. If we and our history are utterly corrupt and abominable, why bother searching for common dreams?
• greenerthanthou, I feel your pain! I haven't had occasion to take AMTRAK for a while, but I was totally disheartened a while back when the local teevee news made a big, happy splash about TSA-style sadistic pseudo-security procedures coming to 30th Street Station in Philly. "God," I thought. "Talk about a gigantic fucking step backwards!" Whoops, there's God popping up again where He doesn't belong.
I force myself to remember that many well-meaning-- if complacent, ignorant, fearful, and shallow-- Amerikans still find this sort of thing comforting. It's hard to believe that everyone doesn't cringe at images so strongly reminiscent of authoritarian regimes-- armed guards and dogs patrolling platforms, checking papers, and manning checkpoints.
And I have a bad feeling that, like Amerika's dependence on paramilitary mercenary goon squads, that this insanity won't be readily dismantled once the present Dark Lord is allowed to retire with full dignity and benefits. I hope I'm wrong.
• ddell413, perhaps the unfortunate headline put you off. You suggest that Rall is himself heartless and mean-spirited, and maybe just chickenshit, not to actually intervene and speak up for the vet. You must judge him as you see fit, of course, but I don't get a sense that Rall was indifferent or contemptuous of the vet. Rall at least speaks to that very point, the dilemma of witnessing mistreatment when intervention is plainly risky.
You can fault him for not being a hero, and he would probably agree. But that's not being heartless-- just timid, or even cowardly if you prefer.
• Harry Shearer has a recurring feature on his "Le Show" weekly radio program called "Tales of Airport Security". One week it featured a snafu caused by a couple flying from the US to Canada (or vice-versa) with newborn baby. The problem was that the baby didn't have a Social Security number, which brought the travel to a screeching halt.
The salient part in this micro-tragedy occurs as the hapless couple are shifted from one supervisor to another. At one point, the mother plaintively asks the chief poo-bah why it's so important that the baby have an SS# to take a simple vacation flight to visit family. Without batting an eyelash, the poo-bah explains quite seriously that terrorists are known to place explosives in infant corpses to smuggle them on planes.
The mother, aghast, asks how it could be possible, and wouldn't security personnel be able to tell that the infant was cold and dead? "Chemicals", the security administrator replied. They keep the little corpse warm with chemicals.
Given this stunning mind-set, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if some teevee Terrorism Expert or TSA flack solemnly asserted that given all of the enraged insurgent amputees in Iraq and Afghanistan, what could be more likely than terrorists posing as US military vets?
Boy, what Captain Queeg couldnt've accomplished if he'd lived to head Homeland Security!
elmysterio,
Are you suggesting that all citizens of this country,(Mostly from lineage of immigrants) must pay for the sins of the earliest settlers?
This place isn't perfect, but my family arrived from Austria with their tails between their legs in 1939.(No, we are not Jewish. Hitler was an equal opportunity murderer.) With no money and no knowledge of the language, my grandfather adapted and thrived in this new land were opportunities were limitless. My father grew up and prospered and I'm getting ready to send my first son (Classical Pianist)to college. You are here to say how mean we ALL are and I am here to defend all the good people who have helped my family through the years. This country is not full of butchers! There are more decent, helping individuals than you care notice and I will not have those people condemned because of your perceptions and bias.
Ah, the airport security dilemma. Reminds me of one of many incredible lines from the film, "Little Murders," where Carroll Newquest, frustrated with the city's unsolved crimes rhapsodies, "They need a fence around every block! I want my freedom!" He explains how he makes it home each day from work, celebrating the fact he's not been mugged, knifed or attacked. "Okay, let's see if I can get around the corner." (Pause) "Okay, let's see if I can make it to the elevator without being grabbed," etc. The paranoid society with a presumed threat around every corner will find false solace and security in a police state. Some of our fellow citizens ARE there.
Also: when I spent Sundays at a very enlightened Unity Church in Key West, Florida, we were told that if we buy insurance, on a subliminal level we will want to get our money's worth and unconsciously set loose the factors that will warrant using said insurance. I think lots of Americans recognize that what our military is doing elsewhere IS going to come back to haunt us. On some level, in just about everyone but the most maimed and savage human creatures is an understanding that we ARE all connected; and what is done to anyone that stands against TRUE justice, will become a debt that requires repayment.
A while back CD posted an article written by a European who was traveling through the U.S. and noted the attitude of a certain fear & paranoia. I believe the author also reached the conclusion I am sharing, that there is a silent collective shadow that expects the shoe to drop. (Some of us would not put it past our "leaders" to light the spark, as many of us, with or without substantial evidence, SENSE that 911 was a similarly set trigger.)
Ted Rall, this is a scatterbrained piece of writing.
> America was founded by people like Anne Coulter, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the ass kicking, head smashing mafia, who back then called themselves the Pilgrims.
I would expect that the above mentioned characters are Catholics, not Protestants. The most vicious Nazi group in Europe was the Ustashe, The Croat, Catholic followers of Hitler. The most right wing pro Nazi groups in the USA during the 1930's - 1950's were also Catholics. Father Coughlin and his followers and the various America First pro Fascist groups. The German Bund groups were also Catholic. On the other hand some of the pro Nazi groups were anti-Catholic. In Israel the Likudniks who espouse a Fascist ideology are Jewish. Basically Right wingers come from all backgrounds. There are certain personalities that gravitate toward right wing ideologies no matter what religion or ethnic group. One characteristic is the uniform belief that might makes right and their group is superior. As a general rule these people tend to be bullies all of their life and trying to reason with them is near impossible. Humans are basically violent animals (so are most others) and those less violent have an obligation to try and control the violent ones though sometimes violence is necessary to do so.
Thanks for your thoughtful article, Mr. Rall. One is warmed by the fire of your outrage. More should be so. I heard Bernadette Dohrn on the radio today and thought about radicals of the past. Where are they today? Do we still need Bernadette?
In American history, various reform movements have come and gone. The populists at the end of the 19th century, the reformers of the forties. But our education system fails to pass on the wisdom so hard won. We see it even today as a generation loses the wisdom of the sixties. How did we ever win the civil rights act? How did environmental laws ever get passed? Our modern heroes, like Obama, are not MLK or Bobby Kennedy. Why not? Where is the outrage? What will it take?
Like the disaffected intellectuals of the fifties and early sixties, maybe its time to move to Paris for awhile. The country may yet descend into a froth of facism before returning to its senses again, aware of the evil. We have a country that spends more than all the other countries put together on its military budget. At some point, the others may bring us down to size. If we invade Iran, it may just be too much for some people and they may decide to stop us.
America is not a tolerant and enlightened nation. It is backwards and nationalist. We must realize what is going on and either act or get out of the way. Soon, it will be too late.
The USA is more extremely capitalist than other countries and basic to capitalist ideology is Social Darwinism with the doctrine of the survival of the fittest and the beneficial effect of competition. Americans are always at war with someone or something. It is not just a metaphor but a view of life. Do in your neighbor before he does you in is a part of the ideology here as opposed to the more usual doctrine of do unto your neighbor as you would wish him to do unto you.
From the article; "In ancient Rome the executioners abided by a rule; If they failed to hack off you head after three swings of the blade, they set you free."
Never heard that one before, but think about it for a second. Even one, relatively benign, sharp blow to the cervical spine can render one permanently paralyzed, not to mention three serious attempts at severance.
Poetic license by the author, I suppose, to make a point.
"Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are." St. Augustine
The trick is to find and foster hope in such times as these (those "interesting times" the old curse speaks of...which are all times in all places where humans care to dwell.).
of course this nation is under a heartless god. So the heartless one lives in this nation and the world even. his names are many and diverse. You have seen him as Greed, Death, Liar, Domination, he has power. he even comes claiming to be Peace..but isn't. he also claims to defend..yet assaults. he claims prospertity in the face of hunger. this is nothing new.
this nation is also under another God, Almighty, Mercy, Love, Redemption are just a few of His names. You have seen him as Truth.
so make your choices (as you catcha your plane) do what ya can.. but never blame The God of Love. try to hold your head up as your heart breaks, mark those things well.
your not limited to 'only 3 presidential canidates'.
your not limited to 'just shoot the remaining inmates'.
your not limited to 'a bag of money'.
i know these are extremely serious topics, mark them well..document as much as you can.
write a song, and make it good, true, and personal. He will hear you sing. keep it written in your wallet, sing it when you want...but ya never know when, that song may be your best credential to get you thru the airport...hahaha
smilllllllllllllllleeeeeeeessssssssss & kisssssssesssss WILD ;)
Little Brother really should have his own blog. He writes better than almost anyone routinely featured on Common Dreams. The guy's truly brilliant. The amazing thing is, he knows how the apostrophe is used! I'd given up expecting anyone on the web to comprehend that niggling detail, not to mention ordinary spelling. Little Brother, I'm guessing, was or is an editor somewhere. Only editors know how to punctuate or spell. This is, after all, the age of cyberdimwittedness.
Maybe the USA should keep Gitmo open...to house the Bush Administration for their War Crimes trials in 2009
So mean, because America was built on war not democracy
I agree CC, God has nothing to do with the way America is.
It's quite simple - follow the money.
Little money, little evil - big money, big evil.
This goes for all aspects of life - at all times.
Thats why you need to regain real democratic control over the money - and you will gain control over your lives.
Today, the only thing you have is debt - which means you really are serfs.
The post from "imfedup" is really a good one:
". . . came to this country where opportunities were unlimited . . ."
Right, right, right! Past tense: WERE unlimited. He has the right usage for the wrong reason.
Why is America so "mean"? Whoever said we were so "good", and on what evidence or authority? Actually, Sigmund Freud already hit the nail on the head during World War I when he wrote about the barbarity being displayed by European society:
"In reality our fellow-citizens have not sunk so low as we feared because they had never risen so high as we believed."
As the ancient Greeks said: "Know thyself!"