In America -- in my country
-- I fear we are losing the battle for our humanity. Some say we have
already lost it.
Deep down I think they may
be right.
Such is the level of violence,
voyeurism and detachment displayed this October in Richmond, California,
when at least two dozen students cheered, laughed or simply stood by
and watched as a 15-year-old girl was repeatedly raped, beaten and brutalized
by an "unknown number of assailants."
It was only a matter of time
before the nation’s skyrocketing unemployment translated into new
recruits for the most powerful military force in the world.
With the official US unemployment
rate at 10 percent and climbing (that’s more than 15 million people
struggling to put food on the table) and nearly double that number if
you include part-time wage-earners who need full-time jobs, never mind
all of those ‘discouraged workers,’ it’s little wonder that so
many of the nation’s jobless are flocking into its military recruitment
offices.
I don't begrudge William Calley his remorse about My Lai, but I'm hesitant to acknowledge his apology for it.
If you
steal $10 from your mother, you need to apologize. If, as you carry out
orders, you lead a raid on a village that slaughters 500 or more
defenseless people, something of a higher magnitude is required before
you can have your life back.
"A fight, a fight . . ."
Oh
Lord. From what depths did this story come? This was the power of the
peace circle, pulling something out of me beyond any known zone of
emotional safety.
Anthony Vasquez, a student at the
University of California, Berkeley, worked at FedEx Kinkos for about
two years. His store's slogan was: "Yes We Can."
"It meant that if a customer asked us to do a job for them, no matter what it was, we were to say ‘Yes We Can!' " he said.
When
our governments refuse to act to stop the 22 month illegal and inhumane
siege, blockade, quarantine of Gaza, citizens have stepped in to
challenge the blockade.
For the past three centuries, humans’ effects on the global
environment have escalated. Most importantly, our emissions of carbon
dioxide may cause global climate patterns to depart significantly from
their natural course for many millennia to come.
You had to see it to believe it: Hunter “Patch” Adams,
MD, fully decked out in his clown outfit, and a retired Israeli
military general standing together in an enormous pair of red silk
underwear. Patch calls it his “underwear security,” a play upon
“undercover security.” It’s an ingenious device which encourages
egotistical disarmament. You can’t climb into Patch’s underwear if you
are overly-defended.
When exactly did it happen - that "blinding flash of the obvious"?
It may have been during lunch - outside, in a park in the nation's capital on a beautiful, cherry-blossom afternoon - as public health theorist Ari Cowan held forth about working with maximum security prisoners in Washington state. Having described a program that treats "violent" as a temporary condition, like "has a headache," Cowan said he tells these guys, as they start to grasp the idea that they aren't scumbags and monsters, "You're the ones who will save humanity."
