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Witness at the White House Fence
“Show me your company, and I’ll tell you who you are,” my grandmother would often say with a light Irish lilt but unmistakable seriousness, an admonition about taking care in choosing what company you keep.
On Thursday, I could sense her smiling down through the snow as I stood pinned to the White House fence with Daniel Ellsberg, Chris Hedges, Margaret Flowers, Medea Benjamin, Coleen Rowley, Mike Ferner, Jodie Evans, and over 125 others risking arrest in an attempt to highlight the horrors of war.
The witness was sponsored by Veterans for Peace, a group comprised of many former soldiers who have “been there, done that” regarding war, distinguishing them from President Barack Obama who, like his predecessor, hasn’t a clue what war is really about. (Sorry, Mr. President, donning a bomber jacket and making empty promises to the troops in the middle of an Afghan night does not qualify.)
The simple but significant gift of presence was being offered outside the White House. As I hung on the fence, I recalled what I knew of the results of war.
Into view came some of my closest childhood friends — like Bob, whose father was killed in WWII when Bob was in kindergarten. My uncle Larry, an Army chaplain, killed in a plane crash.
Other friends like Mike and Dan, whose big brothers were killed in Korea. So many of my classmates from Infantry Officers Orientation at Ft. Benning killed in the Big Muddy called Vietnam.
My college classmate with whom I studied Russian, Ed Krukowski, 1Lt, USAF, one of the very first casualties of Vietnam, killed, leaving behind a wife and three small children. Other friends, too numerous to mention, killed in that misbegotten war.
More recently, Casey Sheehan and 4,429 other U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, and the 491 U.S. troops killed so far this year in Afghanistan (bringing that total to 1,438). And their mothers. And the mothers of all those others who have died in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan. Mothers don’t get to decide; only to mourn.
A pure snow showered down as if to say blessed are the peacemakers. Tears kept my eyes hydrated against the cold.
The hat my youngest daughter knit for me three years ago when I had no hair gave me an additional sense of being showered with love and affirmation. There was a palpable sense of rightness in our witness to the witless ways of the White House behind the fence.
I thought to myself, this White House is a far cry from the “Camelot” administration of John F. Kennedy, who brought me, and so many others to Washington almost a half-century ago. And yet, I could not resist borrowing a song from the play, Camelot: “I wonder what the king is doing tonight. What merriment is the king pursuing tonight…”
Perhaps strutting before a mirror in his leather bomber jacket, practicing rhetorical flourishes for the troops, like, “You are making our country safer.” The opposite, of course, is true, and if President Obama does not know that, he is not as smart as people think he is.
More accurately, the troops are making Obama’s political position safer, protecting him from accusations of “softness” on Afghanistan, just as a surge of troops into Iraq postponed the inevitable, sparing George W. Bush from the personal ignominy of presiding over a more obvious American defeat in Iraq.
Both presidents were willing to sacrifice those troops on the altar of political expediency, knowing full well that it is not American freedom that “the insurgents” hate, but rather U.S. government policies, which leave so many oppressed, or dead.
Despite our (Veterans for Peace) repeated requests over many months, Obama has refused to meet with us. On Wednesday, though, he carved out five hours to sit down with many of the fat cat executives who are profiteering from war.
It seems the President was worried that he had hurt the fat cats’ feelings – and opened himself to criticism as being “anti-business” – with some earlier remarks about their obscenely inflated pay.
Before our witness on Thursday, we read in the Washington Post that Obama told the 20 chief executives, “I want to dispel any notion we want to inhibit your success,” and solicited ideas from them “on a host of issues.” By way of contrast, the President has shown zero interest in soliciting ideas from the likes of us.
‘The Big Fool Said to Push On’
In another serendipitous coincidence, as we were witnessing against the March of Folly in Afghanistan, the President was completing his “review” of the war and sealing the doom of countless more soldiers and civilians (and, in my view, his own political doom) by re-enacting the Shakespearean tragedy of Lyndon the First.
Afraid to get crossways with the military brass, who have made it embarrassingly clear that they see no backbone under that bomber jacket, Obama has just sped past another exit ramp out of Afghanistan by letting the policy review promised for this month become a charade.
Hewing to the script of Lyndon the First, Barack Obama has chosen to shun the considered views of U.S. intelligence agencies, which, to their credit, show in no uncertain terms the stupidity of keeping U.S. troops neck-deep in this latest Big Muddy in Afghanistan — to borrow from Pete Seeger’s song from the Vietnam era.
There is one reality upon which there is virtually complete consensus as highlighted by the U.S. intelligence agencies: The U.S. and NATO will not be able to “prevail” in Afghanistan if Pakistan does not stop supporting the Taliban. Are we clear on that? That’s what the recent National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan says.
A companion NIE on Pakistan says there is not a snowball’s chance in hell that the Pakistani Army and security services will somehow “change their strategic vision” regarding keeping the Taliban in play for the time when the United States and its NATO allies finally leave Afghanistan and when Pakistan will want to reassert its influence there.
Should it be too hard to put the two NIEs together and reach the appropriate conclusions for policy?
It is difficult to believe that – after going from knee-deep to waist-deep in the Big Muddy by his early 2009 decision to insert 21,000 troops into Afghanistan, and then from waist-deep to neck-deep by deciding a year ago to send in 30,000 more — Obama would say to “push on.”
The answer lies in the kind of “foolish consistency” Emerson termed the “hobgoblin of little minds.” Out of crass political considerations, Obama continues to evidence a spineless persistence behind this fool’s errand. He seems driven by fear of offending other important Washington constituencies, such as the neoconservative opinion-makers, and having to face the wrath of the be-medaled and be-ribboned Gen. David Petraeus. This is pitiable enough — but a lot of people are getting killed or maimed for life.
‘When will we ever learn?’
To answer this other Vietnam-era song, well, we have learned — many of us the hard way. We need to tell the big fool not to be so afraid of neocon columnists and the festooned left breast of the sainted Petraeus — you know, the ten rows of medals and merit badges that made him so lopsided he crashed down on the witness table and was given a time-out by the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Outside the White House on Thursday, we found ourselves singing “We Shall Overcome” with confidence. And what we learned later of other witnessing conducted that same day provided still more affirmation, grit, and determination.
For example, 75 witnesses braved freezing temperatures at the Times Square recruiting station in New York to express solidarity with our demonstration in Washington.
There in Times Square stood not only veterans, but also grandmothers from the Granny Peace Brigade, the Raging Grannies, and Grandmothers Against the War. Two of the grandmothers were in their 90s, but stood for more than an hour in the cold. The Catholic Worker, War Resister League and other anti-war groups were also represented.
What? You didn’t hear about any of
this, including the arrest of 135 veterans and other anti-war activists
in front of the White House? Need I remind you of the Fawning Corporate
Media and how its practitioners have always downplayed or ignored protests,
large or small, against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Dave
Lindorff summed the situation up (see http://www.
A Rich Tradition
Civil Disobedience was Henry David Thoreau’s response to his 1846 imprisonment for refusing to pay a poll tax that violated his conscience. Thoreau was protesting an earlier war of aggression, the U.S. attack on Mexico.
In Civil Disobedience, Thoreau asked:
“Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.
“It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.”
Imprisonment was Thoreau’s first direct experience with state power and, in typical fashion, he analyzed it:
“The State never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.”
Prior to his arrest, Thoreau had lived a quiet, solitary life at Walden, an isolated pond in the woods about a mile and a half from Concord. He returned to Walden to mull over two questions: (1) Why do some men obey laws without asking if the laws are just or unjust; and, (2) why do others obey laws they think are wrong?
More recent American prophets have thrown their own light on the crises of our time while confronting the questions posed by Thoreau.
Amid the carnage of Vietnam, Fr. Daniel Berrigan, SJ, posed a challenge to those who hoped for peace without sacrifice, those who would say, “Let us have peace but let us loose nothing. Let our lives stand intact; let us know neither prison nor ill repute nor disruption of ties.”
Berrigan saw no such easy option. “There is no peace,” he said, “because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war — at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison.”
So, if the making of peace today means prison, that’s where we need to be. It is time to accept our responsibility to do ALL we can to stop the violence of wars waged in our name. Now it’s our turn to ponder those questions.
This article first appeared at Consortiumnews.com.
58 Comments so far
Show AllWe here in the Washington Metro area are dumb and stupid morons not paying attention to any of this. Our ignorance is on display as I-66 and I-495 traffic jams get worse as the holiday shopping spree continues. I can't believe that my own Fairfax County is now going conservative based on my neighbors, Obama supporters or otherwise, calling them troublemakers and based on the latest election results of Gerry Connelly barely hanging on to Eastern Fairfax County that is usually more liberal.
When the peace protest in downtown Pittsburgh disrupted traffic in downtown Pittsburgh at the start of the Iraq war, the Post-Gazette Letters to the Editor" column was soon full of angry letters from commuters who had their commutes delayed. Not that it made any of them think there might be something worthy of consideration in the protest. We've advanced to a state of such indifference now that war protests don't even make the news. Think of it as a kind of virtual censorship and think of the public as ignorant brainwashed sheep. Should I say sheep being led to the slaughter--Andrew Boulton for President.
I have been to Pittsburgh a few times and the roads are terrible and traffic is also bad but not as bad as the beltway DC traffic. If we hadn't gone to Iraq, the oil prices would have gone up and we would be commuting by buses and trains by now. The DC metro still gets less passengers even at peak traffic while I-66 remains crowded even past rush-hour time zones.
I haven't been to DC in months since I left my last job in September that would require me to travel there once every 2-3 months. I can't imagine that all modes of traffic would ever decrease in a recession proof area such as yours even in the darkest days of our gloomy economy.
I will never forget that afternoon and evening of March 20 in downtown Pittsburgh. 125 were eventually arrestred. Becasue it was so disruptive - causing most of downtown to empty out in a panic in the hours before it, it was, by far, the most effective demonstration and the high-water mark of organizing for the Thomas Merton Center. Local media coverage was extensive, and yes, it did precipitate a discussion throught the area on the justice or the Iraq invasion.
But only later, did I find out that the old liberal-bourgeois nonviolence-purists on the TMC board, and the rich deep-pocket donors, were shocked by this action - they regarded its youthful energy and disruptiveness, and disobedience of the police, as "violence". They then set to work forcing its inredibly effective director, and all of the youth, out of the center. The TMC will no longer be a threat to the powerful for a long time.
I mean no offense to those who pursue such passive forms of protest as those last Thursday in DC, but they have, frankly, turned NVCD on its head. Only disruption, or threats of disruption of order will influnece the powerful. And I should add, they need to get over this notion that damage to inaminate property, or using words like "fuck" and "pig" is "violence".
Demo man, all you talk about when come her is the NoVA traffic. You should consider moving to Pittsburgh where there are some nice neighborhoods where you don't need a car at all. I remain stumped why about 50% of the commuters still insist on driving downtown rather than using public transit.
"Demo man, all you talk about when come her is the NoVA traffic."
That isn't true. I have talked about other issues when I have come. Check out my other discussions.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/14-1
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/13-2
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/18
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/19-5
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/24-0
See if you can point out any references to NoVA traffic that I made. I don't get to come here a lot and I still have to find a job after 5.5 months of no employment. I nearly had one job going but had to leave after a week because that project had to be retracted due to lack of funding. How do you like that?
Bourgeoisie moralistic pacifists, listen up
I told’em fight back, attack on society
If this is violence then violent’s what I gotta be
If you investigate you’ll find out where it’s comin’ from
Look through our history, America’s the violent one
Unlock my brain, break the chains of your misery
This time the pay back for evil shit you did too me
They call me militant, racist ‘cause I will resist
You wanna censor something?
Motherfucker censor this!
My words are weapons, and I’m steppin’ to the sirens
Wakin’ up the masses
But you, claim that I’m violent
Tupac Shakur, from Violent
Really, what is shown on the TV and much of the internet, and broadcasted over the radio airwaves these day can hardly be described as 'NEWS'.
It's all corpora-fascist 'talking points' meant to distract, dis-inform and pontificate.
Dear Friends, Peace on Earth this Christmas. I will miss you, and ask you on Christmas day to "take a minute" for Peace on Earth. Walk to the curb, the street , the intersection, the path, and think Peace on Earth for just a minute (repeat). Hold a sign, a banner. Wave a flag. Make a sign, or just stand and think peace. Wage Peace. I will stand for hours on Christmas day, waging peace, and when I think of the cold, I will think of the dead and the living fighting for Peace on Earth. Even if it's just for a minute get in the path on Christmas day. A path for Peace. Just for a minute. Join me. Help us all.
Excellent, excellent article. It speaks volumes as well as being ironic that the president who won and accepted, with a straight face, the Nobel Prize for Peace has refused, as Ray McGovern has pointed out, to meet with the anti-war group Veterans for Peace. What cannot be stressed enough is how the Corporate Media, as McGovern has noted, has refused to report the arrests of these anti-war activists in Washington, D.C.
The quotes by Thoreau and the references to Vietnam are also most welcome and relevant.
This quote from Edward R. Murrow, in reference to Senator Joseph McCarthy that was written over fifty years ago, is also as relevant now as it was back then:
"No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices."
---------------
"War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace."-Thomas Mann
Great quotes, Erroll. Thank you.
"It seems the President was worried that he had hurt the fat cats’ feelings – and opened himself to criticism as being “anti-business” – with some earlier remarks about their obscenely inflated pay."
This is tooooooo funny! Obama says nothing about the TRILLIONS in taxpayer dollars that the FED distributed to their central banker buddies around the globe to save their f**king asses and then he claims to be worried that he hurt their feelings? WTF planet is this guy living on? Did he do anything to stop the INFLATED BONUSES/PAY after handing these predators taxpayers' money with no strings attached?
Has anyone noticed the "matter-of-fact" - "this was necessary" inflection in Obama's voice lately? I really can't stand listening to this man anymore.
Many thanks to Ray and the many others who are playing with a full deck.
Here is a reminder for all of you avid but blind Obama adorers. Forget DADT, forget the tax break you get, forget START but remember forever that his administration has ordered today increased SO incursions into Pakistan. You may not realize it but you are tied to another White House fence, the war fence, and you seem to be dangerously unaware of your shackles.
Forget the BP oil gush too...
Here is more for you Obama adorers. In order to get enough Republicans to vote for START (a minimum of 66 Senators are needed for this) Obama has promised to push hard for the "missile shield" in Europe "because it creates jobs here in the USA". Jobs to produce worthless items for a compromise, that seems to be a fine characterization of this administration.
For your own information, I'm not an Obama adorer but thanks for the rest of your informative post.
peacekeepertwo; You can't win against the Right by fighting from the Center. The democrats need to have the Support of left. People are hurting they need Jobs and all sorts of Social Programs, Stop thinking about Corporate Support,thats not going to happen. The Democratic Party needs to give ownership the Party to the People, Accept contributions of no more than $125 per month, from individuals not Corporations. President Obama keep your promise next Time.
peacekeepertwo,
I deeply appreciate if you take your Democrats' FECES elsewhere. Even if your messiah turns around 180 degrees immediately, we will never recover. And there will not be a "... next Time."
I love this article-- right to the point. Stop the damn war!
AD
Sivasm,
LOL!!!
Good one!
:)
"The Democratic Party needs to give ownership the Party to the People"
"President Obama keep your promise next Time"
You're kidding, right?
Obama's promises, along with his Democratic cohorts, is a fucking meaningless joke.
The Democrats ARE the Republicans.
Good grief......
"He seems driven by fear of offending other important Washington constituencies, such as the neoconservative opinion-makers..."
I like Ray McGovern but he seems a bit naive here.
Assuming O truly wants to end these wars (a very dubious assumption) what he actually fears is what happened to the last president who tried to thwart the MIC...getting his brains splattered on a street in broad daylight.
If a protest chants and no one knows...does it make a sound?
"Fear is the mind-killer" (Frank Herbert, Dune)
Gen. Comment -
I think Ray McGovern is indirectly saying the same thing you are. The CIA black ops boys, the Pentagon's intelligence arm, ideologically right wing FBI yahoos with working informant-source relationships within organized crime all constitute "neoconservative opinion-makers" who should not be lightly offended far more than public opinion shapers like Rush Limbaugh, Bill Kristol, or Rupert Murdoch. I don't think Ray's being naive. He's being spylike oblique.
Yes, if a tree falls in the forest with no human ear close enough to hear, it still makes a sound. Regardless of the philosophical nitpickery, this recent White House protest was known to you, to me, known to all sorts of American citizens and reverberated in international media circles. Just because the mainstream US media self-censored the story doesn't mean it didn't make a sound.
Best wishes for the holiday season.
Bill from Saginaw
The falling tree was heard of by a tiny groupe of people self-cloistered at their keyboards in their sealed internet chanbers.
If this event got more attention outside the US, I guess it still did some good. But I just did a check of the Guardian and Al Jazeera English - nothing.
I have a friend that works in d.c. on one of those letter streets. I sent him a link to Hedges article and asked if he heard about it.
Zip.
I have a friend who listens to NPR and didn't know anything about the protest.
"So, if the making of peace today means prison, that’s where we need to be. It is time to accept our responsibility to do ALL we can to stop the violence of wars waged in our name. Now it’s our turn to ponder those questions."
Amen brother.
"Where have all the flowers gone" was written by Pete Seeger in 1955, long before USA involvement in Vietnam. Pete's inspiration was the lyrics of Ukrainian folk song mentioned in a novel by Sholokov (Russian writer who won Nobel Prize) written in 1934.
Seeger found inspiration for the song in October 1955, while on a plane bound for a concert in Ohio. Leafing through his notebook he saw the passage, "Where are the flowers, the girls have plucked them. Where are the girls, they've all taken husbands. Where are the men, they're all in the army."[4] These lines were taken from the traditional Ukrainian folk song "Tovchu, tovchu mak", referenced in the Mikhail Sholokhov novel And Quiet Flows the Don (1934), which Seeger had read "at least a year or two before".[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Have_All_the_Flowers_Gone%3F
Obama: " You are making our country safer ". For whom, may I ask? He could very well be talking about himself, because he knows to obstruct the International war financiers and his MIC masters, would make our country very unsafe for him!
I am not taking up for o by any means but that line "You are making our country safer" is a military doublespeak to supposedly give 'just' cause to their, the whole mic complex, for american hegemon. And you are so right, o does anything out of the outline handed to him for the presidency, and he will find a resting place close to JFK.
I don't find the threat of violence or death as being a reasonable excuse for reniging on campaign promises or the job they were hired by the electorate to accomplish. They knew these threats would come with the job, so if they are so truly afraid, they shouldn't have tried to get the job in the first place.
A president who works hard for the PEOPLE will have his/her back covered by a huge security force...the people that he/she serves.
If threats are made, all that need be done by that president is to shine the spotlight on the group or groups of special interest that made the threat and what they have tried to accomplish by whatever threat, directly to the people via a speech such as the SOTU. By taking this action, unannounced previoulsly of course, said president would also be directly illuminating just who is exactly the true enemy of the people.
JFK sort of worked hard for the people compared to presidents thereafter but security ditched him when he chose to work harder for the people and call for a peaceful future. The book "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters" is a good read on this. Obama is nowhere as close to JFK as far as just trying is concerned.
That is why o is toes the line, so NO o IS nowhere as close to JFK.
Indeed.
I don't buy that Obama can't do the right thing out of fear of assasination.
Thank you, Mr. McGovern, for your actions and sacrifices on our behalf, and for writing this thought-provoking essay.
I acknowledge the efforts of your protest group at the White House last week, but as you note - most Americans are unaware that it even happened because of the choke hold of the corporate media. I think there are millions of Americans of conscience who do question and do understand that we're being 'led astray' again, and who would like to do something (besides voting and contacting so-called 'representatives') to participate and demonstrate their positions.
However, many like myself, would not be likely to participate in massive gatherings or marches, as we see that they usually always end in Violence - with property damaged and innocents injured or killed. It would seem that there must be a better way to make our shared desire (demand?) for peace in this world.
Rather than holding another small demonstration in one town, could those of you with notoriety, resources, connections somehow utilize the internet to organize a massive "people's demonstration" all over the country (or globe) on the order of a work stoppage or moment of stillness or something - in which millions cease what they're doing at the exact same time and 'ponder peace'.???
Someone from CD made an important point in a post within the last ten days that further revealed the corporate stranglehold over our lives. The major networks, including PBS, rely on their corporate sponsors and advertisers for their revenue. It’s also established law that the first duty of corporations is to provide as much profit as possible to its shareholders. Based on this capitalistic imperative corporations can’t broadcast any “news” stories that might diminish the potential for profit. That’s why you don’t hear about war protestors, but every camera in the area is available for the Tea Partiers. As long as corporations own and operate the public airwaves and the print media they can’t report on any dissent that might have an adverse effect on profits.
Everything you say is true, but precisely the same corporate capitalist economic model ruled the public airwaves back in the 1960's when viewers' choices consisted of only CBS, ABC, or NBC, and the mainstream print news shapers were the NY and LA Times, WaPo, the Wall Street Journal, the Monitor, and the same slick weekly news mags.
Same major corporate players in terms of national media coverage. Same incentive to not report any news that might have an adverse effect on profits for advertisers or the corporate media ownership entity. Yet there was coverage up the ying-yang of protest street demonstrations, draft card burnings, Doctor Benjamin Spock, Vietnamese Buddist monks setting themselves ablaze, all night campus teach-ins against the war, and so forth.
The national coverage of the US antiwar movement was "fair and balanced" in the sense that a lot of focus was diverted to the craziest and most violent elements of the movement, and a lot of hawks like Governors Spiro Agnew, Reagan and George Wallace got air time to decry the break down in law and order in the streets being fomented by those angry black power elements and them pointy headed college types who couldn't even park their bicycles straight. Still, there was no news blackout. If 135 people got arrested somewhere (particularly if it happened in front of the White House), it definitely would have been considered news not only fit to print but necessary to print.
What happened? Same capitalist business model. Same profit incentives. Same significance of advertising revenue stream. Different end result.
Even with corporate consolidations and cross ownership of TV, radio, and newspapers in regional markets, there are still more outlets today than in the days of the "Big Three" television networks. Despite more variety of consumer media options, certain newsworthy items (like the Vets for Peace protest arrests) mysteriously are nowhere to be found on the shelves.
I sense what's going on today has more to do with the abscence of journalistic integrity and a loss of guts when it comes to First Amendment issues than it has to do with the timeless influences of money, capitalism, or corporate power.
Bill from Saginaw
Bill, as one who was a college-age anti-Vietnam War protestor in the late 1960's, and has studied the media since then, I must point out that much in our media is very different now, even beyond journalistic integrity.
See the following: FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting): http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=101
Media Matters For America: http://mediamatters.org/
Finally, read the following, even though they are now a few years old:
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
The New Media Monopoly by Ben H. Bagdikian
BILL: There was much greater tolerance for actual freedom and diversity 30 years ago. Sure, there were major broadcast companies then, too; but the sense of media CONTROL was nothing like it is today. I would say that the entire nation has lurched to the right mostly due to the influence of militarism added to the rise of fundamentalist Christianity. (The assassination of key leaders played into events markedly, too.) Both systems are inherently authoritarian; and of course that means they feel they own the right to narrow opinions and shape them where necessary.
One glaring omission in this article is, in my view, a reflection of Ray's own identification with military (CIA) "culture" for much of his lifetime. He is so focused on analyzing Obama's moves relative to the military big whigs, that he fails to notice WHY these wars are being pursued in the first place. Part is that the MIC requires a fear-driven rationale in order to year after year drum up the expenditures it demands. Yet the dark revelation exposed by both Smedley Butler & John Perkins, as to the military serving as the fist in the glove to service international corporate interests and their will to acquire foreign assets is mysteriously absent from Ray's analysis. Nor are oil, gas, or geopolitical advantages mentioned.
It would seem that Ray views the president's decisions on some kind of chessboard where only the other pieces on the board, and their moves, configure into the calculus. That renders modern history into a play about characters... as if the resources driving their actions are irrelevant!
"Neck Deep in the Big Sandy"
We now sink in a quagmire like
The one not long ago
In which we went insane and fought
A non-existent foe:
A Monolithic Communist
In Southeast Asia so
Determined to resist us that
We had make him go.
He looked like a Vietnamese,
This awful threat to us,
Whose very foreign nature made
Him frightening and thus
A perfect proxy for a war
Against a concept, plus:
He even lived a world away,
Which made him less a fuss.
Still, he prevailed, this “enemy.”
In time, we packed and went.
And since we never met him it’s
A wonder why we sent
Our youth to squander so much blood
And all that money spent
To buy a house we didn’t want
And couldn’t even rent.
We’ve come around to sink once more
Where no one ever planned.
Instead of Delta mud, this time,
We sink in desert sand
Because an adolescent twerp
Could not wait to “command”
Some troops behind which he could hide
His thieving sleight-of-hand.
But things have not gone well, of course.
Wars based on lies and fraud
In no time go awry and leave
Our legions mauled and clawed,
Marooned for years and trapped by those
Who – neither shocked nor awed --
Reserve the right to rule themselves
And name their own one GAWD.
With chickens coming home to roost,
Our “hawks,” like capons clipped,
Cluck mighty yarns to obfuscate
The fact that they have slipped
And fallen face-down in some shit
In which them fate has dipped
To show what happens when the dumb
Some booby-traps have tripped.
So now they stall and drag their feet
And hope to pass the buck.
They cannot “win,” yet fear to “lose,”
Which means they’ve gotten stuck
For knowing not what makes a train
So much unlike a truck,
And what makes gamblers lose when they
Confuse blind faith with luck.
They offer up excuses now,
Some new ones every year.
To kick the can on down the road,
They’ll peddle any fear
As long as no one questions all
That loot that they hold dear.
Examples follow, now, of what
We’ve come to see so clear:
We stay because of violence
That we cannot prevent.
We stay, inflicting violence,
To mask our true intent.
We stay so that the perpetrators
Never must repent.
We stay for any rationale
A baboon could invent.
We will not leave because we can’t
Acknowledge what we’ve done:
Destroyed another nation just
To have a bit of fun,
Convincing no one but ourselves
That “We are Number One!”
While promising eternity
To never cut-and-run;
Which cavalier vainglory and
Contempt for other lands
Has proved that power ought to lie
In someone else’s hands
Since we’ve abandoned reason for
Stupidity’s demands,
Secreting noxious hormones from
Our self-indulgent glands.
We stay because we stay because
We stay because we stay,
And have not one intention to
Reflect in any way
Upon the dumb decisions we
Make each and every day
Allowing war’s lewd profiteers
To keep on making hay.
The senselessness might puzzle those
Who once thought that they think
But now must face the music and
The awful fact they stink
At any form of logic, needing
Visits to a shrink
To straighten out crude fallacies
Revealed in blots of ink.
The psychiatric tradesmen say
That once a lie is bought
It then makes perfect sense to claim
That no one ever taught
The method of distinguishing
The concepts “is” and “ought,”
Implying that what we have done
Does not mean that we’re caught
In vicious-circle riddles
That contain no terms defined
In such a way that one might solve
Conundrums of a kind
That only fools would formulate
To muddle up the mind
So that the answers to our woes
No one will ever find.
Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2009
MICHAEL: Good one! My favorite stanzas are "We stay because..."
And by the way, I like your screen name. Clever.
Thank you. Back in the Nixon-Kissinger Fig Leaf Contingent (Vietnam 1970-72), we had many sardonic slogans, like conscripted cannon fodder of all times and places. Among them, the old solipsistic favorite: "We're here because we're here because we're here because we're here," and "We are the unwilling led by the unqualified to do the unnecessary for the ungrateful. In one form or other, I've managed to get those two -- and others like them -- into several verses.
The career lifers, naturally, had their slogans, too: like, "Don't knock the war, it's the only one we've got," and "Grab 'em by the balls and their hearts and minds will follow." I suppose that with the "all-volunteer" professional/mercenary Army of today, these two pretty much still tell the tale, especially in the ticket-punching officer corps.
The above mention of Pete Seeger's Vietnam-era protest song, naturally, accounts for the inspiration behind my own composition.
Thanks for your own postings on so many topics. I usually find them and Bill-from-Saginaw's of more than passing interest. Keep up the good work.
Often recently, protesting French folks are deemed worthy of emulation. But there's more context to their reasons for protesting that few here are aware of. Larry Portis's item published at CounterPunch is highly informative, http://www.counterpunch.org/portis12212010.html
"In a country once called the “political laboratory of the world” (by Karl Marx), the present French government is quickening the pace towards the creation of a “police state” in which the forces of repression are not only centralized but also militarized in the strictest sense of the word. The French state is now perfecting its police power in dealing with “civil disturbances” by militarizing population control."
If you would like a preview of what we are facing in the "United(?)" States, read Jack London's "The Iron Heel."
Most of those who read and think are aware of the Oligarchy and its aims. The Oligarchy's fathers or grandfathers felt that we were very close to the "natural order of things" during the "Guilded Age" in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Most of the wealth was held by a very small number of people. The people were exploited and impoverished and the profits rolled in. As the poverty increased, people competed for the few jobs offered, fighting amongst themselves for the privilege of working long hours for little pay. Any taint of dissatisfaction led to a firing, and often a beating as well.
The two Roosevelt's turned a lot of this around, with trust busting legislation and legislation to protect the working man and his family; to create jobs and strengthen the economy. Since Nixon and Reagan, most of those gains have been wiped out or reversed by a bought and paid for US Government that serves at the pleasure of the Oligarchy
We are once again approaching the "Guilded Age" where the few very rich control the economy. They have virtually destroyed the middle class and made beggars out of the working class. Eventually, we are to become a nation of homeless, hungry, sick serfs, willing to do what we are told if we can just get another meal.
When the day comes that the US has a hundred or a hundred-fifty million people living under cardboard in alleys, or in tent cities across the nation, (where, in winter, they take the frozen bodies out like cordwood every morning) begging for their food, or some sort of menial job. That may be the time when people will take to the streets. There may even be agents provocateurs to stir them up.
NorthCom has been training returning combat brigades in such skills as "Suppressing Civil Unrest." There have been many advances in "crowd control," the "Pain Ray," the "Sound Cannon," various nausea gasses. When the day comes that the people rise up in desperation, then We the People shall find out what foreign countries are going through, for the sky will be full of drones, towns laid waste, the streets full of tanks and the KBR no-bid concentration camps will fill. Possibly, the ovens will be stoked and we will have come full circle.
We have gone from being citizens of a Constitutional Republic to subjects of a bloodthirsty empire. Now we face becoming the serfs of an uncaring, profit driven oligarchy.
As I've said before, sooner or later this empire will fall as all others have, collapsing from the dry-rot within, but meanwhile we shall thoroughly learn misery, hunger, and the whips of authority.
IRISH: Do you know the year of the copyright on Nolan's book? I wrote--and published--something along the same lines 2 years ago. It's probably another one of those Hundredth Monkey type occurrences. Thanks for the post. I never understood why there needs to be such rigid diametrically opposed camps (evolution versus Intelligent Design). I think the division rests on the idea of Creation being "finite," as opposed to the ongoing dance of life as it interacts with the push-pull forces of Creation and Destruction.
SR& Irish,
Well stated.
Obviously "intelligent design" made huge numbers of humongous errors such as the dinosaurs which "intelligent design" then erased by sending a big asteroid to collide with Earth. No more needs to be said to demonstrate that "intelligent design" is colossal humbug.
Hi Siouxrose.
I've always been a bit amused by the alleged dichotomy of evolution vs intelligent design. Is it not possible that Someone, or Something of vast intelligence long ago set in motion this wonderful system of evolution and growth from stars and galaxies to mustard seeds?
I sometimes wonder though if one of these days, Someone is going to step into the lab, sniff, and say, "That petrie dish is really beginning to stink. Dump it, wash it out and we'll try something else." ;-)
MINITRUE: Civilizations, Lemuria & Atlantis, have been wiped out when they operated in a manner diametrically opposed to Universal Law. Cayce warned (back in the l940's) that many Atlanteans were reincarnating in America, and would bring their genetic engineering capacities with them.
I feel we are repeating MUCH that took place in Atlantis, and if civilization manages to make it through this pro-war era, I hope the book I have nearly completed (which ties all this together) will make sense for future generations.
The Teachers can only bring the teachings. They cannot, in and of themselves, counter the influence of those that turn humanity against itself. How many peacemakers do we see in media? Where is the message of turning the other cheek, or the realization that war extracts an endless cost from all of us... by rapidly deteriorating our quality of life.
I don't see Creator in a human form, as I believe that's the error of human perception. That there are higher forms of Intelligence within the cosmos is a certainty. In fact, it's plausible that our planet is a genetic experiment that a higher civilization put into effect. If so, like Fox Maulder, I hope the perpetrators show up to possibly remove, or genetically modify, the individuals who are intent on bringing nothing but misery, hell-fire and damnation, to so many innocents.
One way or another, too many prophecies speak about this interim as a phase of MAJOR change, for "business (the death business) as usual" to continue. Like the (funny) film with Jack Nicholson, "Something's Gotta Give!"
I find the only interesting belief about the origin of the universe the idea that God came into being, found the universe, and decided to preserve it because this is the only belief that is based on a direct observation today namely that the universe does not suddenly vanish from one microsecond to the next. I find that interesting but do not subscribe to it.