Saturday, September 17, 2011
Looking for American RCAF WW2 Volunteer Memories
"We are developing a major network television special on those Americans who enlisted and flew in the Royal Canadian Air Force in the early years of World War Two. The program will be aired in the United States and abroad. We intend for this special to be a definitive record of the heroism and sacrifice of these men who bravely answered the call for help of a neighbor. As part of the process of preparing this television event we will be interviewing some of the veterans of this time. However, to tell the story more intimately, we are also searching for diaries of detailed log books of these fliers, living or dead, so that the program can be presented as much as possible in their own words. It would be nice if such diaries or logs contained detailed observations by the men about their training, why they chose to enlist in the RCAF, their reactions to England and the feelings and fears about their experiences in aerial combat. Any original material sent to us will be copied and promptly returned to you. Your willingness to allow us to use these diaries or logbooks will be an important part in presenting the story of these men to a generation who know little or nothing about it. We appreciate you help" You may contact me at wmpmacm@gmail.com, or David Devries, the Producer at Devriesfarm@aol.com
Saturday, October 4, 2008
The Money Economy
Years ago - much before the trend of getting a college education solely for how much money it would get you - I decided to get a degree that improved my ability to live well, enjoy the world and people, and - well - grant me an education. I wanted a liberal arts degree, and took one in history at my nearby state university. I got a good education. I had good professors and learned a great deal from living in the dorms with my fellow students, and worked in the library, and had a long time girlfriend (much to my own surprise, frankly) - who is still a friend, and joined a fraternity, and drank lots of beer, and ate pizza with friends, suffered over exams. I liked it and it has stood me in good stead.
But today, after reading Judith Warner's piece in the New York Times about suddenly finding ourselves outstripped financially by the business jocks who have made millions bankrupting the country, I wonder how many people still believe that all a college education is supposed to do is train you to make money somewhere?
I did not know what I wanted to do, but I wanted to know what I was doing and what it meant in the world when I did it. I am an idealist who has taken over 30 years to get to a PhD, and still am not sure what it is suppose to do for me. I know what I have had to do for it. I have had to study. I have had to engage my teaching profession and the world with different eyes every time a shift of perspective took hold. I have had to explore and reflect and make connections and comprehend, and remain baffled, and argue my points, and take criticism, and evaluate new situations, and accept premises from others I could not deny. I haven't made a boat load of money, although I am pleased with my current salary. I enjoy the company of my students (all adults) and revel in helping them find new ways of living and earning a better living, and discovering the benefits of reading and math. All that stuff. Good stuff.
And contrary to many and my daughter's advice, I haven't been diligent about saving for the future, or investing in the stock market to make my money work for me. Ms. Warner states it, and I understand what happened in the 1970's. Homelessness began to appear, and the idea that one income could support a family began to be a joke, not the reality of American economic life. Wall Street began upping the cost of living, and international markets drove companies out of the US, and unions out of companies. But, I am not that competitive about money. I believe that if you do what you love, the money will follow, but searching for money as an end in itself is really an empty victory. The financial institutions have tanked in the past few weeks, and those who placed their faith in their brokers have lost what they invested including the trust they placed in financial markets and the men who run them. I'll forgive myself for not getting in on the Market, because I take heed in what a person told me a few years ago. She had worked for 20+ years for a major corporation that had guaranteed her a good retirement. Not so. Everything she earned, saved, and expected was lost in a take over, or bankruptcy or merger or something. Over the years I have heard lots of stories like this. They serve as cautionary tales.
I prefer to work on being able to work each day the rest of my life because I know that I cannot expect anyone else to place as much value on what I do as I do myself. I'll start saving some money, yes, but I will also look and work at exploring what else I can do to enjoy my life and what I do without having to keep one eye on my portfolio.
It is true that money will get you a lot of things, but it isn't everything. It helps, but I prefer to be flexible and intellectually alert and use my ideas to enhance my life. Money's ok, but you can't eat it, and it won't keep you warm at night. It is a means. Not an end.
But today, after reading Judith Warner's piece in the New York Times about suddenly finding ourselves outstripped financially by the business jocks who have made millions bankrupting the country, I wonder how many people still believe that all a college education is supposed to do is train you to make money somewhere?
I did not know what I wanted to do, but I wanted to know what I was doing and what it meant in the world when I did it. I am an idealist who has taken over 30 years to get to a PhD, and still am not sure what it is suppose to do for me. I know what I have had to do for it. I have had to study. I have had to engage my teaching profession and the world with different eyes every time a shift of perspective took hold. I have had to explore and reflect and make connections and comprehend, and remain baffled, and argue my points, and take criticism, and evaluate new situations, and accept premises from others I could not deny. I haven't made a boat load of money, although I am pleased with my current salary. I enjoy the company of my students (all adults) and revel in helping them find new ways of living and earning a better living, and discovering the benefits of reading and math. All that stuff. Good stuff.
And contrary to many and my daughter's advice, I haven't been diligent about saving for the future, or investing in the stock market to make my money work for me. Ms. Warner states it, and I understand what happened in the 1970's. Homelessness began to appear, and the idea that one income could support a family began to be a joke, not the reality of American economic life. Wall Street began upping the cost of living, and international markets drove companies out of the US, and unions out of companies. But, I am not that competitive about money. I believe that if you do what you love, the money will follow, but searching for money as an end in itself is really an empty victory. The financial institutions have tanked in the past few weeks, and those who placed their faith in their brokers have lost what they invested including the trust they placed in financial markets and the men who run them. I'll forgive myself for not getting in on the Market, because I take heed in what a person told me a few years ago. She had worked for 20+ years for a major corporation that had guaranteed her a good retirement. Not so. Everything she earned, saved, and expected was lost in a take over, or bankruptcy or merger or something. Over the years I have heard lots of stories like this. They serve as cautionary tales.
I prefer to work on being able to work each day the rest of my life because I know that I cannot expect anyone else to place as much value on what I do as I do myself. I'll start saving some money, yes, but I will also look and work at exploring what else I can do to enjoy my life and what I do without having to keep one eye on my portfolio.
It is true that money will get you a lot of things, but it isn't everything. It helps, but I prefer to be flexible and intellectually alert and use my ideas to enhance my life. Money's ok, but you can't eat it, and it won't keep you warm at night. It is a means. Not an end.
Justice Delayed
I read today that O.J. Simpson is finally going to jail. I believe that is a good thing although I felt he was being punished by living his life on the outside, among people who could look at him and declare (if they chose to) " I know you killed Ron and Nicole." I watched the trial; nearly all of it from beginning to end for eight months. I believed the man who was walking his dog and saw the white Bronco speed through the alleyways. I believed Kato Kalin who said he heard someone scramble behind his guest house where they fund the glove. I believed them because they didn't have anything to hide. They were just there and told what they knew.
But there were flaws in the case that the defense made good use of. I may be one of the few that thinks the prosecution did a good job, but they were undermined by shoddy police work. And the critical point is that the detectives who traced O.J.'s vehicle to his house jumped the fence without getting a warrant. Right there, at that point in time, the case was doomed. All kinds of evidenced gleaned from the car and the blood stains gathered from the car were ruled inadmissible evidence. The prosecution could not convince anyone on the jury that it was O.J. who had done the deed.
If you don't believe in the power of the 4th amendment of the U.S.Constitution, look what it did for O.J. Simpson.
Of course, IMO, there was a fatal flaw in jury selection as well. O.J.'s peers were not the African Americans from Alameda, or Compton as was asserted since he was a black man; they were the people of Bel Air and his social circle where he, as a million dollar sports hero lived his life. A jury of his peers did not decide his guilt or innocence, but a jury of individuals who had their own tales of injustice before the bar. The verdict of acquittal was the jury's response to other injustices that reverberated throughout the trial - that of color, and class, and privilege, and marrying across color lines, and all that. All the evidence, including the DNA evidence presented couldn't make a dent in the pre-conceived desire to let him go free despite anything he may have done.
The glove over the latex glove was a travesty. "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."
The prosecution was outmaneuvered.
I was teaching a class at a high school in the San Diego area at that time - the day the verdict came in - I was covering a history class for a teacher who was going to be a week late. With a television in the room and a national trial filling the airwaves every day for nearly a year, I had to let them watch the verdict come in. There were a large number of African American students in the room. They cheered. They were unmistakably glad that he had beat the rap.
I shut off the television and redirected the class's energy the best I could, but I knew justice had not been served. It made me wonder just how many people actually understood that fair trials and solid evidence could also protect them in a court of law, and that it was important to maintain the integrity of police procedures, constitutional protections, and the chain of evidence. But we were not dealing with objectivity here, only an emotional response that one of their own had been set free, even though he may have committed murder. How many blacks over the past centuries in the US had been condemned to death unfairly in just such a proceeding? Thousands, I would guess. This victory was a symbolic one.
As a fatalist of sorts and a believer in poetic justice, I had to content myself with the civil trial and his public flogging in the press and public. It comes as no surprise to me that he tripped up. Perhaps it was a subconscious set-up whereby, failing to heed his own internal survival instincts, he let himself be governed by his feelings of being wronged again take over. Who knows?
This time, there was no midnight flight to Chicago to dump the bloody evidence. No melting ice cream to tell the time. This time no long drawn out slow freeway chase. Just a charge of armed robbery he could not escape.
The grist mill of the gods grinds slowly but it grinds very fine.
But there were flaws in the case that the defense made good use of. I may be one of the few that thinks the prosecution did a good job, but they were undermined by shoddy police work. And the critical point is that the detectives who traced O.J.'s vehicle to his house jumped the fence without getting a warrant. Right there, at that point in time, the case was doomed. All kinds of evidenced gleaned from the car and the blood stains gathered from the car were ruled inadmissible evidence. The prosecution could not convince anyone on the jury that it was O.J. who had done the deed.
If you don't believe in the power of the 4th amendment of the U.S.Constitution, look what it did for O.J. Simpson.
Of course, IMO, there was a fatal flaw in jury selection as well. O.J.'s peers were not the African Americans from Alameda, or Compton as was asserted since he was a black man; they were the people of Bel Air and his social circle where he, as a million dollar sports hero lived his life. A jury of his peers did not decide his guilt or innocence, but a jury of individuals who had their own tales of injustice before the bar. The verdict of acquittal was the jury's response to other injustices that reverberated throughout the trial - that of color, and class, and privilege, and marrying across color lines, and all that. All the evidence, including the DNA evidence presented couldn't make a dent in the pre-conceived desire to let him go free despite anything he may have done.
The glove over the latex glove was a travesty. "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."
The prosecution was outmaneuvered.
I was teaching a class at a high school in the San Diego area at that time - the day the verdict came in - I was covering a history class for a teacher who was going to be a week late. With a television in the room and a national trial filling the airwaves every day for nearly a year, I had to let them watch the verdict come in. There were a large number of African American students in the room. They cheered. They were unmistakably glad that he had beat the rap.
I shut off the television and redirected the class's energy the best I could, but I knew justice had not been served. It made me wonder just how many people actually understood that fair trials and solid evidence could also protect them in a court of law, and that it was important to maintain the integrity of police procedures, constitutional protections, and the chain of evidence. But we were not dealing with objectivity here, only an emotional response that one of their own had been set free, even though he may have committed murder. How many blacks over the past centuries in the US had been condemned to death unfairly in just such a proceeding? Thousands, I would guess. This victory was a symbolic one.
As a fatalist of sorts and a believer in poetic justice, I had to content myself with the civil trial and his public flogging in the press and public. It comes as no surprise to me that he tripped up. Perhaps it was a subconscious set-up whereby, failing to heed his own internal survival instincts, he let himself be governed by his feelings of being wronged again take over. Who knows?
This time, there was no midnight flight to Chicago to dump the bloody evidence. No melting ice cream to tell the time. This time no long drawn out slow freeway chase. Just a charge of armed robbery he could not escape.
The grist mill of the gods grinds slowly but it grinds very fine.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Volunteering for War
A friend of mine recently sent me a photo of a large number of troops re-enlisting in Iraq claiming it was a piece of news that has been overlooked in the press. It has, I suppose, but claiming a re-enlistment as a vistory for the average soldier in these times ignores the problems in fighting a war started by men who dodged the draft (repeatedly)after 1965 in order to escape going to Vietnam.
Thre is no argument from this quarter about supporting the troops. I supportthe troops. But this issue is not about the troops. Soldiers do what they are ordered to because they have taken on that duty. No problem with that at all. My position is that they have been placed in a no-win situation by the very people we elected to handle our nation's business, and instead decided - ahead of time and on their own- to place the nation at risk for their own person gain. This war in Iraq was designed to create a client state to supply us with oil. And the damage by the Bush administration did is beyond calculation - and all of them - Cheney, Wolfowitz, Fife, et al. dodged the draft in the Vietnam War. How strange that we, a nation that claims honorable service in wartime as a qualification for high political office would elect these chickenhawks, these cowards, to send their children and husbands off to war as if a bed of roses awaited them as they emerged from their dusty tanks.
So I do not see a massive re-enlistment ceremony as a plus for our troops. It prolongs the agony, and increases the individual damage and the family damage at home. For a party that claims it fosters family values, this is a strange way to do it. Sent home these mentally and physically incapacitated men and women have been left at the mercy of market forces and contracted hospital care. Outsourced veterans care. What? So now we will have another generation of abandoned vets. Thankfully many people like my friend (and others of course) care enough to make a difference in the way they are treated as opposed to the way the Vietnam Vets were. But we learned from our recent Walter reed Medical Center scandal that market forces are a poor mandate for taking care of our wounded.
But remember also: We slip our dead home in the dead of night so no one can see the damaged cargo. We then ship them off to their families for private grieving and a few nice words and a flag from the DoD. We do not honor them as the British do theirs, and publicly notice their sacrifice. In this way the administration can avoid the public outcry and leave the crying to the private lives of families and friends. By operating in this way there is little opposition to any one individual's death. After release from the military, the individual is left to his or her own devices on how to cope.
I also take strong opposition about turning the National Guard into a branch of the US Army. It is for national defense, and not for overseas combat. To reverse the historical mission further aggravates the situation at home and abroad since these men and women wee essentially conscripted and are now subject to stop-loss programs and financial incentives to stay in the combat zone.
The administration needs photo opportunities like the one my friend sent me to show there is a consensus among the military about staying, but the suicide rate, the divorce rate, the angry life at home, the fatherless children, and the lost income from veteran joblessness and hopelessness and psychological problems goes unsaid. This administration knows full well that if they let the press actually report what is happening, there would be a larger public outcry against the war. Therefore only what they want reported gets reported, and the main stream press is complicit since they have had their balls cut off by the restrictions on access.
Furthermore we have hired a separate private army of mercenaries at great expense that runs parallel to he US military and acts as if they are on a Rambo mission over there, essentially destroying the work of a proper military operation by operating outside the law. For their large salaries the government gets cowboys and war profiteers who would like nothing more than to continue their lucrative contract heedless of individual damage. It is another form of war profiteering, and the boots on the ground in real US military uniforms are the ones who bear he brunt of the war at lower pay.
However, at this point they are volunteers and not patriotic citizens doing the necessary work of the government. They are paid to volunteer and held in place by promises of more pay should they survive. This is a mercenary army, in it for financial benefits. I do not feel sorry for anyone in Iraq voluntarily because they are adults and have chosen that situation to work in. It is sad, nonetheless, that we have so outsourced patriotism that we have to bribe people to serve. That should be enough of a red flag for us to know we are on the wrong track.
I am still a humanitarian and I feel aggrieved that we destroyed Iraq in order to try and make it our own. It was a highly literate society. Islamic issues were secular and women had rights and opportunities. It was orderly even though the despot who ran the country, Saddam Hussein, was a regional troublemaker who was not even chastised by his neighbors. Diplomacy continued and strengthened through serious negotiation would have correctedthe situation. But by going in with guns blazing we have done all this work so the Saudis and Syrians, and Jordanians, etc. wouldn't have to get their hands dirty. Couple this with the fact that all the 9/11 activists were Saudi Arabian and the Iraqis never did us a bit of harm, we decided to create mayhem in their country rather than face the cold hard fact that our own foreign policies keep repressive governments in power in order to insure a supply of oil to the US. And they hate us,the people do, not for our freedoms, but for the way we pander to governments who are repressive to their own people, hate foreigners, and live lavish lifestyles while the populace is poor. And the leaders hate us too, for our foolishness in killing ourselves off while countries like Dubai build lavish seaside resorts on oil profits gathered from, who else? US!
I believe we have been had, and the 53 percent of the US population that keeps this engine running is refusing to see that our troubles have multiplied becasue they have stemmed from our electing a man on a dry drunk, a man who cannot utter a coherent English sentence (fetal alcohol syndrome, I believe), who left his post during war time in 1972 (That's called AWOL) and disappeared from public view for twenty years,bankrupted four oil companies over that time, and then as president hired on 17 draft dodgers to fabricate a war. At the same time he has bankrupted the country.
This has been done by American businessmen who claimed they knew what they were doing. But all we have to show for it is a continual begging bowl to get the taxpayer to foot the bills for their mistakes, mistakes that have taken the savings and livelihood of millions of ordinary citizens, and not even acknowledging they have done anything wrong. And we let them get away with it - and that is the saddest part - we hold no one accountable, only the little guy.
And the use of torture to extract information? - the use of torture by this government is an abomination and such a black mark on this nation's honor, that we have sunk so low. Everyone involved should be charged with crimes against humanity.
As a nation we have become so innured to holding people accountable fortheir actions that we only go after the weak and disenfranchised. Big wigs like Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Fife, and Dick Cheney will never be punished because we have become a nation that no longer knows that getting at the truth through judicial investigation is not smearing the perpertrator's reputation. We do ourselves a great disservice by not charging government officials with crimes they do in our name but without our permission. We seem to have no trouble going after people like Slobodan Milosovic or Pinochet, but when the same actions are committed by our own, we get cold feet. In my estimation, then, when good men and women fail to speak out, and we allow those who would expose the truth be silenced in order to keep the peace, we, all of us, are cowards.
Thre is no argument from this quarter about supporting the troops. I supportthe troops. But this issue is not about the troops. Soldiers do what they are ordered to because they have taken on that duty. No problem with that at all. My position is that they have been placed in a no-win situation by the very people we elected to handle our nation's business, and instead decided - ahead of time and on their own- to place the nation at risk for their own person gain. This war in Iraq was designed to create a client state to supply us with oil. And the damage by the Bush administration did is beyond calculation - and all of them - Cheney, Wolfowitz, Fife, et al. dodged the draft in the Vietnam War. How strange that we, a nation that claims honorable service in wartime as a qualification for high political office would elect these chickenhawks, these cowards, to send their children and husbands off to war as if a bed of roses awaited them as they emerged from their dusty tanks.
So I do not see a massive re-enlistment ceremony as a plus for our troops. It prolongs the agony, and increases the individual damage and the family damage at home. For a party that claims it fosters family values, this is a strange way to do it. Sent home these mentally and physically incapacitated men and women have been left at the mercy of market forces and contracted hospital care. Outsourced veterans care. What? So now we will have another generation of abandoned vets. Thankfully many people like my friend (and others of course) care enough to make a difference in the way they are treated as opposed to the way the Vietnam Vets were. But we learned from our recent Walter reed Medical Center scandal that market forces are a poor mandate for taking care of our wounded.
But remember also: We slip our dead home in the dead of night so no one can see the damaged cargo. We then ship them off to their families for private grieving and a few nice words and a flag from the DoD. We do not honor them as the British do theirs, and publicly notice their sacrifice. In this way the administration can avoid the public outcry and leave the crying to the private lives of families and friends. By operating in this way there is little opposition to any one individual's death. After release from the military, the individual is left to his or her own devices on how to cope.
I also take strong opposition about turning the National Guard into a branch of the US Army. It is for national defense, and not for overseas combat. To reverse the historical mission further aggravates the situation at home and abroad since these men and women wee essentially conscripted and are now subject to stop-loss programs and financial incentives to stay in the combat zone.
The administration needs photo opportunities like the one my friend sent me to show there is a consensus among the military about staying, but the suicide rate, the divorce rate, the angry life at home, the fatherless children, and the lost income from veteran joblessness and hopelessness and psychological problems goes unsaid. This administration knows full well that if they let the press actually report what is happening, there would be a larger public outcry against the war. Therefore only what they want reported gets reported, and the main stream press is complicit since they have had their balls cut off by the restrictions on access.
Furthermore we have hired a separate private army of mercenaries at great expense that runs parallel to he US military and acts as if they are on a Rambo mission over there, essentially destroying the work of a proper military operation by operating outside the law. For their large salaries the government gets cowboys and war profiteers who would like nothing more than to continue their lucrative contract heedless of individual damage. It is another form of war profiteering, and the boots on the ground in real US military uniforms are the ones who bear he brunt of the war at lower pay.
However, at this point they are volunteers and not patriotic citizens doing the necessary work of the government. They are paid to volunteer and held in place by promises of more pay should they survive. This is a mercenary army, in it for financial benefits. I do not feel sorry for anyone in Iraq voluntarily because they are adults and have chosen that situation to work in. It is sad, nonetheless, that we have so outsourced patriotism that we have to bribe people to serve. That should be enough of a red flag for us to know we are on the wrong track.
I am still a humanitarian and I feel aggrieved that we destroyed Iraq in order to try and make it our own. It was a highly literate society. Islamic issues were secular and women had rights and opportunities. It was orderly even though the despot who ran the country, Saddam Hussein, was a regional troublemaker who was not even chastised by his neighbors. Diplomacy continued and strengthened through serious negotiation would have correctedthe situation. But by going in with guns blazing we have done all this work so the Saudis and Syrians, and Jordanians, etc. wouldn't have to get their hands dirty. Couple this with the fact that all the 9/11 activists were Saudi Arabian and the Iraqis never did us a bit of harm, we decided to create mayhem in their country rather than face the cold hard fact that our own foreign policies keep repressive governments in power in order to insure a supply of oil to the US. And they hate us,the people do, not for our freedoms, but for the way we pander to governments who are repressive to their own people, hate foreigners, and live lavish lifestyles while the populace is poor. And the leaders hate us too, for our foolishness in killing ourselves off while countries like Dubai build lavish seaside resorts on oil profits gathered from, who else? US!
I believe we have been had, and the 53 percent of the US population that keeps this engine running is refusing to see that our troubles have multiplied becasue they have stemmed from our electing a man on a dry drunk, a man who cannot utter a coherent English sentence (fetal alcohol syndrome, I believe), who left his post during war time in 1972 (That's called AWOL) and disappeared from public view for twenty years,bankrupted four oil companies over that time, and then as president hired on 17 draft dodgers to fabricate a war. At the same time he has bankrupted the country.
This has been done by American businessmen who claimed they knew what they were doing. But all we have to show for it is a continual begging bowl to get the taxpayer to foot the bills for their mistakes, mistakes that have taken the savings and livelihood of millions of ordinary citizens, and not even acknowledging they have done anything wrong. And we let them get away with it - and that is the saddest part - we hold no one accountable, only the little guy.
And the use of torture to extract information? - the use of torture by this government is an abomination and such a black mark on this nation's honor, that we have sunk so low. Everyone involved should be charged with crimes against humanity.
As a nation we have become so innured to holding people accountable fortheir actions that we only go after the weak and disenfranchised. Big wigs like Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Fife, and Dick Cheney will never be punished because we have become a nation that no longer knows that getting at the truth through judicial investigation is not smearing the perpertrator's reputation. We do ourselves a great disservice by not charging government officials with crimes they do in our name but without our permission. We seem to have no trouble going after people like Slobodan Milosovic or Pinochet, but when the same actions are committed by our own, we get cold feet. In my estimation, then, when good men and women fail to speak out, and we allow those who would expose the truth be silenced in order to keep the peace, we, all of us, are cowards.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Risk Aversion
When I drank - years and years ago - I knew about Raleigh Hills and its method for curing alcoholism; aversion therapy. That's where they let you drink as much as you can in the belief that if you drank enough and got sick often enough, you'd quit out of some inner common sense that said "Enough!" Well, we know that doesn't work. Or as a friend of mine said once, "Raleigh Hills worked for me....26 times." We don't avoid things that way if they are so built into us they require a massive shift in our sense of Self.
But what about other things? Like leaving home - under duress - Do we hang on to a marriage for so long that we are afraid to leave the nest, no matter how uncomfortable? What happens when that happens? Well, some people get married again right away. That's how my ancestors did it when a wife was indispensable for the running of a farm and children were the labor force. It still happens today, and I think partly out of needing the sense of the familiar, even though the partner has changed.
In the movie, "Mama Mia," the children decide not to get married and leave the island to explore the world and themselves (together). The parents (and that is the peculiar question of the movie)stay at the church and finally get married in order to have their adventure - as in "Candide" - in their own backyard. Adventure is in the eyes of the beholder, I suppose; each taking previously avoided risks in order to find security.
When I drank (and drove) - because that is the only story I have and I am sticking to it - I took risks I never thought I could ever take every time I got behind the wheel. These were not calculated; they were incidental to my willingness to place myself in harm's way without thinking. After I sobered up, I decided to live and so became more conservative in my behavior, and avoided unnecessary risks in order to find stability. Frankly, I do not believe in security. There is none. There are no guarantees in this life, but a person can minimize the dangers by leading a life of calculated risk and careful execution of a life plan (doubtful there). People save all their lives and become victims of all sorts of unfortunate circumstances. Nature is indiscriminate and a fact of life on this planet. People live in the shadow of volcanoes and right on the seashore, and if they have the "right" attitude know they take a risk, but that it may not come true any time soon.
I have family in Hawaii who lost their home to a lava flow. That's life on Hawaii. My father flew combat missions for 30 months during WW2 and lived to tell the tale. He took a risk at at every turn, and for years after while he flew. Flying is dangerous you know. But, you trust in your abilities and the capabilities of your ground crew to keep you alive in the air.
So, I just bought a motor scooter. A few are wondering about my sanity and safety, but others have encouraged me to enjoy the adventure. I assiduously avoided two wheeled motorized vehicles all my life, having ridden only twice. Yet now, with gasoline prices high, and becoming rapidly tired of paying out all my discretionary income to unseen market forces and lack of governmental planning for the eventual demise of the oil driven vehicle, the idea of riding a motor scooter has become appealing to me. This is strange. Economics combined with necessity, changes the landscape of my thinking so that I now become brave enough to climb on a 460cc power plant to propel me down the highway all to save a few bucks. I refuse, at this time to give up my BMW, since it cost me my marriage to be that independent - I'll hang on to it. I'll drive it less. But not right now, because I now have to learn how to ride my new machine and learn to ride it safely and overcome my aversion to placing myself so close to danger.
So I consider that the real overcoming of the fear of taking risks is actually the decision that precedes the action of engaging in a calculated risk. We are all afraid but if we push the envelope a little, I am finding that acting on my desire to take hold of my own life for my own sake is a liberating act of taking personal and direct responsibility for my life.
But what about other things? Like leaving home - under duress - Do we hang on to a marriage for so long that we are afraid to leave the nest, no matter how uncomfortable? What happens when that happens? Well, some people get married again right away. That's how my ancestors did it when a wife was indispensable for the running of a farm and children were the labor force. It still happens today, and I think partly out of needing the sense of the familiar, even though the partner has changed.
In the movie, "Mama Mia," the children decide not to get married and leave the island to explore the world and themselves (together). The parents (and that is the peculiar question of the movie)stay at the church and finally get married in order to have their adventure - as in "Candide" - in their own backyard. Adventure is in the eyes of the beholder, I suppose; each taking previously avoided risks in order to find security.
When I drank (and drove) - because that is the only story I have and I am sticking to it - I took risks I never thought I could ever take every time I got behind the wheel. These were not calculated; they were incidental to my willingness to place myself in harm's way without thinking. After I sobered up, I decided to live and so became more conservative in my behavior, and avoided unnecessary risks in order to find stability. Frankly, I do not believe in security. There is none. There are no guarantees in this life, but a person can minimize the dangers by leading a life of calculated risk and careful execution of a life plan (doubtful there). People save all their lives and become victims of all sorts of unfortunate circumstances. Nature is indiscriminate and a fact of life on this planet. People live in the shadow of volcanoes and right on the seashore, and if they have the "right" attitude know they take a risk, but that it may not come true any time soon.
I have family in Hawaii who lost their home to a lava flow. That's life on Hawaii. My father flew combat missions for 30 months during WW2 and lived to tell the tale. He took a risk at at every turn, and for years after while he flew. Flying is dangerous you know. But, you trust in your abilities and the capabilities of your ground crew to keep you alive in the air.
So, I just bought a motor scooter. A few are wondering about my sanity and safety, but others have encouraged me to enjoy the adventure. I assiduously avoided two wheeled motorized vehicles all my life, having ridden only twice. Yet now, with gasoline prices high, and becoming rapidly tired of paying out all my discretionary income to unseen market forces and lack of governmental planning for the eventual demise of the oil driven vehicle, the idea of riding a motor scooter has become appealing to me. This is strange. Economics combined with necessity, changes the landscape of my thinking so that I now become brave enough to climb on a 460cc power plant to propel me down the highway all to save a few bucks. I refuse, at this time to give up my BMW, since it cost me my marriage to be that independent - I'll hang on to it. I'll drive it less. But not right now, because I now have to learn how to ride my new machine and learn to ride it safely and overcome my aversion to placing myself so close to danger.
So I consider that the real overcoming of the fear of taking risks is actually the decision that precedes the action of engaging in a calculated risk. We are all afraid but if we push the envelope a little, I am finding that acting on my desire to take hold of my own life for my own sake is a liberating act of taking personal and direct responsibility for my life.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
When Good Men Fail To Act
It's not that I actually have a complaint to write about, but I really do wonder if people can still tell the difference between illegal and unethical behavior and obeying the law, not only the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law as well. I say this because I believe we have let the spirit of the law slip dramatically in this country, believing that only getting to the bottom line matters. This goes for things like believing that the end justifies the means as well. Does it? Have we so abandoned our principles that we only consider what will get us what we want? Why are we so willing to discard the principles that made us so unique as a nation up until current events turned us into sheep with fangs?
We really are cowardly, you know; despite the brave window decals we place on our rear windows. Why is that? Well, in one significant area, we claim to support our troops and the mission the president says is vital to our nation in Iraq. Nonetheless we allow our soldiers to return for three or four consecutive tours of duty in a war zone and don't even blink an eye at their travails at having to do so. At the height of the Vietnam War we did not do that, nor did we require that in WW1 or WW2. Battle is a devastating experience, yet all we offer is yellow ribbons and waving flags. Where are the volunteers from the cheerleaders of this war? If you support the war, and you are not in uniform, then, I say you are a coward.
Have we forgotten the slogan that old men start wars yet young men fight them? Who are these old men who start wars anyway? Well in this case, the 17 members of the president's first administration who beat the drums of war all had deferments from the Vietnam War. How's that? The planners and propagandists for this war (Wolfowitz, Fife, Cheney, et. al.) somehow managed to claim they had other priorities while their fellow citizens died in Vietnam and came home either in a casket, or mentally and physically scarred for life. We allow that now? We excuse that? We actually think that these Chickenhawks are American heroes? They must be since the president handed out medals to them. There is something wrong here. Even the current president (a cheerleader during college and an avowed "C" student) is able to act the part of a war hero with impunity even though he left his National Guard post in 1972 and disappeared into the political thicket in Alabama. And no one is able to challenge that?
I wonder what would have happened if George Washington had given up at Valley Forge, and just slipped away leaving the fight to his second in commmand or other staff officers, saying, "I've got to go home to Martha and take care of my surveying business." Would he have lived that down? We have no trouble condemning Benedict Arnold for his one traitorous act, even though as one of our ablest generals (and a successful merchant-businessman) he turned the Revolutionary War around at Saratoga, and hacked his way through the Maine forests in the hopes of wresting Canada from British control too.
We give lip service to the actual bravery of our forefathers and at the same time excuse malfeasance in our current leaders. Here's a current example. It is my understanding that wiretapping is illegal unless the specific criminal is identified and the police get a court order. The president declares a national emergency, enlists the aid of the major phone companies, and conducts massive wiretapping in the name of the war on terror. We allow that because....because why?? Are we really quaking in our boots that somehow somebody will do us harm? No, we are just followers, sheep, sheeple as the bloggers say. We mindlessly follow the leader because he is the leader. Come again?? Now we offer immunity to the phone companies who participated because they were just following orders. What's that?? We hung Nazi officers after WW2 for claiming the same thing. We did not buy that excuse then and we should not buy that excuse now. Why? I'll tell you why.
As part of the officers code of conduct there is a part about not betraying one's principles, about being honorable, and defending the constitution. Taking the oath to uphold the constitution does not absolve a soldier or an officer, or even a member of government from leaving his or her principles at home once they take on the responsibilities of defending the country. Nazi soldiers and Japanese soldiers, and Italian soldiers could not claim that. It's a twinkie defense. We either hung them or imprisoned them - after a trial and major tribunals to repair the social fabric afte the Second World War. After a trial. After a tribunal. Get the irony? Now we do just the opposite and then claim a kangaroo court in Guantanamo will absolve us from our sins.
So, lawyers for the administration, namely John Yoo, Alberto Gonzalez, and others, claim we are not bound by the Geneva Convention if we re-name our adversaries "enemy combatants" and hold them off shore where we are not legally bound to obey our own laws against torture and humane treatment so we can extract vital information in midieval fashion from those we suspect of being in league with the enemy. How interesting. Europe abandoned torture over 400 years ago because it does not get people to tell the truth. Yet we, in our American wisdom, employ it now - in violation of all the principles we hold (excuse me, held) so dear, because we are told it will get us vital information that will save us from another 9/11 attack.
How convenient for those who wish to not be held accountable for their actions. First we claim a national emergency and the president must be granted extraordinary powers to save us. Extraordinary behavior for a nation that claims that The People are the government. We give a man who cannot even speak English coherently dictatorial powers in the name of saving our asses from a mushroom cloud that was proven not even to be on the planning table of a regional tinpot dictator. Then we excuse it because nothing has happened so it must be working. Are we aware that after taking power as Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Adolph Hitler declared a national emergency in order to run a weary nation no longer able to defend itself from an internal gang of brown shirt wearing thugs, who claimed Jews were out to destroy the country? We forget our history, and relive the circumstances in our ignorance.
And guess what? All those guns you guys have to protect yourselves from the enemy will eventually have to be used to protect yourselves from your own government - the government you gave away in the name of saving you from the trouble of defending it yourselves.
We really are cowardly, you know; despite the brave window decals we place on our rear windows. Why is that? Well, in one significant area, we claim to support our troops and the mission the president says is vital to our nation in Iraq. Nonetheless we allow our soldiers to return for three or four consecutive tours of duty in a war zone and don't even blink an eye at their travails at having to do so. At the height of the Vietnam War we did not do that, nor did we require that in WW1 or WW2. Battle is a devastating experience, yet all we offer is yellow ribbons and waving flags. Where are the volunteers from the cheerleaders of this war? If you support the war, and you are not in uniform, then, I say you are a coward.
Have we forgotten the slogan that old men start wars yet young men fight them? Who are these old men who start wars anyway? Well in this case, the 17 members of the president's first administration who beat the drums of war all had deferments from the Vietnam War. How's that? The planners and propagandists for this war (Wolfowitz, Fife, Cheney, et. al.) somehow managed to claim they had other priorities while their fellow citizens died in Vietnam and came home either in a casket, or mentally and physically scarred for life. We allow that now? We excuse that? We actually think that these Chickenhawks are American heroes? They must be since the president handed out medals to them. There is something wrong here. Even the current president (a cheerleader during college and an avowed "C" student) is able to act the part of a war hero with impunity even though he left his National Guard post in 1972 and disappeared into the political thicket in Alabama. And no one is able to challenge that?
I wonder what would have happened if George Washington had given up at Valley Forge, and just slipped away leaving the fight to his second in commmand or other staff officers, saying, "I've got to go home to Martha and take care of my surveying business." Would he have lived that down? We have no trouble condemning Benedict Arnold for his one traitorous act, even though as one of our ablest generals (and a successful merchant-businessman) he turned the Revolutionary War around at Saratoga, and hacked his way through the Maine forests in the hopes of wresting Canada from British control too.
We give lip service to the actual bravery of our forefathers and at the same time excuse malfeasance in our current leaders. Here's a current example. It is my understanding that wiretapping is illegal unless the specific criminal is identified and the police get a court order. The president declares a national emergency, enlists the aid of the major phone companies, and conducts massive wiretapping in the name of the war on terror. We allow that because....because why?? Are we really quaking in our boots that somehow somebody will do us harm? No, we are just followers, sheep, sheeple as the bloggers say. We mindlessly follow the leader because he is the leader. Come again?? Now we offer immunity to the phone companies who participated because they were just following orders. What's that?? We hung Nazi officers after WW2 for claiming the same thing. We did not buy that excuse then and we should not buy that excuse now. Why? I'll tell you why.
As part of the officers code of conduct there is a part about not betraying one's principles, about being honorable, and defending the constitution. Taking the oath to uphold the constitution does not absolve a soldier or an officer, or even a member of government from leaving his or her principles at home once they take on the responsibilities of defending the country. Nazi soldiers and Japanese soldiers, and Italian soldiers could not claim that. It's a twinkie defense. We either hung them or imprisoned them - after a trial and major tribunals to repair the social fabric afte the Second World War. After a trial. After a tribunal. Get the irony? Now we do just the opposite and then claim a kangaroo court in Guantanamo will absolve us from our sins.
So, lawyers for the administration, namely John Yoo, Alberto Gonzalez, and others, claim we are not bound by the Geneva Convention if we re-name our adversaries "enemy combatants" and hold them off shore where we are not legally bound to obey our own laws against torture and humane treatment so we can extract vital information in midieval fashion from those we suspect of being in league with the enemy. How interesting. Europe abandoned torture over 400 years ago because it does not get people to tell the truth. Yet we, in our American wisdom, employ it now - in violation of all the principles we hold (excuse me, held) so dear, because we are told it will get us vital information that will save us from another 9/11 attack.
How convenient for those who wish to not be held accountable for their actions. First we claim a national emergency and the president must be granted extraordinary powers to save us. Extraordinary behavior for a nation that claims that The People are the government. We give a man who cannot even speak English coherently dictatorial powers in the name of saving our asses from a mushroom cloud that was proven not even to be on the planning table of a regional tinpot dictator. Then we excuse it because nothing has happened so it must be working. Are we aware that after taking power as Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Adolph Hitler declared a national emergency in order to run a weary nation no longer able to defend itself from an internal gang of brown shirt wearing thugs, who claimed Jews were out to destroy the country? We forget our history, and relive the circumstances in our ignorance.
And guess what? All those guns you guys have to protect yourselves from the enemy will eventually have to be used to protect yourselves from your own government - the government you gave away in the name of saving you from the trouble of defending it yourselves.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Government by Deus ex Machina
Recently I received a spam message complaining about the lack of mentions of God in the daily life of Americans. As with many of these types of messages I was enjoined to defend God in some way, as if He needed defending, and put "In God We Trust" on every piece of mail I sent out, or message I created. Well, what if I don't agree? And I don't. Emphatically.
I was raised in the tradition that my religious beliefs were my business and my business alone. If I was to demonstrate my faith, I could act on the principles in public, but it would not be necessary to stand on a street corner and shout the "Good News" to passersby. That, as Jesus said in the New Testament (The Christian testament), is just showing off. Showing off doesn't count, so, I would consider, would be all that testifying, witnessing, and "Praise the Lord's." What about actually doing stuff, like visiting the sick, building homes, and the rest of the working in the vineyard.
So it really pains me to see these temples to Christian prosperity on every street corner proclaiming that "my mortgage is bigger than your mortgage" while millions go hungry. Didn't this Jewish carpenter Christians are so fond of calling by name say, "sell all you have and follow me." I think that all that is at work here is not Christian practice, but sanctuary envy.
Speaking of Christian practice, and it is a practice, why all the Old Testament Bible thumping? The old is the old and the new is a very short document. Christians are supposed to do stuff, not name buildings after the Prophets (although they can). So while everybody is in Sunday school learning about David and Goliath and trying to disprove evolution by taking the Bible literally, Jesus is sitting at the well telling the woman drawing water that it is the Spirit that gives life, not the Word. Yet every Sunday in Church and all week long on the public access channel, sanctimonious men and women constantly refer to the words in the Bible as being inviolate and direct from God. I guess they forgot about things like barely literate scribes rewriting material they can hardly read themselves handing down mistakes through the ages. And besides, I believe it is damned rude to use the Jewish testament and books of the prophets to prop up Christian beliefs. It should be able to standon its own if people acutally exercised it in every day life.
It is this spititual illiteracy that bothers me. A failure to look beyond the Word and grasp the import of the message. It is not what Jesus may or may have done, but what people today need to do. Just writing "In God We Trust" will not do it. Besides, that was inserted into the Pledge of Alegiance in 1953 a the height of anti-Communist hysteria (Those Godlesss Commies!). And we do it now in the face of Islamic fundamentalism as well, trying to claim the high ground by raising up an altar to the Book instead of actually practicing Christianity. It is just like putting ribbons on your car but refusing to join the Army to serve in the Iraq War you support because it isn't convenient.
Those very kinds of people also said they wouldn't go to the marriage feast because they had other things to do. So the countryside got drafted and the snobs were left to run their errands.
Worshiping symbols, yellow ribbons, the flag, a golden calf, does not come an inch closer to the practice of the principles you espouse. Shout from the altar or podium all you wish, but unless you can write your own letters from the Richmond jail, or stand in the rain to oppose torture by our own government, you don't do anymore than add to global warming.
If we are going to trust in anything we need to trust in the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, since they guarantee our rights and outline our responsibilities in this country. The president is not, by any stretch of the imagination capable of doing that; the man who said he wanted to be dictator because telling evreybody what to do is easier than negotiation and diplomacy. By hoping that somehow Jesus is going to deliver us from our own failure to govern ourselves, we will surely get the authoritarian theocratic government Islam is so proud of. Under a theocratic government you don't practice the religion of your choice, but that of the State. We had that once and we rejected it for what it was, an excuse for powerful men to seize control of the State all the while claiming they did it in the name of God. Baloney!
Under the Divine Right of Kings and signeurship of the Middle Ages (a mind set of fundamentalists evreywhere and acutal practice in the Middle East), here is what you get: conformity. Slavish adherance to a rule of men who claim an authority based upon belief rather than merit or the will of the people. The so-called prophets in polygamist colonies go for the 14 year old girls first, just like the lords did in the Middle Ages - first night rights. The right to deflower the virgins in the village. Slavish devotion to Jim Jones got 900 mindless people drinking cyanide laced kool aid. When Marx said that religion was the opium of the people, I believe he was asserting the principles of the Enlightenment; specifically that we should think for ourselves, question the sacred cows of authority, and practice the principles of living we so glibly toss around, but never get around to putting into action.
I was raised in the tradition that my religious beliefs were my business and my business alone. If I was to demonstrate my faith, I could act on the principles in public, but it would not be necessary to stand on a street corner and shout the "Good News" to passersby. That, as Jesus said in the New Testament (The Christian testament), is just showing off. Showing off doesn't count, so, I would consider, would be all that testifying, witnessing, and "Praise the Lord's." What about actually doing stuff, like visiting the sick, building homes, and the rest of the working in the vineyard.
So it really pains me to see these temples to Christian prosperity on every street corner proclaiming that "my mortgage is bigger than your mortgage" while millions go hungry. Didn't this Jewish carpenter Christians are so fond of calling by name say, "sell all you have and follow me." I think that all that is at work here is not Christian practice, but sanctuary envy.
Speaking of Christian practice, and it is a practice, why all the Old Testament Bible thumping? The old is the old and the new is a very short document. Christians are supposed to do stuff, not name buildings after the Prophets (although they can). So while everybody is in Sunday school learning about David and Goliath and trying to disprove evolution by taking the Bible literally, Jesus is sitting at the well telling the woman drawing water that it is the Spirit that gives life, not the Word. Yet every Sunday in Church and all week long on the public access channel, sanctimonious men and women constantly refer to the words in the Bible as being inviolate and direct from God. I guess they forgot about things like barely literate scribes rewriting material they can hardly read themselves handing down mistakes through the ages. And besides, I believe it is damned rude to use the Jewish testament and books of the prophets to prop up Christian beliefs. It should be able to standon its own if people acutally exercised it in every day life.
It is this spititual illiteracy that bothers me. A failure to look beyond the Word and grasp the import of the message. It is not what Jesus may or may have done, but what people today need to do. Just writing "In God We Trust" will not do it. Besides, that was inserted into the Pledge of Alegiance in 1953 a the height of anti-Communist hysteria (Those Godlesss Commies!). And we do it now in the face of Islamic fundamentalism as well, trying to claim the high ground by raising up an altar to the Book instead of actually practicing Christianity. It is just like putting ribbons on your car but refusing to join the Army to serve in the Iraq War you support because it isn't convenient.
Those very kinds of people also said they wouldn't go to the marriage feast because they had other things to do. So the countryside got drafted and the snobs were left to run their errands.
Worshiping symbols, yellow ribbons, the flag, a golden calf, does not come an inch closer to the practice of the principles you espouse. Shout from the altar or podium all you wish, but unless you can write your own letters from the Richmond jail, or stand in the rain to oppose torture by our own government, you don't do anymore than add to global warming.
If we are going to trust in anything we need to trust in the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, since they guarantee our rights and outline our responsibilities in this country. The president is not, by any stretch of the imagination capable of doing that; the man who said he wanted to be dictator because telling evreybody what to do is easier than negotiation and diplomacy. By hoping that somehow Jesus is going to deliver us from our own failure to govern ourselves, we will surely get the authoritarian theocratic government Islam is so proud of. Under a theocratic government you don't practice the religion of your choice, but that of the State. We had that once and we rejected it for what it was, an excuse for powerful men to seize control of the State all the while claiming they did it in the name of God. Baloney!
Under the Divine Right of Kings and signeurship of the Middle Ages (a mind set of fundamentalists evreywhere and acutal practice in the Middle East), here is what you get: conformity. Slavish adherance to a rule of men who claim an authority based upon belief rather than merit or the will of the people. The so-called prophets in polygamist colonies go for the 14 year old girls first, just like the lords did in the Middle Ages - first night rights. The right to deflower the virgins in the village. Slavish devotion to Jim Jones got 900 mindless people drinking cyanide laced kool aid. When Marx said that religion was the opium of the people, I believe he was asserting the principles of the Enlightenment; specifically that we should think for ourselves, question the sacred cows of authority, and practice the principles of living we so glibly toss around, but never get around to putting into action.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)