Tag Archives: protest

Some Sane Policy Strategies, Both Foreign and Domestic, for a Dazed-and-Confused America

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The best strategy for insuring a reasonable share of post-war oil is for the U.S. to follow China’s admirable (and successful) approach to foreign relations: make friends with every country; don’t try to control events; don’t take sides with factions by using bribes and threats and offering weapons (all of which strategies make more enemies, while making conflicts harder to resolve); offer apologies as necessary; and spread goodwill by generously supporting, in every country, only open, popular, peaceful initiatives of selected proven-peaceful leaders with broad-based, loyal coalitions.

 

We should withdraw our troops from Iraq immediately, leaving U.N. peacekeepers to support the transition, and giving thoughtful consideration to all those we leave behind, financially supporting common goals and peaceful compromises, as well as aiding refugees, rebuilding, and easing resettlement (to the U.S.) of all those U.S.-supporters who might be at post-war risk.

 

We should abandon our war on terror, and support instead an efficient international crime-fighting network, and a peaceful international campaign to resolve future conflicts before they turn deadly. To accomplish these goals, we need to work to end economic injustice/violence, political and state violence (i.e., all forms of war and lawless incarcerations), and the spread of weapons, fully support world disarmament and other cooperative global peace and environmental initiatives, curb violence in entertainment, and aggressively prosecute hate crimes. We should also build a national and global culture of peace through the stated domestic and global initiatives of the proposed cabinet-level Department of Peace (www.dopcampaign.org) .

 

We clumsily attempted to avenge the loss of three thousand innocents murdered on 9/11 by killing and maiming many thousands more innocents (both ours and theirs) on foreign soil, and are now threatening to waste even more lives (both theirs and ours) by sword-rattling in Iran’s direction. We must find a way to forgive others and ourselves, make no more enemies, and recognize and address the grievances of the many who are presently turning from desperation and despair to violence (i.e., “terrorists”).

 

We need to attend to the real “illegals” in American life—not the immigrants who daily seek respite and freedom from the world’s violence and injustice on our shores, but the thousands of prisoners rotting forgotten in illegal dungeons throughout Iraq, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Cuba, and elsewhere. We must find a way to bring due process of law to these imprisoned and abandoned “illegals” who have been deprived of their most basic human rights, and also end our inhumane criminalization of the inevitable south-to-north global migrants whose only crime is fleeing poverty and terror–by finding hospitable ways to assimilate them into American life.

 

We must resist the partisan temptations offered by Monica Goodling’s immunity to attack the very culpable Alberto Gonzales, Condaleeza Rice, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and other Bush administrative and military bunglers, leave vengeance and blame to God and his horde of very willing historians, and focus instead on uncovering truth, taking right action, and reconciling a nation.

 

Lee Iacocca recently urged the need for courageous leadership during this difficult time. We indeed need true leaders who can move us past our collective darkness toward solving the real problems we must now face: the ravages of disease, injustice, hopelessness, hunger, greed, environmental degradation, corporate accountability, natural disasters, ignorance, addiction, prejudice, nuclear proliferation, global warming, crime, migration, poverty, war, immorality, cruelty, indifference, terrorism, and yes, violence itself.

 

All the strategies described above depend upon our growing awareness that nothing we may fear is more dangerous than fear itself, and no weapon more effective than love in all its forms—kindness, patience, understanding, acceptance….  It is not hate, but fear which builds up armies and stockpiles nuclear weapons; not hate, but fear which looses destruction upon hapless presumed enemies, and thus upon ourselves. The Golden Rule–treat others as you would be treated–works just as well in international relations as it does with individuals. Just as families and businesses must learn to accept, respect, and support others (just as they are) in order to be successful, so must all political leaders, their party members, and their followers—indeed, all citizens everywhere—learn and teach acceptance, respect, and support for all our brothers everywhere, all God’s beloved children, every one—if we are to survive and thrive together on our tiny blue planet.

 

 

 

 

Please send your comments to njcpace@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If We Don’t Welcome Immigrants Like Cho Sun-Kyung, Randa Samaha, Reema Samaha, Omar Samaha, and Cho Seung-Hui…??!!

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Once upon a time, two admirable immigrant families, the Chos and the Samahas, came to live in the same Virginia town. Their different versions of the American Dream story both ended tragically on the same day, when they each lost a child to fear, in the massacre at Virginia Tech.

 

Both families were truly remarkable. The Chos came to America with little money, managing through hard work and long hours to start their own successful business and buy a comfortable townhome; they sent their two children through college—one even went to Princeton.

 

Like the Chos, the Samahas also made the most of their opportunities, raising three remarkable children all of America now hastens to proudly claim as their own.

 

Both families made the difficult choice to leave their familiar traditions and lifestyles and the comfortable, similar faces of family and friends, for the chance to improve their children’s opportunities in a new country where they hoped to overcome suspicion and prejudice, to make friends, and somehow to find a way to feel at home.

 

When the Cho and Samaha children began attending public schools in Centreville, they doubtless met with two very different kinds of reactions. A small number of new classmates no doubt greeted them warmly and innocently, delighted to have a new playmate. The majority, however—especially as they grew older—greeted them with strained politeness at best, and too often, with suspicion, prejudice, fear, and cruelty, having learned from their parents and peers to avoid or outright reject the poor or “different.”

 

Some immigrant children (like Sun, Randa, Reema, and Omar) are able somehow to find the courage and resilience to take in stride others’ ignorance and fear, enduring such narrow-mindedness without taking it personally, persevering, smiling, reaching out. Some lucky immigrant children are born beautiful, or have pleasant, outgoing personalities. Some have understanding parents who give them time and support. Eventually, many immigrant children win over at least a few of their classmates, no doubt gaining confidence and character in the process, yet paying an enormous psychic price for their pioneering role in the slow and painful peer-to-peer lesson: “I am not your enemy.”

 

Unusually shy and insecure children, on the other hand, particularly those with “different” skin color, features, or speech, or children who are small, awkward, or unattractive, find adjustment doubly difficult, and quickly become targets of teasing and bullying. With unfriendly treatment too difficult to bear, they retreat inside themselves behind high defensive walls which guarantee permanence to their newfound pariah status, becoming impenetrable self-fulfilling little prophets of their own alienation.

 

Sadly, the parents of such quiet, introverted children don't always know how mean many American schoolchildren (themselves saddled with their own troubling sets of social and emotional vulnerabilities) can be to all but a select slice of privileged, popular students (with their own sets of pressures and fears) who nevertheless fit rather more tidily within America’s narrow, TV-driven, consumerist standards of youthful social acceptability. Many immigrant parents, like the rest of us, feel simply too overworked to be sympathetic listeners, too overwhelmed by their own challenges, too confused about their own difficult social adjustments, too sad about their own losses, too powerless to help even their own beloved children. Instead, they often tragically ratchet up the pressures on their most vulnerable and fastest-failing offspring.

 

Sometimes the friendliness and support of even a single individual makes all the difference to a sensitive immigrant. Too often, though, such support is simply not enough to compensate for the many rude, exclusive, indifferent reactions…and worse.

 

Evidently young Seung-Hui Cho was already insecure early in life because of a developmental speech problem. Undoubtedly, he received a number of friendly overtures which he soon learned to strongly reject.

 

With a chance for a do-over of Cho’s life, we’d stock his schools with structured programs especially intended for minorities, immigrants, the differently-abled, and other struggling children—strong programs every bit as financially well-supported as the many programs currently supporting our most-able students, such as sports, music, and drama programs, and other mostly-top-quartile clubs. Perhaps within such a supportive program, Cho would have found relevant and sufficient friendship. With at least one friend, maybe two, or even three, maybe a small group to hang out with when times were tough, maybe he would have come out all right. And maybe not. It’s hard to imagine not having a single friend, though.

 

We’ll never know, and neither will the thirty-two Virginia Tech classmates who will remain nameless and faceless at least to him, because he murdered them in the cold blood of a youth who had no friends, who came to believe that he was all alone, feared and hated, unlovable and incapable of loving, an unwanted “alien” in his family’s chosen promised land.

 

What we can know for sure is that we Americans–immigrants all, unless we’re Native Americans–along with the citizens of most other northern countries, will be happier and safer both as individuals and as nations when we finally come to accept the inevitability of today’s south-to-north global migrations (from starvation, terror, oppression, war…) as a fact of life–while supporting population control; and when we finally decide together how best to welcome and assimilate all the precious already-living human beings fortunate enough to arrive on our shores legally, as well as the many desperate, equally sanctified souls bravely arriving any way they can in hopes of finding the merest sustenance—or an American Dream—for their families.

 

Why do we comfortable Americans daydream about acquiring cultural breadth through travel, and yet overlook our many everyday opportunities to get to know our neighbors from afar, who always appreciate christian-spirited friendliness? Instead, we must learn to treat all others as we would wish to be treated, were we the sad wayfarers, wandering in a new land.

 

Every spiritual leader of every world religion and philosophic tradition has condemned those inhospitable to strangers, and has blessed those offering merciful welcomes. In Matthew 25: 31-46, Jesus says: “’Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me…. As you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’ And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’”

 

 

 

 

Please write your comments to nancy.pace@adelphia.net. Thank you 🙂 !

 

 

 

 

 

We Can Prevent More Tragic Shootings

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Establishment of a cabinet-level Department of Peace (www.dopcampaign.org) would give institutional heft to resolving our #1 preventable global and national public health and safety problem—violence—addressing its root causes, and building a national and global culture of peace.

 

Domestically, a Department of Peace would heal problems such as bullying, gangs, alienation, cruelty, racism, ethnic and homophobic intolerance, drug and alcohol problems, social injustices, crime, incarceration and recidivism, the spread of weapons, and child, elder, and spousal abuse, through proven programs teaching values, peer mediation, violence-prevention counseling, restorative justice, and other successful non-violent approaches.

 

Internationally, a Secretary of Peace would partner with defense and diplomatic leaders to insure that American soldiers never march into ill-planned or unnecessary wars; provide non-violent alternative conflict-resolution strategies in every possible conflict area of the world; prevent and de-escalate conflicts before they boil over into deadly violence; ask hard questions when war seems inevitable; and offer a strong counterweight to misuse of military might.

 

America cannot shoot its way out of a world full of angry, well-armed enemies, criminals, and crazies, and we cannot find solutions to tomorrow’s problems using the same approaches that got us into this trouble in the first place. In today’s tiny, interconnected world, how we treat others will always come back to help or harm us—however randomly—as we have chosen. We must demonstrate the best practices of humanity—or fear, fight, and express humanity at its worst.

 

We cannot avoid suffering some injustices, as Virginia Tech’s tragic victims attest, but we can avoid adding to their sum. We no longer have a choice of changing or not changing. Our only choice now is whether to change for the better or for the worse. As our forebears courageously risked war, it is time for us now to risk peace.

A Fair Trade

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I hereby offer a hypothetical “deal” to all the many deeply caring anti-abortion activists, such that we equally concerned anti-war activists will agree to give up all violence against the unborn, in exchange for their equivalent agreement to resist the use of violence upon those already born—whether through war, torture, abuse, poverty, neglect, anger, vengeance, retaliation, punishment, or any other form of violence. When we can all agree to respect and protect human life from all forms of violence, agreeing to use only non-violent means to resolve our conflicts, we will together build a culture of peace where respect and support for human life everywhere is the highest moral value. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please send your comments to nancy.pace@adelphia.net 

 

Bad Things That Could Happen If We Ignore the Rumors of a Coming Coup in Iraq

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David Ignatius casually mentions widespread rumors of a coming regime-change/coup/junta in Iraq, in his recent Washington Post column Beyond the Coup Rumors, Options for Iraq; other reporters also mention scheming among many Iraqi politicians fearful of a U.S. retreat. I hope lots of influential people including politicians, reporters, bloggers, and members of Congress are presently investigating and reporting these rumors, because, well, so much smoke means something's smoldering somewhere. Too often, elaborately orchestrated coups are carefully concealed by the small, powerful cadres which hatch them—until after the coup is a fait accompli.

 

Why the stealth? Because coups are illegal, immoral, undemocratic, and politically insupportable, at least before the fact. And  also, because forgiveness is easier to get than permission.

 

If a coup in Iraq takes the predictable and dangerous course which fourteen previous clandestine American regime changes have taken in the past, it will be closely followed by a rabble-rousing pretext demanding immediate increased involvement to sustain that coup (see my review of  Stephen Kinzer’s Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq) ( http://www.epharmony.com/blog/_archives/2006/9/9/2311571.html ) or Chalmers Johnson's Blowback.

 

Historically, the concocted pretexts for expanded involvement after coups are well-publicized, highly inflammatory attacks and atrocities upon Americans or other innocents, flagrant events which incite the public to knee-jerk U.S. involvement, rescue, and/or revenge.

 

A planned Iraq coup could well coincide with upcoming congressional elections; it could also quickly be followed (after the elections, of course) with a massive troop buildup in the Middle East, as necessary to sustain it.

 

Because such actions are rarely the will of the American people, it would behoove responsible oversight members of Congress to immediately investigate the sources of these rumors, identify their planners, and subject them to close oversight examination or preventative legislation–before any such coup can be initiated.

 

David Ignatius hints at plans to overthrow the current, (somewhat) democratically elected Maliki government via a military coup or junta. He doesn’t say whether the rumored plots are supported by U.S. corporate interests or government agencies, although he alludes to commission-style juntas composed of neocon and Sunni-favored politicians.

 

Neo-cons may dream of another Hussein-look-alike henchman who takes brutal control of Iraq and re-establishes order, so that everyone (except, apparently, irrelevant Iraqis) can return to the golden days of yesteryear when oil gushed reliably and prices stayed low.

 

However, a coup would make no sense to anyone except the few currently ruling (and panicking) neocons, who may see this approach as the only way to achieve their vision of a colonialized corporatocracy in the Middle East, free of Bush’s irritating preferences for democratic processes.

 

Such a coup would be insupportable insanity. The U.S. cannot micromanage the future course of the peoples of the Middle East, as if we still lived in the age of empire of Attila, Alexander, Rome, Great Britain, or even the 20th century U.S. Our common twenty-first century planet is too small, too interconnected, too self-aware—and maybe finally just compassionate enough to refuse such an unrighteous solution.

 

People everywhere want to overcome the destructive selfishness and violence of the past, to live mindfully in peaceful, mutually-supportive diversity on our fragile blue planet. People everywhere want to work together with all other nations to solve the real problems of this century: the ravages of disease, injustice, hopelessness, hunger, greed, environmental degradation, natural disasters, ignorance, addiction, prejudice, nuclear proliferation, crime, poverty, war, terrorism, and yes, violence itself.

 

President Bush can still redeem himself in the eyes of history as the good old boy he means to be, but first he must stand up courageously and presidentially to his neocon friends and their misguided schemes. If Mr. Bush wishes to be remembered as a force for good, rather than a dupe for a tiny manipulative clique, he should go to work immediately with Congress and cabinet to cut short any planned coups, and to plan a thoughtful withdrawal of all U.S. troops and bases from Iraq.

 

During his remaining years in office, he has an opportunity to devote the $2 billion/a day we currently spend on war, toward brokering a lasting Middle East peace agreement. Then he can offer generous support to those regional leaders willing to compromise, together rebuilding a peaceful Middle East to their mutual specifications, not ours.

 

If President Bush wades deeper into an exploding Iraq now, to prop up a coup or to attend to certain blowback from it, he will waste his last two years, and all our money, not to mention vast swaths of American and Iraqi lives, on a futile, catastrophic, Vietnam-like last-gasp effort to impose narrow-minded changes upon a very distant, very old, and very dissimilar civilization.

 

If the coup rumors are ignored, Americans will wake up someday soon to news that a coup has already taken place (or has been disastrously attempted); that American lives are in danger; and that a far-more massive American military force must be rushed immediately off to Iraq. In just this way have fourteen previous regime changes secretly been engineered by past Presidents and their administrative and corporate cronies, all to American discredit, all at shocking human and material cost.

 

Once such jingoistic adventures get started on their mindless juggernauts, once demagogues begin feeding the public imagination with new reasons for new fighting, then an unending toll of new, unforeseen losses and enemies will make the widening conflicts almost impossible to stop. If a few right-wing zealots might welcome an “inevitable” Armageddon in the Middle East, the vast majority of Americans would not.

 

It would be wonderful if James Baker could visualize the shape of an eventual compromise following such a catastrophe, and be so bold as to broker that same compromise right now, before any more bloodletting.

 

But the United States cannot offer itself as an honest broker until we withdraw our own selfish corporate and national interests from the current struggle for resources and power being waged among those having fair, reasonable and moral interests in the Middle East—that is, those who live there. A peaceful regional solution cannot be “about” American interests. Our only interest should be the advantages to all of a lasting Middle East peace. When we relinquish our insistence upon regional control, and act instead as a wealthy, influential “outside” party, we can contribute greatly to a peaceful outcome, and earn back invaluable international respect and cooperation.

 

Having played Middle East control freak for too long, it may be difficult to lay our selfish material interests aside and let other agendas lead, but we must limit ourselves to offering only money and peaceful assistance toward the reconstruction goals of cooperative, peaceful regional leaders.

 

We owe David Ignatius a debt of gratitude for warning us about the possibility of coming reckless political adventuring. Whether bloggers, reporters, members of Congress or other influential leaders will rise to prevent such a tragic escalation…we shall see. For all concerned—and that’s all of us—Albert Einstein offered this startling observation: “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but I know that World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

Good Comic Strips (About War and Sexuality) That I Wrote, But Never Drew

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First, the comics about war:

 

Two of my (unfinished) comic strip characters were kids–one, a smart, mouthy, radical multi-racial activist type, “Krissy,” and the other, her conservative, wealthy, red-blooded-American patriot boyfriend, “Cole,” who loves war toys and dreams of a military career.  These two kids are crazy about each other, but they are also always arguing about politics…. Since I wrote (but never drew) these panels, will you imagine them with me? 

 

 

(Cole, thinking aloud)

 

Krissy’s version of patriotism seems like a lot of trouble.

 

It takes years of work, money, time, and sacrifice to make a peaceful difference in the world.

 

In the old days, all you had to do to be patriotic was … die… and kill… and maim…and maybe get maimed….

 

But at least you could get it over with!

_____________________

 

 

 

 (Cole, thinking aloud)

 

Krissy thinks true patriots work for peace and justice all the time.

 

She says dying for your country is not enough.

 

She says you have to be willing to live for your country, too.

 

Dying seems like a lot less trouble.

_______________________

 

 

 

(Cole thinking aloud)

 

Krissy says it’s no longer enough to be willing to kill and die for your country.

 

She says true patriots live for their country by working and sacrificing all their lives.

 

But realizing global peace and justice is so much work!

 

When I said I’d be willing to give my life for my country, I never meant this!

 

________________________

 

 

 

(Cole thinking aloud)

 

Patriotism is a lot more complicated nowadays.

 

History has shown that even America has fought unjust, immoral wars.

 

In the olden days, patriots only had to be willing to kill and die for their country.

 

Nowadays, I guess they’d better understand why, too.

________________________________

 

 

 

(Cole to Krissy)

 

I think I prefer the old days….

 

…when all you had to do to be a patriot was die for your country….

 

I mean, living for your country in peacetime could turn out to be a real drag….

 

I mean, what if I have to live a really long time?!

_______________________________

 

 

 

(Cole thinking aloud)

 

Patriotism used to be only a two-year hitch.

 

Now Krissy tells me true patriots should work hard their whole lives to prevent the injustices that cause war.

 

But if we prevent all war, everyone will have to live peacefully ‘til they’re really really old!

 

What a rotten deal….

_______________________________

 

 

(Cole thinking aloud)

 

Krissy thinks the truest patriotism is living, not dying for your country.

 

She thinks we all need to learn more about national and global politics….

 

…and work hard to uphold our country’s ideals for everyone in the world.

 

It seems like dying would be a lot simpler….

_________________________________

 

 

(Cole thinking aloud)

 

Krissy says ideals can’t end at national borders.

 

She says we either want liberty and justice for all, or we don’t really hold those ideals at all.

 

She says “liberty and justice for some” just doesn’t ring true.

 

I have a feeling this is gonna be a lot of trouble.

_________________________________

 

 

(Krissy is carrying a “protest sign” in the first panel (“IF YOU WANT PEACE, WORK FOR JUSTICE”)

 

(Cole) Hey! I’m not my brother’s keeper, you know!

 

I’m only interested in looking out for American interests! I can’t worry about everybody else on the planet!

 

(In this panel he has his hand over his heart, pledging) “I pledge allegiance…to the flag…with liberty and justice for all…uh…er…all … uh… Americans…. Hmmmm.

 

(Cole, angry, with hands on hips.) RATS….

(Krissy is carrying a protest sign that says, THINK GLOBAL. ACT LOCAL.

__________________________________

 

 

OK, since you’ve so patiently waded through my peace comics, here are some good sex comics….

 

I read a wonderful how-to book (Sex and Sensibility: The Thinking Parent’s Guide to Talking About Sex, by Deborah M. Roffman, about the importance of values-oriented sex education, and then I wrote the following panels using my four comic strip characters (all young children), and introducing a new character, Ms. Z, an elderly Jewish lady who was once a sex education public health nurse. She’s a tiny fiery fireplug of a woman, a very stereotypically loving Jewish-mom-type who nurtures her four neighbor-kids. (Ms. Z is based on my best friend/next-door neighbor, age 80+) I never drew this series either. Four panels each, with usually at least two of the kids talking in each panel, and sometimes all four talking in a panel.

 

 

My parents seem to think it’s not nice to talk and think about sex until I’m an adult.

 

Mine too.

But it’s a difficult thing to do.

 

I mean, we’re surrounded by talk about sex, all day every day, on TV, in books and magazines, the kids at school, the stuff on the net….

 

I guess we’re not supposed to notice….

______________________________

 

 

 

What our parents don’t get is that we’re surrounded by sex, all day every day, whether we like it or not.

 

Yeah. They don’t know what we know.

 

And we don’t know what we don’t know.

 It’s sort of a conspiracy of silence.

 

Hmmm. Do you think we’re the good guys or the bad guys?

_______________________________

 

 

 

My mom says parents will tell kids everything they need to know about sex on their wedding night.

 

So when do we get to ask our questions?

 

I guess after that.

 

When it’s too late.

Yeah.

_____________________________

 

 

 

My mom thinks I know nothing about sex, and she plans to keep it that way.

 

That’s why I can’t ask her any questions—if I do, she worries about me knowing about sex and thinking about it.

 

So why don’t you just maturely tell her you know a lot already, but need her help sorting it all out?

 

I don’t think she’s developmentally ready for that yet….

_____________________________________

 

 

 

From what I can tell, sex is all one big disaster.

 

Yeah, it can make you sick, crazy, poor, and sometimes it even kills you.

 

I guess we’re supposed to learn about sex from our mistakes?

 

You’d think they’d invent a better way….

________________________________

 

 

 

My mom encourages me to talk with her about sex and then freaks out when I ask her questions.

 

Sometime it seems like sexuality is something I should learn all about in order to be a mature, responsible, caring, healthy adult.

 

And sometimes I feel like it’s a naughty nasty secret that we’re not supposed to know anything about.

 

Schizophrenia begins at home….

____________________________________

 

 

 

Everywhere I turn, the subject of sex comes up.

 

I have so many questions that I really need to have answered.

 

I mean, I wanna be good, smart, and happy, and I really wish I could understand where sex fits into all of this.

 

(Looking sad) Everybody’s talking about sex, but nobody’s listening….

_____________________________

 

 

 

If the subject of sex even comes up in my family…

 

My mom gets embarrassed.

Mine gets mad.

My dad changes the subject.

Mine leaves.

 

I guess we’ll just have to learn about sex from our friends and the internet.

 

We’re twenty-first century kids trapped in nineteenth century families.

_______________________________

 

 

 

 

…and then, if you pray, millions of sperm fly like electricity through the air, and…

 

Are you sure that’s the way it works?

 

I think so, but my parents get all freaked out and embarrassed when I ask questions.

 

I guess sex is something we’re supposed to learn by trial and error….

__________________________

 

 

 

Sex seems to have something to do with being bad.

And with secret body parts.

And sneaking around.

And unwanted pregnancies.

And infections.

And even dying.

 

But it also seems to be about love and caring.

 

(They stare blankly at each other in silence.)

 

Well, I sure don’t get the connection….

 No, I can’t see any connection either…..

_______________________________

 

 

 

The kids on the playground all say that grownups, are like, you know, like dogs? They rub their thingys together until they make a baby?

 

Ooog. Disgusting. That’s it? That’s everything?

Yeah, that’s it.

 

Well, I guess we finally understand all about sex.

 

(in unison, depressed) What a bummer.

Yeah.

Bummer.

Yuck.

_______________________________

 

 

 

I guess when we’re adults, we’ll understand all about sex.

 

But for now, I hate it that I have so many questions and no one to ask.

 

My parents seem to know all about it, but they get all freaked out if I ask questions about it.

 

I wonder who they asked?

_________________________

 

 

 

Y’know, between the four of us, we know a lot about sex.

 

Yeah, we’ve learned so much from books, magazines, our music, parents, the internet, TV, and each other. I mean, how can we help it? It’s everywhere!

 

Well, it still seems all crazy and confusing to me. I wish we had someone who could answer our questions….

 

(in unison) Ms. Z!!!

_____________________________

 

 

 

My mom says Ms. Z was a sexuality education nurse before she retired.

 

Yeah, I’ve known her since I was little.

Me too.

She’s really nice.

My parents say we can ask her anything.

 

(They stare at each other in silence)

 

You first.

_____________________________

 

 

 

What did Ms. Z do when you asked her your sex question?

 

Well, she answered it. She didn’t even act surprised, embarrassed, angry, or bossy. She seemed, actually, fine about it.

 

 (They stare at each other, looking uncertain, in silence.)

 

Maybe she’s an alien.

_____________________________

 

 

 

Was Ms. Z shocked that you knew something about sex?

No.

Was she mad that you were interested in it?

No.

 

Did she make you feel dumb?

No.

Or treat you like a little kid?

No.

 

Did she embarrass you?

No.

Did she answer your questions?

Yes.

 

Boy, we could sure use her on the school playground.

___________________________________

 

 

 

Ms. Z says sex is about who you are as much as about what you do.

 

She says sex is about caring, communicating, and taking responsibility, as much as it is about genitals.

 

So what do you think?

 

Sounds very unlikely.

_______________________________

 

 

 

Ms. Z answered that sex question I was wondering about for so long.

 

So now you understand all about sex.

Yeah.

 

Well, actually, to be perfectly honest, there’s a problem with having someone who will answer your sex questions for you.

What?

 

Now I have more questions.

____________________________

 

 

 

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s Muslims: More “christian” Than Christians?

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People everywhere, many Americans included, have begun to think of Muslims as more “christian” than many Christians—in the traditional sense of “christian spirits” that are loving, forgiving, pious, selfless, gentle, kind, and peaceful in their attitudes toward other human beings.
 
While most Americans still aspire to such qualities, we are today viewed globally as both culturally and politically rather more mean-spirited than christian-spirited. Many foreigners now see Americans as greedy and materialistic, and think of America as an arrogant young nation that tries to tell others how to live, that foolishly and hurtfully pushes its culture, economics and politics onto unwilling others.
 
If Osama bin Laden had wanted to increase world awareness of past and present American support for regime changes, friendly tyrannies, and repression of democratic movements around the world, he succeeded brilliantly, even though few Americans are even aware of these sad and distinctly un-“christian” exploitations in support of American corporate interests.
 
And if Osama bin Laden had wanted to stir up empathy for Islam, he could hardly have dreamed up anything more brilliant than our current bloody military adventuring in the Middle East. Ignoring all expertise, we’ve turned a criminal, political, social and economic problem—terrorism—into a military one, barging willy-nilly into a very un-christian war against peaceful people who never threatened us.
 
But Osama’s biggest bang for his comparatively small, if immensely tragic, PR. buck was sending our reading public—most of whom previously couldn’t find Iraq or even Israel on a map—scrambling for best-sellers about Islam. Because, sometime during the last five years, Americans finally noticed that Muslim cultures, although very different from ours, are, in fact, very “christian” in ways we greatly admire—along with having many unique shortcomings, like every culture.
 
For example, many Americans are motivated by their christian spirits to protect women’s rights to equality—to enter any profession, to be educated, to be equal citizens—but they are also sadly free to become drunks, addicts, prostitutes, rape victims, divorcees and unwed mothers. Muslims’ “christian spirits” motivate them to overprotect their wives and children, with the many drawbacks that come with that approach. Future christian-spirited dialogue and exchange between our two cultures will bring us all closer to understanding and agreement about our common, universal, “christian”—if not exclusively “Christian”—values, all those which offer respect and support to all human life everywhere.
 
The single sad silver lining behind bin Laden’s blood-and-publicity-soaked attack was to open western eyes and hearts to Islam. We have finally seen enough Muslims to look past the angry, despairing extremists, past the unfamiliar turbans, suspicious scarves and rough accents, to see clearly the many kind human faces and wise human hearts of gentle fathers, bright mothers, laughing daughters and fierce sons—who are, after all, not really so different from our own.
 
For the first time, Americans are experiencing the christian spirits of this exotic and unfamiliar culture which devoutly prays many times daily, is devoted to family, and which, just like Christians, exhorts its children at home, mosque and school to acts of goodness, kindness, generosity, and peace.
 
When we choose to see them through christian-spirited eyes, we’ll see a gentle people who have suffered greatly during a century of relentless violence from outsiders, simply because oil was discovered on the land of their ancestors, who yet still reach out hospitably to all who come, not as occupiers and invaders, but as peaceful, respectful visitors and citizens.
 
Most Muslims, like most Christians, have “christian” spirits, wanting to raise families in a compassionate culture which nurtures universal values. Yet most Americans today agree that, somewhere along the way, America has lost many of her ‘christian’ ways.
 
Certainly we’re coming off very poorly in our latest war. Our national leadership has acquired a well-deserved international reputation as far-from-christian-spirited religious extremists, unschooled in diplomacy and too quick on the draw.
 
I am not an expert on Islam; I keep up with the news and have a lifelong interest in all world religions and philosophies. But I do know that Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world, one which accepts Jesus as a great prophet, along with all his teachings.
 
I have closely observed my Muslim neighbors, and know them by what we used to call their “christian witness”—that is, by the way they live their lives. As a group, Muslims are pious, kind, neighborly, civic-minded, charitable and scholarly. Islam, as practiced by its most thoughtful and faithful practitioners, embraces the high ecumenical values espoused in Jesus’ teachings, particularly those about universal brotherhood, peace, charity, service, forgiveness, and love of God.
 
Yet, right after the towers fell, Christian extremists, perhaps fearing their congregations would be pulled away by curiosity about Islam, forgot to exhort their flocks to christian-spirited unity with their global brothers, and instead chose to preach sermon after mean, frightening, televangelical sermon demonizing Muslims as violent, cruel, scheming, and anti-Christian.
 
Muslims everywhere were dismayed and frightened by such un-christian televised messages, not to mention the rude insistence of multinational corporations to hawk materialist values and profitably push distinctly un-christian habits and lifestyles to anyone anywhere anytime.
 
Neither God nor Jesus nor any prophet, philosopher or saint cares which faith you pray to them from, nor what names you call them by, nor what form your prayers take; but they do care that all their many pleading and peaceful messages of acceptance, compassion, and reconciliation are spread everywhere to unify and bring peace to a frightened, suffering world.
 
On C-Span, CNN, and other media, Americans have heard the sad voices of Muslims in war-torn countries pleading to be left in peace, along with the voices of articulate and caring Muslim leaders sharing their concerns and patiently explaining their unfamiliar approaches. Many of us have also enjoyed the brilliant, award-winning family-values films and books streaming out of Iran and other Muslim countries.
 
We have also been terrified by American demagogues that Iran will acquire a nuclear weapon and use it against Israelis or Americans. Yet, just as worrisome to many, is the terrifying possibility that our own malleable President, egged on by powerful, trigger-happy sidekicks, will use our own vast American nuclear arsenal to initiate a very un-christian WWIII.
 
Muslims and Christians alike want most to live their lives in peace, in accordance with their beliefs and values. We want our children to grow up in warm, safe communities, in homes and schools that support—or at least, do not undermine—our heartfelt beliefs and values. Muslims and Christians alike think it unreasonable to be under continual attack from commercial and media corporations who use our freedoms and our public airwaves to hammer away at our cherished values.
 
Muslim immigrants come to America for the same reasons all immigrants have ever come: for the freedoms and benefits of good government which serves and supports the quality of all the human life which God created equal on this fragile blue planet.
 
We all want a justice system which respects and serves all people equally, quickly, and affordably. We all want fairly-elected, familiar local public servants who spend our hard-earned tax money on our youngest and neediest citizens, on convenient, quality health care for all, on retraining workers, on offering quality public services and infrastructure, on supporting emerging technologies and creating competitive economic opportunities within a thriving economy offering living wages. We all want well-disciplined, high-tech educational environments and opportunities that offer all children a real chance in life.
 
Instead, Americans seem stuck with a bloated and increasingly indebted federal government which cuts local services to pay for its steady stream of immoral foreign wars, which only line the pockets of corporate war profiteers, while bankrupting average Americans and compromising our children's futures.
 
Instead of offering good local government, where small local militias are well-trained in non-violent conflict resolution and stand ready to assist local communities during emergencies—floods, hurricanes, epidemics, invasions—we have instead a vast, far-flung military machine enforcing hegemonic American corporate interests wherever in the world they see an opportunity to make a fast, if un-christian, buck.
 
Soon—although not soon enough for the hundreds of thousands of dead, disabled, and desperate Muslims and Christians we have harmed—America will retreat from its current un-christian aggressions, will expensively buy peace in Israel and reconciliation in Iraq, and will stand aside while Muslims shake off their dictators and sort out their own political destinies, whether violently or in a more christian spirit, as would better suit all our mutual interests and befit the highest values of all our various religious and cultural traditions.
 
When their oilfields have been carved up among them, may our charitable American christian spirits uphold their right to spend their oil money creating opportunities for their hungry youth, while we refrain from using our own vast stores of nuclear weapons during this most-dangerous era of unaccustomed American humility, as we wait in line politely for Middle Eastern oil like any other paying customer.
 
Hopefully, we will all—Muslim, Christian, Jew, Hindu, and atheist alike—support only leaders demonstrating christian lives and spirits—whether or not they are Christians—leaders who advocate politics which reflect the universally cherished golden rule of treating all others as we ourselves would want to be treated.
 
May Christians and all other Americans join with all people everywhere in making christian-minded personal choices, and may we all support only political representatives having peaceful christian hearts, words, actions and lives—regardless of whether they be Christian, Jew, Atheist, Muslim, Hindu, or any other.
 
 
Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

Sanctimonious History Overthrown in Stephen Kinzer’s OVERTHROW: AMERICA'S CENTURY OF REGIME CHANGE FROM HAWAII TO IRAQ

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Sanctimonious History Overthrown in Stephen Kinzer’s Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq
 
 
People like to feel good about themselves, and Americans are no exception; so only a relative handful of scholarly Americans are even aware of their government’s direct historical responsibility for a century of violent regime changes in fourteen countries from Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Nicaragua, and Honduras, to South Vietnam, Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
 
Kinzer offers a compelling case that, without exception, all this violent meddling has worked against the overall best interests of Americans, and—with the possible exception of Grenada—against the citizens of all these exploited nations.
 
Kinzer’s brilliant decision to summarize the colorful particulars of who-what-when-where-how leading up to, during, and following each overthrow, give range to his best journalistic talents, while reducing his biographer’s breadth and historian’s bounty of facts, figures, places, and times into fourteen short, lively, memorable tales of derring-do, intrigue, overreaching, ignorance, prejudice, greed, and mayhem.
 
Reading Overthrow brought to mind the darker aspects of Margaret Meade’s assertion, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has,” while adding credibility to the mounting evidence that the tragedy of today’s Middle East is indeed directly traceable to the benighted machinations of a few dedicated, powerful, and sorely misguided neocons in Washington, D.C. For each case of regime change, Kinzer implicates a small group of daring individuals usually acting for corporate interests, and always acting with presidential authority.
 
Kinzer’s reasonable-length history is backed by over twenty pages of end notes, as well as an impressive international, multilingual twentieth-century bibliography of nearly five hundred on-the-spot memoirs, biographies, government documents and news accounts, and a twenty-page index. Kinzer definitely entertains, but more importantly, he connects the dots and fills in the necessary details of significant historical events which many would prefer to erase, to our nation’s peril.
 
I’m very grateful for the years of persistent and generous scholarship necessary to produce this readable summary which surely deserves wide consideration. Overthrow fills in the many gaps and blanks left by incomplete reporting-at-the-time, and offers an opportunity for synthesis, analysis, and reconsideration of the patterns, results, and morality of our past violent involvements in the political, economic, and social lives of people in faraway nations, as well as their implications for the present and future:
 
“There is no stronger or more persistent strain in the American character than the belief that the United States is a nation uniquely endowed with virtue…. This view is driven by a profound conviction that the American form of government, based on capitalism and individual political choice, is, as President Bush asserted, ‘right and true for every person in every society.’…By implication, it denies that (culture) changes only slowly, and that even great powers cannot impose their beliefs on others by force…  For more than a century, Americans have believed they deserve access to markets and resources in other countries. When they are denied that access, they take what they want by force, deposing governments that stand in their way. Great powers have done this since time immemorial….When the United States intervenes abroad to gain strategic advantage, depose governments it considers oppressive, or spread its political and religious system, it is also acting in its commercial self-interest….Most American-sponsored ‘regime change’ operations have…weakened rather than strengthened American security. They have produced generations of militants who are deeply and sometimes violently anti-American; expanded the borders that the United States feels obligated to defend, thereby increasing the number of enemies it must face and drawing it ever more deeply into webs of foreign entanglement; and emboldened enemies of the United States by showing that despite its awesome power, it has a soft and vulnerable underbelly….Most of these adventures have brought (Americans), and the nations whose histories they sought to change, far more pain than liberation.”
 
These are important lessons we need to learn, and Kinzer has assembled the foundational stories, facts, and figures necessary to establish their credibility.
 
Stephen Kinzer is an award-winning foreign correspondent with reporting experience in more than fifty countries on four continents, including service as New York Times bureau chief in Turkey, Germany, and Nicaragua. He has previously written four well-received histories focusing on Iran, Turkey, Nicaragua, and Guatemala.
 
Kinzer prefers patient diplomacy to violent regime-change, pointing to the efficacy of our productive continuing dialogues with China, the former Soviet Union, South Korea, and countries in South Africa. While he asserts that nations always act in their own self-interest, I wish he had also concluded that, on today’s tiny, interconnected, fragile blue planet, everyone’s national self-interests are irretrievably tied to the interests of everyone else, everywhere else. Pragmatically, we can no longer afford to think in terms of “them,” but only “us.”
 
I pray that President Bush will soon decide to become presidential, Christian, politically astute, humble, and visionary enough to boldly shift from a doomed-to-fail, self-centered foreign policy based on international competition, to one of enlightened, self-interested global cooperation. Neither approach is simple, obvious, or guaranteed, but only one has any chance of succeeding.
 
 
 
 
   Please send your comments to epharmon@adelphia.net
 
 
 
  

Creative Fun by Eppy

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Here are some of my hobbies (painting, cartooning, etc.) as well as a self-portrait, and a portrait of me by my five-year-old friend, Alexa. Look for them elsewhere in my website to see/learn more…. Thank you for visiting my website!  -eppyharmon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Fog of War Movies and Books

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A few months ago, I decided to watch some of the best-received war movies that came out of the Vietnam era—The Deer Hunter, The Killing Fields, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, and Coming Home, as well as some recent and older ones—The Battle of Algiers, Crimson Tide, Saving Private Ryan, The Enemy Below, and Black Hawk Down.
 
Although I’m definitely a quality-movie buff, I’m not easily entertained by violence, which explains why I avoided all of these movies when they first came out, despite a deep childhood curiosity about (and fear of) war.
 
I’m currently writing about the immorality of war, so feel compelled to watch such movies to help fill in my (fortunate) experiential gaps. I also watch them out of respect for their creators’ passion, dedication, and achievements in uniquely sharing their own war experiences.
 
Despite the fact that my father was a war hero and bird colonel with thirty-three years in the service (Silver Star, Purple Heart, and many more) he always firmly refused to share with us his sad or frightening WWII memories.
 
So after I left my military-brat life on-post, I dipped my toe into the vast body of quality literature coming out of Vietnam and other wars, admiring and enjoying Fields of Fire (go Jim Webb!), Dispatches, The Things They Carried, as well as War and Peace, Silent Flows the Don, and All Quiet on the Western Front. More recently, I loved Cold Mountain, War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, Blowback, An American Requiem, and the wonderful Patrick O’Brian Aubrey/Maturin series.
 
I found amazing agreement in all these books and movies in their moral conclusions about war, even as each offered me a unique personal perspective and story unlike any other.
 
Over and over, every work expressed or implied the point of view that “their” particular war had been insane, cruel, hard, sad, misguided, and stupid, and that it had seemed to create far more problems than it resolved. Their actual acts of war—the killing parts—were consistently experienced as pointless, chaotic, numbing, unreasonable, inhumane, confusing, wrong–and often thrilling, in that the pointy end of the sword had actually gone into the other guy.
 
Each work of art also revealed war’s most appealing reality:  war, like any other deeply challenging experience from marriage to sports, offers stirring opportunities for revelation and nobility, compassion and achievement, faith and idealism.
 
The “highs” of war remembered in these works were based in youth’s vitality, resiliance and resourcefulness, in the belongingness, common cause, and humor of bands of young brothers, and of course, in the bittersweet exhilaration following survival in battles in which, although others died, you didn’t.
 
Nearly every work used war’s bleak, terrified, often mutilated children to emphasize the meaninglessness and tragedy of war. And they all made the point that fear for oneself and for one’s friends drove them to acts of cruelty and immorality unimaginable during peacetime.
 
War, in these books and movies, turns out to be not at all what was expected, nor what they were trained or prepared for—although with works of art like these, perhaps the next generation will be better informed.
 
None of these soldier/artists, with the exception of O’Brian, ever found a way to make killing feel psychologically acceptable, although they all killed as necessary, “doing their duty” and protecting one another; their childhood moral conditioning in human compassion too strongly resisted killing other people. (Jack Aubrey’s disciplined and enthusiastic patriotism and militarism overruled his compassion, as happens sometimes with seasoned soldiers, if less often, with artists, but Maturin’s disgust with war offered a thoughtful foil.)
 
All authors implied how indelibly their training in the hate and fear which is necessary to kill enemies in cold blood had carved black chasms in their psyches, changing them (and their families) forever in ways they could not express to anyone who hadn’t shared similar experiences—mixed as war memories are with both pride and shame.
 
When at war, every soldier longed for home, and when finally back home, missed the “highs” mentioned above.
 
Most celebrated the rare beauty of the foreign lands being fought over, and condemned the  environmental and human waste, and the high costs of war.
 
Another interesting commonality was how universally fascinated all were with how soldiers react to fear, and, most specifically, with how they would perform under fire. (Although I didn't care much for The Red Badge of Courage, it merits attention primarily for this focus.) Much consideration was given in each of these works to the fact that every soldier reacts differently to fear, and to the impossibility of hiding one’s unique sensibilities during war. Like vocation, parenting, friendship, scholarship, accident, disease, death, and every other peacetime human trial, war reveals much too clearly the best and the worst in each person’s character and personality, while offering, as all difficult challenges do, ample opportunities for growth and wisdom.
 
I feel deeply privileged (and emotionally gutted) to have read and watched these great works, and will continue to see and read more. Some of the war-related books I want to read (and review) next are: Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq; Carroll’s House of War; Ambrose’s Citizen Soldiers; and perhaps Keegan’s The Second World War. The movies next on my list are, first, war documentaries: Why We Fight, The Fog of War, The War on Iraq, Hearts and Minds, and Protocols of Zion, followed by Foyle’s War, The War Within, and Casualties of War.
 
Do you have any other suggestions for quality war movies and books? I’ll gladly share them with my readers.