Tag Archives: war

A Bunch of Unreallistic Dreamers and Kooks–and Me

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A ragtag bunch of unrealistic dreamers and kooks shared our home while passing through Frederick on their trek from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, headed toward the United Nations in New York City, where they will join a rally for nuclear non-proliferation in early May.

 

Or were they a serious, hard-working, disciplined, organized, committed, and spiritual group of unique individuals taking small peaceful steps toward greater sanity in a nutty world?

 

Arriving after a 20 mile walk from Lucketts, Virginia, the group took a scheduled rest day (once every seven days) in Frederick, welcomed by members of the Frederick Friends (Quakers) and several other local groups, before walking off toward a night hosted by two Thurmont churches.

 

What did I experience? A disparate but remarkably purposeful and caring group of believers and non-believers—Christians, Buddhists, activists of many stripes, the old and the young, walking for a day or a week or a month or for thousands of miles in many countries. They are black, white, Asian, native American, from the U.S., Japan, Australia, and many other countries.

 

As I juggle my own daily logistics, I wonder how the peacewalkers manage to arrange nightly lodging (on the floors of welcoming libraries and churches) how they eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, get medical care, manage personal possessions and sleeping bags…. But all seems smooth and organized. Every day they rise for interfaith prayer, and are walking by 7 a.m. They walk fast, carrying peace banners from many nations, smiling and waving and sharing their energy and positivity, even after walking fifteen miles. They are efficient and tidy, leaving their accommodations spotless.

 

I expected to host exhausted walkers who would collapse until noon in every corner of my home. No, they rose at dawn for prayer. One visitor, a Buddhist nun, magically produced from a small suitcase, a portable office. She spent the morning using her brief “rest” to email and call far-flung colleagues, and to plan a future walk converging in South Dakota. Willing hands produced a light breakfast and a feast for lunch. The young people wanted to explore Frederick’s downtown, while the rest shopped Goodwill, mailed pressed flowers and letters home, and then planned their evening presentations for curious townsfolk–about why they joined the group, why they walk, why they’ve stayed.

 

After everyone had left, I thought about what their work meant to me. I was most struck by how reversed I now felt about who and what is crazy.

 

Although I always have respected the peacewalkers’ cause—nuclear non-proliferation—I admit that I invited them despite a feeling that this was a crazy bunch of people choosing a crazy life and a crazy goal.

 

Now I’m thinking about cutting out sugar and caffeine and alcohol, as many of them do, for more energy–and maybe I’ll start fasting, too. I’m considering rising a little earlier to meditate and pray, and I’m asking myself what example my way of life offers to my children, and to others. I’m thinking again about moving forward on some impossible dreams of my own, thinking about taking the next step and then the next, as the peacewalkers courageously do each day, keeping the faith in humanity and possibility.

 

I’m thinking that maybe the life I see on TV, the commercial life, the fast life of the contemporary west, my life, is perhaps not the best context from which to decide who is crazy or not, nor from which to determine what is a balanced, healthy, useful life. I’m thinking that maybe I’ll try to shake myself free of contemporary culture just long enough to reconsider the possibility that nuclear tragedy isn’t necessarily inevitable, nor that working for change in our government policies isn’t necessarily a waste of time, and that joy and meaning and energy may come more readily from a purposeful, disciplined, giving, hardworking, kind, and open life.

 

I’m thinking I’ll keep an eye on the internet for the next time any peacewalkers come anywhere near my town again. I’ll download their schedule and join them in solidarity and respect, for a few days, or maybe I’ll plan a vacation around them. Maybe others will do the same, and maybe someday, as they hope, huge throngs will crowd around them in appreciation and support as they stride purposefully, idealistically, determinedly through the towns of the world. Yes, it’s true, they’re dreamers. But they’re not the only ones.

What If…?

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What if it’s not important to be right?

What if, instead of deciding who to love, we just love everybody?

What if no one can explain God, but it’s fun to try anyway?

What if the best way to help others is to love them just the way they are now?

What if the world is the way it is because God made it this way on purpose?

What if trying to change people just doesn’t work?

What if talking problems over with God always helps?

What if god doesn’t care whether you capitalize her name or not?

What if you’re perfect (ly human) just the way you are right now, and so is everyone else?

What if there’s no past and no future—only a long line of nows?

What if they gave wars and nobody came?

What if we treated everyone the way we’d like to be treated?

What if everything is possible with God’s help?

What if the differences between people don’t matter?

What if we’re each completely lovable in our own way?

What if everyone helps and no one hurts?

What if religion is about opening hearts and minds? 

What if thoughts and ideas are the most powerful things in the world?

What if we live our own lives and let everyone else live theirs?

What if no one has unfriendly thoughts about anyone (including themselves)?

What if things change only when we change?

What if the world is as we are?

What if what God wants for us and what we want most are the same things?

What if people explain God different ways, while God stays the same?

What if we don’t need to worry about mistakes?

What if life is supposed to be the way it is?

What if we already have everything we need?

What if people who were upset only got smiles and help?

What if the things that separate people aren’t important?

What if there’s nothing to be afraid of?

What if the best way to help the world is to love it the way it is right now?

What if people who suffer injustice never added to it?

What if everyone knows what’s true, but no two explain it the same way?

What if giving up guilt frees us to give and love and be happy again?

What if we decide to see only good?

What if we go on forever?

What if God is love?

What if there are more questions than answers?

What if the questions and the answers change as we change?

What if human minds are smaller than God’s?

What if we’re not meant or expected to understand everything?

What if living in faith means choosing, even though we can’t be sure?

What if it’s OK to talk about all of this?

Last Night at the Frederick Peace Meeting

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An impressive group of Frederick citizens exercised their constitutional rights and civic duties last night in thoughtful, impassioned dialogue concerning the planned Fort Detrick multi-agency expansion (which includes the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security.)

 

An articulate lifelong activist expressed her concern that necessary security precautions might screen the illicit activities of a small but powerful paranoid minority. What if a secret few rationalized production of dangerous new viruses? Wouldn’t those new viruses be subject to misuse, terrorism, theft, accidents, and carelessness? Even with past assurances, she thought, bad things can happen. They’ve happened before.

 

A caring, erudite scientist advocated cool heads, citing good intentions, expertise, experience, safety, and the many advantages of the planned diagnostic and protective research for both soldiers and citizenry.

 

A thoughtful businessman offered practical suggestions on how to continue to spread the group's concerns and ideas–where concerned citizens might go and whom they might see–the mayor, Ft. Detrick leaders, members of Congress. He encouraged continued participation in the issue.

 

A young Quaker pacifist asked how everyone felt about working cooperatively with Ft. Detrick to assure transparency and open processes? Did the group still hope to influence Ft. Detrick to reverse itself on the expansion in general?

 

No compromises, urged a war-weary longtime activist, suspicious after many years of uphill battles. What if we collaborate while new strains of deadly viruses are weaponized? What if the Ft. Detrick expansion begins a new arms race in biological weapons as uncontrollable and dangerous in this brave new world as the current arms races in nuclear bombs, missiles, and conventional air, sea, and land weaponry?

 

A retired teacher wondered aloud whether the expansion might attract terrorists to Frederick. What if someone lobbed a bomb over the post perimeter fence from a home in any of the nearby neighborhoods? It’s not only the loss of lives and property, she added wistfully. Wouldn’t there be a national panic over the possible biological contents of floating and falling debris? Would that panic be legitimate?

 

The possibility of a bomb alarmed a tireless peace worker who handles much of the group’s paper and phone work. Nothing in the Ft. Detrick report said anything about a bomb, she worried, passing chocolates down the conference table (the group was temporarily meeting at a nursing home where she was recovering from a stroke.) A bomb. What about all our lifelong Frederick friends, family, our grandchildren?

 

The Peace Resource Center’s founder, a selfless, peaceful activist and community leader for more than twenty years, sought consensus by restating what he had heard from all of us:  Were we still hoping to prevent the Detrick expansion? Or were we willing to continue to strongly share our concerns while working for transparency and openness in all processes?

 

A firm “NO” came from a knowledgeable woman who dons black clothing to conduct public evening vigils in solidarity with women everywhere suffering from violence. What would spending this money tell the world about our national priorities? How could America throw money at potential threats when so many here and abroad are suffering and dying right now from real and present threats, like preventable diseases and malnutrition?

 

A soft-spoken newcomer wondered aloud whether bioterrorism research was at all suited for a military base, especially a base historically synonymous in the minds of the international community with biological warfare. Was it wise to deliberately inflame international perceptions? Why create more fear and anger? Even if U.S. actions are unimpeachable, will anyone trust our intentions, given our bioweapons history, our military presence in hundreds of bases all over the world, the size of our defense budget, our use of atomic weapons, and our current proactive conduct of the war on terror?

 

One powerful citizen offered a European perspective: All this focus on terrorism–wasn't it just serving the interests of those who might wish to divert national attention away from greater threats to our homeland’s  security—our unpopular foreign policies and wars, our national debt and deficit, our lack of living wages, unaffordable health care, housing, and higher education, our troubled education system, our threatened civil and political rights, our beleaguered environment?  And what about our fights against drugs, pornography, alcohol, crime, low moral standards, and imprisonment? Aren’t these threats endangering our beloved country’s security right now, every bit as as much or even more than potential acts of terrorism?

 

A young collegian who had listened in silence spoke out in challenging yet measured terms. If you want young people to support your efforts, he said, don’t water this stuff down. Speak up. Take a stand. Be clear. If you know what you want, go after it. I think we should oppose the expansion.

 

A cacophony of sharing and side-conversations ended the meeting. We can still do some good…. We can support needed work without supporting secrecy and dangerous experimentation…. Let’s talk more at our next meeting about our films-for-peace  project…. You can’t control technology—didn’t you see Jurassic Park?… You just have to be careful…. Are you coming to the peace conference?… Can the rewards match such risks?… Someone should write all this up…. Hugs…warm handshakes…. That new website looks great…. Courage…. How is your family?… Want a ride home?… Here, take this candy…. Good-bye good-bye, until next time.

 

(The people and ideas shared in this article are composites of attendees and opinions exchanged at recent meetings. The Peace Resource Center of Frederick invites constructive participation and objective debate on this and other issues. They meet at 4 East Church St. on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of each month from 7:30-9:30 pm.)

How I See the World (Today)

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Every person creates his or her own unique “reality.” Reality is not something “out there,” but something “in here,” created (during youth) as each person’s unique brain interacts with its particular environment, attempting to make some kind of systematic and predictable sense out of the relatively narrow set of confusing experiences and nonsense correlations it is confronted with. Thus, each individual arrives at adulthood with a unique belief system and worldview different from any other's. Much of adult learning consists of unlearning what we came to “know” about life in childhood that doesn’t happen to be so.

 

No one’s perspective is complete, or objective, or “right.” No one knows what he doesn’t know. No one ever achieves a complete understanding of anything, nor will anyone ever get anything completely “right” or “perfect”—no goal, no relationship, no choice, no idea—except, of course, that we are all perfect and right in the sense that we are all at every moment just exactly what we were meant to be, i.e., perfectly human.

 

Nature reveals a lot about the way my-unique-view-of-God works. “By the work, ye know the workman.” Nothing in nature or science contradicts anything I think or believe.

 

People are a completely natural part of nature.

 

Every person is born capable of the complete and astonishing range of human behavior, from the depths of depravity to the pinnacles of goodness.

 

It is written in the (very fallible but often wonderful) Bible, that when God “created” man and nature, he declared that both were “good.” I like the wisdom here. Who are we to argue with God, to call ourselves fallen and evil and sinners, when the creation-God of so many cultures has declared us “good,” and the earth good, just exactly as we are, just exactly as it is? We are exactly as God intended us to be—capable of all things, on this best of all possible worlds. We did lose peace, though, when we chose to see ourselves as separate from each other and God/higher power, and thus somehow shameful. (If you don't believe in a higher power, sin and evil and hell and such aren't issues for you….)

 

It’s interesting and fun to try to figure everything out, but only if you approach life as a wonderful surprising adventurous process with no goal at all but what you are doing right now—and not as an impossibly difficult and dangerous maze with a mysterious end  reward or goal. But whatever way you choose to look at life, you’ll still never figure it all out or get it “right.”

 

Since none of us knows what we don’t know, and since we don’t know what part of what we know isn’t so, then with each moment-to-moment choice we make, we act out of a  particular belief system, which is, in a sense, our unique and chosen faith about “how things work.”

 

There are two very general but very different things one can choose to put one’s faith in: fear or love. We all grow up with a mixture of the two faiths.

 

In any given decision moment, we decide to put our faith into either the one or the other–but we can never choose both at the same time, because fear and love can’t coexist in any one mind in the same instant.

 

The word “love” as I use it comprises all the good stuff humans are capable of—caring, hoping, kindness, forgiveness, acceptance, gentleness, giving….

 

The word “fear” as used here comprises all the bad stuff we’re capable of—like defending, attacking, controlling, hurting, hating, anger, greed, pride….

 

All of us have learned a lot of very reasonable, logical, arguable, cultural and personal reasons why we shouldn’t choose to act with faith in love in various situations. However, if we decide we want to, we can learn to recognize and drop each of these barriers to love, one by one, by seeing them as beliefs that don’t serve life very well. We can unlearn them, moment-to-moment.

 

Whichever way we decide to go, both kinds of faith–faith in fear or faith in love–are shots in the dark. In fact, that is what faith is, a shot in the dark. Faith is acting as though you know something to be true, when actually you don’t, at least not unarguably. You never know anything for sure–no matter how strong your faith–but you still have to choose how to act. Faith is choosing to act as if you know something and trust something for sure, when you don’t.

 

You can act, moment-to-moment, as if you know that being loving will out work for the best in the long run for you and for everyone else. Or, you can act as if you know that things will work out for the best if you choose to “fight back,” defending and protecting yourself against all the bad stuff you see in others.

 

All decisions and all actions, large or small, require courage, and all people (even those labeled the most “evil” in history) take only the actions they’ve decided will work best for them, based on what they think they know and don’t know.

 

“Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” Being a loving person means having faith in the good intentions and sincerity of all others, all the time. We need to “believe” what others tell us, even when what they tell us seems completely unbelievable–because in some respect, from their viewpoint, they do believe it.

 

As Jesus was crucified, he said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” We need to forgive ourselves and each other all our mistakes, small and large, because we are all  just wandering around and acting in the dark, doing the best we can, and you can never know what choices makes sense from another person’s worldview, or why. Besides, you'll never “forgive and forget” your own mistakes until you first learn to forgive and forget the mistakes of others. And the weight of constant self-judgment is exhausting.

 

When you treat all others as you would like all people to treat you, you are acting out of a faith in love. When you make an exception to this universal rule, which is the foundation of all human ethics, morals, and religions everywhere in the world, you are acting out of your faith in fear.

 

When you come from a mental place of being “right,” (“I am right about this”) you automatically make all the people who disagree with you “wrong,” which doesn’t work very well either.

 

Everyone, without exception, is deserving of our respect for their courageous (or timid) efforts to negotiate a life that is often difficult and painful, and always challenging and confusing.

 

“Vengeance is mine saith the Lord” means, “Vengeance isn’t yours.” Things may not seem fair or just from our own narrow perspectives, but God has a different, bigger, better, longer, more just picture, one we usually don’t get. We can ask him to share it with us, though. When confronted with problems, I often ask God to help me “see” things his way. And so he does.

 

God gives us all the good spiritual gifts we ask for—strength, insight, wisdom, help, comfort, understanding, forbearance, patience, and all the others, which can make a huge, even miraculous, difference. If we feel bereft, it’s because we haven’t asked for help. I don't think that God interferes with nature, but rather, works with it.

 

When we act out of fear, we deprive ourselves of the nicest state in the world, feeling harmless and safe and loved and lovable and peaceful.

 

Others generally will treat you the way you treat them. Others generally will see you the way you see them. So if you want others to start seeing you and treating you caringly, you go first. And be really patient—it can take a long time to change old patterns, both yours and theirs.

 

We can decide to look at the world and people lovingly, or we can decide to see the world and others fearfully, moment-to-moment, over and over again. Our lives and choices are not about “what’s out there.” Everything we see and do is always about “what’s in here.”

 

I choose to live as much as possible as if the past and future don’t really exist. This approach has a lot of freeing implications concerning “identity” (i.e., it’s much more fun to think of yourself as nothingness-full-of-possibility than to drag around a heavy burden of past and future.) The present is the only time I can be happy, be creative, can give and receive, can fully experience life; I’ve also found that whenever I notice I’m afraid or mad or sad, I can be sure I’ve been thinking about the past or the future, not the present. So I try to stay in the present….

 

In this world which often seems hopeless and terrifying, and despite having very little knowledge, and often no reliable human hand to hold—my challenge is to take the next step with love.

 

Sometimes the result of putting our faith in love seems unkind or unjust or unfair to ourselves, but it is always nobler to suffer injustice than to add to it. When we put our faith in love, at the worst we will do no harm.

 

God is what comforts me when I ask for comfort; God is what inspires me when I ask for inspiration, what creates through me, what loves through me, the light I see in the eyes of every person, all the beauty of nature, all that thrills me and brings tears of gratitude, all that connects me with everyone and everything that is, all that is profound, awesome, true, good, meaningful, the highest and best in man and nature. God is all the answers and all the questions, all the pain and all the joy, the beginning and the end of everything. That's as close as I can come to defining my personal God, and my personal belief system.

 

I don’t “know” any of this stuff, except through my individual experience and learning; every time I act with love, I feel confirmed in my faith in love, and every time I act in fear or anger or hatred, I am even more miserable. I choose to believe all this because it works for me in my day-to-day life. It’s also interesting and fun/light. What others learn is often different, what works for others may be different, and what others choose to believe is often different. I don’t think I’m right and I don’t think you’re wrong—we just have different realities, as does each person on this planet….

 

These are some of the things I try to remember as I go through life. I don’t ever get them right, though, and that’s OK too. How I see things will continue to change as I keep learning and growing.

Terrorism Shmerrorism: What Are the Real Threats to Our Homeland Security?

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I’m scared of terrorists too. I just wish we’d come up with a foreign policy like Canada’s, that wouldn’t irritate everyone so much. Because as long as we have hordes of angry enemies ready to jump at any chance to die hurting us, then all the king’s horses and all the king’s men won’t be able to put the U.S. safely back together again.

 

Nevertheless, we obliviously continue to spend our children’s heritage to send our forces to every corner of the earth, to shoot and spy our way through problems and opportunities that cannot be resolved by wars or secrecy.

 

It’s the old bait-and-switch game, isn’t it, along with goofy variations on the shell game and the confidence game? Spend gobs of money in futile attempts to prevent potential threats, while we ignore all the other very real and present threats to our homeland?

 

What are the threats that we’d prefer not to notice while we’re dashing around busting into distant homes in search of bad guys?

 

America is threatened down to her very roots by her massive debt and deficit. We’re threatened by our refusal to offer a decent living to those who work hard and play by the rules. We’re threatened by our unwillingness to insist that the world’s richest nation offer all its citizens affordable healthcare. We are threatened by our refusal to offer a quality education to our children. We’re threatened by our refusal to tax our wealthiest citizens, and by our insistence on squandering our resources on foreign wars.

 

Our most fundamental rights and freedoms are threatened by fearmongers demanding increasingly intrusive and oppressive legislation. Our most basic democratic processes are threatened by paranoid demagogues who would trade basic liberties for false assurances of safety.

 

Americans are threatened by the growing suspicions of an increasingly resentful global family which quite reasonably expects the richest country in the world to share their good fortune kindly and equitably. We’re threatened by our reputation as selfish energy-gobblers and polluters and weapons dealers, and by our economic and political double standards. We’re threatened by a world that thinks we’ve never heard of the golden rule–that we don’t care for others as much as ourselves

 

America is threatened by the diseases and conditions with known cures that we aren’t addressing. We’re threatened by a culture of violence that glorifies guns, anger, and vengeance. We’re threatened by our lack of resolve in supporting character education. We’re threatened by weakening bonds of marriage, family, and community. We’re threatened by pornography and drugs and alcohol.

 

We’re threatened by unwise and unhealthful habits and attitudes pressed upon us by an unregulated corporate and media power structure that finds their promotion profitable. We’re threatened by radio and television demagogues who lie with impunity to spread hate, anger, and prejudice, when what we need most is caring, openness, respect, and acceptance–the glue of every culture. We’re threatened by unsafe neighborhoods, and by unaffordable transportation, energy, housing, and higher education.

 

And we're threatened by our indifference to our responsibilities to wisely steward our fragile natural home–our beautiful green-and-blue planet–for the benefit and survival of both present and future generations.

 

So what do we focus on instead? Just like in the old protection racket, first we create a lot of problems and a lot of fear. Then we promise ourselves the illusion of safety, and charge ourselves extortion rates for that illusion. Finally, we fail to deliver the goods—and then charge ourselves even more for another chance to keep hunting those elusive, scary enemies. All this frenzy, while we turn our faces away from all the other real and present problems that daily threaten the security of our beloved homeland.

A smallc christian in a BigC Christian world….

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I'm a smallc christian, in the sense of “That's very christian of you,” or “She certainly has a christian spirit.” I make a humble attempt to be like Christ…to be Christlike.

As a smallc christian, I have no beliefs about Jesus, no articles of faith, and certainly no magic words or deeds that insure me a place in heaven or on God's good side.

As a smallc christian, I think following Jesus's example and teachings is the main point of being christian. I think some BigC Christians miss the christian point, getting caught up in interpretations and arguments about who and what is right and wrong, what his life meant. As a smallc christian, I think Jesus was right, so I try to understand what he said and did.

Jesus taught people to love one another, to be kind and generous, to care for the poor and the sick and the needy–so as a smallc christian, I try to do these things. This smallc christian thinks Jesus would be pretty happy if we all just got along and treated each other the way we'd like to be treated.

Jesus prayed often, and so do I. Jesus encouraged his followers to ask, seek, and knock, and promised they would receive answers (this smallc christian always has.) Jesus lived his life for others, in peace and gentleness. Jesus was an itinerant rabbi, appreciative of church traditions and teachings. He suffered much violence and injustice in his life, but never added to it.

Smallc christians think Jesus saw himself as a teacher, not as God, or a saviour, or as head of a church. As a smallc christian, I see Jesus as God's beloved child–just as we all are.

I view the New Testament as a mixed record of varying reliability (like the Old Testament,) left by early writers touched by oral and written traditions of Jesus's life and teachings, and often touched by God. Smallc christians study Jesus' words and example as found in the Sermon on the Mount, the parables, the beatitudes, etc. I question interpretations of Jesus's life and meaning by early writers such as Paul, as well as later doctrines established by various other “authorities.” I try to open my God-given mind to freshly consider what the Bible might offer us in today's world. I enjoy reading biblical scholars and historians who seem equally open and far more knowledgeable in this field (David Kling, Jaroslav Pelikan, Marcus Borg, others.)

Smallc christians try to live by what Jesus declared were the two great commandments: love God, and love thy neighbor as thyself. I try to understand and follow God as completely and honestly as I can, and to love all God's children (that's everyone) just as if they were myself, and just as much as I love myself.

Jesus taught that we are all always forgivable and lovable and worthwhile, even though each of us will often fail, and none of us will ever be perfect in anything. So smallc christians try, like Jesus, to forgive ourselves and others.

Are smallc christians Christian? Who gets to decide?

Why Military Recruitment Is Down. It's Not The War, Stupid

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Used to, you joined up, camped out in the woods some, got to shoot up ammo for a few years with your best buds, and then you went to college free. It's not like it used to be anymore. Pay's pretty good though, I gotta admit that. A lot better than I could get anywhere else around here, what with the economy and all. My wife and kids need it bad. I wonder if I'd be a better dad or worse, if I stayed here, poor.

They sure don't give you much money for dying, though. That sucks. You'd think they'd pay the poor jerks who actually sign up for war, you know, willing to die for their country? You'd think they'd get more for dying than all those office types who just happened to be hanging around the wrong place at the wrong time on 9/11. Or the fat-cat contractors in Iraq. All that's so typical. Never trust the government.

My recruiter keeps on pushing me though, keeps reminding me that America needs brave, patriotic men like me to protect and serve all our ideals and values and stuff. I like all that shit. That is me, for sure. I could use the workouts too, all this work is making me soft. I don't know about the adventure and traveling to foreign lands shit. But he keeps asking me if I want to protect my family, my way of life. You bet I do. There's some scary shit going on out there. My recruiter and I talk about all that stuff a lot.

But none of my friends think I should sign up. My wife? She's not sure. We could sure use the money. But everyone's scared shitless if I join up. Used to, moms and dads pushed their sons into war, but with the TV news and all, it's not like it used to be. Sure, they support the war and all, but…well, nowadays it's pretty confusing.

Everybody tells me I'll probably die, be cannon-fodder is what they call it. They say it's just a bunch of old farts in Washington who never went to war themselves throwing American kids at all their problems. Like they care, it's not their kids dying. My mom says if I don't die on this tour, I will on the next one, 'cause they're never gonna let me out, I'll have to stay in the army forever. Because even the president says the war on terror never ends.

So what if I do join up? How am I supposed to know what to do? What if they tell me to torture prisoners? Shoot someone? How am I supposed to know which Iraqi I hate so much I shoot him in the face, and which one I'm supposed to die for, you know, to give him freedom and everything? If I could make sense out of any of this constitutional law shit, I'd be a bigbucks lawyer for chrissake, not standing here with my thumb up my ass. How am I supposed to know from Geneva Conventions? I'm a black-and-white kinda guy. All this in-between shit? I can't even decide if we're really the guys in the white hats or not. I mean, after you get all rigged up in those soldier outfits like the movies? You sure look like you could stir up some terror.

And who's gonna look out for me when I screw up? Which I've been known to do. They sure saved the big brasses' asses in that Abu Graib thing, socked it right to the grunts. Hell, they should just say screw this citizen-soldier-all-volunteer army shit and hire mercenaries and soldiers-of-fortune. Those guys know what they're doing, and they don't care who they shoot.

And anyway, that's what all those hotshot Brits in tophats did on the history channel. With all that empire money flowing in from everywhere? I guess the Brits were all just too damned busy taking care of their mansions and screwing their servants and stuff to actually go out and fight. So they just started a foreign legion. That's what we should do if we wanna send our soldiers out to every goddam nowhere place on the planet and save them from democracy, or whatever the shit is we're doing.

And screw the damn politcos too. One day they say shoot the sonofabitch and the next day he's sleeping in the bunk next to you, 'cause some fast talkers in Washington negotiated some secret deal. Now won't that just make it easy to sleep at night when I'm…old, god forbid. Not knowing whether I killed the good guys or the bad guys? Not knowing, maybe, even…which one was I?

And what about my friend Jesus? I was taught to do the Ten Commandments, but thou shalt not kill is all fucked up these days, not to mention love thy neighbor. And what about my mom? How can I honor my mom when I go off gallivanting and get my ass shot off? It's just not worth going to hell, if I, like, kill the wrong one, you know, like by accident? Shit. Watching all the war movies made it look easier.

I'd sure volunteer to defend my homeland, but the army isn't allowed to do that job anymore. I don't get it, how that's someone else's department now. Jesus. What does the Department of Defense do with all that money if it can't defend the homeland? Maybe it's that freedom-and-democracy-for-everyone-else crap. I like all that shit, I'll admit it, but I don't wanna get my ass shot off for it. But it's nice, you know, for the A-rabs or whatever they are? At least, anyway, for the ones we don't blow away while we're tearing up the place looking for bad guys. Sure was glad to get that bastard Saddam, though. And I'll admit, I'd like to help out all those big-eyed gals in veils, you know, save them from the creeps who slap them around and shit? My recruiter talks a lot about that stuff. But I can't quite figure out how blowing away their fathers, husbands, sons, and brothers gets the job done. Maybe I need to think about it some more.

Maybe I need to think about all this stuff some more. Maybe I just don't love my country enough. Probably I'm a coward, not joining up like my dad did. I sure wish I'd had a chance to get to know him before he joined up, though. I heard he was a really good guy.

Well screw it. So I'm a coward. I'll join up when they bring their armies over here and start shooting at us. Or maybe…. Who knows, maybe if American soldiers stopped running around all over the world waving their guns and ordering people around, maybe the terrorists would just go home themselves and enjoy a moment of peace and quiet with their families. Maybe if we just stay home and mind our own business, maybe they will too. Just leave us alone, like, too. Live and let live.

I don't want to die. My old lady and me, she's…well, she's great. We got plans. I'm not the lucky type. Sure as shit I'd join up and they'd stick me someplace really bad and I'd get killed the first week. They do that. Or worse than killed. Tortured or beheaded and shit. Or come home with half my parts blown off. I've see those crippled vets hanging out in the street. They don't get shit. Never trust the govenment.

Maybe I won't die, though. Maybe I'll get lucky enough to spend half my life in some nasty foreign hellhole whose name I never even heard of 'til I got there. They don't even get NASCAR in some of those places I'll bet, and the beer's all foreign crap. What is it about fighting wars that everyone's already said we can't win? What's it all for? I've heard stuff about it's for cheap oil, but I can't believe anyone would start a war over that. Who would be stupid enough to die for oil? Fuck this shit, I'm outta here.

 

Journalists Are Paid to be Biased. Some of Us Just Ain't Tellin'

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Armstrong Williams isn't that different from other journalists. We all hide our biases. I have no doubt that someone carefully selected Mr. Williams over Molly Ivins for that job not only for his race but also because of Williams' genuine sympathy for Bush's programs. Writers are paid for their particular biases, not despite them, and often for their ability to consistently conceal them. News anchors like Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw build their careers upon carefully-preserved illusions of balance. We don't learn what anchors really think until they use their reputations for fairness to sell all the books they write in retirement about their pent-up biases.

The fuss over the bias recently “discovered' in the Pentagon's Balkan website seems a little silly in retrospect; it did, however, shed light on America's journalistic innocence, and clarified the legal limits of deceptive government propaganda. But of course that website was biased. Just as every other website is, along with all reporting in every medium. Every offering from the Pentagon is biased, as is every presidential press briefing, every word of anyone's testimony before Congress, every word from both parties, every story in every newspaper–in fact, every opinion on every issue that's ever been discussed. To be human is to be biased.

Writers with the most interesting biases are often the best-rewarded. A writer with a reputation for balance isn't unbiased. Fairness suggests instead that a writer has honestly and thoughtfully acquired a worldview which consistently informs and shapes her characteristic responses to, say, breaking news. Even the subject matter writers are drawn to reflects their biases. Like everyone else, writers enjoy being right; we just know how to be subtle about it.

Whenever I'm offered a statement or a “fact,” I wonder, “Sez who?” Most of us judge a story unbiased if it doesn't lean too far away from the way we see things, but we often overlook all the bias supporting what we already believe. Each of our unique worldviews finally comes down to who and what we choose to believe. There are no agreed-upon sets of facts, except perhaps a few scientific ones. The most robust worldviews are shaped slowly by open young inquirers who earnestly try to get “reality” right. No one ever gets reality right, by the way; but some worldviews do turn out to be more comprehensive or interesting than others.

In order to keep on living, we all make tentative assumptions, believe some “facts” offered us, but it's worthwhile to remind ourselves that nearly everything we think we know is acquired second-hand. The only thing we ever know for sure is that none of us knows anything for sure, because none of us has ever been everywhere and everyone, experiencing everything as it happens (that would be a definition of God.) An unbiased viewpoint on anything is an impossibility. Peter Jennings' perspectives would seem alien in most parts of the world.

What journalists/bloggers/pundits/writers can strive for, since objectivity is not possible, is to offer readers more of ourselves. As we strive like frenetic chameleons to adapt to this rapidly altering planet, we can offer our eyes and ears, our minds and hearts, our most honest reactions, questions, considerations, conclusions, and perspectives, all of which become, in the process, ever more unique, nuanced, colored, flavored, touched, persuaded, molded, bent, impressed, swayed, influenced, moved, convinced … biased.

Be Free or Be Right In America. Choose One.

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Like his vision-thing, Mr. Bush's freedom-thing is a hard thing to get right. Hardly anyone in America really wants to be free. Instead, we'd rather be right–about our religious and political beliefs, our versions of patriotism, and our lifestyles.

We want our rights-and-wrongs black and white, settled once and for all, and predictable, with no raggedy-edged uncertainties. We absolutely must be right about our versions of elemental things: the Pledge, the Flag, the Ten Commandments, the Constitution. We must know with finality–Are we or are we not the good guys in the white hats? Is our country and way of life the best, as we learned in elementary school? What about our god, our church, our religion, our form of government–they're the right ones, right? We did and do fight on the right side in every war, right? We are the land of the free and the home of the brave?

We'll slash campaign vehicle tires, print misleading election leaflets, make harrassing phone calls to election boards, slow down voting, spread rumors of infidelity, lie, cheat, and steal to elect our right guys. Anything goes, it seems, for the right to be right about America on election day.

Americans love freedom, but we'll trade freedom, to be right. Speak freely, we insist, say what you want, write what you please, research any area–except, of course, controversial ones that question our basic assumptions about ourselves, our leaders, and our foreign policy, about history, values, gender and racial differences, about Jesus and Jews and terrorism, about the war in Iraq, and whether or not we're all turning into fascists.

As long as we can be right, we'll leave our loved ones and travel around the world to shoot complete strangers in the face beside their families and homes in the lands of their ancestors. We'll rain bombs down from miles up, upon exotic civilian populations–as long as we're right. We'll imprison, maim, and torture, if it's necessary, if we're right.

But Americans cannot be right and free at the same time.

Living in a free country means being right is up for grabs. Living in a free country means giving other religious and political and social and economic systems the same respectful attitude and tone we want to hear toward our own. Living in a free country means not insisting, or even wishing, that everyone else think and act like we do. Living in a free country means winning elections with no dirty tricks, because when you win that way, you're no longer free. Living in a free country means listening to all other sides, and supporting their right to be heard. Living free means working to be educated inquirers, and not just to reinforce the stuff we already think we know. Living free means accepting complex humanity in all its messy and glorious diversity, not hating other Americans, or Jews, or Arabs, or liberals, or conservatives, or Christians, or atheists. Living free means holding to and speaking out about our beliefs, values, and allegiances, without insisting on being right about them.

The road to this American freedom-thing may be a long and hard one for everyone.

 

What Are We Getting For Our Pentagon Dollars?

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We have a huge Pentagon budget which pays for neither the costs of wars nor for protecting our homeland. So what do they do with all that money? To be sure, someone still needs to have the financial wherewithal necessary to protect and defend America’s economic and strategic interests abroad, as well as (on occasion) our heedless or haplessly wandering citizenry.

 

But America’s global economic and strategic interests could be far better attended to by a well-funded Commerce and State Department. Our citizens should stay out of countries where they’re not wanted, and behave as polite guests where they are invited. And if they find themselves innocently threatened? Well, that’s what the marines are for. Keep on paying them.

 

If America redirected just half the amount of funding we give to the Department of Defense to Commerce and State, we would all reap the rewards of wise, mutually advantageous longterm trade deals and proactive diplomatic dialogues. We’d be far less likely to feel any need to throw our unrecognizable, camouflaged firstborns into the maw of all those foreign hellholes we ourselves created by having a military budget so huge it dwarfs any other country’s tenfold. America’s primary diplomatic tool is a hammer. No wonder foreign countries all look like nails.

 

Which leaves us still with the necessity of defending our homeland. If our foreign policies precluded pushing smaller countries around to suit our pride and greed, if we refrained from occupying other lands with hundreds of farflung military outposts, not to mention callous and inequitable trade policies, then perhaps we’d have fewer terrorists angry at us because our governments underwrote their despots, our tycoons pillaged their resources, and our national interests left their families in danger, economic slavery, and without rights. I don’t see any terrorists threatening Canada, or Norway, or Sweden, and they top most lists of being the so-called envied lands of the rich and free. Now why is that?

 

It is our present policy to give great unaccountable gobs of money to a Department of Defense that cannot keep us safe from terrorists, cannot win unwinnable wars, and can only add terror and injustice to the terror and injustice already caused by others.

 

Our beloved America can do better, must do better if we are to live up to our wonderful traditions and ideals. I hope Americans soon decide to spend our taxes more wisely, for our own sake, and for the sakes of so many others.