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Work 4 Peace,Hold All Life Sacred,Eliminate Violence! I am on my mobile version of the door-to-door, going town-to-town holding readings/gatherings/discussions of my book "But What Can I Do?" This is my often neglected blog mostly about my travels since 9/11 as I engage in dialogue and actions. It is steaming with my opinions, insights, analyses toward that end of holding all life sacred, dismantling the empire and eliminating violence while creating the society we want ALL to thrive in

Friday, December 25, 2009

No Happy-as-usual Holidays

I received an email to send President Bush-I-mean-Obama a holiday greeting. I did, wishing him and his family were transported to the front lines in Afghanistan and forced to remain there until every U.S. troop has been returned to the U.S.

For if other people's children and parents have to suffer on the front lines due to Obama's orders, why should he and his family be safe and protected from the war he is not only continuing but escalating?

It disturbs me greatly to hear people wish me "Happy Holidaze". It is mind boggling, really. How can I have a 'happy' holiday knowing that my happiness is built directly on someone else's misery?

It is clear to me now that there is nothing new about deprivation of some for the entitlement of others. When did we all agree to this? That it is okay, even desirable and supported by the masses, the amassing of wealth and resources by the few and the deprivation of those resources of the many.

I remember distinctly studying in college what faults the poor have that make them poor in a liberal attempt to help the poor 'overcome' their poverty. What a cruel joke, to blame the victims of greed and genocide for the ensuing results.

There is only ONE reason people are poor - and that is because someone has taken too much, more than his share.

The study should have been on the faults of the rich that allow them to use whatever means their greedy hands and inhuman hearts can find to deprive the rest of us of our basic needs in order to hoard resources for themselves.

Many believe this has been happening since the beginning of man.

I do not believe such. I believe people began caring for each other and taking care of each other - when womyn lead, at least. There are too many stories that have miraculously survived, even genocide and colonization, from most major cultures and religions.

I know that in ancient Jewish life and religion, if someone stole from you, YOU were the one who was punished - for you were not to hoard things your neighbor needed or wanted. Equity dominated. You were to share. Everyone was to share.

Another paradigm change.

The horrific, anti-human legacies we've been born into. If anything is totally unfair in this country and in this life, it is that one is born into the rules and mores and ways of life that some ancient assholes agreed to and have found fortressed and almost self-perpetuating ways and means to shove their desires and unfair practices down our throats as rules and mores, trampling or ripping out our own mores and desires in the process.

When I was born, I did not agree to live under these rules, except by the accident of birth. I KNOW it is wrong to live the way we live in this country.

I KNOW it was wrong to come to this land, destroy the people who lived here, and then travel across the ocean to capture and enslave the people from another continent to destroy their lives, families, culture and exploit their beings and labor in order to make this country rich and 'powerful' - altho 'power' is defined in our culture as domination over other living things - another definition and reality I did NOT agree to. And even 'rich' is defined by material wealth, another definition and reality I do not embrace.

I KNOW it is wrong to use both our mean might and our severely-lacking conscience, anti-human behavior to plunder the world's resources (including human lives) so that we can have so much more than almost everyone else in the world.

I KNOW it is wrong to agree to live having more than others.

I KNOW it is wrong to take human life.

I KNOW it is wrong to perpetuate violence, war, torture upon weaker individuals i.e. individuals who have NOT put all their efforts, energies, resources into becoming anti-human bullies.

I KNOW it is wrong to thrive on the spoils of this violence, the goods trickling down to every one of us on this land, whether it is a simple as availability of food and gas 24 hours a day to the more complex rewards of house, neighborhood, career, family.

I KNOW it is wrong to need superiority main-lined into our veins and inferiority against everyone else not part of our 'clan' superimposed on all our vision: inferiority and superiority lined up on a continuum from the most inferior being indigenous poor paegan lesbian single moms to the most superior being white rich christian heterosexual males - with everyone falling into place in between.

But we ALL (in this country and in those other countries soon after they have been conquered and victims of genocide by Europeans) have the gross and totally Anglo-Saxon-man-made need for superiority/inferiority infused in our cells before we are even born and constantly perpetuated by every institution, cultural more, every atom floating around us.

I reject this legacy - and everything attached to it. I renounce this way of life and all it's gilded trappings.

Which leaves me with the naked question: do the people of this country have the will to end war?