Tag: Military

Benefits of coma

It would be mighty irresponsible for an individual to live a life with their head down only being concerned with where they’re headed. That isn’t a general criticism directed broadly. It’s a specific comment directed at one person in particular. Me.

Truth be told, I haven’t honestly always (as in very recently) been the most accepting of change — when it comes to myself, at least. Being so strong headed about certain behaviours has proven to be the least productive of my efforts going forward. Especially concerning matters of the heart. Hard lessons learned. And I’m working on it.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers. In fact, I’m incredibly insecure about the “answers” I do have. And I hope that never changes. However as sure as I am about not being adequately informed about everything, I’m more than secure in proclaiming no-one is. As long as we refuse to listen and learn from each other we will never get to where we want and need to be…

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Turn that noise down!

I was going to review the year that is quickly coming to an end, in my typical cynical tone, but add a personal and somewhat optimistic touch at the end. Then I read Chris Hedges piece, 2011: A Brave New Dystopia, and suddenly everything that happened in 2010 seems quite inconsequential to what is more than likely to be waiting in 2011 and beyond.

Which, I think, says much more than it’s share. 2010 has been quite the year — The AlJazeera Top 10 does a relatively sufficient job rounding out the year, so I’ll urge all those interested to check it out. But it’s people like Mr. Hedges that can and continue to give the world in which we live a frightening context. A context we all must understand if we ever want to halt it.

Everything else has had it’s volume turned down since reading that…

When all is said and done

What could I add to a quote from Robert Fisk’s recent piece The shaming of America about the recent WikiLeaks disclosure of “The Iraq War Logs”? Not a fuck of a lot. So;

The truth, of course, is that if this vast treasury of secret reports had proved that the body count was much lower than trumpeted by the press, that US soldiers never tolerated Iraqi police torture, rarely shot civilians at checkpoints and always brought killer mercenaries to account, US generals would be handing these files out to journalists free of charge on the steps of the Pentagon. They are furious not because secrecy has been breached, or because blood may be spilt, but because they have been caught out telling the lies we always knew they told…

Typical Fisk fashion, pure class!

In the Face of the Unthinkable

Yesterday on Democracy Now! Emily Henochowicz was interviewed. Which for personal reasons, yesterday marked the 14th anniversary of my accident, was rather symbolic. For those unaware, Emily is a “twenty-one-year-old American art student who lost her eye [while in the West Bank] in May after being shot in the face by an Israeli tear gas canister at a protest against Israel’s attack on the Gaza flotilla.”

Now it isn’t my intent to get drawn in to arguments about what happened, I’ll refrain from comment, this time. Rather I’d most like to comment on the aspects of her story for which we share a connection, seeing what August 5th represents for me every year. Having the unthinkable occur and being forced to live the rest of a life with the result. I can, most definitely, relate.

And empathize…

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