A little unusual vlog I'm having trouble sleeping this morning and have a day away from computer to look forward to, so no time like the present, etc. First vid is me looking tired and talking hoarse (yeah Dad you don't have to worry about too much makeup in this one, but dang girl you need to stop sleepin' in your earrings) but it's short, explains where I was yesterday afternoon, and the second video. which is not me, is more about the exhibit I attended. It's 5:15 long, and if you haven't seen it I hope you will watch.
yes we need to get angry
ReplyDeletei walked in the protest in NYC on saturday -- in the rain -- but it was so worth it
starts small --- but it has to grow
problem was the enabling media basically ignorned it.....
You could have called ... I was still awake. Must have been something in the air.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if the AIDS quilt was the first, but these types of displays are very moving.
BAC
*crying silently*
ReplyDeleteThis is why I don't post about politics, religion or war on my blog. The anger is too overwhelming.
ReplyDeleteCan you imagine how people would have reacted to this sort of protest in 1941? If there had been the shoes of soldiers and civilians in the streets? It takes a lot of lies to sell a war, but it takes a gullible and compliant populace to believe them. Generation after generation, we've bought into the lies.
I will try to skype in tonight.
I'm really glad that BAC referenced the "Names" project. I took my 3 year old daughter to see that, oh, so many years ago, and wept the entire time. It's true, these displays are powerful, and move people in ways that protest marches cannot.
ReplyDeleteI've seen the Wisconsin portion of Eyes Wide Open twice. The first time, 2 years ago when the US count was just over 2000, I read names as well. It is a moving experience.
The second time was last summer, when it was displayed in the northern Wisconsin town of River Falls, during the Friends General Conference gathering.
When it was being brought to Madison, people in my meeting were asked to donate shoes for the civilian part of the exhibit. One Friend commented that it was unsettling to see his young daughter's shoes there.
Another thing that happened was, I encouraged people from my school community to go. One mom took her young son, and ended up talking with the fianceé of the first Madison soldier to die in Iraq. That made a big impression on the boy.
Sadly, the exhibit has grown so large that it is mostly being exhibited in parts now. By all means, see it if it is anywhere in your vicinity.
Pygalgia posted recently about how 1 in 6 Iraqi citizens has been killed or displaced. 1 in 6. He reminds us to look around us and imagine that in our own lives. 1 in 6 of all the people we know, associate with, every day -- and we don't get to choose who that one may be. A child, a husband, a best friend, a neighbor ...
And the empty shoes really make it real.
Thanks, BG, for posting about it.
It would be nice if we could read the names of the hundreds of thousands, or millions, of Iraqis that were raped, tortured and murdered in the Good Ol' Days under the previous enlightened regime...net, tens of thousands are now living who would have been tortured beyond belied for years before being buried alive or thrown off a building, hands bound behind their backs.
ReplyDeleteOr worse.
Just a thought for philosophical balance, here.
Thanks.
Robert
i'm so sorry for them..... the band played waltzing matilda
ReplyDeleteIt well I remember that terrible day
When our blood stained the sand and the water
And how in that hell they call Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter
Johnny Turk, he was ready, he primed himself well
He rained us with bullets, and he showered us with shell
And in five minutes flat, we were all blown to hell
He nearly blew us back home to Australia
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
slain
Well we buried ours and the Turks buried theirs
Then it started all over again....
We know that Iraq was not invaded to save people from Sadam Hussein. When I watched this video clip it was hard to look at the shoes of the children, and tears came to my eyes to hear of the 23 yr. old vet who killed himself, remembering the children he had to run over with his truck in Iraq. So many shoes...
ReplyDeleteWell, always interested, I say "whyever." I'm more interested in the results, and there's a very strong case that, net, tens or hundreds of thousands more people would have died if there was no invasion. When I watch a video clip of shackled men being thrown off a building, or read about a living baby cut out of his mother while the father was forced to watch, tears come to my eyes, too. And y'know, the only people doing things like this nowadays are the "insurgents." Let's talk about reality, rather than symbolism.
ReplyDeleteWarheit, I don't think anyone who protests this war wants to go back to the days of Saddam Hussein. It is important to remember, however, that while his regime was raping, torturing and murdering, OUR government was supporting him, WE put him in power and bolstered his regime for years until he had the audacity to thumb his nose at the US. That's when sanctions were imposed, which incidentally hurt only Iraqi civilians. Sadly, we have a l-o-n-g history of doing that all over the world. The list of countries is too long: Chilé, Argentina, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Haiti, Uganda, the Congo ... It makes me weep to think about it.
ReplyDeleteLet's get this right: BushCo did not invade Iraq in our name because Saddam Hussein was committing human rights violations. We continue to support governments that regularly engage in the torture, rape and murder of dissidents, as you describe.
And I believe that it is absolutely appropriate to include Iraqi civilians who have died since the US invasion in our public mourning.
Remember that number: 1 in 6. What was it before the invasion?
Ghost Dansing -- I LOVE that song. Th other one that Eric Bogle wrote, equally powerful, is "No Man's Land." War is pointless, unless you are one of the profiteers.
As was so powerfully demonstrated in South Africa, brutal regimes CAN be overthrown using nonviolent means.
Thank you Suzy. And there were those 42.5 million U.S. tax dollars that went to the Taliban in Afghanistan, in 2001, prior to September 11. That's not made up. That's mainstream, American news, that's been out there, for years.
ReplyDelete