Driven to Tears

“How can you say you’re not responsible?’

There is no Christmas celebration here in the Z household this year. No cause for joy, beyond the love that sits in our hearts, trying to spread out and cover the reality that is right outside the door.

How can one sit in comfort, safe from the violent predation that is seemingly creeping into every corner of our planet, and ignore the fact that – even if you didn’t ask for it or support it – innocent people are being killed to “defend the American way of life”?

I said innocent, and there is no arguing that fact, no matter how you try and twist it to arrive at justification.

“What does it have to do with me?”

I can’t say what has changed, what has shifted internally, but the mask has been ripped off and I find myself sitting here alternating between despondency and rage over what is being perpetrated in my name, supported by my labor via taxation, and held up as a right and just action to defend us from the evil terrorists out there that hate us for our freedoms. I almost just threw up typing that piece of propaganda.

Our president has won the Nobel Peace Prize, as he sends more and more people to their death. He makes a speech that his supporters hail as some kind of Divine work, and tries to tell us why it is all good, perfectly fine, and entirely necessary. How is it that we can drop bombs on Somalia and launch cruise missiles into Yemen, and everyone seems cool with it? How does the rest of the world stand by and not stop this undeclared warfare? Who are these people around me that celebrate these actions and cheer on the continued march of our boots across the planet, now heating up in Africa big-time? I know that there are supposedly some “radical Islamic” types there – or is it because there is something else there that we maybe covet?

“What is my reaction, what should it be?
Confronted by this latest atrocity”

I read a report by Siebel Edmonds yesterday that linked to some commentary in the mainstream media about our intention to expand drone attacks into a large (850,000)Pakistani city in an effort to take out some Taliban or “Al Qaeda” leaders or fighters (or some such horseshit). The report also detailed the fact that the 60 previous drone engagements resulted in the of killing 687 civilians while claiming only 14 “bad guys”, but for some reason this doesn’t seem to be a big deal to a large portion of our leadership, and probably went unnoticed by the vast majority of my countrymen.

I don’t know about the “rules of war” or how much “honor” is actually involved when one group takes up arms and chooses to engage in the destruction of another country/society/culture, but I cannot imagine a more chickenshit way to go about waging war. My understanding of how this works is that it usually involves some guy sitting in a room in the American west somewhere, joystick in hand (probably listening to his iPod), watching a video feed from across the world showing the terrain his “Predator” is covering. At some point he gets the “go ahead”, pushes a button, and unleashes a Hellfire missile or 2 on his intended target. No risk to his physical being, no need for fear to enter into his mind. Hell, it’s just like playing a video game with the added bonus of getting a paycheck and the honor of bragging about the “Haji” he killed today.

“Hide my face in my hands, shame wells in my throat
My comfortable existence is reduced to a shallow meaningless party”

I have something to tell you. By any definition (and especially in the case of Pakistan) WE are the terrorists. Check out this definition and see if you can see who might fit the description when we tell the Pakistani government “deal with the problem or we will” after slaughtering several hundred civilians, women and children included:

Terrorism:

The use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.

“Seems that when some innocent die
All we can offer them is a page in some magazine
Too many cameras and not enough food
'Cos this is what we've seen”

So then, what can be done about this? How about electing some leaders that will bring our troops home and stop the Empire building? Maybe work within the political system and change it from the bottom up? Or take to the streets in protest, demanding that these horrors be stopped and engagement with the world be done not with weapons and force, but with words and assistance where it is needed?

“Protest is futile, nothing seems to get through
What's to become of our world, who knows what to do”

I didn’t vote in the last elections. I will never vote again, and hope to find myself in a different locale sooner rather than later – hopefully on another continent, but where to go? I can’t keep pretending that I’m not partly to blame for all the things done by our “leadership”. I sit in a huge house with a fridge full of food, safe and secure from violence and bloodshed, and it feels wrong on so many levels. I don’t know why I was born here. Could I have just as easily been a child in one of the regions of the world currently being occupied or destroyed to “protect the American way of life”? How can this way of life be defended (or enjoyed) if it is only able to be perpetuated by violence and force? From the moment the white man landed here, we have been killing and stealing our way into the position we have, and it continues on a global scale to this very moment. We didn’t earn any of it. The notion of a noble American populace working harder and being smarter than the rest of the world to achieve what we have is a lie. In the time it took me to write this, I can guarantee that an innocent has been killed, maimed, made homeless or parentless, or thrown into a torture chamber just so I can live as I do. That’s something that negates any Holiday cheer that might have attempted to visit me this season. I can’t stop the tears, and have no desire to.

Comments

  1. Only love
    Can make it rain
    The way the beach is kissed by the sea
    Only love
    Can make it rain
    Like the sweat of lovers
    Laying in the fields.

    Love, Reign o'er me
    Love, Reign o'er me, rain on me

    Only love
    Can bring the rain
    That makes you yearn to the sky
    Only love
    Can bring the rain
    That falls like tears from on high

    Love Reign O'er me

    On the dry and dusty road
    The nights we spend apart alone
    I need to get back home to cool cool rain
    I can't sleep and I lay and I think
    The night is hot and black as ink
    Oh God, I need a drink of cool cool rain

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  2. I agree completely. I think I shocked an older, wonderful, progressive, Lutheran couple at dinner tonight when I told them what I really thought of Obama...
    Ah well... that mealy-mouthed SOB will do what he does, and the only thing that will stop the reign of terror being perpetrated in our name is the collapse of the American Empire due to a government funding crisis.
    So go for it, you bastards in Congress: spend us into oblivion with your red ink: it's the only thing that will stop the madness.

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  3. Zoner_maybe you are where you are to be the witness for peace. It could be a button or it could be a regular sitting meditation or a public vigil but there are many, many, people like you who feel the same yet also feel that they will be out-caste if they express themselves. Be there for them.

    A few saturdays ago, just after the Nobel Prize farce it was raining like hell here in California and we had twelve people standing vigil in the midst of a storm. Many, many people thanked us who did not have the courage to join. A few idiots acted like little yappy dogs and insulted us as they drove by, invariably in a giant truck or SUV.

    People are sick of the wars. There was a belief that they might diminish with Obama in the White House and now the idea that corporate forces push these wars is gaining greater attendance. Like the bizarre explanation for 9-11 things just don't add up. But somebody has to be out there first.

    You know about the wars because somebody put their body out there to witness the damage and report back. Reporters are regularly killed in other parts of the world because they are seen as a threat to powerful interests. Not infrequently by the US military or proxies. It could be your turn to make a peace vigil, provide a meeting place, join those already standing out or support those who stand.

    It scares the hell out of me sometimes to do it but I feel it's important. If not me who?

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  4. Pangolin well said.
    It is so vile because what has been hidden has become so apparent.
    And of course the suffering revealed is raw and seemingly unnecessary. Unjustified.
    And those tears will come long and hard as they must.

    I don't know the name of this meditation but it goes as follows:
    *get comfortable, lying down if you can stay alert and yet relax.
    *become effortlessly aware of the breathing.
    The Somalian orphans staring out onto the desert.
    The Afghanistan people who have had to fight so hard for so long for a war that has no merit.
    The people of Gaza and now the people of Pakistan.
    The broken nation of Iraq.
    For the people all over the world who just can't make ends meet in this carefully constructed capitalist system that is failing and taking with it our very essence, our very way of being in our world.
    *breathe all this suffering in, the absolute pain of it all.
    Take it all into the in breath and let it flow around the body.
    And then breathe out the light that is within, breathe out the radiance that is you.

    We normally do the opposite we breathe in light and out darkness.

    Anyway you live in America but that does not make you an American - you are so much more than that.

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  5. people in the good ol' usa will only wake up when there is armed conflict (kinda like "collateral damage" or "jumbo shrimp")on the streets. then, everyone will be ratting out everyone else--it's the american way---churches will be full of folks prayin' to jeezus to save their 50" TV and fuck everyone else who isn't them.......and they still won't get it--they will be told who is resonsible, and they will believe.....cuz most of them can't think for themselves...or don't want to.
    i'm no more an american than i am an ohioan--

    I'm me no matter where I live.

    When we first found out how we were gettin' screwed and how america was such a lie, shortly after 911, we were sending out links, alex jones videos.....etc. My dad asked me to stop sending them...and this from a man who got people to canada during vietnam, marched on washington....etc. he just simply said that it's the way it's always been...I wasn't telling them anything new...kinda how i feel today after reading this. have not been in to any of the blogs for a while but got looking around after an email from dadnerds wife telling us that he had passed away in her arms on christmas eve.....her news, and words touched me but i don't know how yet I just know that that there is such a simplicity in it all......
    why do we even act surprised at anything any more?
    Jj

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  6. Thank you so much for the commentary, people.

    It gets harder and harder to come up with words these days, at least words that can convey the intensity of what goes on inside me, and I imagine many of us. It used to be easy - I'd feel the tensions rise and an hour or 2 with my favorite guitar plugged into a loud amp would focus it and blast it right out again, leaving me spent and buzzing.

    It doesn't work that way anymore. It requires a more careful examination of the WHAT that is this energy, and new methods for utilizing it. Sometimes it is almost too much to bear.

    Jj, it was a great treat to see you drop in here and share some of your thoughts. And Su, the meditation was something that I will try again after doing so today when the house was quiet. My meditation practice is a difficult thing, as no one has shown me how to do it (much like most things in my life - stubborn?), but it seems important to cultivate that connection. It may be the key right now, as words fail and actions seem futile.

    I do bear witness in my own tiny, localized way and hope in some way to help with the healing that needs to be done for all of us. I just never know if any of it matters here, and can only hope it matters in ways that are not evident.

    Thank you again, all of you, for your gifts and presence.

    Z

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  7. It matters. Thanks.

    Best, turey.

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  8. Maybe I just can't leave well enough alone...so, here goes.
    Is it part of the collective guilt that we are spoon fed every day of our lives, since birth (can you feel the religion, can ya taste it?)....as if there was something grand we could do about it all--that makes us feel this way? Why do we feel guilt over things we have no control over---heck, maybe we just say it's gods will and let it go--then agin, if god was so upset about it, why doesn't he/she/it have stock in the Federal Reserve Banks so he can feed the hungry?
    Do we go from one panacea to another---heaven, hell, karma? Do we make this shit up to soothe what is hungry for an answer--when there are no answers?
    By our guilt, dread, or poor poor pitiful me, do we add, or take away from what power "it" has--assuming that we somehow feed it--if there is an "it".
    We can talk about it all we want but I would guess that most of us are not willing to grab an AK47 and head off for Gaza---or maybe whack a politician or two...heck, it would be like cutting one of the heads off the Hydra.....pure shit (with the proper amount of dietary fibre) always floats to the top.
    What is there that we can do that hasn't been done...is there something in us that just wants to be "special", thinking that we will somehow find what has eluded others for all these years--heck, we could always go to the self-help section at Borders...no shortage of (mostly) more bullshit there--remanufactured for our consumption....
    Maybe we just live our lives with honor and love........maybe it's that simple....look forward to your responses.

    Do we worry, and feel guilty because we think we should? Are we afraid to say that there is just a whole bunch of shit we can't do anything about--so why let it weigh us down--I realize there will be arguments on this, but what GOOD does it do---is it popular to feel guilt? Would it be better to feel rage, anger....and if we did, what good does that do?
    Read the obituaries, and see if there is any "feeling" that arises--a bunch of people we never knew died--what is the difference--heck, I didn't kill any of them, and neither did you.

    Jj

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  9. Hi Z and all-

    Jj sent me over to have a look.

    I've written about this before, but it still appears to me the agenda is to rub our noses in shit that we can't do anything about, keep us feeding them the energy of anger and despair, powerless anger and despair. What can we do about Gaza or Pakistan drone attacks or the treasonous sacks of excrement running the world? Nothing much, but we surely don't gain anything by wasting grief and anger on them. Spending powerful amounts of energy on things we can do nothing about will leave us with that much less energy for those things we can do something about.

    They are distractions, much as if one sat down to work for a few hours to earn some money but the phone kept ringing, bill collectors calling and reminding you that you have no money.

    I'm not saying don't be aware, don't be informed, or don't share what you know with others, I'm saying watch where your energy is going, and save most of it for things that you can do something about.

    No one is doing anything to preserve your American way of life; that's all bullshit. Sweden isn't invading Iraq and few people are starving in Sweden. The bankers, politicians, and corporations profiting off of war and stealing resources are not doing it to benefit anyone but themselves. The US could close its borders tomorrow and cut off all contact with the world and do just fine.

    If you personally are profiting from another's lack or suffering, or gaining by supporting someone who is, stop doing so. That's simple enough. No need to take on another's guilt and lose that energy needlessly. My guess would be that those reading here are not the problem.

    Then, having saved that energy, what do you choose to do with it? My choice has been to promote health through smarter agriculture. I confine my "waking up the masses" to that and to spreading the word about what psychopaths are. Both of those are simple enough and can make a difference in the world. If there were forty-eight hours in the day it wouldn't be enough and I wouldn't have enough energy to get everything done that could be done to help those things along. I don't have any extra to waste on things I can't do anything about. Let the phone ring or shut the ringer off. I think all of us can find something basic that we can do something about.

    Here's an active exercise in consciousness and reprogramming the neuro-net that seems to work well in these times. It's done with eyes closed, feeling the energy and visualizing the whole process from a point somewhere outside the body:

    "As the light of my heart brightens, so too does my capacity to forgive. As forgiveness flows into my heart, it moves upwards, filling my entire head with the most refined and delicate light imaginable.

    And from this light, a compassion for my past settles in, and all that has occurred is rewritten in this light."

    It takes at least thirty days for the re-wiring to be completed. When the crapola from your past comes up, this is a tool with which to do something about it.

    When the ego objects that you are not "doing" enough, hold that thought in your chest and let it fill itself up, then blow it out with the breath and release it to the great mystery.

    Do what you can. That's enough.

    Michael A

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  10. I see it as a balancing act. No, I can't go to Gaza and burn myself up in a futile effort to blast my way to honor and peace. That's a trap. I can, however, see the evil actions of others and not just accept that it is good, as so many do due to being lied to (willingly) daily by the machine that tells us what is right and what is wrong. They need this to suppress the guilt I think.

    Anger comes around, but it can be tempered by being NOT THEM. Small acts, living with honor and caring for others by ACTIONS as well as words, that is what I believe is the solution. Do things that in this day seem radical, like give up supporting your opressors by starving them of the things they feed on, namely hatred and money.

    I suppose it could arrive at my door someday, and then push will become shove. No, I take that back, it is here right now and telling me that I am unpatriotic or a terrorist, or a "liberal" (that's a hoot!) or an anti-semite or some such horseshit. That is where the guilt begins for many, then after the realization that it is all a lie, anger drops in and the ego kicks your ass for being duped. But it passes. Or not, and then you burn up in an unproductive, self-destructive manner that may well take those around you into a kind of hell, too. We now live in opposite-world, so do the opposite of what the world tells you to do and see how that works out.

    I can do something about saving the world. I can reject the BS, live a life of beauty, truth and honor in spite of appearances, just like you said, and put love above all. I pity the psychos. I have no more room for anger as a way of life - been there, done that, and it doesn't do anything but destroy from the inside. We can blow off steam and rant, but don't make it a lifestyle.

    Balance will be restored, That doesn't mean all will be rosy and evil will vanish, just that the playing field will level again and it won't be quite so difficult to avoid stepping in shit evry time you take a stroll looking for some beauty. That's my take, anyway.

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  11. Hello, Michael. As I was typing my reply, I see you dropped in to mirror many of my thoughts. Cool.

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  12. Z & All - wished I'd read this b4 we eyeballed, bro. Well done as was your comment on artlifewest. Ya , to live a life of truth, beauty & integrity is about all there is. Maybe kick some ass on the way out if chance arises, but all will be as intended in the end.
    Well thought comments, all.
    Peace be in our souls in these trying times.

    Rog

    PS - had a copy of Heinlein's Friday 4U but forgot to hand it off in the cold!...nxt time!

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  14. Z,

    I ran across your blog the other day via ArtLife West. All I can say is, I feel your pain. I've been studying Buddhism some, which does seem to help.

    But really I am so pissed off becuase we have yet another warmongering oligarch Democrat in the WH, surrounded by a bunch of globalist psychopath profiteers. F sakes, this is pretty much how I imagined a third term of the Bush/Cheney cabal... but without any trace of resistance... so actually worse.

    Obama is so full of shit that he makes me want to puke every time I see/hear him. So did Bush, but for different reasons. Dem/Repug makes absolutely no difference, both are working for their corporate/fascist financiers.

    It seems things will just unfold as they will, and we all must do our best to adapt and rebuild what they destroy (assuming they don't take us all out in the process).

    Hang tough, bro. There are literally billions of us in the same boat who want this horrible world order to go down hard and fast. The way they've chosen to run things, that is clearly inevitable.

    Peace -Gregg in Chicago

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