Category: Political

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Political

Tired frustration

I just wish I wasn’t so tired tonight because I’m inspired by what others have contributed recently.

For instance, Lynette finished her 26 Things Project, progress thereof giving me a great deal of enjoyment (look for the chameleon cat). qB also participated in the project – taking all the photos from a double-decker bus! I spent additional time tonight looking at other contributions and it was fascinating to see each individual’s interpretation of the topic words, such as ‘love’, ‘you’, ‘color’, and so on.

Maybe I can talk qB or Lynette into letting me put their efforts into a faux PhotoBlog.

Photos. Photography. And then there’s Jeff Ward’s self proclaimed theoretical wanking about photography, words, predicates, and propositions. Since this is a work in progress, I hope Jeff doesn’t mind me linking to him, but what he’s saying, the actual words, are reflective of some recent and quite intense discussions on the semantic web I’ve been reading, but from a completely different perspective.

Speaking of different perspective, earlier in the week, Maria quoted an article by Renana Brooks in The Nation, titled A Nation of Victims. According to Maria:

Brooks looks at the linguistic techniques Bush uses to achieve his political aims. As a rule, most people take issue with what they perceive to be his mangling of the language. But, as Brooks argues, there is a definite method to this madness, and that method is there to catch you inside a frame of helplessness.

She quotes the author:

Bush is a master at inducing learned helplessness in the electorate. He uses pessimistic language that creates fear and disables people from feeling they can solve their problems.

If you’ve read Burningbird for any length of time, you’ll remember that I’ve talked about learned helplessness before, but it wasn’t until I read this at Maria’s that I identified what I’ve been seeing among the people of this country. With learned helplessness, even if truth marches up and spits in your face, you’ve lost the ability to ’see’ it.

How do you fight learned helplessness? I’ve talked about this here also; you fight learned helplessness with anger. Not everyone will agree with me, but if you can anger the American voters enough, I have a feeling they’ll start seeing the reality, the truth behind today’s patriotism. I hope. I wish.

Speaking of wishing…I just wished I wasn’t so tired tonight so I could provide proper attribution and additonal commentary to all of these topics – but that will have to wait until tomorrow.

For now, ending with a photo of a tasty storm that rolled through earlier tonight.

Or is it? Or did it?

augstorm1.jpg

Categories
Political

Fireworks

I’ve decided not to go to the fireworks tonight. I spent much of this morning and most of yesterday walking around, and don’t want to walk again tonight. Besides, I’ve seen the San Francisco fireworks before.

I did visit the Golden Gate Bridge today and the mood, which should have been full of silly sunshine and good times was made somber because there were more soldiers than usual out today. At the entrance to the old Fort at the base of the Bridge there was one stationed, looking closely at all the people entering the old site. What did they expect? That someone was going to fire up the old 1800’s cannon and take a shot?

This reminded me of a link to a Washington Post article that AKMA pointed to, about the distrust between the US soldiers and the local Iraqi police force. I was stunned to hear such animosity from our soldiers. Stunned, but not surprised. The soldiers don’t want to be there, people are taking shots at them, they didn’t find weapons of mass destruction, the Iraqi people don’t really want them there, and everyone is hot. No electricity, jobs, no education, no life for the people in Baghdad, and they’re supposed to be grateful? Can’t spit on Bush, but the soldiers are close by, so they’ll spit, or worse, on the soldiers, and the situation is going to get worse before better.

If this is how the soldiers’ attitude is, after only a couple of months – what’s going to happen in a year? Two years? We said we would never get into another Vietnam: fighting against a people that don’t want us, for a people that don’t want us, and in a land that is hostile to us. We said we would never get into another Vietnam, and we did.

But this isn’t stopping Bush, as he dons his true blue American work shirt to go talk to the troops this 4th of July. This was after his belligerent talk yesterday about ‘bring em on’ to the Iraqi people. Stan Goff had about the best comment on this*:

This de facto president is finally seeing his poll numbers fall. Even chauvinist paranoia has a half-life, it seems. His legitimacy is being eroded as even the mainstream press has discovered now that the pretext for the war was a lie. It may have been control over the oil, after all. Anti-war forces are regrouping as an anti-occupation movement.

Now, exercising his one true talent ‘blundering’ George W Bush has begun the improbable process of alienating the very troops upon whom he depends to carry out the neo-con ambition of restructuring the world by arms.

Somewhere in Balad, or Fallujah, or Baghdad, there is a soldier telling a new replacement, “We are losing this war.”

Happy Independence Day, Iraq.

*also pointed to by Frank Paynter

Categories
Political

Junior doesn’t like flowers

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

“Oh look, Junior! The nice lady took a picture of pretty flowers! Aren’t they pretty? Now tell the nice lady thank you for taking the picture of the pretty flowers, Junior.”

 

“Thanks for the flower picture, nice lady.”

 

“You’re welcome, Junior. Do you like photos of flowers?”

 

“No.”

 

“Oh. Well, what do you like pictures of?”

 

“I like pictures of car accidents.”

 

“Ah, urh, well, how nice.”

 

“And I like pictures of road kill.”

 

“Uh, uhm, well…”

 

“If there’s a critter by the side of the road, I scream real loud so that Mama swerves and hits it.”

 

“Well, isn’t that, ah, well…”

 

“It’s fresher then.”

 

“Is it? How, um, creative of you.”

 

“And I like to look at pictures of industrial accident victims.”

 

“You like to look at, what was it again, honey?”

 

“Industrial accident victims. You know, people cut up, and people…”

 

“That’s all right! You don’t need to tell me anymore!”

 

“I also like pictures from war. People shot, and people blowed up, and people …”

 

“Yes, Yes! I think I understand! You know, Junior, you’re kind of a sick little boy, aren’t you?”

 

“Yes, that’s what my Daddy says. But he says boys will be boys, and I’m only going through a phase. So, you want I should tell you what other pictures I like?”

 

“No, no! That’s all right! I think I’ve got a fairly good idea of what kind of pictures you like! Tell me, with all this interest in photography, do you want to be a photographer when you grow up?”

 

“No. I want to be President of the United States. And I want to work for world peace. Just like my Dad.”

 

prettyflowers.jpg

Categories
Places Political

Room with a view

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

While in San Francisco, I visited my favorite haunts such as Crissy Beach, including Fort Point at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge. I like to watch the crazy surfers avoid being smashed against the rocks, and the sea lions sitting back, trying to figure out who these interlopers are.

One of the surfers had brought his dog, a loveable mutt who seemed fierce but was very gentle and friendly. I was watching the surfers when I could hear someone behind me talking to the dog. I turned around and there was a young soldier, gun strapped to his chest, playing with the pup. I hadn’t even noticed the military Humvee and the soldiers assigned to protect the Bridge.

The soldier was very friendly, and I asked him if I could take a picture of him and the dog. While taking it, I noticed that the dog’s owner was also taking a picture, and his expression probably mirrored mine to some extent. I could see that he appreciated the soldier’s enjoyment of the pup; but at the same time, he was disconcerted at the proximity of the gun, and the soldier, and the military vehicle.

Perhaps it was the soldier’s presence, but when I left Fort Point, I decided to drive through the Presidio and visit the National Cemetery. I’ve always liked walking through the Cemetery, reading the stones and admiring the fresh flowers brought by loved ones. Outside of Memorial Day or other patriotic holidays, the Cemetery at the Presidio rarely has anyone around, and one can move about easily without having to fight the hordes of tourists.

In the middle of the cemetery is the POW-MIA flag, the flag raised in honor of those listed as Missing in Action, and those who have been prisoners of war. Seeing it reminded me of the release of the seven POWs in Iraq, which has filled the news recently; videos showing them riding around on a jeep waving small American flags, meeting with the President, hugging loved ones. There was even talk about a special White House dinner for the seven, and most likely to include Jessica Lynch, the soldier who had been wounded and ‘rescued’ from an Iraqi hospital.

pow-mia-07.jpgI thought about the POWs from previous conflicts, such as Vietnam; how many of whom were in prison camps for 20 or more years, starved, beaten, tortured, and subjected to the worst crimes of humanity. One of the most famous, Senator John McCain has since had to battle serious skin cancer from the exposure to the hot sun in the Vietnamese jungles. My own Dad suffers from skin cancer from the same exposure, as well as other cancers from exposure to Agent Orange.

We as a nation let down our soldiers in Vietnam. When the POWs and other soldiers came home from that time, few met the President, or were invited to the White House. Same for Korea. Even fewer received the medical and psychological attention needed to make a good recovery from the trauma. As a nation, we’ve suffered the guilt from this and remember our poor treatment even more than the horror of the war. In the first Gulf War we tied yellow ribbons around our trees and flew huge flags. In the recent Iraq invasion, we tied even more ribbons, flew even more flags, and added music and sound spots, and the country literally bled red, white, and blue.

It’s not surprising with this national guilt that we’ve made the Iraqi seven and Jessica Lynch into something almost super-human, with stories of firing guns until falling in battle, and hints of dark doings on the part of the criminals holding our people. The reality, we are finding, is much different.

Chances are you won’t find a lot of long time service people behind all of the hoopla around the ‘victory’ in Iraq and the seven captured service people, or Jessica Lynch. The reason isn’t because they don’t care about these young people, they do, very much; however, they know to put a sense of perspective around all of this. The wars we’ve fought in the past have cost the lives of hundreds of thousands, have taken people away from their families for years, and have left prisoners behind bars for decades. There was a heavy price to pay for these wars, which serves as a dark reminder that we should never take war lightly. All service people from all wars and all duties, including the young man guarding the Golden Gate Bridge, deserve respect and appreciation — not a media circus full of as much blather as bravery.

If we don’t remember that the prize many of these soldiers win is a room with a view, then we take the pain out of war. A leader of this country who sends his people to war should come out of it weighed down by his or her decision, not lifted up on the shoulders of a bunch of kids who took a wrong turn on the way to Baghdad.

presidio1.jpg

Categories
Places Political

Understanding the Problem

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I think it’s nice that Doc’s trying to organize an effort to save the looted Iraqi artifacts. However, his ideas of staffing a single television and radio station, and creating a web site to show the artifacts, all created for the purposes of recovering the items won’t be that helpful.

Two types of looters have been identified — poor, little educated Kurds and Shiites who most likely don’t have a computer, a television, or radio, and possibly even electricity; and professionals, most likely part of the museum itself, who could care less.

UNESCO is the organization best equipped for running an international operation to try and rescue the artifacts before they’re sold into private collections. I imagine they’re working with Interpol, and both organizations are quite good at recovery of illegally smuggled artifacts. UNESCO is taking the steps necessary to ensure descriptions of items are released into the hands where they’ll do the most good — traditional dealers of Middle Eastern artifacts. The idea of ‘closing’ the borders to search for artifacts is a good one, but this should also include searching belongings of the military before they come home. It’s not uncommon for military to take ‘souvenirs’ home with them.

Offering of rewards, no questions asked, and proving that people are not going to be arrested is one of the best ideas yet. This should result in returns of artifacts held by the poor who have no contacts in the international community. This won’t stop the pros, though.

However, if we want to do something, we should pressure the Congress to get the United States to own up to our responsibilities in this mess, and to provide support for recovery operations. Not lip service, actual sypport. The US and Britain need to provide money for rewards, and facilities for UNESCO to help in recovery. In this, I agree that we should be communicating this across weblogs — but we have been, even before this war started.

However, if we want to do something from a Web point of view, we could also start looking for artifacts on eBay — they’ll start showing up shortly.

I know that Doc thinks these efforts are ‘insufficient’, but I would tend to trust the experts on this one.