red onion

My last entry is dated March 27. I've been in the blogsphere since then, documenting the war casualties, or as much info on as many as I could find. It has been difficult, and lonely. Not many seem to want to hear about the way that civilians are dying in Iraq. But I have received quite a number of hits. This tells me there are some hungry for the information as to how people are dying in Iraq. If not hungry, they are at least willing , or seeking.

How does it affect one to hear such news, to hear of babies losing their limbs, or being blown apart. To hear that the Red Cross said today the hospitals in a recently "liberated" southern city in Iraq "are filled with horror"?. I tell you, it grounds you, like no other events that you could hear. Well, this is it , the world we created. Priorities fall away and new ones created. It is as though you were there by osmosis, when you start paying attention. You learn, when you pay attention. Yes, there is turmoil. There is anger. There is gnashing of teeth and fury directed at the knowns and unknowns who brought this about. There is sobering reality that this is real, and everything was changed, forever, when the first bomb was dropped.

The re-ordering of priorities can be momentous and life-changing and subtle, compelling and explosive all at once. Folks, I'll say it out loud. The rich gotta go. And please, I do not advocate violence. What I am advocating is a completely new system of economics, so that no one will ever have the power, through their money, to wage war again. Because, as far as I can see it, this is a war by the people with money, who want more of it, and don't care how they get it.

I do not attack all of those with money. I direct my words towards the ones who will make a profit from this war, and who advocated this war with not so secret intentions: to make themselves more powerful, with more control over more of the world's resources, and money. I don't need to name them. You are probably too many to name. You know who you are. You are being exposed daily in the media that is the true expression of democracy in this country, the internet.

I will say this to rich folks who don't support this war, who won't make a profit from it: Have you spent a portion of your wealth to help the needy causes for social, economic and environmental justice in this county? Because these causes sure do need a helping hand right now. The poor, the middle and lower classes, peace loving peoples, animals, the environment are all under attack from greedy, me-firsters, who have no clue what it means to share. If you aren't sharing a portion of your wealth with the people in need, the worthy causes in need, then you may be part of the problem. I can't tell you what portion of your wealth you ought to be sharing; you will have to decide that for yourself. I will say this, the causes are struggling to take form right now, and they need your help. Perhaps this war would not have happened if we had had more of your help, much earlier on, when the first dangerous signs of the rise of the christian far right came into focus.

I can remember when that happened. I was in my last year of college, studying sociology, in 1979. Reagan had just been elected, and the despair among the liberals in our little department was palpable. My radical, lesbian sociology professor called a meeting, of all concerned. In that meeting, I tried to reassure her the pendulum would one day swing back, to social sanity. I think of her now, and my need to reassure her, and her complete resistance to feeling any hope.

Here we are now, in the midst of a human tragedy and disaster, brought on by my country, with eggheads everywhere proclaiming we are in the process of liberating Iraq. Is there hope?

We no longer have the option of apathy; we no longer have the option of daydream of utopia; we no longer have the option of let someone else do it; we no longer have the option to escape into our entertainment, our harmless diversions. If our diversions keep us from seeing the nightmare the greedy ones are making of this country, of this world if they have their way, then our diversions are no longer harmless.

The antidote to the poison that is infecting this country is energetic action towards the good. Nothing magical, unless you measure the consequences of good works, which can sometimes seem like a kind of magic. There is so much that needs be done. The environment, civil rights, economic justice to name a few. Get busy.