I doubt if anyone on XMCA is failing to feel the deep crisis humanity is in,
Phil.
Or the shame in our complicity.
Internally, the country that brought you Peter, Paul and Mary and Fried
Chicken
is undergoing a crisis of civil liberties and civic participation that seems
almost
a perfect mirror of the havoc that we are contributing to beyond our
borders.
It is scarey. As professionals we have no adequate tools to confront the
issues
at an adequate scale, so we continue to try to confront them at a scale
where
we feel we have some, not much but some, leverage.
This morning I received a message from a colleague in Israel which indicates
how these
feelings are expressed there: " I'm ashamed of living "as usual' when people
are being killed in my name (i am pessimistic about the possibility to
exorcise terror; terror is a medusa that grows thousand heads for every one
that it loses; thus, our choice seems to be, in the longer run, between
perishing as humans or perishing dehumanized)."
What occurred in Fallujah was terror too, by other means. Although the means
appear to become ever more symmetrical.
mike
On 7/23/06, Phil Chappell <philchappell@mac.com> wrote:
>
> Dear All,
>
> I was 10 when the image of the child running down the Vietnamese
> highway with napalm burns all over his body was being viewed across
> the world. In suburban Melbourne (Australia), in my comfortable
> middle class home, I wasn't even aware at that age that there was a
> serious infringement on world peace being dealt by the country that
> gave us Peter, Paul and Mary and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Way more
> sophisticated than Daddy Cool or a tepid meat pie.
>
> 34 years later and I feel like I am still in an eggshell. The
> destruction of Fallujah happened without me knowing, and how many
> others? A war crime of serious proportions - 7,000 citizens killed,
> the use of a new chemical (white phosphorous) that turns humans into
> "caramelised fossils". It even has a nick name - Willy Pete.
>
> We get so caught up in our busy lives that we don't get to intersect
> with seriously, depressingly and really real human activity that is
> going on around us. Okay, the use of pronouns for inclusion is a tad
> over the top, but am I the only one who didn't "spare a thought" for
> those affected at Fallujah? And where else in the world can we find
> these despairing activities happening - the list is, of course, way
> too long. And it keeps rolling on - Lebanon hot of the press...
>
> Okay, off topic, but I needed to say something, and folks here are
> sympathetic listeners.
>
> Phil
>
> There's a video at the link below that should be seen...in fact, many
> videos.
>
> http://www.chris-floyd.com/fallujah/
>
> Download video here http://www.chris-floyd.com/fallujah/fallujah_ING.wmv
>
>
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