Thursday, November 11, 2004

Veterans Day, 2004

November 11, 2004. The eleventh second of the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour on the eleventh day, was when the great war ended. That morning, at five a.m. the allied forces went on attack - never mind that they ALL knew the war would end in seven hours - the armistice had already been signed and everybody, including all of the soldiers who leaped over the trenches knew that. Yet the battles raged on until 11:00. During those last 6 hours of that war more than 10,000 troops were killed - more than were later lost in the D-day invasion of Normandy.
Monuments are erected to the great generals, they should all document the great stupidity of believing that war can ever do anything positive. But still, now 86 years and 16 American wars later, old American men with large American bellies, still stand once a year with large American tears in their eyes dreaming of the glory that once was them. This year the Franklin VFW hosted a picnic for Vietnam Veterans. Being a member of that group, not the VFW, but Vietnam Veterans, I grabbed my camcorder and headed down there. I found a lot of cars in the parking lot, but no people. I wandered around on a perfect day, clear blue sky, soft warm (65°) breezes, bright sunlight slanting across the green lawns. It was a perfect dayfor a picnic - even better for making pictures of an autumn picnic. I found out all the people were inside the building. I went inside and there indeed was a picnic. Tables sat under cigarette smoke so thick I had to leave. I am allergic to that gas, and it was so thick that I was even concerned about my camera. Went home, changed clothes and showered. no photos.
What a waste - what a perfect day to host the town to a picnic to honor the veterans of that great war that proved the foolishness of the “Domino Theory” which stated that if Vietnam fell, then Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma, Korea, Japan, Hawaii and California would also quickly follow. Some say those great wounds can never heal - but the truth of the matter is that the healing will come only after war is renounced and all those who lead their nations into war are punished as criminals to mankind.

© John Womack, 2006. All rights reserved,

Friday, October 08, 2004

Democratic Cannibalism: The Killing and Eating of Dr. Dean

Democratic Cannibalism:
The Killing and Eating of Dr. Dean

For the first time in recent memory, interest among great masses of dejected and depressed political melancholics was stirred and scratched, then struck again and again until a few sparks were clicked from mossy-covered rocks. A poorly prepared bed of dust, debris and other clutter caught some of the sparks and began to smolder. That smolder was exhaustively blown into a feeble flicker of flame, then carefully fed until it became a full-fledged roaring fire that melted the frozen reservoir of the Democratic National Party and brought that mass to a roiling boil, complete with a hissing head of steam! Dr. Dean is solely responsible for this remarkable feat, something the Democratic establishment could never manage on its own. And they are running around screaming FIRE! FIRE! and throwing buckets of water and sand on the stunned doctor. His democracy is not that of the Democratic Party, he doesn’t understand the needs of the party. Just who in the hell does he think he is? And where did all this riffraff who surround him come from - his hodge podge of dormant democrats, indolent independents, rebellious republicans and cute kids? Yech! Where are the union bosses, the financial funders, the tired old senators, those who have learned the trade, earned the rank, those concerned with the party pecking order?
Gore had gone, leaving Gephardt and Lieberman to inherit the party’s greatest honor. Iowa belonged to Gephardt, New Hampshire to Lieberman; after that the campaign would begin. But by the time Iowa cranked up, Dean was a heavy favorite in both states, and it looked like he would kill his only two rivals in the month of February. Gephardt knew he would lose and grabbed Dean and dragged him toward the mud pit; Dean willingly shoved him in, sliding in on top. Then a really strange thing happened. Lieberman, who did not even run in Iowa, came to take part in the Iowa debate! Immediately it became clear that he had come solely to destroy Dean. He attacked him about his having some governor’s records sealed, and went on and on again and again about that single issue. “That doesn’t satisfy me!” he retorted to Dean’s replies. Lilly white, he leaped into the pits. The result was not even a fair fight, Dean easily destroyed both of them and crawled out of the pit screaming. But he had fought and won the wrong fight and could never again be the candidate who would carry the flag of his party.
Meanwhile Clark smiled down on the democratic party, like a newly risen planet, featuring terms like “Electability” and “National Security.” Dean was being eaten away. Gephardt had eaten the labor vote for Dean. Edwards ate away the issue of jobs and morality while Dr. Dean was down in the pits, and Kerry was later seen to wipe his lips with a snow-white napkin and shout out into a crowd, “You have the power!” Lieberman was seen to steal away with something hanging heavy in a brown paper bag, but we never found out what it was. Best guess is he accidentally got Dean’s scream, but we’ll never know because Lieberman’s lips are sealed.
Well, there’s an old saying, “You are what you eat.” Maybe so. Maybe not, but the democrats were in no shape to take on George Bush, he would be way too powerful and mean and tough. But now, after having fought and killed and eaten Dr. Dean, it seems to be a new party, revitalized, redirected with new recruits and a new loud voice, not quite a scream, but a voice strong enough to make a great call to engage the enemy.
This campaign will be a battle for America’s soul, and may very possibly destroy the nation. A new civil war may well be beginning. We will need more than fighters; we must have women and men of vision, honor, integrity and endurance. The legacy of Dr. Dean may be one of America’s best, we may remember him as a “booster rocket” who lifted the country out of the heavy gravity of the lower atmosphere and single-handedly carried it to new heights. Where we will wind up though, will depend on what we do after this.

It’s not just the killing and eating of Howard Dean - there’s more. Think back a few years. In 1995 it was Pat Buchannan who tore apart Senator Dole in New Hampshire. The party immediately bolted to Dole’s aid, and destroyed Buchannan so Dole could claim the prize that he had “earned” through many long and tedious years of dutiful support of his party. Not once did any Republican question why anyone would even think of voting for Pat. Pat was not eaten, just left over on the right-hand side of the road. In 1999, again the Republicans had a similar problem, this time it was clear that Bush was the choice of the party fathers, yet McCain destroyed him in New Hampshire. Did the Republicans seek to find out why the voters of New Hampshire had rejected their pick? No, they simply banded together and destroyed McCain, party with innuendo about his wife and daughter, never clearly brought forward.
Once again here in 2004, it is made stunningly clear to those able to comprehend that the concept of the democratic dialog in America has been hijacked by two private corporations, the Democratic National Party and the Republican National Party. They are NOT our government, and should have no part in it, yet it is they who direct America; they control the land, its resources, its people and their work, their education and entertainment. It is they who choose where its young men and women will go forth to kill, they select what will come to be considered “important,” they decide who will be chosen to run for office, and which “unauthorized” candidates will be hounded, if at all possible, into submission and a sense of rejected shame.
In all three of these cases, there was a substantial portion of those who would be members of the party if only there were some changes. One might say that the large body politic had found a sickness. Medicine was refused, therapy was not received. Finally surgery was conducted and a transplant provided. Then the body rejected the transplant sensing it to be a foreign and alien object.
© John Womack, 2005, All Rights Reserved.

Tuesday, July 06, 2004

Abortion

Perhaps no other subject has ever so completely and deeply touched and penetrated so many facets of human life as has abortion. It brings with it implications that affect moral, religious, economic, social, ethical, political, legal, spiritual, emotional, medical, family, cultural, and educational values. It is a lightning rod that attracts cataclysmic sparks of destruction and creation from both the fundamental conservative bedrock and the cutting edge of liberal explorers.

Abortion is not really the problem it seems, though. Instead of being a problem in itself, it is really the symptom of a whole catalog of problems. If symptoms of any serious disease are treated and made to disappear, but the underlying disease, is not treated, the disease itself has only been fed. Simply making abortion illegal is an example of how to feed a disease or fan a fire.

There are those who see abortion as a problem caused by deviant judges, or activist judges, assisted by feminists. All this being in open disobedience to God’s clearly expressed will. They seem to feel that abortion can be ended by simply making it illegal. Abortion , however, will not end, it will continue; it will still take place as it always has. Not in hospitals or doctors’ offices, but surreptitiously by more dangerous, and illegal means and performed by law-breakers who are neither professionally trained nor legally responsible for their action.

The only way to control abortion is to eliminate its causes. 1) Discrimination against women. 2) Poor, or no health care for pregnant women and young children. 3) An education system that can neither control its students while in class nor prepare them for graduation. 4) Insufficient wages for low income workers. 5) Child care, including education, that is conducted by the lowest or lower paid members of the society, and 6) To prohibit the great corporations of America using sex to inundate pre- and early teens in a great over-culture of sexual "permissiveness", forget permissiveness, call it encouragement and enticement.

Whenever one sees action against abortion, it seems as if it is always led by the preachers, priests or immans, almost all of whom are male. No man has ever become pregnant, much less carried a child within his womb for even a day, much less to term, no male has ever labored in the birthing process or given birth. And while many men have nursed babies, none have ever suckled a child nor is one ever apt to. Many men do take wonderful care of their children and yet still the fact of life remains, that throughout the centuries and around the world, it is always the women who carry the cildren through famine, war, flood and other disasters.

It is easy to say that pregnancy is the result of having fun indulging in sex - that these "people" have to pay the price. All of these "people" though are women people. Many of them did not enjoy the sex act which impregnated them nor did they wish to take part in it. But once impregnated, they have to carry this child not just "to term" but they are responsible for it for the rest of their lives.

Yes abortion IS bad. It SHOULD never happen. Those who use it WILL feel its effects the rest of their lives. But the same is true of war. And we go to war whenever it is necessary. We honor "those who have fallen" for their country with great ceremonies and monuments. Why not ceremonies and monuments for those who were aborted so they would not be born into a country which did not want them and would not take care of them?  They also died for their country.

Thursday, January 08, 2004

War Kills

War Kills

Points to ponder: War kills. There are other ways. War is not a game, not a valid means for persuasion, it instantly terminates any form of democratic dialog. War is a civil-rights bypass. War becomes more important than the U.S. Constitution, it is an emotional substitute for reason and logic. War kills.

Forget about abortion, that’s peanuts; forget capital punishment, that only applies to a handful of people; forget euthanasia, that’s just a pittance. If you really want to get rid of people, go to war. That is the greatest act of abortion, capital punishment and euthanasia ever to stalk the earth. Why are so many of the people who call for war, also against abortion? War kills.

War kills. There are other ways. The Vietnam war killed 5 million Vietnamese, we and the French did that. Korea killed 3 million, World War II killed 64 million people and W.W.I maybe as many as 80 million. Of this 152 million people killed in these 4 wars, perhaps only a few thousand were actually guilty of any significant crime, the other 152 million were innocent people. War kills.

There are better ways. The people who suffer most from war are children. Many are killed outright, many die from untreated disease, many die from hunger. Who knows how many are just scared to death. Many just disappear. The people who benefit most from war are the great emperors, the great kings, the great princes, the great Captains of Commerce. War kills.

There are better ways. War doesn’t work. It IS effective, productive, efficient, and “glorious!” But it doesn’t work. If it could work, it would have worked by now. It is not as if we just trifled with it, we gave it all we could. We gave it our best shot. We gave war our best effort, our greatest treasure, our precious young men and women. We did it again and again and again. We all won and we all lost. One battle killed 80,000 people back in W.W.I. Did it make a difference? Eighty years later? I don’t know, I can’t even remember the name of the battle. Hiroshima killed 100,000 in one instant, one flash. It ended a war that was already over. We could have conducted dialogue and ended it in a longer term. War kills.

We sent 150,000 men and women into “harm’s way” in Iraq. They are not well paid, most of them are paid a pittance in today’s realities. But they are well trained and well supplied. They will win. But. What if we prepared 150,000 people trained in meditation. They would be sent somewhere, maybe; perhaps stay at home, but they would be paid, they would be prepared and provided what they might need for the next six months to a year. And they would meditate - 12 to 18 hours a day. Like combat. What would that do to the world?

©John Womack, 2005, All Rights Reserved