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Tortured

copyright © 2009 Betsy L. Angert. BeThink.org 

Never for a moment in my life have I been "in love." I do not believe in the notion. Fireworks have not filled my heart. Flames of a fiery passion do not burn within me. Indeed, my soul has not been ablaze. Thoughts of a hot-blooded devotion seem illogical to me. Such sentiments always have. Fondness too fertile is but torture for me. I admire many, and adore none. For me, the affection I feel for another is born out of sincere and profound appreciation. To like another means more to me than to love or be loved. Excitement, an emotional reaction to another, rises up within me when I experience an empathetic exchange with someone who has glorious gray matter.

Today, it happened. I felt an a twinge that startled me. I stood still as he entered the room. I expected nothing out of the ordinary, or at least nothing other than what has become his recently adopted, more avoidant, routine. Although long ago, I had become accustomed to his face, his voice, and his demeanor, for I have known the man for more than a few years. In the last few weeks, while essentially he is who he always was, some of his stances have changed. Possibly, Barry has felt a need to compromise his positions, but I wonder, what of his principles.

Early on, I knew that he and I differed in some respects. While we each loathe drama, I was never certain if he felt as I do; love need not be a tortuous trauma. Barry spoke of the need to work together. Yet, not necessarily in aspect of life. At times, he advocated aggressive actions I could not consider. This, for me, caused much confusion. Nonetheless, I liked the man I saw before me.

I recall the day we first met, face-to-face. We shook hands. He smiled. Barry was polite, not pushy. Amiable is the way I would describe him. Then, the second time we saw each other, we had a more extensive conversation. He took my hand in his. We each spoke with greater sincerity. As Barry and I chatted , he looked me straight in the eye. He listened to my personal tale. Visibly, he pondered the story I shared. Barry responded so genuinely to my inquiry, albeit an unconventional concern, I was surprised. Indeed, I was impressed, although less than I was when I read what he had written.

His books moved me. The more autobiographical tome endeared him to me. His notes on hope did not lack the spirit to inspire me. As one who "loves" to learn, which differs from the impulsive idea that I might be "in love," a person that can kindle my earnest thirst for knowledge truly electrifies me. I recall the moment I read the text that, all these years later, still resonates within me. Barry humbly offered, in a discussion of empathy . . .

It is at the heart of my moral code, and it is how I understand the Golden Rule – not simply as a call to sympathy or charity, but as something more demanding, a call to stand in somebody else's shoes and see through their eyes.

Barry told tales of his mother, his grandfather, and how through his interactions with each he realized there is reason to think "about the struggles and disappointments" others have seen in their lives. Reflection helped the younger Barry understand, every individual is not solely right or wrong. If he were to insist that, his way was the only approach that worked, "without regard to his [or her] feelings or needs, I was in some way diminishing myself." Such awareness, such a superior soul; Barry showed what I believe to be a human's greatest strength, vulnerability. Were I to have a heart to win, the words of this gentle-man could have surely swept me off my feet.

Even his calm demeanor is as I desire and live. Those close to me wonder of my own emotional tranquility. From his manner and manuscript, it would seem Barry believes as I do. Empathy elicits equilibrium. Today, he seemed to embrace this notion once again. We can choose to love our neighbors. We need not torture "those who are different from us."

Near noon, on April 23, 2009, at the Holocaust days of Remembrance Ceremony, Barry, the now President of the United States, Barack Obama spoke of this belief again. Once more, I felt a pang for the person who oft-expressed a profound connection to the feelings of another. The sweet soul who can bring me to tears, did so once again. On this historic occasion, Barry shared a profound realization through a personal story. The subject; the Holocaust and the torture our forebears felt or beheld.

In the face of horrors that defy comprehension, the impulse to silence is understandable. My own great uncle returned from his service in World War II in a state of shock, saying little, alone with painful memories that would not leave his head. He went up into the attic, according to the stories that I've heard, and wouldn't come down for six months. He was one of the liberators -- someone who at a very tender age had seen the unimaginable. And so some of the liberators who are here today honor us with their presence -- all of whom we honor for their extraordinary service. My great uncle was part of the 89th Infantry Division -- the first Americans to reach a Nazi concentration camp. And they liberated Ohrdruf, part of Buchenwald, where tens of thousands had perished.

Stunned, by the saga, and the words that preceded the legend, I began to believe again. Perhaps the Barry I admire had a change of heart. Policies he never fully embraced, might not seem reasonable to him now.

During the campaign, Barry, Senator Barack Obama only promised to investigate, not to prosecute. Many months ago, before the August 2008 declaration, and thereafter, I had thought his stance reflected his vast ability to empathize. Yet, in the light of the ample evidence, most if not all of which affirms the Bush Administration engaged in extreme methods of interrogation, President Obama still supports or chooses to sustain a position that negates empathy for the victims. I shudder to think of how the Seventh Generation might be affected.

Hence, I am left to question what I thought was truth. Was the empathy I envisioned not as sincere as I hoped it to be? Perchance that is why, for me, love is as torture. I have faith no one has the power to disappoint me. Only my choices can be a source of much concern. For as long as I can recall, I have observed, once infatuation fades, we learn as I had before Barry entered the Oval Office. He is but another human. He embraces and then forgets, the power of empathy and the force of our past?

When, in homage to Holocaust victims, and survivors of a heinous hostility that forever stains world history, I sensed he knew. As I looked on, I forgot the setting. Intent on the torrent of news on torture techniques I read and heard throughout the day, I made an erroneous connection. As Barry, President Obama spoke of the deeds done in decades past, and those crimes committed by the previous Administration, I imagined the man I thought I knew meant to express empathy for those who suffered at the hands of Americans. The Chief Executive, on behalf of the United States avowed.

Their legacy is our inheritance. And the question is, how do we honor and preserve it? How do we ensure that "never again" isn't an empty slogan, or merely an aspiration, but also a call to action?

I believe we start by doing what we are doing today -- by bearing witness, by fighting the silence that is evil's greatest co-conspirator.

In the face of horrors that defy comprehension, the impulse to silence is understandable.

I cried. Tremendously thankful for the oratory, indeed, I must say, for a second, I was elated.. I wondered. Had the person many think beloved, the individual I at least treasure, decided to rescind his prior position?

Might he have rejected the thought offered recently; "nothing will be gained by our time and energy laying blame for the past."

Could it be the Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony helped the President to renew his faith in his earlier expression; "(H)istory returns "with a vengeance . . . "(A)s Faulkner reminds us, the past is never dead and buried -- it isn't even past." I hoped.

Perchance, he had worked through a struggle I too experience. As one who has no desire to hurt others, even those who have physically and psychologically harmed individuals, and our country's image, how might I think prosecution is just?

I truly embrace such an honorable ability to seek no retribution. Indeed, I may not fall "in love"; nonetheless, I would hope to live love.

I feel harsh reprisals are never wise. I also accept the enduring wisdom of a finer balance. I have experienced the need to empathize and the conflict of what I might do if one I treasure intentionally injures another. I have come to discover, if deleterious deeds are allowed to stand, sooner or later the other, I, and perchance, society will be subjected to adulterations that individuals or a culture cannot endure.

Awful actions we accept, avoid, or merely do not acknowledge become a foundation for the future. Humans inure. Lest we forget the Milgram shock experiment of decades ago, or the knowledge that when repeated in the present, proves again, as a Psychologist, Thomas Blass, espoused in “The Man Who Shocked the World.” Milgram extrapolated, to larger events like the Holocaust, or Abu Ghraib. “people can act destructively without coercion." “In things like interrogations, we don’t know the complexities involved. People are under enormous pressure to produce results.”

I wonder how many Americans came to accept violence as a necessity on September 11, 2001. On that dreadful day, a date that now lives in infamy, all Americans were placed in a precarious position. With the threat of terror etched into our every cell, each of us had to ask, what were we to do. In the 2004 edition of Dreams From My Father, the Barry, who I trusted to be so thoughtful whispered his woe for what might occur once the "world fractured." He penned . . .

This collective history, this past, directly touches my own . . .

I know, I have seen, the desperation and disorder of the powerless: how it twists the lives of children on the streets of Jakarta or Nairobi in much the same way as it does the lives of children on Chicago's South Side, how narrow the path is for them between humiliation and untrammeled fury, how easily they slip into violence and despair. I know that the response of the powerful to this disorder -- alternating as it does between a dull complacency and, when the disorder spills out of its proscribed confines, a steady, unthinking application of force, of longer prison sentences and more sophisticated military hardware -- is inadequate to the task. I know that the hardening of lines, the embrace of fundamentalism and tribe, dooms us all.

Those are the words of the Barry I was inspired to meet, the person I was reminded of when he stood with an audience of individuals who never forget the agony of torture. Today, as that empathetic soul, the President referred to the future, the generations to come, he stated, "We find cause for hope" when "people of every age and faith and background and race (are) united in common cause with suffering brothers and sisters halfway around the world." I thought of the detainees at Guantánamo Bay prison, and the prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the need to empathize with victims of "extreme duress."

Oblivious to the purpose of this particular speech, in my moment of stupor, I surmised Mister Obama had not only accepted the association, but perhaps had realized what could occur if the transgressions of the previous Administration were allowed to stand as if all was in the past.

"Barry," Barack, the Commander-In-Chief, further elucidated; "Those [persons] can be our future . . . (D)uring this season when we celebrate liberation, resurrection, and the possibility of redemption, may each of us renew our resolve to do what must be done. And may we strive each day, both individually and as a nation, to be among the righteous.

I imagined the reference was to empathy, to the paradigms I too embrace. Punishment offers no benefits for people. Yet, there is a need to prosecute the culpable, to ensure that people are answerable for the most atrocious aggressions. It is vital, if we wish to prevent the numbness that humans so easily adopt, we must bring torture to the full light of day. Torment executed in our names, I think Barry would agree, hurts us. Surely, General and President Eisenhower did. Mister Obama acknowledged this only hours ago.

Eisenhower understood the danger of silence. He understood that if no one knew what had happened, that would be yet another atrocity -- and it would be the perpetrators' ultimate triumph.

What Eisenhower did to record these crimes for history is what we are doing here today. That's what Elie Wiesel and the survivors we honor here do by fighting to make their memories part of our collective memory. That's what the Holocaust Museum does every day on our National Mall, the place where we display for the world our triumphs and failures and the lessons we've learned from our history. It's the very opposite of silence.

But we must also remember that bearing witness is not the end of our obligation -- it's just the beginning. We know that evil has yet to run its course on Earth. We've seen it in this century in the mass graves and the ashes of villages burned to the ground, and children used as soldiers and rape used as a weapon of war.

Barry knows what President Obama. spoke of in his address at the Holocaust Day of Remembrance Ceremony Love needed not be tortured. Expressions of fondness are found in empathy, not extreme duress.

President Eisenhower understood as I had hoped, on this day, Barry Obama had. What occurs far from view is never truly unseen. Nor can avoidance erase the scars left on a heart. While as a country, or as individuals we may prefer to retreat to the attic as President Obama's great uncle did, in truth, it is impossible to forget.

People who participated know this to be so. A belatedly brave Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, Ali Soufan, tell his tales of sorrowful love in My Tortured Decision. The mediator recalls how for seven years he has remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. Mister Soufan, as General Eisenhower did before him saw the need to "shed light on the story, and on some of the lessons to be learned."

I inquire; what will Barry do, and what of President Obama. Will the man who once held my hand and professed a need to be empathetic do as he declares his commitment? "(W)e have an opportunity, as well as an obligation, to confront these scourges." Might he instead do as he hopes we will not, "wrap ourselves in the false comfort that others' sufferings are not our own."

I can only hope Barry will encourage the President to heed his own call. "(W)e have the opportunity to make a habit of empathy; to recognize ourselves in each other; to commit ourselves to resisting injustice and intolerance and indifference in whatever forms they may take -- whether confronting those who tell lies about history, or doing everything we can to prevent and end atrocities like those that took place . . ."

Let us never forget Guantanamo Bay prison, Abu Ghraib, or any America penitentiary camp, need not be our holocaust. Tales of tortured love need not be an American truth.

References for tortured love . . .

• Remarks by the President at the Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony. United States Capitol. April 23, 2009
• Our New Sort of War, It might be the most dangerous of all. By Victor Davis Hanson. National Review. April 16, 2009
• Obama calls situation in Afghanistan 'urgent'. Cable News Network. July 21, 2008
• Obama Challenges Grads to Cultivate Empathy, by Barack Obama. Northwestern University. June 19, 2006
• How Obama Did It, By Karen Tumulty. Time. June 5, 2008
• Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, By Barack Obama. 2004
• Statement of President Barack Obama on Release of OLC Memos. Office of the Press Secretary. White House. April 16, 2009
• On Interrogation Policies, Another Delicate Compromise From Obama, By Ben Pershing. Washington Post. April 17, 2009
• he Audacity of Hope, By Barack Obama
• Would Obama prosecute the Bush administration for torture? By Mark Benjamin. Salon. August 4, 2008
• Science Chief Discusses Climate Strategy, Obama Adviser Hints at Compromise on Cap-and-Trade Emission Allowances. By Juliet Eilperin. Washington Post. Thursday, April 9, 2009; A02
• A Guide to the Memos on Torture. The New York Times.
• Decades Later, Still Asking: Would I Pull That Switch?, By Benedict Carey. The New York Times. July 1, 2008
• William Faulkner.
• My Tortured Decision. By Ali Soufan. The New York Times. April 23, 2009
• In 2002, Military Agency Warned Against 'Torture, Extreme Duress Could Yield Unreliable Information, It Said. By Peter Finn and Joby Warrick. Washington Post. Saturday, April 25, 2009

"I won!"

copyright © 2009 Betsy L. Angert.  BeThink.org Update . . . A bell rings.  The sound reverberates.  A sentiment shared aloud resonates within the heart, mind, body, and soul of persons who heard the message.  No matter the actions taken afterward, sullen statements are not easily erased from memory.   Days before Congress was asked to pass the stimulus package, the President uttered the now famous phrase; "I won," Republicans, as could have been expected, expressed resentment.  Immediately, subsequent to President Obama's statement Democrats were said to have followed the Chief Executive's lead.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was asked if he thought Republicans might block the initiative.  Empathically, he replied; "No."  Today we know differently.  In the House, the measure received no support from the Grand Old Party.   As we await approval from the Senate we may wish to consider, the past.  Words that evoke division have a lasting effect.   Please peruse a missive penned shortly after President Obama reacted to pressure from the "Right."

Oh Mister Obama, please tell me it is not so.  Days ago, I read and heard numerous reports.  You made a declarative statement.  Many were shocked.  Anecdotally, Congressman and women stated, when pressed by Republicans who disagreed with your position on economic policy, you said, "I won."  Will this mean, once again, Americans will be the losers?   I fear for the future, for I remember when the words were "Yes we can!"  Has this assertion become but an old argot, now trivial or trite?  Please tell me.  Now that you sit solidly in the Oval Office is the achievement of one all that matters?  Perchance, with a "change" in climate, we, the Progressives have become the Party of arrogance. It seems you personally have adopted an individualistic platform.  Peace and process talks will be less diplomatic.  Discussions will be more reflective of Obama rule or Democratic control.  After he left the White House, House Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina was said to have "echoed" your sentiment.  He may not have used your exact words; nevertheless, the sentiment was clear, the Progressive Party will dictate the rule of law.  Congressman Clyburn said, "The American people didn't listen to them [the Republicans] too well during the election."  The implication being, so why should the Progressives who represent them. My concern extends beyond the language.  It is the intent I lament! I had hoped that sooner than later, the Obama Administration would recognize individualism, as we all saw, did more harm than good.  'I envisioned "Mavericks no more," would be the mantra of an Obama Administration.   As a Democrat, devoted to progressive platforms, I imagined peace was a prospect we would no longer ignore.  Admittedly, as I say this I cannot help but think of the quagmire that Afghanistan is, and I fear will be worsened You may recall, President Obama, when we go for the unilateral kill, as we did in Iraq, innocents, foreign born and our own die.  The terrain is devastated.  The cost cannot be accurately calculated.  The price humans pay for victory is incomprehensible, at least it is to me.  I inquire; how does one place value on lives, limbs, and a sense of security, serenity, and safety lost.  It seems in America, most rarely do the math.  We want only to overcome, to be the victor. Hence, with a note of superiority, supremacy, and self-importance, we say we, he, or "I win." I heard the reaction on November 4, 2008.  As the election results came in, your constituents chanted "We won!"  You too must have felt concern as the crowd cheered.  You spoke to such a perspective often.  A triumphal tune closes doors and ends discussion.  President Obama, these are your words.  "Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long."   The electorate, I recognize is new to the novelty of inclusively, but you, Mister President.  What of your core beliefs? President Obama, I could understand such a statement from a Republican, not yet ready, to put aside differences after what seemed to be a defeat.  Elections, by their very nature, are divisive.  However, even Conservatives for Change concluded this year was different.  Republican Senator Mitch McConnell even offered his open hand.  I suspect with word of your "win" that will not last. Oh, Mister President, until I heard word of how you spoke of "your" feat, I truly believed that change had come. I wonder, with all the work to do, has anyone won?  There has been too much despair, too much distress, disparity that is incomprehensible, and all this has existed for far too long.   Please Mister President,  travel back, into the future, with me.  Do you recall the deregulations and the economic downfall?.  In the recent past, as a country, we experienced the dire effects of a Republican victory.  It seemed obvious, a conquest breed certain vanity. Persons within the Grand Old Party are not alone when it comes to excessive pomposity.  Hence, my apprehension.  In modern times, Americans have seen the ill inflated egos can cause.  Democrats, equally haughty, ultimately embraced policies that ended an era of effective oversight.  Do the wordsGlass-Steagall Act remind you of how arrogant, those replete with power might be,  Does the taste of the Depression era law President Clinton repealedlinger on your lips? Those who no longer have a legal right to redeem a mortgage might caution against a prizewinning irrational exuberance.   Perhaps you may recall predatory lending.  Winners on Wall Street thought this idea fine.  Home foreclosures flourished.  Bank failures became common.  Unemployment rates rose.  Workers received less benefits before businesses finally closed the doors. It was not that long ago.  Think back.  During the Bush reign the Conservatives were in power.  For decades, Republicans won most every Presidential election.  On the one occasion when a Democrat occupied the Oval Office and Congress was mostly Progressive, defiant winners were only able to do so much.  Soon after, Democratic "control" was easily lost.   Perhaps, the people felt the Administration to full of itself with the win.  You may remember President Obama, "The Republican Contract with America."  In the past, a practiced politician or a Political Party may have said they won.  However, what really happened was America lost. President Obama, you spoke of this in your more recent book, The Audacity of Hope."  Remember?  "In the back-and-forth between Clinton and Gingrich, and in the elections of 2000 and 2004, I sometimes felt as if I were watching the psychodrama of the Baby Boom generation - a tale rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago - played out on the national stage. . . .what has been lost in the process, and has yet to be replaced, are those shared assumptions - that quality of trust and fellow feeling - that bring us together as Americans." Mister President, you also addressed the issue of the ownership society.  You must remember this.  You stated what I often say; however, more eloquently. Barack Obama these are your words.  "In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is - you're on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No health care? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps - even if you don't have boots. You're on your own. Well it's time for them to own their failure. It's time for us to change America." If someone, anyone wins or owns the rights to run the show, we are all doomed. Currently, we witness the woes of a win in our Health Care systems.   Medical coverage is a service available only to the privileged.  There is income for triumphant Insurers. Pharmaceuticals profits have paralyzed this country.  Disparity in healthcare devastates the impoverished, the ill, and the injured, millions of whom have no medical coverage.  More Americans are underinsured.  Even more are likely to lose what they have as the economy weakens.  In this country, cash divides winners and losers.   Mister President, you might understand this.  Consider the dollars needed just to get a candidate elected, to have him or her heard.  Please also ponder what was once more important to you and the electorate than dough.  The community carried the message.  Without the strength of unity, we as a country crumble. The deterioration has already begun.  President Obama, do you remember the dream?  You must recall; Civil Rights Leader Martin Luther King Junior taught us to believe in the dream of equality. Reverend King avowed, "I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be.  This is the way our world is made."  Doctor King did not praise personal wins or commend clannish conquests. Yet, today, in America, where a President proudly proclaims "I won," children of all colors, their elders of every hue, are not afforded a chance to succeed.  In a country where Progressives posture, "We won," we do not consider what a coup d'état mentality means to a country, or to the children who inherit a nation torn asunder. Mister President and Progressives proud of what it means to win, please consider the ominous shadow cast by a Supreme Court decision, Parents v. Seattle and Meredith v. Jefferson,  The Court and the prideful parents who championed a cause ensured only the wealthy and the white would receive a quality education.  Separate and unequal services are again sanctioned in city schools.  The judgment sealed a subterranean deal that has long been in effect.  The rich triumph; the poor will not have equal opportunities.   In America, we have seen the destruction wrought by our culture of conquests.  Yet, as a nation we continue to ignore what might be obvious. Perhaps, this is why, as your proclamation filtered through the airwaves, Mister President, many Progressives applauded what was familiar and what they had waited for.  Republicans who had come to believe there was reason to hope for true change were struck by the divisive rhetoric.  Your disdainful remark was like a slap in the face, a stab in the back, or the statement that would bring resentment back to Washington, Those still bruised by the political battle never forgot that they wanted to be the ones, or at least "That one."   I recall history and recoil at what could be our future if we affirm as you did days ago.  "I won?"   Oh please President Obama, remember your own reflection.    "What began twenty-one months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night.  This "victory" alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change . . . " I beg you to consider, the power of words.  Ponder; can we be "victorious," and will such a triumph leave many behind; or we can we be successful together.  Can one "I" prevail or will we, the people achieve when we unite.   Please tell me it is true.  Government can be of, by, and for us all, or an Administration, and Americans can be partisan. Please President Obama, let us not suggest that we, or "I won!"  I implore you to reflect or your own words.. "(The change we seek) that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.  It cannot happen without you (the American people)."   President Obama, you did not win.  Progressives did not prevail when you were placed in the Oval Office.  We the people will not meet the challenges through conquest.  Nor will we be the change we can believe in if you, or any of us, declaratively deems, "I won!" Americans did not vote for the arrogance we heard and saw for eight long years,  We had hope.  We had a dream.  In the White House, in the people's house, in Congress, and in our local communities, we could become  genuinely united, integrated, and inclusive.  Yes we can, and I think we must. References for realities that divide us . . .  Obama to GOP; 'I Won  By Jonathon Martin and Carol E. Lee.  Politico.  January 24, 2009 Obama to GOP: 'I Won', By Jonathan Weisman.  The Wall Street Journal. January 23, 2009, 2:32 PM The Afghan Quagmire, By Bob Herbert.  The New York Times. January 6, 2009 Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell's Speech at the National Press Club.  ABC News.  January 23, 2009 Democrats are darlings of Wall St. Donations to Democratic campaigns prompt concern that the candidates will go soft on regulation of the financial markets. By Janet Hook and Dan Morain.  The Los Angeles Times.  March 21, 2008 A-1 G.A.O. Urges Caution on a Glass-Steagall Repeal, By Nathaniel C. Nash.  The New York Times. February 11, 1988 The Republican Contract with America. Obama's Foursquare Politics, With a Dab of Dijon, By Michiko Kakutani.  The New York Times. October 17, 2006 The Fall of America, Inc. Along with some of Wall Street's most storied firms, a certain vision of capitalism has collapsed. How we restore faith in our brand.  By Francis Fukuyama.  Newsweek. October 13, 2008 The Long Demise of Glass-Stegall.  Frontline. National Healthcare Disparities Report.  Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.  February 2004 The Audacity of Hope." By Barack H. Obama. End of the 'Ownership Society,' By Zachary Karabell.  Newsweek. October 20, 2008 Affirmative Action. The New York Times.  June 28, 2006.  December 5, 2006 Iraq: The Human Cost of War. Center for International Studies. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Cost of Iraq war could surpass $1 trillion, Estimates vary, but all agree price is far higher than initially expected.  MSNBC News. March 17, 2006 The War in Iraq Costs.  National Priorities Project. Conservatives for Change.  By Betsy L. Angert.  BeThink. October 24, 2008 'Where else could this happen?'" By Joyce Pines.  Kalamazoo Gazette. November 05, 2008 09:26AM

The Qualified Quest for Justice

Jews, Christians and Muslims Unite Against Evildoers

copyright © 2009 Betsy L. Angert.  BeThink.org Just days ago, throughout the globe, people celebrated religious holidays.  Peace on Earth and good will to all men was the palpable feeling that filled the air.  Everywhere anyone turned expressions of fondness for our fellow beings could be heard.  People were filled with glee.  Then, suddenly, the sound that is the silent hum of joyous laughter was broken.  Everything changed.  Yet, indeed nothing did.  The cycle of violence that has perpetually existed on this planet began again.  The qualified quest for justice was once more the people's agenda.  In Israel and Gaza, bombs blasted.  Bullets whizzed by the heads of frantic, frightened people who sought shelter from another Mediterranean storm.  Some died.  Hamas was blamed for the initial attacks, this time.  As had occurred on other occasions, Israel, in the name of self-defense, fought back.  The roles might have been reversed and have been.

Each believes the other is at fault.  One force characterizes the antagonist as an occupier.  Late in 2008, the people who are said to have been the provocateurs are tagged as terrorists.  The monikers are interchangeable and have been for centuries.

This recent barrage of words and weapons was not the first on sacred terrain.  No one expects it will be the last.  Apparently, today, as has been true for eons, people have accepted peace as a temporal occurrence.  It is always followed by war.  

Pious people only pretend to honor the hallowed Commandment found in every faith, "Thou shalt not kill."  In truth, on some principle not evident in scriptures, the Bible, the Qur'an, or other religious teaching, humans conclude all men and Not created equal.

For the wise, the worthy, the wondrous creatures who believe all beings are created equally, and in G-d's image, the concept of fairness and empathy for all others are only ones of convenience.  These can be, and by all means should be, ignored, when a country, clan, chap, or cute daughter of Eve feels there is reason for self-defense.  When the quest for conquest is greater than the desire for tranquility, justice is found in a series of deadly explosions!

Rational persons become self-righteous when they feel attacked or wish to assault another.  Whatever excuses an ethical individual, or a respectable region, can find to intellectualize war will serve a being who wishes to be brutal.  One need only reflect upon the writings of a few to understand why warfare never ends.

In what would become a foundation for America, within the Declaration of Independence, the words of Thomas Jefferson appear, "All me are created equal."  This thought was meant to remind citizens of this country of a tenet adopted in ancient times, by not just one, but by many religions.  

A Jewish theologian, Torah scholar, Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld reflects on a historical reality rarely honored by modern man.  "(A)ll men are created equal"(women too for that matter), and, as eloquently as Thomas Jefferson put it, this comes directly from our own Torah.  Maimonides (Mishne Torah, Hil' Teshuva 5:2) writes that unlike the belief of foolish Gentiles and unlearned Jews that each person is predestined to good or evil, it is within the ability of each person to determine his or her own fate."

Rabbi Rosenfeld then further elucidates each of us can be virtuous or iniquitous.  As individuals, apart from our intellectual measure, personal milieu, history, monetary means, or influence we have the capacity to choose what we wish to do and who we yearn to be.

The scholar and teacher of Torah, Dovid Rosenfeld shares the observations of another, devout academician, Dean of Aish HaTorah International, RabbiNoach Weinberg (www.aish.com), "We are certainly not equal when it comes to talents, predilections, or natural abilities.  But in this one regard we areall equal: we all possess souls.  We have the potential to develop ourselves, whether in goodness or wickedness, and we possess the free will to determine which path we will follow.  Goodness and closeness to G-d are not reserved for the intellectual, the scholarly, or the well-pedigreed.  It is the inherent right of all mankind and the simple fact of our humanity."

While many amongst the Jewish faithful quote the wisdom of each of these devout devotees of the Almighty, the significance of the statements is void in action.  The same is true in Islamic tradition.  Several fervent followers find solace in the scriptures; indeed, "The Glorious Qur'an mentions, with commendation, Prophet Jesus (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) as it does to Prophet Moses (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)," others who purport to believe in teachings of Islam, Hamas amid these, ignore the splendor found in the religious text. 

Islam aims at eliminating all aspects of racism and dislikes prejudiced-oriented party gatherings.  Islam, equally, disapproves all acts leading to disputes, fights, among individuals and peoples.  Islam requires its followers to believe in the Divine Messages and Scriptures of all previous nations [community] in order to eliminate any hatred or biased feelings.  Islam considers such an act as one of the essential tenants of faith.

While the most boisterous today, and for centuries, have beat the battle drums, murdered, caused mayhem, massacred, and engaged in the most dire deeds, all in the name of justice, a very few participate in another, more harmonic quest.  

These individuals believe in sacrosanct traditions too.  The truly peaceful propose actions must reflect religious and rational reason.  Those who work towards universal serenity walk with the Lord on holy days and during the most mundane of times.  Advocates of amicable exchanges and equality for all, aspire to a stable serenity, as is referenced in theological text.  

"Pacifists,", do not adopt the vicious edicts of those who think war will bring about peace, albeit, the warriors admit, provisionally.  The tranquil people have faith that all men, women, and children can choose how they wish to respond to conflict.  People are free to engage in good or evil.

Those on a quest for nonviolent justice, one without qualifiers that restrict the significance of religious commandments, talk without the accompaniment of a big stick.  They walk with a sincere sense of awe for kindnesses.  They also type articles that advocate for empathy and avoid the argument of self-defense.

Thus, on November 10, 2000, Deborah Ducrocq, then Managing Editor of the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle, a devout Jew in her own right, published an article, she received.  The missive penned by another Judaic faithful, Judith Stone, is titled, "The Quest for Justice." The tone and transcript were considered controversial by the clannish amongst the American Jews.  Indeed, after the missive appeared, the Ms Ducrocq was promptly dismissed by her ?superiors.

Yet, as much as the words offended the Jewish employers, for persons who struggle with a spiritual history, Jew, Gentile, and Islamist who yearn for authentic and lasting global harmony, the wisdom Judith Stone inscribed, and Deborah Ducrocq delivered, resonates.

While some might say this early essay is no longer politically pertinent, others trust, the sentiment expressed is as valid today as it was then, and will be tomorrow.   

"Quest for Justice" 
By Judith Stone

I am a Jew.  I was a participant in the Rally for the Right of Return to Palestine.  It was the right thing to do.  I've heard about the European holocaust against the Jews since I was a small child.  I've visited the memorials in Washington, DC and Jerusalem dedicated to Jewish lives lost and I've cried at the recognition to what level of atrocity mankind is capable of sinking.

Where are the Jews of conscience?  No righteous malice can be held against the survivors of Hitler's holocaust.  These fragments of humanity were in no position to make choices beyond that of personal survival.  We must not forget that being a survivor or a co-religionist of the victims of the European Holocaust does not grant dispensation from abiding by the rules of humanity.

"Never again" as a motto, rings hollow when it means "never again to us alone."  My generation was raised being led to believe that the biblical land was a vast desert inhabited by a handful of impoverished Palestinians living with their camels and eking out a living in the sand.  The arrival of the Jews was touted as a tremendous benefit to these desert dwellers.  Golda Mier even assured us that there "is no Palestinian problem."

We know now this picture wasn't as it was painted.  Palestine was a land filled with people who called it home.  There were thriving towns and villages, schools and hospitals.  There were Jews, Christians, and Muslims.  In fact, prior to the occupation, Jews represented a mere 7 percent of the population and owned 3 percent of the land.

Taking the blinders off for a moment, I see a second atrocity perpetuated by the very people who should be exquisitely sensitive to the suffering of others.  These people knew what it felt like to be ordered out of your home at gun point and forced to march into the night to unknown destinations or face execution on the spot.  The people who displaced the Palestinians knew first hand what it means to watch your home in flames, to surrender everything dear to your heart at a moment's notice.  Bulldozers leveled hundreds of villages, along with the remains of the village inhabitants, the old, and the young.  This was nothing new to the world.

Poland is a vast graveyard of the Jews of Europe.  Israel is the final resting place of the massacred Palestinian people.  A short distance from the memorial to the Jewish children lost to the holocaust in Europe there is a leveled parking lot.  Under this parking lot is what's left of a once flourishing village and the bodies of men, women, and children whose only crime was taking up needed space and not leaving graciously.  This particular burial marker reads: "Public Parking."

I've talked with Palestinians.  I have yet to meet a Palestinian who hasn't lost a member of their family to the Israeli Shoah, nor a Palestinian who cannot name a relative or friend languishing under inhumane conditions in an Israeli prison.  Time and time again, Israel is cited for human rights violations to no avail.  On a recent trip to Israel, I visited the refugee camps inhabited by a people who have waited 52 years in these 'temporary' camps to go home.  Every Palestinian grandparent can tell you the name of their village, their street, and where the olive trees were planted.

Their grandchildren may never have been home, but they can tell you where their great-grandfather lies buried and where the village well stood.  The press has fostered the portrait of the Palestinian terrorist.  But, the victims who rose up against human indignity in the Warsaw Ghetto are called heroes.  Those who lost their lives are called martyrs.  The Palestinian who tosses a rock in desperation is a terrorist.

Two years ago I drove through Palestine and watched intricate sprinkler systems watering lush green lawns of Zionist settlers in their new condominium complexes, surrounded by armed guards and barbed wire in the midst of a Palestinian community where there was not adequate water to drink and the surrounding fields were sandy and dry.  University professor Moshe Zimmerman reported in the Jerusalem Post (April 30, 1995), "The [Jewish] children of Hebron are just like Hitler's youth."

We Jews are suing for restitution, lost wages, compensation for homes, land, slave labor and back wages in Europe.  Am I a traitor of a Jew for supporting the right of return of the Palestinian refugees to their birthplace and compensation for what was taken that cannot be returned?

The Jewish dead cannot be brought back to life and neither can the Palestinian massacred be resurrected.  David Ben Gurion said, "Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves... politically, we are the aggressors and they defend themselves...The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country..."

Palestine is a land that has been occupied and emptied of its people.  It's cultural and physical landmarks have been obliterated and replaced by tidy Hebrew signs.  The history of a people was the first thing eradicated by the occupiers.  The history of the indigenous people has been all but eradicated as though they never existed.  And all this has been hailed by the world as a miraculous act of G-d.  We must recognize that Israel's existence is not even a question of legality so much as it is an illegal fait accompli realized through the use of force while supported by the Western powers.  The UN missions directed at Israel in attempting to correct its violations of have thus far been futile.

In Hertzl's "The Jewish State," the father of Zionism said, "...We must investigate and take possession of the new Jewish country by means of every modern expedient."  I guess I agree with Ehud Barak (3 June 1998) when he said, "If I were a Palestinian, I'd also join a terror group."  I'd go a step further perhaps.  Rather than throwing little stones in desperation, I'd hurtle a boulder.

Hopefully, somewhere deep inside, every Jew of conscience knows that this was no war; that this was not G-d's restitution of the holy land to it's rightful owners.  We know that a human atrocity was and continues to be perpetuated against an innocent people who couldn't come up with the arms and money to defend themselves against the western powers bent upon their demise as a people.

We cannot continue to say, "But what were we to do?"  Zionism is not synonymous with Judaism.  I wholly support the rally of the right of return of the Palestinian people. 

Indeed, what is to be done amidst the bombs and bullets.  Those who have faith in talk, treatises that remain forever intact and tranquility can only bemoan the truth when they witness calm, compassionate, persons, who say they care for all mankind, become clannish when they chatter about political agendas in the Middle East.  

What can anyone do when people preach peace and practice violence in the name of the Lord, Allah, or the Almighty, or even atheist theories.   When the pious come to blows, fist to cuffs, as they fight for freedom and justice for all, or at least all who look or live as they do, what do the quieter "others" do?

The peace lover takes no comfort in the obvious; canons are practiced inconsistently.  Even the religious are ready to attack.  Excuses are made.  Each nation and its inhabitants offer validation for vicious, vindictive, imprudent assaults.  Nor does the antiwar wish to ask questions that are never truly answered.  Is it ethical, inevitable, eternal, and when, or how will it ever end.  Conscientious objector to combat acknowledge the mantra will likely be reactive.  Attack; inquire of ethics anon.

This is why peaceful persons might try not to actively engage in discussions of the affairs in the Mediterranean, ever.  They know.  While warriors wish to answer such inquiries with another, "What would you do if your home were blasted, would you retaliate?"  The peaceful can only ponder, what is this strange quest for justice?  Revenge?

"Don't take vengeance and don't bear a grudge against the members of your nation; love your neighbor as yourself". (Leviticus 19:18.) 
~ Torah

"Those who spend in ease as well as in adversity and those who restrain (their) anger and pardon men." 
~ Qur'an

Religious References . . . 

• For Israel, Chance to Strike Before an Ally Departs, By Scot Shane.  The New York Times.  January 5, 2009
• Hamas.  Council on Foreign Relations.
• White House Puts Onus on Hamas to End Escalation of Violence, By Robert Pear.  The New York Times. December 28, 2008
• All Divine religions are based on monotheism.  From Abdulrehman al-Sheha's book Islam the Religion on Peace.  Gulf Times.
• Peace? No, never - inside the mind of Hamas, By Billy Briggs.  Scotsman. January 5, 2009
• Hamas: Government or Terrorist Organization? By Adam Davidson.  National Public Radio. December 6, 2006
• Who is a Jew? By Rebecca Weiner,  American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise.
• Are All Men Created Equal? Chapter 5, Mishna 15.  By Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld.  Torah.org 2006
• Rabbi Noah Weinberg.  Aish.
• The Basics of Buddhist Wisdom, By Doctor C. George Boeree.  ?Shippensburg University.
• Quest For Justice, By Judith Stone.  Islamic Human Rights Commission. November 10, 2000
• Leviticus 19:18. Bible.org
• On Developing a Theology of Peace in Islam, By Asghar Ali Engineer.  Islam and Modern Age. October, 2001

The Lesson; All Beings Are a Beautiful Bundle of Love

copyright © 2008 Betsy L. Angert. BeThink.org

The day was delightful. The water was superb. The sun was full and bright. A few billowy, puffy clouds floated through the sky. They were white, cumulus, fluffy fellows, the type that excite many a child as they gaze into the heavens. In parks, on lawns, little ones were likely looking up and pointing. "Look," they might say, "It is a horse, a donkey, or perchance a unicorn." It was a day for whimsy. The children, playful in the pool, barely noticed the graceful shapes as they danced above their heads. Instead, they were focused on what they decided were June bugs.

Three young sweet girls stood in the warm water near their Daddy. All were calm, content, and serene. The sisters chatted easily. Father smiled. The youngest lass expressed her curiosity. As her sibling searched for bugs on the plastic rope line, the "baby" in the family asked of the insects. "Are they icky to touch," the cautious curly haired youngster inquired. The more confident elder sister said, "No! They are cute," she said. See." The "older" child showed the girl of fewer years.

A stranger, in the adjacent lane was preparing to swim. Becky was her name. She was much older than the children, and perhaps no wiser; nonetheless, she share her assessment of the beetle. Becky said of the six-legged lovelies, "They are life; all creatures are beautiful." With that thought, the father beamed, and the older lady plunged head first into the water filled cement reservoir.

Lap after lap and look after look the woman and children enjoyed the quiet of the day. The words the swimmer shared seemed to hang in the air. People came and went, throughout the afternoon, and splendor was all anyone saw.

Then, everything changed. The evolution from tranquil to trauma was slow; nonetheless, unexpected. Those in the recreation park were struck, as if by a bolt of lightening. However, unlike when a storm threatens, swimmers were not forced to leave the pool. The jolt evoked more silence. No one screamed, but the sole boy, victim to the method his Mom's adopted for instruction.

The young mother, a woman, perhaps, in her early thirties, was extremely pleasant in appearance, and it seemed her personality was equally delightful. She, Madison, entered the deck area with her small son in her arms. Skin, beautifully tanned, this well-dress lady strode to the lifeguard tower. The little guy, let us call him, Michael, was not as bronze in color, and was visibly agitated. Michael whimpered, even as his Mom held him close.

Becky, the swimmer who enjoyed the company of the little lasses and their Dad before she began her exercise had just finished the more strenuous part of her routine when the mother and child came into view. Becky, a teacher, enjoyed children, in or outside the classroom. She marveled at the openness of a mind not yet crushed by the weight of worry. The sincerity of a small one was a source of fascination for Becky. Children, early in life, were candid and joyous, at least most were, or appeared to be.

Little Michael, a lad, maybe three, or four, was not a cheerful child. He wore no glee on his face, although his features were cute as could be from what Becky was able to see. When the swimmer first noticed Madison and Michael, they were yards away. They approached the guard tower at the opposite end of the pool and spoke with Brianna, the young adult hired to protect the public in an emergency. Becky thought nothing of the interaction. She was relieved to have only her stretches left to complete. Becky moved the shallow end and commenced with another ritual.

Behind her, a metal chair scraped along the concrete. The sound startled her and she looked up at the area where people sat enjoying the sun. Had Becky waited just a moment she would have known Michael and Madison had moved closer to her. The cries filled the air. The sweet little boy shrieked, "I wanna go see Daddy." Michael howled; "No Mom!!!! No!" His face scrunched tightly, this little lovable fellow yelled, "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Please Mom! No!" Michael repeated the words, "I wanna go see Daddy!"

His mother chided him, gently. "We have to do this." Madison did not seem to believe she could quiet her son's fears. An expectation that the little guy might enjoy was void from her voice. The Mom simply worked feverishly, to accomplish the dreaded task. She prepared Michael for his dip in the water, and said, "Let's just get this over with."

Becky continued with her work out and wondered of the circumstances. Perchance, the mother and father were divorced or newly separated. Michael may have expressed the deep distress he felt for a family no longer united. Becky, the daughter of parents who parted understood how stressful such a situation might be. She was eight when . . . her reverie was interrupted.

Madison had abruptly carried Michael to the step at the shallow end of the pool. The Mom now wore a white shirt over her own bathing suit. Sweetly, she smiled and leaned forward. Madison said to Becky, "I do not wish to disturb you. I want to warn you; I am teaching my son to swim and he screams, loudly." As an experienced educator, Becky imagined it would be a mild and momentary shout. As one who swims daily and had for well over a decade, the teacher witnessed many a young child learn to paddle and breathe in water.

Indeed, at this very facility she has observed perhaps hundreds of child learn to master their strokes. The excellent swim teachers, parents and paid professionals, helped calm many a neophyte nerve. Often Becky watched with admiration as patient Moms, Dads, and lifeguards helped little ones wade through the water. It was as she shared with the girls earlier in the day, "They, people and insects, are life. All creatures are beautiful."

What Becky witnessed next was not beautiful; it was brutal! Madison held Michaels arms tightly. She forced him into the water. The Mom insisted the boy's head remain face down immersed until she pulled him up. Apparently, they had practiced this cycle before. Becky now understood why Michael cringed and cried out long before he was ever near the expansive liquid sea.

Initially, the trained instructor was paralyzed. Becky could not imagine that a mother might torment her child. The volume of Michaels screams increased. His little arms flailed. "Mom, No! Pleassssssssse!" The emotional agony he felt was palpable. Mom did not stop as he pleaded. The pain on his face did not move Madison to succumb. His words, his anguish, nothing stopped this mother on her quest. For Becky, what must have been a minute or less seemed like hours, years, decades. She thought of sweet obedient Michael. While he shed many a tear and shrieked when he could gasp for air, the little love did as he was told or required to do. He dropped his head into the pool on demand.

Off into the distance, in the parking lot, just outside the fence, Becky noticed a late model shiny black vehicle. The man at the wheel peered in. His car was not situated in a space meant for stopping. This fellow seemed interested in the antics of Madison and Michael. Becky mused; possibly the sound of suffering haunted him as it did her. She could not stand by a moment longer.

With an earnest concern, Becky expressed her empathy for the child. She inquired; "Is he frightened.." The mother responded, "He can swim." Becky queried aloud, had the mother sought other means for instruction. Perchance, if Michael were given the opportunity to slowly adjust to the water. If he were allowed to breathe easily as he slowly learned to stoke . . . Becky's words were cut off. Still somewhat genteel and reserved, Madison explained, "This is what his teacher taught me to do." "She is excellent. Everyone goes to her. They call her the swim Nazi."

The practiced swimmer, and professional educator, shared her own expertise. Becky told of a time when she worked with another teacher who was extremely punitive. This castigatory colleague was an award winner. Some children loved her, parents too. Students taught Becky what she had not known; if you are raised in a family where cruelty is common, you learn to believe that rough treatment is love. Violence is fondness when a family is familiar with vicious behavior.

Becky spoke of a man she loves. He was introduced to swimming in much the way Michael was guided. This man loathes his parents. As an adult, he says of himself, he is really messed up. For the man Becky cares for, trust is not an option. The lesson he learned at the hands of his mother, who taught him how to swim, just as Madison now advised Michael, is that people will hurt you.

In this very short and quick conversation Becky, recalled her own memories, and how she has vivid recollections of events in that occurred in her life when she was younger than Michael. Becky looked over at Michael's face. The torment was already etched into his skin. The screeches scarred him.

Madison listened, maybe. She was polite. The Mom never let go of her cherished son, Michael. The activity did not stop. Nor did the blood curdling screams. The echoes of pain continued to pierce the air, and break delicate decorum.

People within the recreation center while startled, they stood still or pretended to ignore what escaped no one. Only Becky articulated her concern. Madison expressed her interest; more so once she realized Becky is an educator. However, without a moment of hesitation, or a break from or for Michael, she offered a retort. "I will speak with the teacher." Becky again offered, the teacher does what she thinks is best. Perhaps, she, just as the pupils Becky spoke of, had parents who were as aggressive as she was.

Those who admire the techniques the Nazi swim teacher endorses may also be intimately acquainted with instruction through intimidation. "In my family no one yells," Becky said. Madison responded; the same was true in her life. She and her husband do not scream.

Michael continues to squeal. "Mom, Please, No!" He thrashes. He grabs for her mother. Michael reaches for Madison's shirt and slaps her body and face. The Mom had mentioned she wore the blouse just for this purpose. Michael grabbed at the swim instructor, just as prescribed, and when with her, Michael clawed for Madison's clothing.

His moves do not seem to suggest an intention to hurt the mother Michael loves. From appearances, the boy only hopes to find a source of solace. He wants to hold on to someone, anyone. His words seem to express a desire that his Mom will save him from her. The child cries out again and again. He flaps; he flounders. Little lovable Michael thrashes and struggles. Madison was not discouraged.

Still alert and attentive to her purpose, Madison proclaims, "The swim teacher has them trained within a week." Once more, she says, "Everyone goes to her." She may have sensed or seen Becky's alarm. Apprehensive, the mother said, "I will speak to my husband. He is in the car."

Becky realized the man who she had observed earlier might have studied the pair with an interest that could not be described. Possibly, what the father felt was beyond words. Becky knew that emotionally, this event tugged at her heartstrings. She wondered; did the Dad wait for he too could not endure the misery inflicted on his son. How could a mother be so cruel? How could anyone treat a child with such contempt? Why were words of compassion and caution not enough to stop the abuse? Was Becky alone in her anguish?

She exited the pool area, entered the locker room. Then she scrubbed herself in the shower. All the while Becky heard the howls and the hollers. This small sorrowful soul did not rant or rage against his Mom. He only called out for help. Each shout sliced the air and sent chills up Becky's spine. She could hardly contain her own tears.

Becky left the building and again approached Madison, whose energy and purpose had not waned. The worried woman spoke, "If I could I would like to inquire; would it not be better if Michael loved his lessons (and the person who teaches him)?" Did she share the latter thought? She was so troubled, she did not know what she said. Had she asked if it was necessary to master the skill in a week? Madison ignored Becky. She was done with this exchange. She said to Michael, "Just a few more minutes."

Defeated, Becky left the deck. She walked to the office where the guards stood in alert. The group discussed what left each of them distraught. A resigned Brianna verbalized her belief, "There is nothing we can do or say." Shocked to discover Becky spoke to the woman, Brianna began to ask of what was said. Then she realized Madison, with a drained and strained Michael in her arms, was near. She let out a sound that signaled the need for silence.

The mother and her madness quickly fled the premises. After a short discussion with the guards, Becky thanked them for listening to her fears and followed the path from the pool to the parking lot. Apparently, the couple and their child were settling into the coupe. The father glanced over as he saw Becky near the vehicle. Nothing was said. For Becky, there were no words.

She pondered. Was Becky the person now considered a predator? Had Madison grumbled to her husband as she shared details of the encounter? Exhausted and uncertain of the empathy she had supposed all beings had for others, Becky went to her car. She could not drive away, although she saw the family did. The lover of living beings, of children, could not fully understand what existed only for moments in her own life. She was haunted by the hurt she saw in Michael's face and heard in his calls.

Stunned and shaken Becky sat trembling for a very long time. She wailed; she wept. Had she just let a sweet child fend for himself in a world too awful to survive?

Hours passed and Becky imagines, in her life, Michael, and the impression he made on her would never move on. Sadly, she fears, what for her was but minutes, for Michael, will be life.

Becky had mentioned to Madison, or hoped she had, the effect of trauma. To this day, the older educator recounts the stresses that transformed her being. The lessons, what her Mom, Dad, and mentors did supposedly for her benefit, if not facilitated fondly, harmed her deeply. Cognizant that children absorb all they encounter and are affected by every exchange, Becky contemplates the drama Michael endured.

In a desire to calm her self, Becky, an educator who loves to learn, sought answers. She had so many questions, so many concerns. As a teacher, never labeled a dictatorial tyrant, she had much trepidation. What had Madison taught Michael? Was he expected to sink or swim? As she read, her angst increased. What would become of Michael?

How Do You Recognize a Patient (or Person) with Trauma if it is Not Always Obvious?
Different people respond differently to traumatic events. Some people will carry it around in ways that everybody can see that they've been impacted. But most people actually will go through a traumatic experience and won't have any easily visible or obvious manifestation of that. The problems may emerge many months or sometimes even years after the original event. So it's very important for people who are trying to understand trauma to become aware of the various ways in which traumatic symptoms can manifest, the various ways in which trauma can be carried forward by children and adults, and the pervasive impact that trauma has independent of the way someone is observed to perform.

How Do Relationships Affect the Way the Brain Develops?
Human beings are at our core, relational creatures. We are designed to live, work, play, and grow in groups. The very nature of humanity arises from relationships. You learn language, you learn social language, you learn appropriate emotional regulation, and essentially everything that's important about life as a human being you learn in context of relationships. And the very substance of a successful individual is bathed in a whole host of relationships with people in that person's life . . .

Can You Continue with the Relationships and How it Affects the Brain
When you look at someone, when you hear someone, when you have a conversation, when you make a joke with somebody, when you touch someone, every single one of those physical interactions are translated into patterned neuronal activity that go into the brain of both people in that interaction and result in positive changes. These physical changes influence our immune system and they influence the autonomic nervous system that controls your heart and your lungs and your gut. Literally, when people have a wealth of relationships, where relationships are present in high quantities and they're of good quality, these individuals are actually physically healthier, they're emotionally healthier, they're more cognitively enriched, and they actually reach their potential to be humane in ways that are impossible without relationships.

It's a very interesting thing that people don't really appreciate this very much, but that there's no better biological interaction that you can have than a relationship.

Yes, all beings are but a beautiful bundle of love. Yet, rarely do humans honor that veracity. So few people understand the depth of each interaction. Too frequently, individuals do what was done to them, or what they think they can. Societal standards, customs, traditions, the lessons taught by authoritarian teachers shape them. People learn. Yet, they may not have studied the ultimate lesson. We are each a lovely and fragile beings. We grow well when hearts, minds, bodies, and souls are tenderly touched.

"Michael, I am soooooooo sorry," Becky mused. What of the relationship she had with Michael, or for that matter, with all beings. What affect did her actions or inactions have. Becky though of how all that occurred developed, and how Michael might grow. "If only I had done more, been more, were a better teacher to your Mom, or had offered to help you learn to swim." Becky, heart heavy with regret promised herself, if she were to meet this family again, she would . . . in truth, she did not know what she could or would do. She only hoped that someone would tell her. How does one swim in a world where too many forget, all beings are but a bundle of love.

Sources and Suffering . . .

Trauma, Brain and Relationship: Helping Children Heal, By Bruce Perry, Ph.D. From Neurons to Neighborhoods. 
New Ways to Prevent and Heal Emotional Trauma in Children and Adults. May 2003

Posted by Betsy L. Angert on July 6, 2008 at 09:00 AM in "Take me as I am!", Abuse, Adult Influence on Children, Aggression, Approval or Love, Art of Loving, Have or Be, Change the World [Within], Children, Desire to Learn, Dreams Live and Die , Education, Emotional Decisions, Emotional Intelligence, Empathy and Evolution, Family, Functioning, Fables, Life, A Forward Motion, Looking at Life, Nature or Nurture, Quality of Life, Teach The Children | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

US Policy; Attack Adversaries. Appease Americans. No Diplomacy

Don't Bomb Iran

copyright © 2008 Betsy L. Angert. BeThink.org

Days ago, United States Commander-In-Chief, George W. Bush reminded us of the need to remain vigilant. He admonished anyone who might think to talk with those who politically, philosophically, or perhaps physically have the potential to oppose "us." The President of the world's superpower 'wisely' proclaimed ""Some seem to believe we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along." America's leader addressed Israeli lawmakers and said, "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history." As a protective parent might alert an easily frighten child, the Mister Bush forewarns his citizens. "Do not speak to strangers."

US policy under Bush is to attack or alienate. The Administration insists we will not appease or engage in diplomacy with what we identify as rogue nations. Persons classified as terrorists are to be threatened, and possibly killed. The President of the United States wishes to ensure he protects the public. Punitive measures multiply in a nation once defined as democratic.

Citizens in a country founded on the principles of equalitarianism no longer practice as they preach. Americans or the Administration ignore what is too often real; statistically, evidence shows those we know may be more dangerous. Close associates can harm "us." Those we have yet to encounter in our daily lives are not scary; they are unfamiliar. Hence, frequently, much to our own chagrin, people follow the lead of penal persons, just as we have in the United States. Today, American citizens are easily appeased, and willing to attack. We are willing to alienate our allies and all others. We spread democracy only to destroy the tenet.

People whose names, faces, customs, cultures, and skin color differs from "ours" are classified as aliens. Those who we do not speak with are considered adversaries, for "we" have not taken the time to become acquainted. "We" assume the people who are foreign to "us" are antagonistic. Americans, seem willing to dismiss the accepted wisdom; friendships are formed. Foes are those we do not know, and thus, fear.

That said, the defensive stance adopted by the paternalistic President presumes that "we" just as little children, are less learned. Therefore, we will give all our toys to another tot, or to the big-bad-boogie-man, he vehemently told "us" not to play with. The word "appeasement," as referenced in Mister Bush's speech does not speak to diplomacy, a skillful communication between countries; it connotes the giving of gifts.

Britain and France pursued a policy of appeasement in the hope that Hitler would not drag Europe into another world war. Appeasement expressed the widespread British desire to heal the wounds of World War I and to correct what many British officials regarded as the injustices of the Versailles Treaty.

Guilt motivates many a parent who realizes, in the past, they were overly punitive. A child, who chose actions that were combative and cruel may not learn to be kind, if a guardian slams and damns the young person, and then confines the lad or lass to a barren room. An adolescent starved for love, stripped of all possessions, severely reprimanded, and forced to submit reparations will not thrive. When a tot or a teen is stripped of a sense of self, as well as deprived of any dignity survival is a struggle. It is no wonder, upon reflection, the parents or persons in power were remorseful. The Versailles Treaty denied the German people all that made life whole.

This treaty held Germany solemnly responsible for WWI. Germany was forced to pay reparations totaling 132,000,000,000 in gold marks, they lost 1/8 of its land, all of its colonies, all overseas financial assets, a new map of Europe was carved out of Germany, and the German military was basically non-existent. To the German people they were being ruthlessly punished for a war not only were not responsible for but had to fight. The main terms of the
Versailles Treaty were:

(1) the surrender of all German colonies as League of Nations mandates
(2) the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France
(3) cession of Eupen-Malmedy to Belgium, Memel to Lithuania, the Hultschin district to Czechoslovakia, Poznania, parts of East Prussia and Upper Silesia to Poland
(4) Danzig to become a free city
(5) plebiscites to be held in northern Schleswig to settle the Danish-German frontier
(6) occupation and special status for the Saar under French control
(7) demilitarization and a fifteen-year occupation of the Rhineland
(8) German reparations of £6,600 million
(9) a ban on the union of Germany and Austria
(10) an acceptance of Germany's guilt in causing the war
(11) provision for the trial of the former Kaiser and other war leaders
(12) limitation of Germany's army to 100,000 men with no conscription, no tanks, no heavy artillery, no poison-gas supplies, no aircraft, and no airships
(13) the limitation of the German Navy to vessels under 100,000 tons, with no submarines

Germany signed the Versailles Treaty under protest. The USA Congress refused to ratify the treaty. Many people in France and Britain were angry that there was no trial of the Kaiser or the other war leaders.

The treaty devastated Germany politically and economically. Because of the treaty, many Germans were desperate to find a new leader to get them out of the Great Depression, which they blamed on the extravagant reparations they had to pay to the Allies.

A chastised child ultimately will not sacrifice their soul. They will rebel and revolt, as Germany did. Perhaps, Neville Chamberlain and those who chose "appeasement" overreacted as parents, or as people often do. Too often, an abusive authority figure will engage in one extreme behavior or another. Penalties and presents do help a youngster to learn. Neither deed will deliver a child from "evil." Calm, careful conversations help create a union between mother, father, and child. When Moms, Dads, or government officials love the other and self enough to empathetically listen reverent relationships grow. The same is true when we speak of nations. Negotiations are necessary if peace is to become a possibility. We do not war with those who work well with "us." Composure cultivated in conversations evokes cooperation.

Notwithstanding, the veracity that talk can educate and place a distressed child at ease, country or diplomat, Americans are asked to avoid discussion with those our "leaders" deemed dictators or terrorists. "We," the people are expected to forget, as George W. Bush expressed not too long ago. On February 13, 2006, just over two years earlier, Commander-In-Chief Bush avowed his desire to resolve disagreements with Iran in an irenic manner. The President of the United States proclaimed the potential nuclear crisis need not be a cause for confrontation. After talks in Washington with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the decisive Mister Bush said the allied leaders agreed; the issue must be solved "diplomatically by working together." However, as is evident, for persons who dominate, the definitions for "diplomacy" and "peaceful" are fluid, as is the description of democracy. Merriam-Webster offers . . .

de·moc·ra·cy
1 a: government by the people; especially: rule of the majority
b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
2: a political unit that has a democratic government
3. capitalized: the principles and policies of the Democratic Party in the United States (from emancipation Republicanism to New Deal Democracy— C. M. Roberts)
4. the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority
5. the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges

What may be thought odd is, in a nation founded on the principles of social equality, there are elite 'leaders.' These elected officials believe they must assure the common folk, it is best not to speak with our "enemies." In the United States, in practice, it seems democracy is a disciplinary dictum. The President envisions himself as a penal parent might.

Might we also muse of the contradiction? In a country of equals the race, religion, or social rank of an individual might reduce the presumed significance of a fellow citizen. Here in America, too often one neighbor is the nemesis of another. How could that be? We might ponder another paradox. If every individual is worthy, one of no more value than any other, why are there privileged people who have power over the populace? We may know not why; nonetheless, we are aware those in authority tell average Americans, 'Diplomacy would be pernicious.' The incongruity of the situation does not escape observant historians.

Academics who study the democratic system note Americans have less social equality than we like to think we do. Citizens of this country are as those in a family where retaliatory parents rule. The word "family" connotes a connection. Yet, when guardians are not caregivers and are instead castigators. "family' is but the facade.

Yet, just as in a dysfunctional home where the relatives wish to believe all is well, in this "progressive" nation, we may wish to believe the system works. Americans firmly assert the present is far better than the past was, and the future will bring greater improvements. We reassure ourselves with charts and graphs. We watch market reports and read research that validates what we wish to hold as truth.

Admittedly, the average American accepts that in this affluent and democratic nation problems persist. Income inequity has always been a constant; it remains pervasive in the States. Here, in the richest country in the world, in a nation where people are taught to believe everyone is equal, opportunities are not. Most dismiss the imbalance as temporary. Certainly, the prospect for change is plausible. Shortcomings are the effect of economic growth. Corrections will come, sooner or later. Perhaps tomorrow will bring a better day. Of course, it will. Americans know how to grow an economy. With expansion, earnings increase. People prosper, equally.

Most of "us" believe that democracy has survived each trial and tribulation, and a government of the people, as we presume ours to be, will continue to thrive. Yet; perchance, we have been persuaded to have faith as we do. Democracy is best. Nothing functions better.

This is a powerful assumption. It may be tested by reflecting upon the fact that, despite American progress, the society has been forced to endure sundry movements of protest. In our effort to address the inconvenient topic of protest, our need to be intellectually consistent -- while thinking within the framework of continuous progress -- has produced a number of explanations about the nature of dissent in America. Closely followed, these arguments are not really explanations at all, but rather the assertion of more presumptions that have the effect of defending the basic intuition about progress itself. The most common of these explanations rests upon what is perceived to be a temporary malfunction of the economic order: people protest when “times are hard.” When times stop being “hard,” people stop protesting and things return to “normal” -- that is to say, progress is resumed.

Unfortunately, history does not support the notion that mass protest movements develop because of hard times. Depressed economies or exploitive arrangements of power and privilege may produce lean years or even lean lifetimes for millions of people, but the historical evidence is conclusive that they do not produce mass political insurgency. The simple fact of the matter is that, in ways that affect mind and body, times have been “hard” for most humans throughout human history and for most of that period people have not been in rebellion. Indeed, traditionalists in a number of societies have often pointed in glee to this passivity, choosing to call it “apathy” and citing it as a justification for maintaining things as they are.

This apparent absence of popular vigor is traceable, however, not to apathy but to the very raw materials of history -- that complex of rules, manners, power relationships, and memories that collectively comprise what is called culture. “The masses” do not rebel in instinctive response to hard times and exploitation because they have been culturally organized by their societies not to rebel. They have, instead, been instructed in deference. Needless to say, this is the kind of social circumstance that is not readily apparent to the millions who live within it.

The lack of visible mass political activity on the part of modern industrial populations is a function of how these societies have been shaped by the various economic or political elites who fashioned them. In fundamental ways, this shaping process (which is now quite mature in America) bears directly not only upon our ability to grasp the meaning of American Populism, but our ability to understand protest generally and, most important of all, on our ability to comprehend the prerequisites for democracy itself.

Perhaps, the words of Professor Lawrence Goodwyn help to explain why Americans believe people elsewhere are complacent. In the United States, the public presumes people abroad will not create change on their own. They must be taught to do as the American Administration thinks wise. This assessment of what occurs within our homeland may expose why "we" believe democracy can be forcibly imposed on other nations. The theory Goodwyn offers helps illustrate why in a "democratic" nation the deciders dictate policy for one and for all planet wide. However, the hypothesis may not be accurate.

In other territories, protest may not have been trained out of the populace. Perchance, residents in other regions were not appeased with material goods meant to buy love and obedience? We cannot be certain for there is so little that Americans are allowed to know of the persons our power elite wish to remain estranged from "us."

Nonetheless, it seems apparent from accounts, in other parts of the globe, dissent is not defined as terrorism. Discontent is not considered destructive. The voice of the people is not pernicious. Possibly, in some places governments are not as powerful as prohibitive parents might be. Oh, those who reign may try to exert absolute rule; however, the people are less easily "appeased" or patronized.

Many a Persian person may describe a situation different from Americans trust to be true in the Middle East. Numerous would share, in Iran, were it not for America's invasive input the inhabitants may have eliminated what the United States considers evil. Indeed, Iranians were working to end the reign of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. However, American intervened, and all changed, for the worse.

The follies of Bush's Iran policy
By Shirin Ebadi and Muhammad Sahimi
International Herald Tribune
Wednesday, May 30, 2007

The confrontation between Iran and the West has developed a new dimension over the detention of several Iranian scholars, journalists and political activists who have been living in the West for years and have recently traveled to their homeland.

What is the root cause of these events? Part of it is the deep unpopularity of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Internal opposition to his government is becoming increasingly louder as Iranians are recognizing the danger in his foreign policy and his failure to improve the economy.

In December, university students forced him to stop his speech by shouting "death to the dictator." Iran's Parliament has severely criticized him. In recent municipal elections, candidates backed by Ahmadinejad received only 4 percent of the vote.

The conservatives who rule Iran are also badly fractured. The radical faction led by Ahmadinejad is bitterly opposed to the more moderate, pragmatic faction led by former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who advocates accommodation with the West.

The recent arrests should be seen partly as a reaction to these events. Unable to address Iran's mountain of social, economical and political problems, the hard-liners are trying to create a new crisis with the West in order to distract attention from their problems.

Possibly, this scenario demonstrates that American Administrators have much in common with those they emphasize are part of an "axis of evil." The need to divert attention dominates policy among world leaders. A desire to subvert the masses moves many decision-makers, just as it drives many a punitory parent. When authority figures wish to govern, not of, by or for the people but for the love of power, they subtly and successfully suppress the sensible among us.

Engineer, and Author David Brin may have said it best, "It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power." Control is a costly endeavor. Perhaps, the price is too high for the average reasonable American, or possibly those who no longer view protest as wise, do not realize the expense is not only imprudent, it is counterproductive and detrimental to our own "Homeland Security."

Some of the $75 million has been devoted to the U.S.-funded Radio Farda, Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, as well as to VOA satellite TV, which are beaming Persian programs into Iran. Other portions have been given secretly to exiled Iranian groups, political figures, and nongovernmental organizations to establish contacts with Iranian opposition groups.

But Iranian reformists believe that democracy can't be imported. It must be indigenous. They believe that the best Washington can do for democracy in Iran is to leave them alone. The fact is, no truly nationalist and democratic group will accept such funds.

According to the Algiers Accord that the United States signed with Iran in 1981 to end the hostage crisis, noninterference in Iran's domestic affairs is one of Washington's legal obligations . . .

Thus, Washington's policy of "helping" the cause of democracy in Iran has backfired. It has made it more difficult for the more moderate factions within Iran's power hierarchy to argue for an accommodation with the West . . .

The Bush administration should put an end to its misguided policy and immediately declare which organizations and public figures have received funds from the $75 million. This will make it clear that the scholars, journalists and other figures who travel to Iran have nothing to do with Bush's policy on Iran.

We can hope that one day soon, Americans will find the courage to clarify what is more insidious. The principles that currently guide American democracy are not egalitarian. In this nation, appeasement and punishment dominate the dictums. The Administration, the elites, the influential do not speak for the people; nor do they engage in diplomatic relations that might bring persons of the world together as one.

If the United States government continues to aggressively assault our "enemies' as an abusive parent might if they perceive the "stranger" as a threat, then we can expect to be attacked. Should the powers-that-be in the States invoke embargos, again the risk is, this reactive behavior will incite attack. "Appeasement" will not bring bliss. Gifts given to lessen the weight of guilt will not gratify or garner good graces. We cannot buy love; nor can we grow fondness when engaged in a feud.

Thus far, "we" the people have seen what occurs when "our' government does not act in best interests of the people here or abroad. The Iranians who seek to enrich society are correct. A democratic system cannot be instigated from the outside. Fairness grows from within. Equanimity must evolve naturally if it is to be real, effective, and everlasting.

Might Americans work to cultivate the principles we espouse and yet have never established before we attempt to shift the paradigm elsewhere. Let us find a way to make democracy doable here at home. Perchance, diplomacy will build a bridge. If only Americans talked among themselves and to each other. We must speak to "strangers." Perhaps we will discover similarities. "We" the people cannot allow ourselves to be treated as children. We must acknowledge the people who claim to protect us are our abusers. The power-elite have the authority "we," the little people give them. America, it is time to stand up. Let us not fear the foreigner. With eyes wide open, let us consider those that cause us great harm live in our house.

Democracy Described and Defined . . .

Bush's Comments In Israel Fuel Anger, By Michael Abramowitz. Washington Post. Friday, May 16, 2008; Page A08

Domestic Violence Statistics. An Abuse, Rape and Domestic Violence Aid and Resource Collection. U.S. Department of Justice.

Neville Chamberlain on Appeasement (1939) The History Guide.

Democrats outraged by Bush "appeasement" remark, By Steve Holland. Reuters. May 15, 2008

The Treaty of Versailles and the Impact on Germany. By Walter S. Zapotoczny. 2005

US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack, By Michael Smith and Sarah Baxter. Times Online. February 25, 2007

The follies of Bush's Iran policy, By Shirin Ebadi and Muhammad Sahimi. International Herald Tribune. May 30, 2007

The Populist Movement; A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America, By Lawrence Goodwyn. Oxford University Press. 1978

Posted by Betsy L. Angert on May 17, 2008 at 09:00 PM in Aggression, Americana, Communities, Communities and Communication , Defiant Diplomacy, Politics, War Kills [Mind, Body, Spirit], Xenophobia | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Calm Communicators Unite Us. Cruel Commanders Divide Us

copyright © 2008 Betsy L. Angert. BeThink.org

Americans are at odds. As a nation, we are splintered. The parts do not function as a whole. Some wish to control and command. Others prefer to work for the common good. As we stand, we are a country divided.

The most recent Internal Revenue Service data, shows one percent of Americans received twenty-one and two-tenths [21.2] percent of all personal income. In 2005, fifty [50] percent of the people in this nation, those who have long struggled to survive, earned twelve and eight-tenths [12.8] percent of all wages and salaries. In the United States, dollars earned split the population. Wealth is not all that separates us.

Color causes schisms. Citizens live in regions of the country labeled Red, or Blue. Brownish immigrants, with or without papers, are relegated to reside in neighborhoods far from the affluent or influential, even when authentic assimilation is meant to be an option. Frequently Black Americans are housed in communities where opportunities are few. When persons of various hues intermingle with the massive pinkish population, in the United States, the people of color are alienated.

Were Americans do physically unite, they would likely remain segregated. Americans subtly separate themselves from those they loathe, and form the people they love. Few ever consider what they do to create a rift. In America, demeanors, the way in which we communicate, divides us.

In this nation, a large portion of the population is frequently aggressive, abusive, and antagonistic. Those they encounter, the not obnoxious or toxic ones, accommodate, appease, appear unaffected, or remain anxious when in the company of the people who believe the best way to appear authoritative is to dictate what needs to be done, by whom, when, where, and why.

At times, the public is able to openly observe and discuss abuse, but usually, only when it is evident in the extreme. Banner headlines may scream a need to attend to what, for the most part remains hidden. Neglect, Abuse Seen in 90, 000 Infants. However, mostly Americans demonstrate their angst in manners identified as normal. No one speaks of what is standard. Perchance, the reason is, in the States reactive behaviors, which reveal annoyance, are so common as to be customary.

Daily, in periodicals we read of what we would wish to think is not traditional, but may be. The accounts scream to us. Citizens in this country think it outrageous when they realize. In Chicago, youth violence is increasingly prevalent. Twenty-two [22] students were slain in this heartland city so far this year. Our fellow country men remark, 'This sort of thing occurs only among 'those people.' Surely, the rest of us are sane and serene. 'The average American would not strike out in such a manner.' People say, 'Weaponry is for outlaws,' or at least, mechanical arsenals are meant only to combat a political enemy. Those who reside in the United States never imagine that "they" would use a gun in anger, or lash out when with a friend. Few consider how frequently they attack those they say they are fond of.

When words are the weapon of choice, and blood is not spilled, most in this country think no harm is done. War and wounds are what we see on the battlefields, and mostly abroad. In this country, life is calm.

We read of skirmishes elsewhere daily. Americans witness what occurs in the Persian Gulf. Iraqi deaths are on the rise regardless of the Americans attempt to Surge and subvert the violence. Now, that is awful. Thankfully, this nation is not torn apart by war.

Few ponder the fact that these excessive examples illustrate and amplify what is apparent in American homes. People pounce easily and often. We cruelly criticize and intentionally drive a wedge between unions. We conquer; and in America, we destroy.

In this country, enemies are thought to be around every corner. We publicly rant and rage when we refer to people of another race or religion. Privately, many are punitive towards those who reside in our homes. When we look upon those the "commanders" consider beloved, we see differences, and ignore similarities. He is wrong; I am right. She is flawed. "I am perfect." Spite is right. Malice is might. Vindictiveness is used to undermine viciousness. In many American homes, tit for tat is the acceptable.

Those in authority, "Tsk, tsk," the ones who they would wish to weaken. Children are infrequently given information about the consequences of their choices. Calm and complete communication is too often a rarity in our abodes. Rather than work to create cohesive communities within a household, parents and their progeny dictate, and divide.

Adults learn their aggressive manners in childhood. A slight from a toddler's first teachers cuts to the core. Terse comments, a tease, or a taunt directed at a teen does not simply slide off the back of one scarred by a lifetime of verbal slashes. Adults do not deflect digs; some have merely learned how to present the appearance of being unaffected by an oral assault. In truth, "Sticks and stone may break my bones, and names hurt me more than a physical attack might." Many may relate to a common event and decide this is not my business.

As I was leaving gym one morning, I overheard a mother berating her daughter for refusing to put her face in the water during a toddlers' swim class. "You're such a little coward," she told the sobbing child -- who could not have been more than three years old. "It's the same every week. You always make your daddy and me ashamed. Sometimes I can't believe you're really my daughter."

Although my stomach churned with rage on the child's behalf, I said nothing. After all, I rationalized, the mother would just tell me to mind my own business. But I had no doubt that what I had witnessed was in many ways as bad as a brutal beating. It was emotional child abuse.

"The bruises don't show on the outside, so there are no statistics on how many children are victims," says Dr. Elizabeth Watkins, chief of pediatric primary care at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City. "But anyone who works with children knows that the problem is widespread."

University of Minnesota psychologist Byron Egeland, who has conducted extensive studies on parenting and early-childhood development, says the effects of emotional child abuse may be at least as devastating as those of physical abuse. Research conducted by Egeland and his colleagues suggests that emotionally abused children suffer an even greater decline in mental and psychological development as they grow older than do physically abused children.

This abated state does not necessarily translate to an academic deficit. Often times, persons who were beaten down emotionally excel in their physical and intellectual endeavors. Countless adults, who were verbally assaulted as children, believe that the cruelty and callousness they endured, has made them stronger. People in older bodies show no physical blemishes. A mature member of society is not noticeably bruised or disfigured. Most middle-aged grown-ups, those once exposed to such exploitation have learned to hide the scars. Hurt hearts do not inhibit intellectual growth; nor do the effects of verbal and emotional injuries restrict achievements. As a tot, a teen, or an individual in his or her golden years, a person harmed by words can thrive and triumph. The attitude is, "I will show them!" The thought that provokes our success is, "I will do well. Then, they will [finally] love me."

The truth is mean Mom's and dismissive Dad's do love their offspring. They simply do not know how to show it. Too often, we do as was done to us. As adults, we become the people our parents were. While we may have abhorred mother or father's behavior, it is what we know. We grow to be as those who taught us were.

At birth, we learn of what we despise most. In our parents dwelling, as tots, we become acquainted with insults, invectives, and insolence. The invisible barbs are experienced as a barrage of bullets; each pierces the flesh. Mothers mock us. Fathers jeer. Brothers and sisters, bully. In our earliest years, we begin to think of when and how we can leave the company of those who say they treasure us. In time, as children we decide the best defense is a good offense. Hence, we become equally odious, angry, and ambitious. Often adults, who were verbally abused as children, when they speak of their parents, state, "They did the best they could." Indeed, perfectionist parents do what they believe is best, and they expect their progeny to do better.

In ambitious middle-class families, one of the most common forms of emotional abuse is the denigration of any achievement that falls short of perfection, such as when a child is punished for bringing home a B instead of an A. Jeree Pawl, director of the Infant-Parent Program at San Francisco General Hospital, observes that "perfectionist" parents may display irrational expectations.

After a time, Mom and Dad no longer need to express what they expect; children know what is necessary. In fact, a young person will demand more of him or herself than either parent ever did. In our youth, we become self-critical. Our parents likely did not disparage us as well as we demean ourselves. Each day, we improve. We can deliver venom more vigorously than Mom or Dad ever did. Persons, who were the victims of verbal mistreatment in their youth, inflict the same sarcastic and sardonic on them selves as they age.

The use of hurtful declarations becomes a habit. Spoken stabs pull a person down. Those not stated aloud do us in with greater force. The voice within is perhaps more furious than the one separate from self. Our self-assessments are as a cancerous virus. Merciless messages kill. Yet, no one notices the cause or effects of the illness. Too many Americans share the symptoms; hence, the pain is standard.

Parental verbal abuse may wound children's psyches so deeply that the effects remain apparent in young adulthood. Such abuse may wreak psychological havoc greater than that caused by physical abuse.

With an M.B.A. degree under her belt, 24-year-old "Jaime" (not her real name) should have glowing job prospects in Chicago. But she harbors memories that erode her self-confidence and make her bristle with anger—memories of her father shouting at her, during drunken rages, that she was ugly and of little value.
Indeed, verbal abuse during childhood can scar people deeply, a new study suggests. It was headed by Martin Teicher, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Developmental Biopsychiatry Research Program at McLean Hospital, which is affiliated with Harvard Medical School. Results were published in the June American Journal of Psychiatry.

Although the injurious effects of child physical and sexual abuse have been the subject of considerable inquiry, not much attention has been paid to the possibly noxious effects of verbal abuse on children.

People attend to what they see. The battered hearts, the wounded souls are not visible to the eye; although the effects of these are apparent if we wish to see them. Researchers studied and discovered what lies just beneath the surface.

People who were verbally abused had 1.6 times as many symptoms of depression and anxiety as those who had not been verbally abused and were twice as likely to have suffered a mood or anxiety disorder over their lifetime, according to psychology Professor Natalie Sachs-Ericsson, the study's lead author.

"We must try to educate parents about the long-term effects of verbal abuse on their children," Sachs-Ericsson said. "The old saying about sticks and stones was wrong. Names will forever hurt you."

Moms and Dads wield words as weapons daily. An innocent and sweet child may be saddened by what is said to them. Frequently, a lad or a lass, who has come to expect the worse is fretful, frightened, or apprehensive when near those who vocally attack. After a time, a child turned teen, may appear angry, as an adult resigned, acquiescent when with Mom or Dad. Still, the pain seeps out. It spills onto all the injured individual encounters.

The cycle starts subtly. It is all so subterranean. How often is a child told, "You need to take responsibility"? Yet, how frequently does neither guardian seems to accept that they play a part in what occurred in their own lives. After a night on the town, too much food, and an abundance of alcoholic beverages, Dad may bellow, "Stay out of my way today if you know what's good for you." Then, as if to inform his brood, father would offer, "I'm in a bad mood." Daddy does not wish to be liable for his own limitations. Thus, if he was under duress, or hassled, surely, someone else must be to blame.

It is a "me against the world" mentality. Those who command and seek control, the power they did not feel they had in their youth, see themselves as separate from the others. Hence, the great divide.

Mom may be no different from Dad. This sweet, soft-spoken woman, a mother committed to her children often commented, "My life would have been perfect if it were not for you." She would then say, "Get out of my sight; you are a bad boy, a hateful, ungrateful girl." Then, moments later, Mommy would say how much she loved you, or I. Life and love, as a child, and later as an adult can be caustic, chaotic, and troublesome, even if we emerge confidently. Either parent can do the damage. Both can build the barriers that teach one of the brood to be boldly brazen.

Weeks ago, Americans watched an esteemed achiever, a Presidential aspirant, vent wrathful words. The statements made echoed in every American household. On television and radio airwaves we heard, "Shame on you. “It is time you (act in a manner) consistent with your messages in public. That is what I expect from you. (L)et's have a debate about your tactics and your behavior . . ." Only days prior, we, as a nation, were moved by the magnanimous words, "(Y)ou know, no matter what happens in this contest -- and I am honored, I am honored to be here with [the same person who was slammed two days later.] I am absolutely honored." Hours before the homage was delivered in a face-to-face encounter, the self-proclaimed "fighter" raged, she was ready. The person she humiliated after offering a sincere homage was not. Then, in a fit of anger, this eloquent and accomplished adult exclaimed to her audience, "Let's get real."

On an occasion or two, the New York Senator states if she and her adversary worked as one, all dreams would come true. Quickly, Hillary Rodham Clinton reminds us that the same individual who she thinks praiseworthy is incompetent. He cannot command; nor is he qualified. The waling wounded Clinton claims the man who might steal her win is but a "child." She demeans his experience while she exaggerates her own. In a breath, the scared child, now a grown Senator, cries out. The former First Lady, who continues to carry the weight of a world built on pain within her, tells us the man who angers her is eloquent, admirable, and yet, inadequate.

One day this wise woman is passive or polite; then in the next moment she is aggressive and antagonistic. As Hillary Clinton speaks of Uniting the States, creating a cohesive Democratic Party, she works to divide these entities. She loves her country, her challenger, and her community; yet . . .

The push-pull of these love-hate relationships may remind us of what too many of us as children and adults experience in our family homes. In the "United" States, division, derision, declarations that divide a union are natural. Most accept the conventions that have been familiar throughout their lives. Few are disturbed by the divisiveness a Presidential candidate puts forth. Perchance, the American people relate. Might we consider the climate that was the candidate's childhood, her history, and the truth that fashioned her family?

The couple fought. In 1926, Dorothy's father filed for divorce, claiming that his wife had hit him in the face and scratched him on three separate occasions, according to Cook County records. In a March 1927 court hearing, Della Howell's own sister accused her of abusing her husband and abandoning her two daughters.

"She had a violent temper and flew at him in a rage, and would fight him," testified the sister, Frances Czeslawski.

Della Howell did not show up to contest the divorce -- she could not be found by subpoena servers. Dorothy's father was given custody. But, either unwilling or unable to take care of his daughters, he put them on the train to California, where his parents, Edwin Howell Sr. and Emma Howell, had moved a few years previously. . . .

The grandparents were ill-prepared to raise Dorothy and her sister, Isabelle.

Edwin Howell Sr. had emigrated from Wales. He worked as a machinist in an auto plant and as a laborer for the Alhambra street department, according to Alhambra city directories from the time. He mostly left the girls' care to his wife.

Emma Howell was a strict woman who wore black Victorian dresses and discouraged visitors and parties. Once, discovering that Dorothy had gone trick-or-treating on Halloween, she ordered her confined to her room for a year except for school.

"Her grandmother was a severe and arbitrary disciplinarian who berated her constantly, and her grandfather all but ignored her," Clinton wrote. . .

"Once I asked my mother why she went back to Chicago," Clinton wrote in "Living History." The answer? "'I'd hoped so hard that my mother would love me that I had to take the chance and find out,' she told me. 'When she didn't, I had nowhere else to go.'

Too many of us can recall a time when we wanted to be appreciated, admired, accepted by those who brought us into the world, or taught us to be the best we could be. Even when those we care for harm us, we still crave their adoration. A child who feels less than cherished will try harder. Humans will do whatever they believe they must do in hopes that someday, they will be treasured by their first teachers, the people they call family.

Hillary was the best student among her siblings, the one who took her parents' lessons most seriously. . .

Hugh Rodham, unlike many other fathers of his era, raised his daughter to be ambitious. When she brought home straight A's, Rodham would say, "Well, Hillary, that must be an easy school you go to," she [Presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton] wrote. . .

Hugh Rodham took thrift to even greater heights than many survivors of the Depression. If Hillary, Hugh Jr., or Tony left the cap off the toothpaste, he would toss it out the window and send the child to search for it. An allowance was out of the question. "I feed you, don't I?" she remembers him saying.

Clinton speaks of her father admiringly, but . . . no one disputes his gruffness. "He was character building, like our winters in Chicago," Ebeling, Clinton's best friend, said. . . .

He was "highly opinionated, to put it mildly," [Hillary] Clinton wrote. "We all accommodated his pronouncements . . .

Hilary is as many warriors in society are. She expects the electorate to tolerate her brusque, sometimes demeaning, statements, just as she accepted much of what her father said. If the people wish to argue with the aspirant, as occasionally she did with her dear Dad, Clinton thinks that is fine. After all, she is a fighter. She knows how to win. Just as Hugh Rodham did when he felt his children were uncontrollable, the dictatorial, decidedly aggressive decider known as Dad escalated the argument. "You are with me or against me" is a common refrain among those who command cruelly.

Many progeny adapt to parents who can be punitive. After a time, offspring learn, the boundaries that divide them are best when they remain as invisible, just as the wounds on the heart are. Children convince themselves, they are strong. They are in control. As long as they go along to get along all will be well, and it will be, until the next emotional upheaval. Even then, those who scream and demean will be fine, for what they experience is familiar.

I offer a personal anecdote, one that helped me to understand the divide that exists among us in America. There are the "fighters" well-trained to battle, and the peacemakers, those who talk in tones that are more tranquil.

I realized this only in recent years. A time ago, after I had lived on this glorious green Earth for more than three decades I thought I understood people. I experienced much in my lifetime. As a child, I settled in the suburbs, the city, and the country. In my earliest years may family had all the fineries. We were exceptionally wealthy. Then, there was the divorce. My Mommy, new Daddy a sister, and I were extremely poor when I was in Elementary School. Eventually we evolved into Middle Class. I felt as though we were average.

At seventeen years of age, I declared my independence. I left home, lived on my own, and struggled to earn enough money to survive. I inhabited neighborhoods not thought to be safe. My knowledge of life and it's various styles, I believed was expansive.

Then, it occurred. I met a man. Immediately, I knew I loved him. I had never been easily impressed. Romantic relationships were not part of my repertoire. This person, I perceived as beyond special. I admired him, and I intensely appreciated him. This gentleman was brilliant. He was very successful. He smiled ever so warmly. Until . . . suddenly, he yelled. The wrath was intended for me. As Gary excitedly expressed his disgust, his face was flush. His eyes and veins were bulging. This cherished chap was agitated, accusatory, and exceptionally anxious. To this day, I know not why. I have asked. Yet, an explanation was not forthcoming.

As Gary ranted and raged, I stood frozen, as a deer in headlights. I was stunned. In my whole life, no one had ever yelled at me, or so I thought, previous to that day. There was one other occasion.

That narrative aside, as Gary and I stood face to face, as he screamed and shrieked, he articulated the assertion, "You are having a tantrum." I marveled. I am a calm person. As a child, I was just as serene. In my entire life, I did not recall being explosive. As I observed Gary and listened to his words, I was uncertain which aspect of this encounter was more amazing to me, his conduct, or his contention. After, the damn or dam broke, he seemed free of his agitation. I was anxious, although still silent. I knew not what to say or do. What had I witnessed? What did it mean? How did I feel about it?

In time, I did learn as Hillary Clinton, and others whose hearts are hurt by words, do. I could choose to tolerate the brusque and debasing language. I could choose to appease, to please, or to patronize. However, I also understood no matter what I decided to do, there would be consequences. There would always be a chasm between Gary and I. I would never fully feel comfortable, for I did not know what might bring on another brutal belch of bitterness.

I walked on eggshells, and he, with all his hollering, hoped to secure the impression that he walked on water. I came to discover that Gary had been challenged all his life. His parents were the purveyors of agenda after agenda. As a child he had felt as he now teaches others to feel, as though he was and is less than. Gary was told too often, he was not good enough, smart enough; he was wrong. If Gary received an excellent evaluation in class, he too was meet with the remark similar to the ones the New York Senator heard in her youth. "Well, that subject is just too simple." "An "A" grade is not good enough."

Dissect a heart. Dismember a sweet spirit. It is the American way, divide and conquer. In a competitive society, where cruelty is common, most everyone will suffer, so that the few spoiled souls can feel, even if only for a moment, that they have succeeded. Sadly, their triumph is our demise.

Gary, Hillary, and too many we encounter have become so familiar with belligerent behaviors they no longer think there are other ways to work with people.

I was raised in a family where no one yells. To say I am jarred by loud aggressive rants is to understate what I feel. For a time, I team-taught with an instructor deemed superior. This person won District-wide awards. I understood why when I assessed the curriculum this teacher originated. Yet, this individual chastised students vociferously and with ample abandon. When in a rage, this educator's voice traveled throughout the building. I literally jumped in fright on more than one occasion.

Even without the volume, this teacher's words could cut like a knife. When the venom was directed at me, I froze. I am extremely sensitive to the lexis. The phrases this instructor used were not part of my reality. Our philosophies on life were disparate. Yet, I truly enjoyed this individual when the conversation was amiable. When jovial, the professor was a delight. Indeed, this person often was happy and genuinely fun.

When a scream was heard through the walls, students and I would react. Some smiled. A few laughed nervously. Others and I were startled. We cringed. When the world was again calm, quietly, throughout the room, discussions emerged. The demeanor of this academic was the topic. Talk of the teacher was approached tenderly. As I listened, I learned. If a person grows up in a home where one particular approach to life is normal, they learn to accept and appreciate that manner of expression. People who were taught to expect verbal lashings, as Hillary Clinton noted, learn to accommodate or accept.

If cruel criticisms were common in a home; howls were considered to be a sign, someone cares, painful as that might be. Those never exposed to love that did not hurt could not imagine the possibility. Tis a sad state in this union, when those we treasure most are the ones we whip to a pulp with words. A country divided cannot stand.

Perchance it is time to truly discuss what divides America. Dollars and legal documents are not divisive. Paper does not have the power to pull us apart. Race cannot physically separate us. In nature, every hue is a significant part of the whole. Religion does not cause a rift between neighbors. A philosophy can only teach us. Principles do not reach into our souls and cause us to slice and dice. It is we who control the chaos that drives a wedge between our brethren and we.

Might Americans come together at home and on every avenue? From Wall Street to Main Street let us speak kindly to each other. Let us teach the children well.

Perhaps, it is time to tell those you share a life with that you revere them without reservations. If we choose to use words that consistently show we care for those we love, perhaps, peace will have a chance. If our words were to mirror our stated beliefs, possibly, money would have no power, color could do no harm, and religious principles would be evident in our every expression. Please, imagine and work to give birth to what for too long was thought impossible. Let us live in an America, united in more than name only.

Sources, Scars, Screams in a divided society . . .

Divided They Run. Editorial. The New York Times. February 6, 2008

Internal Revenue Service data. United States Internal Revenue. 2005

S.F. promotes services for illegal immigrants, By Cecilia M. Vega. San Francisco Chronicle. April 3, 2008

Red or Blue—Which Are You? Take the Slate Quiz. By Anne E. Kornblut. Slate Magazine. Wednesday, July 14, 2004, at 3:00 PM ET

Neglect, Abuse Seen in 90, 000 Infants. The Associated Pres. The New York Times. April 3, 2008

pdf Neglect, Abuse Seen in 90, 000 Infants. The Associated Pres. The New York Times. April 3, 2008

In Chicago, Youth Violence Prompts Clampdown, 22 Students Slain So Far This Year; City's Public Schools Get Security Cameras and Extra Police. By Kari Lydersen. Washington Post. Wednesday, April 2, 2008; Page A02

Iraqi Deaths Are on the Rise Again During Clashes With Militias, By James Glanz. The New York Times. April 2, 2008

Emotional Child Abuse: The Invisible Plague, 
By Susan Jacoby. 
Reader's Digest. February, 1985

Invisible Scars: Verbal Abuse Triggers Adult Anxiety, Depression. Science Daily. May 22, 2006

Parents' Verbal Abuse Leaves Long-Term Legacy, Joan Arehart-Treichel. Psychiatric News. July 7, 2006

Verbal beatings hurt as much as sexual abuse, Can lead to depression, anxiety, and worse. By William J. Cromie. Harvard News Office. April 26, 2007

A developmental perspective on anger. Family and peer contexts, By Barbara D. DeBaryshe and Dale Fryxell. Psychology in the Schools, Vol. 35, 205-216

invisible scars: Verbal abuse triggers adult anxiety, depression, By Jill Elish. Florida State University.

Clinton tells Obama: 'Shame on you'; Obama fires back. Cable News Network. February 23, 2008

The CNN Democratic presidential debate in Texas. Cable News Network. February 21, 2008

Clinton Gets Emotional Over Mailers: 'Shame On You, Barack Obama' By Jake Tapper. ABC News. 
February 23, 2008 01:32 PM EST

As Crucial Tests Loom, Clinton Hits Harder, By Anne E. Kornblut and Shailagh Murray. Washington Post. Thursday, February 21, 2008; Page A01

pdf As Crucial Tests Loom, Clinton Hits Harder, By Anne E. Kornblut and Shailagh Murray. Washington Post. Thursday, February 21, 2008; Page A01

Clinton scorns Obama as running mate, By Edward Luce. The Financial Times. March 11 2008 02:00

Clinton Hints at Joint Democratic Ticket. By Jennifer Parker. ABC News March 5, 2008

Obama: Clinton Hasn't Passed Commander in Chief Test, Either, By Shailagh Murray. Washington Post. March 11, 2008

pdf The L.A. 'village' that raised Hillary Clinton's mother, The girl who became Dorothy Rodham grew up -- too fast -- in Alhambra, too fast. Perhaps you've heard of her daughter. By Joe Mathews. Los Angeles Times. March 23, 2008

Posted by Betsy L. Angert on April 4, 2008 at 08:00 AM in Abuse, Aggression, Americana, Approval or Love, Art of Loving, Have or Be, Children, Compassion, Conflict, Complex, Dreams Live and Die , Emotional Decisions, Emotional Intelligence, Empathy and Evolution, Family, Functioning, Fables | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Homage to Lawrence King. Teach Tolerance To Adults and Children

Love Not Hate

copyright © 2008 Betsy L. Angert. BeThink.org

“The opposite of love is not hate; it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness; it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy; it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death; it's indifference.” ~ Elie Wiesel

It was February 14, 2008, Valentine's Day. Love was in the air. However, the expressions of appreciation offered were mournful. Doctors informed the family and his friends, Lawrence King, 15, was removed from life support. Two days earlier, young Larry was in the computer lab at E. O. Green Junior High in Oxnard, California. He sat with 24 other students when Brandon McInerney walked into the room with a gun. The armed classmate, fourteen-years of age, approached Lawrence with intent. Brandon aimed his weapon, pulled the trigger, and shot Lawrence in the head. Without hesitation, the shooter ran from the building. Circumstances led observers and police officers to conclude the act was intentional, calculated, and a conscious choice. Brandon committed what is commonly defined as a "hate crime."

Students were locked in classrooms. Grief and disbelief filled the air. Adults tried to calm the children. Teens tried to cope. Peers were befuddled. Pupils sought information and shared what they knew. After the event, fingers flew across cellular telephone keypads. Text messages were sent and received from schoolroom to schoolroom. The words were, "Brandon McInerney did the deed." 'Not Brandon McInerney, No way.'

"Brandon wouldn't do this," eighth-grader Jessica Lee remembers thinking. "He's a good kid. It can't be Brandon."

But some at the Oxnard junior high school had seen Larry, 15, teased by students in the weeks before the shooting for being gay and wearing high-heeled boots and makeup. Some witnessed confrontations between Larry and Brandon, with Larry teasing Brandon and saying he liked him.

Family members and friends described Larry as a sweet, artistic boy who loved to sing and didn't understand why people reacted negatively to him.

Brandon, 14, a tall, athletic eighth-grader, was described by friends and acquaintances as a mellow, focused kid, but one who wouldn't back down in a confrontation.

Brandon had learned his lessons well. He learned to feel deeply. Indifference was not part of his repertoire, intolerance was. Perhaps from within the womb, he began his education. Those who in an act of love came together to give birth to Brandon, apparently knew nothing more than volatile loathing. Perchance, Brandon's mother, Kendra and his father, William were raised to love or hate, but not tolerate.

We can be certain that baby Brandon did as all infants do after birth, he absorbed all the messages that surrounded him. . Education is not an isolated entity. Knowledge is not gained only in a classroom. Our first school is called home. Structured lessons may inform us; however, these are never internalized as deeply as the wisdom we acquire at the knees of our Mom and Dad. Parents have a profound influence on a child. Those we love most have the power to teach us more. Definitely, the occurrence taught Brandon what to do when he felt troubled.

Kendra McInerney, Brandon's mother, claimed a night of partying in 1993 ended in a fight and William shooting her in the elbow, breaking it in several places, according to court records. Still, they married later that year, and Brandon was born in January 1994.

The fighting didn't stop, and sometimes it was witnessed by Brandon and his two older half-brothers, according to court records. In 2000, William pleaded no contest to a domestic battery charge against Kendra. He was sentenced to 10 days in jail and ordered to attend domestic violence classes. The couple separated in August 2000.

Love, or familiarity can breed contempt. Even when someone no longer shares a physical space with the person that causes him or her distress that individual remains intimately connected in the heart. Parting is not a sweet sorrow. Indeed, it is often the source of more pain. Indifference is rarely evident once an emotional bond is formed.

For Kendra and William McInerney, separation did nothing to alleviate the angst they felt or expressed. , Nor, did living apart make life more livable for the children. Drinking, drugs, and violence were daily transgressions in Brandon's life. The stories are stark. Yet, fortunately, it appeared Brandon survived. Indeed, some would say he thrived.

Through all the family turmoil, Brandon got involved in activities outside the home, including martial arts and lifeguard training. He seemed to want something more than just the status quo of Silver Strand, Crave said.

"He didn't want to be involved in that whole thing," Crave said, gesturing at friends drinking a few beers nearby after getting off work.

Brandon joined the Young Marines — the Marine Corps' equivalent of a JROTC program — several years ago and became a leader in the group, which disbanded last summer.

"Brandon was a young man that I would never have figured something like this would happen to," said Mel Otte, his commanding officer.

Otte said he never witnessed Brandon showing a short temper and that he would have been kicked out of the group if he had bullied other kids.

"He was an outstanding young man," Otte said. "What happened since I left, I have no idea."

What occurred did not take place in a instant. The image of restraint did not transcend an earlier reality. Change did not come on in a flash. Often calm is a facade for the chaos that lay beneath the surface of a boy [girl, woman, or man] who battles emotional upheavals. What was real for Brandon is true for each of us. We learn and live what we believe is customary.

Even those of us who "know better," or are exposed to impressive amounts of information, organized to challenge unhealthy conventions, do as we have seen done, or was done to us. Some escape the affects of sensory overload for a time. Few abandon family traditions until long they have repeatedly fallen from grace. Only an individual forced to face his or her "demons" day in and day out thinks to learn new habits.

We all love easily. We loathe with less effort. What we do not do well is authentically accept others. Few beings bother to have compassion, to learn from those who look, think, feel, or act differently. Without empathy, everyone is a possible enemy.

Hate, or fear, of what we do not understand, motivates many a mind to react aggressively. Apprehension and anxiety are not logical. None of our emotions are. Nevertheless, all too often humans, prideful of an intellectual capacity, are galvanized by feelings. We are threatened by what we feel terrorizes us.

For Brandon it was a boy who thought him fine. For adults it may be a secret admirer, or an individual who has authority over us. The neighbor who was unkind could seem a danger. Mature men or women may believe the man in the automobile in front of them is a menace. Even a small girl, on the corner, with her fingers out-stretched in a sign of peace could seem a hazard if our habit is to adopt an angry stance when we feel annoyed.

People are familiar with what deeply disturbs them. They know all too well how to demonstrate love and hate. Indifference is doable, as long as an n individual does not see or hear those outside their sphere. Benevolence, perhaps that is the reaction, the action we do not learn from birth.

We all crave a connection. Humans have needs. Individuals long to be included, intimately involved; we wish to feel as though we have the right and power to make decisions for ourselves. Men, women, and children are not indifferent. Hence the dilemma.

When it seems we are unable to manage our world, humans freak. Each of us responds differently, understandably. Intellectually, people may recognize they cannot control the universe. However, when stressed, we discover the habits we hold dear remain intact. Our reactions are not innate, just well studied. Brandon McInerney was not a bad boy. He is a human being. He reacted as he had learned to do. Barely fourteen years of age, Brandon expressed his deep disdain for a situation and someone he could not control.

Chaos abounds. Nonetheless, we try. Too often, we fail. A senseless murder, and what assassination is not absurd, illustrates what occurs when someone does not feel fulfilled and knows not what to do. People in physical or psychological pain lash out in the ways they know how.

Brandon McInerney was baffled, no terrified, by the actions of another boy. Lawrence did not cause bodily harm to his peer. He did no verbal damage, at least not intentionally. Paradoxically, when Larry spoke of Brandon, he articulated his sincere admiration. That is what bothered the young boy Brandon. Love, especially when expressed unconventionally, caused Brandon's heart and mind to break. The young lad, now passed, Larry, did not bully Brandon or his buddies. Indeed, the other boys hassled Lawrence prior to his final day.

In recent weeks, the victim, Lawrence King, 15, had said publicly that he was gay, classmates said, enduring harassment from a group of schoolmates, including the 14-year-old boy charged in his death.

McInerney, now in custody, refuses to speak of what motivated him. His lawyer offers the fourteen year old is too young to fully understand his actions. Perhaps all people are too immature to rationalize the unreasonable, revulsion, repulsion, and feelings of repugnance.

What is hate? Certainly, it is an emotion, as inexplicable as fondness. Each can be voiced to the extreme. Neither is inconsequential. Perhaps, when humans feel adoration or antipathy they lose all perspective. The chemistry we feel when we connect intensely is uncontrollable. If only people could capture the energy and place it in a bottle before they pop.

Assemblyman Mike Eng (Democrat, Monterey Park), chairman of the Assembly Select Committee on Hate Crimes, said we would, with a bit of money directed towards teaching diversity, be able to stop crimes against people based on race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.

"My bill is focusing on [hate crime] prevention," Eng said after a news conference at his El Monte district office. "We already have bills on the books about proper punishment; mine will focus on dealing with hatred in a school setting."

Eng hopes to create a pilot program by allocating up to $150,000 to establish a diversity and sensitivity curriculum at a few school districts. The pilot program would serve as a model to be used to develop lesson plans statewide.

Others in the community believe the proposed program only serves to comfort parents and Principals, adults, and not adolescents. Countless argue that similar programs such as D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), are ineffective. These simplistic strategies always were nothing more than slogans used to appease anxious adults. Although these agendas survive, they do not strengthen the will or the character of the young persons they serve. At times, instruction is as indifference. If you do not know what to do, or say about an open wound, look for an easy answer. Apply salve, and walk away. Most of us truly believe the sore will eventually heal by itself.

Here's a news flash: "Just Say No" is not an effective anti-drug message. And neither are Barney-style self-esteem mantras . . .

DARE, which is taught by friendly policemen in 75 percent of the nation's school districts, has been plagued by image problems from the beginning, when it first latched on to Nancy Reagan's relentlessly sunny and perversely simplistic "Just say No" campaign. The program's goals include teaching kids creative ways to say "no" to drugs, while simultaneously bolstering their self-esteem (which DARE founders insist is related to lower rates of drug use). . . .

According to an article published in the August 1999 issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, DARE not only did not affect teenagers' rate of experimentation with drugs, but may also have actually lowered their self-esteem. . . .

The findings were grim: 20-year-olds who'd had DARE classes were no less likely to have smoked marijuana or cigarettes, drunk alcohol, used "illicit" drugs like cocaine or heroin, or caved in to peer pressure than kids who'd never been exposed to DARE. But that wasn't all. "Surprisingly," the article states, "DARE status in the sixth grade was negatively related to self-esteem at age 20, indicating that individuals who were exposed to DARE in the sixth grade had lower levels of self-esteem 10 years later." Another study, performed at the University of Illinois, suggests some high school seniors who'd been in DARE classes were more likely to use drugs than their non-DARE peers.

Still, Americans, intent on straightforward solutions, quick fixes, and immediate gratification, forget that life is not so simple. The family teaches children from birth. The lessons we learn in our youngest years are internalized deeply. In infancy, each day we encounter our mother, father, or guardian, the people we need most, and most want to love us. As toddlers, we are intimately involved with our caregivers, even if they do not seem to care for us. When we are children, the only choice that we have, the only option that gives us a sense of control, is to cling to those who help us survive. Moms and Dads are our first and best, teachers, if only because they are there in whatever capacity.

However, sadly, for some of us, such as Brandon McInerney our mentors did not teach us well. Schools try to suffice. Teachers with ten, twenty forty to a class try to create a relationship with each student. As educators teach Math, Science, Reading, and English, they work to provide a sense of self-worth to each and every young scholar. For a few hours, five days a week, a troubled youngster can call his or her classroom home.

For young people such as Larry, school may have been a place to blossom, somewhere where he felt safe, or for both the boys an educational institution may have been the place where lessons begun at birth were reinforced. Each was teased, bullied, and verbally battered. Each had friends. However, they may not have felt they achieved an authentic intimate connection with anyone. Even acquaintances can say . . .

“He had a character that was bubbly,” Marissa said. “We would just laugh together. He would smile, then I would smile, and then we couldn’t stop.”

An ally in life does more than smile or laugh. Larry King may have felt he had few real supporters, in a school he attended for only months. How close can two people be when they see each other only for hours and then each returns to their own abode. One may return to the place they consider "Home Sweet Home," the other may reside in an institution, far from those who are "supposed" to love him.

For several months before to the shooting, Larry had been living at Casa Pacifica, a residential center for troubled youths in Camarillo.

Lawrence's parents are alive and well, as are his four siblings, a younger brother, two older brothers, and an older sister. While the family spoke lovingly of the dearly departed, they dared not speak of why the lad no longer lived with them. Many children today are placed in treatment agencies. The numbers are staggering. The reasons are astounding. Yet, when people know not how to love well, and are not indifferent, they do what they may hate to do.

The number of children placed in residential treatment centers (or RTCs) (1) is growing exponentially.(2) These modern-day orphanages now house more than 50,000 children nationwide.(3) Children are packed off to RTCs, often sent by officials they have never met, who have probably never spoken to their parents, teachers or social workers.(4) Once placed, these kids may have no meaningful contact with their families or friends for up to two years.(5) And, despite many documented cases of neglect and physical and sexual abuse, monitoring is inadequate to ensure that children are safe, healthy and receiving proper services in RTCs.(6) By funneling children with mental illnesses into the RTC system, states fail—at enormous cost—to provide more effective community-based mental health services.(7)

RTC placements are often inappropriate.
RTCs are among the most restrictive mental health services and, as such, should be reserved for children whose dangerous behavior cannot be controlled except in a secure setting.(8) Too often, however, child-serving bureaucracies hastily place children in RTCs because they have not made more appropriate community-based services available.(9) Parents who are desperate to meet their kids’ needs often turn to RTCs because they lack viable alternatives.(10)

To make placement decisions, families in crisis and overburdened social workers rely on the institutions’ glossy flyers and professional websites with testimonials of saved children.(11) But all RTCs are not alike.(12) Local, state and national exposés and litigation “regarding the quality of care in residential treatment centers have shown that some programs promise high-quality treatment but deliver low-quality custodial care.”(13) As a result, parents and state officials play a dangerous game of Russian roulette as they decide where to place children, because little public information is available about the RTCs, which are under-regulated and under-supervised.

Yet, parents and community services agencies take those who are perhaps most vulnerable, our young and troubled teens, and place them in Residential Treatment Centers not able to provide minimal care. When we, as a culture consider other options, and other means for childcare, we cannot but think of poor Brandon and how he suffered at the hands of his mother and father. We are reminded that Brandon, the tormented shooter, lived in a location he called home. We might wonder; which situation was better, worse, or can we even compare the traumas each child in this story suffered.

Brandon and Larry are not anomalies. They are not alone. Children throughout our country are taught to express love in a violent manner. The little ones watch adults they admire model cruelty. The young are trained to demonstrate their contempt similarly. Sadistic reactive behaviors rule in our society. Listen to people ruthlessly scream in the marketplace. Consider the abundance of "hate crimes" in America. Turn on the television. Tune into the radio. Read the "literature." Hostile conduct is commended and condoned.

For too many of our offspring, aggression in their daily existence is the norm. They hear it in their homes; see their parent bludgeon each other. As toddlers, tots, children, or teens our youth feel the bruises on their back, and remember the bones broken by those they love most. Ponder the statistics.

During FFY 2005, an estimated 899,000 children in the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico were determined to be victims of abuse or neglect.

• Children in the age group of birth to 3 years had the highest rate of victimization at 16.5 per 1,000 children of the same age group in the national population;


• More than one-half of the victims were 7 years old or younger (54.5%)


• More than one-half of the child victims were girls (50.7%) and 47.3 percent were boys; and


• Approximately one-half of all victims were White (49.7%); one-quarter (23.1%) were African-American; and 17.4 percent were Hispanic.

Gender preference did not determine maltreatment when infants and the very young among were involved. Specific biases are learned as we "mature." While many wish to focus on Larry's identification with the gay community as reason for such a horrific reaction, the cause for Brandon's response goes far deeper. Scorn is rarely selective. Disparagement is an equal opportunity employer.

Abusive behaviors are rooted in our personal history. We cannot dismiss the fact that as a society, our past performances towards those we disdain are deplorable. As a culture, emotional beings that we are, we embrace love and hate, and ignore indifference.

We must ask ourselves, what are we doing to our offspring from the day they enter this world, and why. Answers offered after the fact, solutions that do not address the broader question will not stop the violence we see in schools. Nor will it quash the mayhem or reduce the murders we see on our streets. Hate crimes are born at home. Mothers and fathers motivate much that occurs. Moms and Dads often do what was done to them.

Children 'learn violence from parents'

Children who witness domestic violence are at an increased risk of having abusive relationships as adults, researchers have found.

Being abused as a child and having behavioural problems also increases the risk of being violent as adults. Receiving excessive punishment is another risk factor. US researchers from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and the New York State Psychiatric Institute followed 540 children for 20 years from 1975 . . .

If a pattern of violent behaviour towards a partner has been established, it is difficult to change say the researchers. . . .

If a child was hit by their parents, they were much more likely to see violence as a way of resolving problems as adults, the researchers found.

But seeing violence perpetuated between parents was found the be the greatest risk factor for being the victim of a violent partner as an adult.

Both men and women who witnessed domestic violence were likely to grow up to abuse their partners . . .

"This acceptance of coercive, power-based norms as ways of regulating conflict may have direct implications for young adults' means of conflict resolution with partners, independent of a disruptive behaviour disorder."

For too many of our young persons a forceful hand, a furious face, and a vicious voice are identified with those they are most fond of. Children are confused. In too many lives, love does not come easily. Little ones do not know what authentic affection looks like. As "mature" beings, some people seek the wisdom they did not acquire in their family homes. They wish to learn of what could not have been fully integrated in a school curriculum. Grown-up persons harmed by habits that debilitate a mind, body, heart, and soul know to their core, habits die hard. Adult classes meant to teach as Assemblyman Eng proposed exist at West Virginia University an older person can study How To Communicate Love. Learners are instructed, "Love comes from within." Students are advised to appreciate themselves.

Learning to love yourself will help create your personal appearance of love. If you do not know how to love yourself, you will not be able to love others. Loving yourself also means that you have a loving attitude in your actions and responses toward others; that you look for opportunities to help rather than be helped; that you communicate a loving appreciation of others with “thank you” and “please” as part of your vocabulary; that you forgive others and do not hold a grudge; and that you help people in need without thought of reward or recognition.

However, ultimately pupils are reminded of what Lawrence and Brandon have helped us realize.

How we communicate love to others is learned; we are not born with the ability to communicate love.

Nor are we born with the ability to hate. Each of us, every man, woman, and child is well-trained. If we are to truly end the violence that exists in schools, we must eliminate the hostility in our homes. Assemblyman Eng, perhaps a program in parenting, one instituted in every community throughout the globe might be more effective than any instruction in a school. If we are to truly teach forbearance to our progeny we must acknowledge parents, adults in every avenue are our life teachers. Let us not speak of how best to teach the children tolerance. We, their elders must learn how to love first. Perhaps, if the elders begin to appreciate each other without brutality, next Valentine's Day Cupid will not shoot arrow. He will bestow gentle kisses on each of us.

“God knit Larry together and made him wonderfully complex. Larry was a masterpiece.” ~ Reverend Dan Birchfield, Westminster Presbyterian Church

Sources, Societal Scars, Scabs . . .

Boy’s Killing, Labeled a Hate Crime, Stuns a Town, By Rebecca Cathcart. The New York Times. February 23, 2008

Suspected school shooter's childhood marred by violence, But friends can't believe Brandon McInerney did it. By Zeke Barlow, Cheri Carlson, Kathleen Wilson. Ventura County Star. 
Sunday, February 24, 2008

Oxnard slaying prompts diversity education bill, By Gregory W. Griggs. Los Angeles Times. February 19, 2008

D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education)

Just Say No to DARE, By Jessica Reaves. Time Magazine. Thursday, February 15, 2001

Victim's family members say they will donate teen's organs, By Adam Foxman. Ventura County Star. 
Friday, February 15, 2008

Child Maltreatment 2005. Administration for Children and Families.

Hate Crime Statistics 2006. U.S. Department of Justice.

Posted by Betsy L. Angert on February 28, 2008 at 11:00 AM in "Take me as I am!", Abuse, Adult Influence on Children, Aggression, Approval or Love, Communities and Communication , Compassion, Conflict, Complex, Emotional Intelligence, Family, Functioning, Fables, Fear, Human Nature, Humans, Self-Destructive, Life, A Forward Motion, Light. Darkness., Looking at Life, Nature or Nurture, Quality of Life, School Days, School Shootings, School Violence, Society, Teach The Children, Tributes, Verbal Combat, Violence, When Will I Be Right? | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

John He Is As Are Americans At War

john.he.is

copyright © 2008 Betsy L. Angert. BeThink.org

It has long been said, "war is the last [best] option." Human beings, in an attempt to appear rational, reason that of course, diplomacy is preferred. Man-kind [sic] says he will do all in his power to pursue peace. Once domestic tranquility is achieved, two-legged mammals will do what they must to preserve harmony. Then this logical creature claims he must defend himself against all enemies. He will fight for what is right. Man forgets; what is ethically essential to gain and retain peace is the principle, "War must never be an option."

John He Is As Are Americans At WarAs long as man muses, "if need be we will go to battle," then combat is not a possibility; it is a probability. Centuries of conflict have proven this theory true. Yet, humans continue to deny the validity of argument.

Mankind massacres; yet, endures. People engage in what they actually believe is inevitable, war. Feuds flourish. The desire to exert power supersedes the serenity people proclaim is their deepest desire.

When Presidential hopeful John McCain states the obvious, self-identified, peaceful Progressives raise their arms in disbelief. Humans willing to endorse a candidate, indeed, two, or three who choose to engage in combat are outraged by the notion that warfare is forever.

Those who lean left forget they follow leaders intent on the kill. Combative campaigners call a vicious act or attack triumphant.

Hillary Clinton told us of her desire. For the former First Lady, who belatedly quarrels with a war in Iraq, more troops must be moved to Afghanistan.

Barack Obama, like Clinton offers a conditional and tepid plan to withdraw soldiers from the land Saddam Hussein once governed. Obama also plans to shift the battle to Afghanistan if he becomes Commander-In-Chief. For each of the potential Presidents, war is absolutely an option. Physical combat is profound and preferred.

American Progressives see and hear John McCain state his belief, war is inevitable. These peaceful persons wince. Another person who promises to lead citizens of the United States as Commander-In-Chief, is perhaps a realist. He reminds "civil" rights advocates of a reality that hurts. Humans are not logical; nor is man-kind [sic] benevolent to all equally. Warm blooded beings languish in the wind of emotional battles, and shall do so through eternity, or so it would seem based on what was, and continues to be the traditional battle cry.

I've got to give you straight talk, my friends. This is a tough war we're in. It's not going to be over right away. There's going to be other wars, I'm sorry to tell you. There's going to be other wars. We will never surrender but there will be other wars.

John McCain presumes what the Democrats propose. The locations may differ. The pronouncement is posed in a less ominous manner; nonetheless, a war is a war, is a war.

"You know that old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran?" . . . "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran."

Bomb, bomb, bomb, Afghanistan or Iran. Civilian casualties will not be collateral, incidental, or accidental damage. In a skirmish, slaughter is intentional. A Liberal offender is no less liable.

"I am still convinced withdrawal means chaos," he said, "and if you think things are bad now, if we withdraw you ain't seen nothing yet."

Ah, that which humans have never seen is what they dare to imagine, peace. Perhaps, if Americans were to withdraw, harmony will be possible.

The point is it’s American casualties. We’ve go to get American’s off the frontlines, have the Iraqis as part of the strategy, take over more and more of the responsibilities, and then I don’t think Americans are concerned if we’re there for one hundred years or a thousand years or ten thousand years. What they care about is the sacrifice of our most precious treasure, and that's American blood. So what I'm saying is, look, if Americans are there in a support role but they're not taking casualties, that's fine.

"Fine," as defined, is the future for humans who engage in battles. The Arizona Senator, and Republican aspirant, does not actually differ from the Democratic hopefuls. McCain claims what has been true throughout history, and will be accurate forever, if the current crop of candidates, Republican or Democrat, does as declared.

America can endlessly occupy other nations without the loss of a countryman's life and citizens will not complain. For people who reside in the "land of the free and home of the brave" [sic], as long as all within the clan are comfortable, life is good.

McCain says nothing of the fallen foreign born. Nor do the Democrats decree all murders must stop. The Presidential hopefuls need not mention the millions of lives lost among the "adversaries." Self-interest is significant. Empathy is not essential. Indeed, compassion can hinder a being, a leader, and a nation intent on destruction.

It seems obvious, if citizens of the States are not sacrificed, as far as Americans are concerned, war can continue, and it will, perhaps be good for the country, for profiteers who manufacture weaponry, or at least, for John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and all others who allow for this option.

Perchance, it is time for two-legged creatures; particularly those who profess a preference for peace, to assess them selves rather than rant against another perceived enemy. John McCain is but a mirror. He reflects what humans accept. The representation is real. If man-kind [sic] is ever to achieve harmony, if shared serenity is to become standard, every individual must declare, "War will never be an option!"

Promote a Peaceful Progressive Platform . . .

Bayh, Clinton Call for More Troops in Afghanistan. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. January 17, 2007

Plan for Ending War in Iraq. Obama 08.

Obama: Shift fight to Afghanistan, Pakistan. Cable News Network. August 1, 2007

McCain: 'We're still having fun, we're still on the bus' Political Ticker. Cable News Network. March 15, 2007

McCain sings 'Bomb, bomb Iran'. Political Ticker. Cable News Network. April 19, 2007

Face The Nation, Interview with John McCain. CBS Broadcasting. January 6, 2008

Posted by Betsy L. Angert on February 12, 2008 at 03:00 PM in Afghanistan, Aggression, Brutality, Self-Defense, Change the World [Within], Emotional Decisions, Emotional Intelligence, Exit Iraq Now, Hillary Clinton, Humans, Self-Destructive, Iran, Iraq War, Killing Machines, Military Missions, Philosophy, Violence, War is in the Wind, War Kills [Mind, Body, Spirit], War, The Last Option, Why War? | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Taxi To The Dark Side; Tales of Psychological and Physical Torture

"Taxi To The Dark Side" – Trailer

copyright © 2007 Betsy L. Angert. BeThink.org

Americans each have taxied to the dark side in recent years. Vice President Cheney, with the blessings of George W. Bush, was our guide. We were the followers. Citizens of the United States claim to care. Yet, collectively, we allow an Administration to torture detainees in Guantanamo Bay and at Abu Ghraib prison. Our fellow countrymen once honored the Rules of the Geneva Convention. This standards are now thought quaint. Americans no longer subscribe to the theory that intentional physical and psychological torment is a abhorrent. Violations of human dignity are accepted, even endorsed.

Post-September 11, 2001, after the Twin Towers fell, so too did our moral compass. Americans do not believe that Human Rights must be honored. That is unless, the person in question is a United States citizen.

On the afternoon of 9/11 Americans embraced any policy they thought would keep them safe. Congress signed the Patriot Act into law. From then on, people who disagreed with the Bush Administration were watched. Those that had no quarrel with White House policies were jailed. A dark skinned person with an accent unlike the one commonly accepted as native, was thought to be a terrorist. Telephone and wiretaps were considered necessary. Individuals willingly removed their shoes and permitted them selves to be the subject of body searches. Fear flourished and remains intact. For Americans, some shadowy authority will take control and keep us safe. Hope does not remain eternal. It no longer exists.

Citizens in this country cannot see the light. They have slipped into the deepest crevices of cruelty. Even when Americans know they are about to commit a crime against humanity, they do not stop themselves. When in dire straits people perform as directed.

Filmmaker Alex Gibney, whose father, Frank Gibney, an interrogator of Japanese prisoners in World War II helped his son to feel the pain of a person ordered to torture another living being. As the Director's dying-Dad, who asked to be unhooked from his oxygen machine so that he might speak out against the Bush Administration's policies said so forcefully, "It's got to stop!"

The words of an adamant father barely able to breathe, helped to inspire his son's endeavor. As film reviewer, Kenneth Turan, of the Los Angeles Times writes, "[This] significant film shows why he [Alex Gibney] cares so passionately and why we should as well."

I invite you, dear reader to reflect on the situation and read this dynamic review of the movie . . .

'Taxi to the Dark Side'
The new documentary looks at torture's effects on victims and perpetrators.
By Kenneth Turan
Los Angeles Times
January 18, 2008

GIVEN its subject matter, and its title, you'd expect Alex Gibney's "Taxi to the Dark Side" to be profoundly disturbing and shocking, and it is. But not always in the ways you'd expect.

A meticulous examination of the Bush administration's embracing of torture as a weapon of choice in the war against terrorism by the director of "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," "Taxi" is impressive enough to have taken the best documentary prize at the Tribeca Film Festival and to be a likely finalist for the documentary Oscar when the contenders are announced next week.

Because torture is its raison d'être, it's a given that "Taxi" is difficult to take at times. There are pictures from Abu Ghraib too appalling for family newspapers, upsetting videos, and unblinking photographs of men who died in U.S. custody.

Yet, what is most distressing about "Taxi" is not physical acts but psychological ones. What is really appalling is how readily torture was embraced by officials as an absolute necessity and how easy it was for soldiers to, in the words of one, "lose your moral bearings" and become a party to atrocity.

For though the official line out of Washington is still "we do not torture," it's impossible to watch this film -- and hear testimony not just from soldiers but also veteran FBI men and former Bush administration officials -- without coming to understand that torture is exactly what we are engaged in.

"Taxi to the Dark Side's" title has concrete origins. Writer-director Gibney has loosely structured his film around the suspicious death of an Afghani taxi driver named Dilawar. This young man took three passengers on a trip on Dec. 1, 2002, and never returned.

Dilawar ended up at Bagram, a former Soviet air base turned interrogation site for suspected Taliban. Five days after he arrived, he was dead. The press release said it was due to natural causes, but a pair of New York Times reporters, Tim Golden and Carlotta Gall, decided to investigate. What they found out is that the official U.S. death certificate, delivered to Dilawar's parents along with the body, listed the cause of death as "homicide" traceable to beatings he received while in captivity.

Filmmaker Gibney not only talked to the two reporters and Dilawar's family, he also interviewed five clearly haunted soldiers who were put on trial in military court for the man's death. We hear firsthand exactly what they did as well as the circumstances that put unprepared men in interrogation situations with the pressure to produce results but without the written guidelines as to permissible behavior they desperately requested.

Gibney's film is at pains to show where the impetus for this kind of savage behavior began.

Please also ponder a Public Broadcasting Services, Frontline program, The Dark Side. Draw your own conclusions. Consider how humans respond when under stress. Also, contemplate the idea of power, and how, when bestowed upon one titled President or Vice can destroy absolutely.

Cheney's Law – Public Broadcasting Services, Frontline

Search for the Light, Sources . . .

'Taxi to the Dark Side' The new documentary looks at torture's effects on victims and perpetrators. By Kenneth Turan. Los Angeles Times. January 18, 2008

The Dark Side. Public Broadcasting Services. Frontline.

Patriot Act

The Abu Ghraib Files. By Joan Walsh. Salon.

Guantanamo Bay - Camp Delta. GlobalSecurity.org

Posted by Betsy L. Angert on January 18, 2008 at 11:00 AM in Afghanistan, Aggression, Bush 43 Administration, CIA Prisons, Ethics, Human Nature, Iraq War, Lawbreakers, Light. Darkness., Military Missions, Morality in an Immoral War, Policy, President Protects America , Richard [Dick] Cheney, Vice President , Terrorism, The Patriot Act , War Crimes, War Kills [Mind, Body, Spirit], Wars Bush Commanded | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

America; The Land of Amnesia and Apathy Forgets Why We Fight

Why We Fight. Part I
Please view the series in it entirety. Parts II, III, and IV are presented below.

copyright © 2007 Betsy L. Angert. BeThink.org

“Speak to the past, and the past shall teach thee.” ~ Inscription on the Caspersen Wing of the John Carter Brown Library

Americans, her allies, and those we have yet to formally declare an adversary awaken each day to a world of glory. In the dawn, we hear only the gentle sound of songbirds. The rustling of leaves also hums in our ears. A silence fills the morning air. It is the tune of tranquility. We open our eyes and see beauty, most everywhere. Although we are awake and alert, Americans have amnesia. We do not recall why we fight, why we fear, and why we are forever at war.

Citizens in calm and clean countries, those not engaged in combat with the United States, and particularly individuals in affluent America, rub their eyes, look at the clock, confirm the time, and enter the "restroom." Repeatedly, as an automaton, people follow their routines. They do not recall that we are at war. Nor do "civilized" souls summon up the lessons of the past. During the course of a busy day, few Americans ponder, why we fight abroad or what is it that we truly fear.

One after another, in most every abode, an American touches a toggle switch. Without a word from the Almighty, there is light. A slight stroke on a polished handle and water flows freely. A shower, perhaps a shave, followed by breakfast cooked on a stove and we are off. We have hardly a care in the world. There is no reason to ruminate. Why do we fight? Why is there war, and why do we engage in battle?

Although the periodicals are filled with death, the airwaves broadcast military bereavements, in America, and in other prosperous providences, war is but a blur. People have more serious matters or burdens for the minds of many. A glass of chilled juice might be nice. Scan the newspapers for the best sales. Watch a little television. Open the garage door, enter the car, and drive off to work or play. Life is good in the United States. This is why we fight, and fight, and fight again. We want to preserve our right to be free.

Admittedly, there are the few forgotten ones, even in this wealthy nation. Some people are too poor to enjoy as most of us do. These impoverished individuals barely survive. That is what happens when there is a battle waged. No one has yet to win the "war on poverty." Therefore, we cannot expect the underprivileged to indulge as the rest of us do. These forgotten souls as are all victims of hostilities, out of sight and out of mind. The pitiable fight to stay alive. Might they wonder why the privileged fight?

In a nation afflicted with amnesia, we know not of what is or why. We merely go about our day. For the most part Americans and her allies immerse themselves in opulence, or more "correctly" the necessary creature comforts. For those secure in their political association with America, daily chores can be conveniently completed. Elsewhere, in official war zones, citizens do not have this luxury. On battlefields, people do not have the luxury of memory loss. Perchance , each day those entrenched in combat ask, why do Americans wrestle against us.

Bombs blast overhead. Bullets soar just above the ground. Dust fills the skies. Debris is deposited on every street corner. Homes are hovels for they have been reduced to rubble. Electrical power is not generated with regularity. Water, when found is frequently contaminated. We understand in Iraq, there is a Green Zone. However, even in this supposed sanctuary, the weapons of war whiz by. Arsenals are the only commodities in abundance. Guns and ammunition are consumer goods in a nation rife with war! In a war-torn nation, residents understand why they brawl. It is a matter of life and death.

In America however, the "land of the free and the home of the brave," we believe battles preserve our rights. Our young men and women march off to war, no matter the generation to protect and serve the citizens of this sovereign nation. Countrymen understand a system that ensures liberty, justice, and freedom for all must be maintained. We must fight to sustain our serenity. Certainly, global harmony will come, eventually, if we maim, murder, and massacre all potential and probable enemies. However, war does not wield as we wish it would. It never has. So, we might ask, why do we fight.

Every generation of Americans in this century has fought a major war. We joined World War I, we were told, "to make the world safe for democracy." In World War II, we were attacked and fought to save the world from tyranny. In Korea and Vietnam, the grip of ideology led us to fight communism. In Iraq, we fought for oil. All in all, during the half-century of the Cold War, we used military force abroad on over 50 occasions. In fact, America has made a habit of war.

Today's world is loaded with opportunities to go to war again. Yet, we view ourselves as a peace-loving nation without any hostile designs on the world. Will the real America please stand up?

Stand we do. Americans stand solid in support of the troops. We rise above the fray of diplomacy. We dictate; all other Federations must embrace the democratic process, and if they do not, we will impose our principles, if not in practice, in force. United States Armed Services cannot extend themselves too thin or too far, or so citizens of this country believe. It is our quest to spread democracy, even if by military might. In this nation, we forget the warnings of George Washington. Apathetic and arrogant, Americans enjoy a perpetual state of amnesia.

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. . . . Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages, which might be lost by a steady adherence to it?

. . . The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.

. . . If we remain one people under an efficient government the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.

Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies. . . . Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest .

George Washington understood that it is possible to intermingle; yet, remain independent. The General reveled in the quiet of peace. The first President of the United States appreciated the stillness that settles in when we, the people are benevolent. Concord for him was not a colonial city. The elder statesman explained as a father might, be kind, be careful, do not seek to consume beyond your means or conquer those in your path.

Yet, colonists in this New World, just as children with a new toy, or the teen who experiences a novel sense of freedom, were not satisfied with the sublime. Pioneers were bored with presumed borders. The early settlers wanted to explore, as a young person or nation does. The need to expand, extend beyond all barriers, to invent, and invade uncharted frontiers was great.

"Americans" advocated a maverick approach. We advanced forward, contrary to the cautions of our forefather. The people of this new territory deemed themselves the future. They, we sought to forego the lessons history might teach us. John L. O'Sullivan, Editor, and Journalist wrote of this popular sentiment in 1839. We hold these truths to be self-evident. America had and has a Manifest Destiny. Decidedly, intentionally we deny our history.

The American people having derived their origin from many other nations, and the Declaration of National Independence being entirely based on the great principle of human equality, these facts demonstrate at once our disconnected position as regards any other nation; that we have, in reality, but little connection with the past history of any of them, and still less with all antiquity, its glories, or its crimes. On the contrary, our national birth was the beginning of a new history, the formation and progress of an untried political system, which separates us from the past and connects us with the future only; and so far as regards the entire development of the natural rights of man, in moral, political, and national life, we may confidently assume that our country is destined to be the great nation of futurity.

The people, and the government, those that title themselves Americans, grabbed land. We subjugated native people. Then we dominated others. Citizens, in a land where all men are created equal, violated their own Constitution and desecrated humanitarian principles. Our countrymen enslaved. As the neophytes we are, or were, we coveted our neighbor's goods, then, seized these. Although we have grown physically, the habits acquired in this nation's youth remain strong. We feel most steady when we do as we have done.

Just as any adolescent would, when Americans [or her allies] speak of our past, we claim, ''that was then.'' This is now. Times, they are a changing. We need not correlate what was with what is. We cannot live in the past. We do not dwell on what was. In an Technological Age we are all connected. We cannot be isolationist. Citizens of the United States negate the wisdom and words of Washington. We refuse to see that he never suggested that we be separate or secluded. President George Washington stressed that we must work well with all the world's inhabitants. In his farewell address he proclaimed that we be the image of peace and the embodiment of domestic tranquility. Americans must extend the same sense of serenity to its neighbors in every nation.

The former leader of this great land reminded us, invasion is not a wish among the inhabitants of any nation. Undue influence beckons no man, woman or child. Yet, in our irrational exuberance, we forgot. Americans, adolescents that we are, wish to expand our horizons, to grow, to progress. We have yet to realize this philosophy causes us to regress. Citizens of the USA are as aggressive children, always searching for the next nation or notion to defeat. Thus, we war. We have done so for centuries. We did not heed the warning of George Washington. As youngsters, we knew better. We still do, or so we believe. As adolescents, we are certain we do not have amnesia. We have no history to recollect.

Americans live in the present. They do not realize that fight after fight has not brought us true freedom. For our countrymen, each battle is unique, a new beginning and an end to all war.

Citizens of the United states do not consider that bigotry bounds our citizen and has for centuries. We do not realize or accept, Americans are limited by what we hold dear. Dependency on petroleum, possessions, and property control us. US residents have no choice but to war for what they want and want, and want more of.

If freedom is defined in respect to neoconservative values, those established in reaction to the idea of social equality, then in a reactionary manner, we are liberated. We have the freedom to follow selected leaders and teachers, preachers who profess righteous realities.

Americans do not bestow benevolence upon others unless it serves their purpose. Arrogance and amnesia work well for us. When they do not, war is always an option, or is it.

As I speak to history, I hear the voices of those that died a brutal death, at the hands of an American. In the name of peace, US born brigades battled and shed the blood of our brethren on foreign shores. We were fortunate, for a time we avoided severe clashes within our country. However, just as our forefather prophesized, those that do not act in peace will be victim to violence. Citizens of the United States are casualties of the combat we engage in. We behave as savages and reap the rewards of what we sow. Yet, we claim not to understand why anyone would aggress against us.

Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War.
He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind.
He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out
. . . and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel.
And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of man"--with his mouth.
~ Mark Twain [What Is Man?]

On September 11, 2001, the United States was attacked. Millions wondered why. Our leaders told us that those in other lands hate us. They are jealous. I think not. I believe citizens in many countries abroad are beleaguered. People in distant nations want citizens of the United States to attend to American affairs, and allow those elsewhere to care for their country alone. Those we label "stranger," a danger, may actually think their way of life is better for them than ours would be.

However, citizens of the United States and those "wise" enough to be on our side desire to control what comes. We want those quiet mornings, with cool breezes driven by electric powered fans. We have learned to always want more. In the USA, we crave indoor plumbing, and automobiles that run on foreign fuel. Toil as we might, citizens of the once New World came to realize that here, in this land we did not have all of the resources to support the lifestyle we covet. Americans have allowed themselves to become dependent, while retaining an independent attitude.

Wild Westerners helped the United States to grow. We grabbed all we could; we still do. We fight for what we want.

As infants are, we were imaginative, inventive, inspired, and innovative. Americans learned to build better guns and bombs. We manufacture unmanned planes so that we might drop arsenals on foreign regions without putting ourselves in harms way. One of our lives is far more precious than any foreign beings might be. Military might helped us gain power. Yet, our dominance remains dependent on the tentative goodwill of others. In truth, the oppressed and abused in nations afar fear us. They begrudge us not for our wealth but for our ways. The others are not envious; they are indignant.

We might consider what those elsewhere realize. We, the world's superpower, do not understand definitive diplomacy. We understand war. Thus, we easily engage in combat. Perchance, to be heard, people in foreign lands work to speak the only language we seem to comprehend, brutality.

Oh, Americans may sit at a table and talk; however, rarely do we listen. We are as a two-year old toddler or rebellious adolescents often are. Americans, even when engaged in negotiations are irascible, confrontational, inflexible, and obstinate. Witness the woes other nations express when we dictate what we want, and then label our demands diplomatic.

People in lands abroad do not wish to adopt American values; nor do they wish to have these standards imposed on them. They wish only to peacefully coexist. Those in every nation wish to be politically independent. No one negates that all countries are, by the very nature of this planet, inexorably intertwined. However, that does not mean they are one. As a mother is to a child, the two are connected; yet separate. Characteristically, the young learn from the older. History and experience teaches or tries to.

Our nation's father, George Washington worked to bestow wisdom. Later, General Smedley Darlington Butler endeavored to enlighten. However, the rebellious renegades commonly called Americans refused to believe the warnings of a warrior that understood, "War is a racket!"

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war, a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War [I], a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war, nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few -- the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

And what is this bill?

This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.

For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.

These are the words of a United States General, an officer, a man who twice won the Medal of Honor. General Smedley Darlington Butler was, at the time of his passing, in 1940, the most decorated Marine in United states history. A man of maturity, a military modern, a General that saw and led soldiers into combat, concluded, "To hell with war!"

The General realized as many historians have for centuries; war is an economic endeavor. Hence, the reason Americans excel. Just as a young child, intent on getting what they want, will manipulate a message, so too will American powerbrokers and their political pawns. As a lad, or lass, might convince a friend or a familiar to do as they desire for the good of the gang, the influential in America tell the common folk that if we war, life will be good globally. The prominent people tell the poor innocents they need to fight this battle for altruistic reasons.

We must engage in combat to free the oppressed, ensure freedom for our citizens, to defeat communism, to eliminate terrorism, to make more millionaires, to build the portfolios of billionaires, fight to ensure the financial stability of the few.

General Butler understood as we must if war is to ever end, those in foreign nations want as we long for, to be free, free to decide for themselves what is best, and right for them. Smedley Darlington Butler also through the wisdom of ages, experience, and empathy realized the truer question.

[W]hat business is it of ours whether Russia or Germany or England or France or Italy or Austria live under democracies or monarchies? Whether they are Fascists or Communists? Our problem is to preserve our own democracy.

Why do we brawl? When we fight for the freedom of others, or to maintain the fallacy that we are unimpeded by a lifestyle that binds us, then we deny history. We dishonor the memories of those that fought and died for this country. We ignore the wisdom of General Washington, Butler, and Eisenhower. Again, in a Farewell Speech to the nation and the world, one more military leader and another President of the United States warned us.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Were we to honor the words of Generals George Washington, Smedley Darlington Butler, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, perhaps, we the people would rise up above the maverick mentality that hinders us. Citizens of the United States might realize we need not come to blows when in crisis. If the people of this nation did not follow the multi-millionaire moguls, otherwise known as Commander-In-Chief, down a path of destruction, then, perchance we could live in peace worldwide. The rote reply to why we fight need not be answered, if there is no reason for the question.

President Washington appreciated, if we did not interact in harmony, those elsewhere would seek to destroy us. As Washington understood, violence begets violence, and so it has. The cycle will continue if we choose not to comprehend what we create.

As the deaths tolls rise in each and every territory at war, we can no longer believe as we do, or have. Americans must begin to honor history and not see themselves as separate or as futurist with a manifest destiny to pursue, The people of the United States must accept military industrial complex will not save us from perceived monsters. Only we can save ourselves. Fear is frivolous. Apprehension is born of ignorance. If Americans allow themselves to grow beyond, if we abandon the individualistic, immature outlook, which inhibits our belief in our fellow man, if we acknowledge what we know, all will be well.

In 2007, we are again at a crossroads. The recent protracted battle has heightened our awareness. As our children passed in combat and continue to meet an awful fate, we grow a bit. Slowly, some came, and more will come to realize intelligence, as it relates to war is frequently false. The information the public receives serves the powerbrokers, not the people. As Smedley Darlington Butler mused, we might say now.

Had secrecy been outlawed as far as war negotiations were concerned, and had the press been invited to be present at that conference, or had radio been available to broadcast the proceedings, America never would have entered the World War. But this conference, like all war discussions, was shrouded in utmost secrecy. When our boys were sent off to war they were told it was a "war to make the world safe for democracy" and a "war to end all wars."

Do we wish to have a need to state this again? I think not. As the Presidential elections approach, we have an opportunity to choose anew. In each political Party, candidates remind us we must fear those that want nothing more than we do. Millionaires, near billionaires and their pals proclaim we can only achieve peace through strength. Please, let us finally accept a truism passed down through time. War need not be an option. We can achieve the absurd. Strength comes through peace.

Citizens in every region want to be free. Our neighbor's abroad wish to wake up each morning after a restful sleep and welcome a quiet day. They yearn to see the sun shine, clear skies, and a calm community. Those in the Middle East, in the Persian Gulf, in Korea, Iran, Vietnam, China, India, Russia, and every where else on the globe want nothing more than work, food, shelter, safety, and a sense of sanity. Serenity is the comfort that brings delight. We need not clash Let us learn to give as we wish to receive. Perhaps, if we study the past, rather than recreate it we will no longer need to ask, "Why do we fight."

Please enjoy the works of Eugene Jarecki, and his production. The filmmaker offers his thoughts on Why We Fight.

Why We Fight. Part II

Why We Fight. Part III

Why We Fight. Part IV

Why We Fight. The Good, Bad, and Ugly Realities . . .

Why We Fight. Center for Defense Information.

John L. O'Sullivan on Manifest Destiny. 1839 Civics Online.

Washington's Farewell Address 1796. The Avalon Project. Yale Law School.

President George Washington. The White House.

Mother Earth; Story of Stuff or The Seventh Generation. By Betsy L. Angert. BeThink.December 9, 2007

War is a Racket. By Major General Smedley Butler. Crimes Against Humanity.

Smedley Darlington Butler. Wikipedia.

Dwight D. Eisenhower. The White House.

Military-Industrial Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961. Public Papers of the Presidents. Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960, p. 1035- 1040

Bali's crying shame, The drama of the UN climate change talks caught the world’s attention, but critics wonder whether they will secure its future. By Jonathan Leake. Times Online. December 16, 2007

Why We Fight. Interview with Eugene Jarecki. Beyond Terror Transcript. 3-4 June 2005

"Beyond Terror" Workshop. The Watson Institute for International Studies.

Posted by Betsy L. Angert on December 15, 2007 at 12:00 PM in Aggression, Americana, War and Peace, War is in the Wind, War Kills [Mind, Body, Spirit], War, The Last Option, Why War? | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack