In an alternate universe, there is actually a recognition that today is the tenth anniversary of the start of our longest war.
However, in the military states of the USA, I guess it just seems normal to most of us to be a nation at constant war. I'm home today, and I'm flipping randomly through television news channels and there is no mention of Afghanistan that I've seen. There is more concern with Michael Jackson's doctor, the 2012 political horse race, Amanda Knox, a missing baby in Missouri ... the news channels might as well be the soma of Huxley's Brave New World, helping us to forget that we responded to criminal religious fanatics with daisy cutter bombs and met one day of extreme violence in the US with ten years of war (and counting) around the world.
I was at a loss on how to respond to today's significance and our collective amnesia, so I dug back into this blog and found one of my very first entries -- almost a mission statement. It doesn't go all the way back to October 2001. But even in December 2004, I was afraid that the MYTH of universal consent to the Afghan war was already being written by the powers that be and their corporate media:
However, in the military states of the USA, I guess it just seems normal to most of us to be a nation at constant war. I'm home today, and I'm flipping randomly through television news channels and there is no mention of Afghanistan that I've seen. There is more concern with Michael Jackson's doctor, the 2012 political horse race, Amanda Knox, a missing baby in Missouri ... the news channels might as well be the soma of Huxley's Brave New World, helping us to forget that we responded to criminal religious fanatics with daisy cutter bombs and met one day of extreme violence in the US with ten years of war (and counting) around the world.
I was at a loss on how to respond to today's significance and our collective amnesia, so I dug back into this blog and found one of my very first entries -- almost a mission statement. It doesn't go all the way back to October 2001. But even in December 2004, I was afraid that the MYTH of universal consent to the Afghan war was already being written by the powers that be and their corporate media:
Friday, December 17, 2004
Peace bloggers
It occurred to me as I started this process to look up Weblog on Wikipedia. I didn't realize how recent the history was, with the first use of the word Weblog only dating from the end of 1997 and Blog from 1999. So, even starting this blog at this relatively late date (16 Dec 04) might seem early in some later blogger's eyes. The Wikipedia article is also interesting in the role it gives to the "war bloggers" supporting the Iraq fiasco in 2002.
I don't want to leave any doubt that this will be a place for peace blogging. I was working in Manhattan on 11 Sept 2001 and not only was I out marching against the criminal invasion of Iraq on the streets of New York before and after the war started, but I still believe that Osama bin Laden would be in custody if we had NOT invaded Afghanistan -- if we had instead brought continued international pressure on the Taliban government, which showed some desire to bargain for its survival. War is NEVER the right answer to any problem, and we've started two of them (and the phantom fictional "war" on terror) in this first Bush/Cheney administration. AND WE RE-ELECTED THEM???!!! That's the real reason I felt the need to jump into this messy and overpopulated blog fray. Because the thing I truly thought was impossible, the fact that the American voters gave a vote of confidence to these criminals, has come to pass.
While it's irresistible to be vehemently Anti-Bush, it's not enough, we have to NOW start defining ourselves by our labels, rather than letting THEM use our words as a wedge issue to divide us. We are liberals and we're proud of all that stands for. They're conservatives, and they want to destroy the UN, Social Security, and every trace of FDR's fingerprints on this country & world. We can't let it happen.
- True Blue Liberal
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