Political Science Summaries 5

Political Science Summaries 5

Passionate Declarations Chapter 5: Just and Unjust War

This chapter is looking at the concept of whether wars can be called just and unjust. Is their any such thing as a just war? In Howard Zinn’s eyes the answer to this question is a definitive NO! Even in WWII, as we were suppose to be fighting for human rights, we were enslaving Japanese American’s in our own country and forcing all our African American troops to perform kitchen and hard labor jobs rather than having the honor of fighting for their country that they desired. Even in this case, the war most commonly agreed upon as a “necessary” war was by no means a just war. We were not treating our own citizens justly during this war. Our country also committed endless unnecessary atrocities like the one Zinn recounts in which he was ordered to drop napalm over a French town at the end of the war for no explainable reason.
“Machiavelli did not ask if making war was right or wrong (Zinn 67).” Any means could be incorporated to achieve the desired end. Unless humanity learns to stop and think, considering the cost on all sides before determining any inhumane act a ‘necessity’, we will remain an inhumane populace. As Zinn relates the common mentality of war, “The bottom line in war and henxe in political warfare is who gets buried and who gets to walk in the sun (Zinn 68).”
There are three camps in looking at war:
· Glorify war
· Consider some just and some unjust
· “War is too evil to ever be just”
Zinn gives us three very good examples of these three camps. He quotes many war heroes who believe that war is a great source of glory and patriotism for the countries involved. He quotes Thomas More as an example of a man that believed that some wars are necessary; however, “try to make the means more moral (Zinn 69).” Erasmus, a monk, described war saying, “There is nothing more wicked, more disastrous, more widely destructive, more deeply tenacious, more loathsome (Zinn 68).” Einstein, arguably the most intelligent man to live in the twentieth century is quoted as stating, “War cannot be humanized. It can only be abolished (Zinn 71).” Helen Keller was another fierce supporter of peace. “Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought! Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder. Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human beings! Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction! Be heroes in an army of construction! (Zinn 75).”
With the advancement of technology, war has become “more uncontrolled and more deadly, using more horrible means and killing more noncombatants (this means helpless, unarmed women, children and families) than ever before in the history of mankind (Zinn 69).” War has advanced from poison gas in WWI to atomic bombs in WWII, to excessive use of agent orange and napalm in Vietnam, to chemical warfare of every hideous biological type (nerve gas, etc.) in the Iran-Iraq wars.
How do countries get people to commit such inhumane acts against one another? Often national superiority is used as a means to justify war. “The tendency, especially in time of war, is to exaggerate the difference between oneself and the opponent, to assume the conflict is between total good and total evil (Zinn 71).”
“One certain effect of war is to diminish freedom of expression. Patriotism becomes the order of the day, and those who question the war are seen as traitors, to be silenced and imprisoned (Zinn 73).” Fear and intimidation are used to anesthetize citizens into cooperating.
One of my favorite books of all time is discussed in this chapter. It is entitled Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. As a result of writing this book Trumbo was blacklisted as a communist for decades by our country. He wrote it following WWI. “When the first WW ended, 10 million men of various countries had died on the battle fields of Europe and millions more had been blinded, maimed, gassed, shell shocked, and driven mad. It was hard to find in that war any gain for the human race to justify that suffering, that death (Zinn 75).” In Johnny Got His Gun, Trumbo presents a victim of this war with “no legs, no arms, no face, blind, deaf, unable to speak, but the hart still beating, the brain still functioning (Zinn 76).” He wakes up in the hospital and cannot understand what has happened to him. He can still feel his missing limbs and feels the vibrations of the nurses coming in and out of the room and changing dressings on his body. Finally he learns to communicate, much to their horror, as they had no idea that he was still mentally sound inside that faceless torso. He tells them “Take me into the workplaces, into the schools, show me to the little children and to the college students, let them see what war is like (Zinn 77).”
I do not believe the question is whether war is just or unjust. Though we have certainly seen in the last seven years how war can be used for personal, private gain and not taking into consideration the best interests of either our own country or the countries we are attacking. I believe the question that needs to be asked is how do we prevent war? As Bob Dylan says, “If God’s on our side, He’ll stop the next war.” America alone has over 30,000 nuclear weapons. What could an arsenal like this possibly be for? This planet will not survive the next World War, there is no question about that; therefore, the question we must ask ourselves is what can be done to prevent wars, any wars, all wars, before we start the next war.
As we know, our country is again throwing around the old phrase, “Oh, this country has weapons of mass destruction and we must go in there and find them and destroy them.” Did we ever find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Any? Or does our Administration have a personal agenda going on that we are failing, as American citizens, to question.

Democracy Now
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/26/1452259
Iraqi Refugee Crisis

This broadcast is an interview of Kathy Kelly, Executive Director of Voices for Creative Nonviolence and David Smith-Ferri, poet, activist and author of the poem collection entitled Battlefield without Borders. The UN estimates that at least 2000 Iraqi’s are fleeing the country each day. Over 4.4 million Iraqi’s have been displaced since the beginning of the war in Iraq. “It is the largest refugee crisis in the Middle East since the creation of Israel in 1948.”
When looking at the percent of money spent on the Iraqi war, less than 0.01% of the money spent on military actions and bombing has been spent on helping the refugee displacement crisis. Most of the displaced persons are fleeing to Jordan and Syria; however, they are having to leave behind all their worldly possessions, leaving even the originally well off, in severe poverty. These refugees are also scarred mentally and physically. The Unites States has caused this crisis and is totally unwilling to take any responsibility for the damage we are causing.
Battlefield without Borders is a collection of poetry, many biographical, about the humanitarian crisis in Iraq. All but 2% of the proceeds, which will be used to cover the cost of production, will go directly to helping the Iraqi refugees, especially those with pending medical needs.
Personally, I must say that I found Smith-Ferri to be quite the idealist, believing that most American’s have deep feelings of concern for the Iraqi population. While there are certainly many individuals who are deeply concerned for the humanitarian crisis that we have caused and the damage we have done to innocent civilians physically, mentally and financially, I believe that for the most part we still tend to be far to much of an isolationist, self serving nation, to truly care. If their were enough voices of concern, the travesty would stop.

Global Issues
The Great WalMart of China

WalMart has firmly made its mark in China resulting in a 15% annual growth rate and an estimated 860 billion dollars by 2009. This transition was not easily made. WalMart had to learn from its “troubles in places like Germany, South Korea, and Japan where the big retailer has lost 1 billion dollars, its toubles came partly from underestimating the local competition and failing to grasp the local culture (Naughton 94).” WalMart “painstakingly discovered that success in china requires…going native…by adopting their customs and culture (Naughton 94).” The Chinese would not buy dead fish in Styrofoam and cellophane so they “installed fish tanks and began selling live tortoises for turtle soup (Naughton 94).” Walking into a local WalMart in China will look nothing like walking into a WalMart in America, it will look more like walking into a local pet shop. Besides, acclimating themselves to the local culture, WalMart also had to take over their largest local competitor, TrustMart. WalMart has its work cut out for it bringing the 100 TrustMarts up to their standards over the next three years; however, with their market in the U.S. maxed out, every American living within 25 miles of a WalMart, they have to continue their growth world wide.
The most important thing we have to learn from this article is the importance of being flexible to the cultural differences between nations.

Fighting for Human Rights is a Community

Fighting for Human Rights is a Community

• Fighting for those who have no voice, like the woman and children of Darfur and Iraq creates a community because the people involved have a common goal and work together for the good of others. A community is defined as “things that hold people together (Latterell 85)” and working together for such an important cause definitely holds people together. This community is held together by its strong sense of injustice being committed against helpless innocent women and children unable to speak for themselves.

• The interest and values of the people within this community are very similar. They believe that all human beings have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, not just rich, white Americans. They have a strong sense of duty to help their fellow man in any way they can, whether it is financially, physically, or just writing letters to Congressman and White House Officials regarding the atrocities being committed against these women and children. The needs of the people within this community are ultimately the needs of the women and children they are trying to help. If a little girl in Iraq needs a wheelchair because our military has blown off her legs then the community’s need is to find a way to raise money to purchase a wheelchair. If No More Victims is bringing a child to America for extensive medical treatment they could not receive in Iraq then the needs of the community become those of that child, finding ways to get that child the means to get well enough to travel, a local community willing to host the child and their family a hospital willing to help that child at little or no cost.

• 
  The tensions and differences that work against the cohesion of this community are primarily caused by differences of opinion in the best means to help a specific child; however, the differences in this community are far outweighed by the genuine care for the children and rarely create problems within the community.

• 
  I fit into this community by writing letters to as many government representatives, Congressman, the President, etc. for Physicians for Human Rights, No More Victims and other organizations like these. I wish I could be more active in supporting these organizations, which all belong to the same community, but my own disabilities make it impossible. The primary reason why I belong to this community is that I feel it is one of the most important communities on the planet at this point. As Cole Miller, founder of No More Victims says, “How is it after we have hurt this child, we do not help this child?” How can we turn our back as genocides continue to occur and pretend that the bombs we are dropping on Iraq are not killing or injuring anyone but militia?

www.nomorevictims.org

Political Science Reviews

The Use and Abuse of History
Passionate Declarations by Howard Zinn Chapter 4

“Anyone reading history should understand from the start that there is no such thing as impartial history (Zinn 51)”. This is a critical point to any study of history. The student must know that history has been interpreted by the writer according to their bias. To suggest that one can be objective about the past “conceals the fact that all history, while recalling the past, serves some present interest (Zinn 62)”. A great example of this phenomenon is the study of Christopher Columbus by every elementary school student across America. He is hailed a hero for discovering our great nation. What they fail to tell you is that his first response upon landing in the America’s, as the Arawak Indians brought him gifts of every kind, is that “They would make fine servants” as he recorded in his journal, and then proceeded to take them by force, committing mass murder, rape and kidnapping. We learn, “In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” Not “In 1492 Columbus kidnapped and murdered too”. As Howard Zinn states, speaking for himself, “history could only be a way of understanding and helping to change what was wrong in the world (Zinn 48)”. He “decided early (he) would be biased in the sense of holding fast to certain fundamental values: the equal right of all human beings – whatever race, nationality, sex, religion – to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (Zinn 49)”. What could possibly be more important than the rights of every human being on earth. Zinn gives many examples of the abuse of human rights that have been glossed over by history. The Ludlow Massacre in April of 1914 is a classic example of how the officials that we trust to protect our rights, were more interesting in supporting corporate America and specifically the ultra wealthy John Rockefeller. The townsfolk were so thankful to see the National Guard role into town, waving flags, thinking their troubles were finally over. Instead, the guards went to work imprisoning and beating the miners, even murdering some. “On the morning of April 20, 1914, they began firing machine guns into the tents (the miners and their families were living in as they had been thrown out of their company owned homes). The men crawled away to draw fire and shoot back, while the women and children crouched in pits dug into the tent floors. At dusk, the soldiers came down from the hills with torches, and set fire to the tents…The next morning, a telephone linesman, going through the charred ruins of the Ludlow colony, lifted an iron cot that covered a pit dug in the floor…and found the band, burned bodies of two women and eleven children (Zinn 53).” “Would the Colorado strike not suggest that governors, that perhaps all political leaders, were subject to the power of wealth, and would do the bidding of corporations rather than protect the lives of poor, powerless, workers (Zinn 54-55).” This mindset at work explains why our government so readily intervenes in countries that have extensive natural resources such as oil but are unwilling to intervene in hideous human rights violations in countries such as Rwanda and Darfur. It also explains why we do not see headlines in the news or chapters in our history books about the tragic human rights violations around the globe. “What is important is how closely we look today at what is done to human beings (Zinn 58)”. “The arrogance of national power (Zinn 64)” plays a role in the greatest humanitarian crimes committed by our government throughout history and throughout the world. Does the abuse of history give us an excuse to ignore learning about the past? Absolutely not! “We do need to learn history (that) inspires a new generation to resist the madness of governments trying to carve the world and our minds into their spheres of influence (Zinn 66)”. This brings us back to the necessity to question our government’s motives and decision making processes on every level and reserve our right to abolish any government that does not keep the best interests of their citizens rights above any personal agenda they may have.

No More Victims
http://www.nomorevictims.org/
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/19/144201
A Look at Civilian Casualties in Iraq
Cole Miller set up a foundation called No More Victims to help the children whom our military has injured during the Iraqi war. His primary goal is to encourage people to take “direct independent action to help victims of this war.” His endeavors are threefold. He helps people in Iraq who have been injured and displaced financially. He connects advocacy groups such as high school groups, college groups and community groups up with children in Iraq who have been severely injured to give each child a group working directly on their behalf to raise money for them and discover resources that can help them. Finally, he brings Iraqi children who can benefit from medical care in the United States that they cannot get in Iraq to the States to get the necessary care to assist them. His primary question to the nation is “How is it after we have hurt this child, we do not help this child?” A ten year old girl named Salee is interviewed in the broadcast that was brought to the States to receive new prosthetic legs after her legs were blown off in an air raid in Iraq earlier this year. In the same blast her brother and best friend were blown to bits and died and her sister was left critically injured. During the interview Salee is asked if there were any soldiers or Iraqi militia anywhere near her. If she had any idea what the bombs were meant for. She states the only people around were her, Rasul, Tabarak, and Hassan and they were playing hopscotch. There was no one anywhere else around. Amy Goldman asks her father Hussein how he feels about Americans. He admits that originally in Iraq he believed all Americans to be cruel as the soldiers in Iraq always treated them cruelly; however, after he came to the United States and saw all the hospitality and kindness that was granted his daughter he has changed his mind. He is very thankful that there are so many good Americans willing to help people like his daughter. He said bringing her to the States and getting her legs again was like having her reborn. He considers Cole Miller his dear brother and begs the American people to help Cole and his organization: No More Victims, in every possible way. For more information on how to help this organization please go to his website at www.nomorevictims.org

Greenpeace and the Protection of the World's Endangered Species

I have had the personal experience of working for Greenpeace as a young woman and going on a trip with members from Greenpeace on a trip to the Baja Penninsula to watch the Gray whales make and have babies. I must admit it is one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I believe that the support of environmental agencies is critical in this day and age at the rate in which both the environment and amazing animal species within those environments are being destroyed. It is tragic to think that my grandchildren will never have the opportunity to touch a Gray whale or at this rate even see a Panda bear, Mountain gorilla or Blue Whale. If we do not "wake up" as Melissa Etheridge calls us to do in her song "Inconvenient Truth" there will be little left for the generations coming after us.

Passionate Declarations, The Five Wars of Globalization and The Return of the Imperial Presidency

Political Science Summaries

Howard Zinn’s Passionate Declarations, Chapter Three
Violence and Human Nature

The question this chapter is considering is whether or not violence is a “result of some natural instinct” (Zinn 32), whether, as Machiavelli would have us believe “human beings tend to be bad” (Zinn (33) or if perhaps as the scientists who met in Seville Spain state: “It is incorrect to say that war is caused by ‘instinct’ or any single motivation” (Zinn 36) and that we are capable of “some strong feeling(s) of natural empathy” (Zinn 37) as Stanley Milgram’s experiment showed. One of the clearest answers to this question comes from anthropologist Colin Turnbull who lived and studied two different native tribes in Africa. He found the Pygmies of the Ituri rain forest to be “wonderfully gentle and peaceful people” (Zinn 38) yet while staying with the Ik people of East Africa he describes them as “ferocious and selfish” (Zinn 39). His findings are critical to understanding the interactions and reactions of people of all people throughout the world. He concluded that the differences had nothing to do with genetics or instinctive behavior, but rather, the circumstances in which they were living. “The relatively easy life of the forest people fostered goodwill and generosity. The Ik on the other hand had been driven from their natural hunting grounds by the creation of a national game reserve into an isolated life of starvation in barren mountains. Their desperate attempt to survive brought out the aggressive destructiveness that Turnbull saw” (Zinn 39). This suggests that when placed in desperate situations, people will resort to desperate measures, not that they were innately wicked. Psychologist Erik Erickson explains the problem considering the diversification and divisions of the human race by culture, religion, nationality, tribes, etc. as creating what he calls “pseudospecies” and therefore detracting from the natural compassion one human should have for another member of humanity. (I ran into a situation exactly like this on the internet the other day. My computer is flagged to send me all news articles on the conflict in Darfur. When opening a recent article in the “Gameduck” news written by a political science student on the problems in Darfur, he bluntly stated that it is none of our affair and as long as it does not affect us, individually, as Americans we have no business, let alone responsibility to get involved. I found this so shocking to my basic sense of human decency. It is this type of isolationism view that led to and allowed the Holocaust and Rwandan genocides to occur. Perhaps someone needs to rape his infant daughter to wake him up to the responsibility of being a member of humanity.) Zinn states, “We can always select facts from history to prove almost anything about human behavior” (Zinn 41). Therefore, using history to “prove” anything comes with a great responsibility to look at every and all sides of an assertion. He makes a powerful point about why he dropped bombs and napalm over Europe in WWII. “We had been brought up to believe that our political leaders had good motives and could be trusted to do right in the world; we had learned that the world had good guys and bad guys, good countries and bad countries, and ours was good” (Zinn 42). (This is why we, as responsible citizens must learn to question our government’s motives as we have seen so clearly in the war in Iraq. I hope by now we have all learned that American’s are not innately good and therefore more worthy of basic human rights than the rest of the world. Just as I hope there will come a day when no white individual believes they are superior and therefore their rights are more important than anyone else’s with a darker colored skin.) The wars of the 20th century should prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that humans are not innately, instinctively wicked and anxious to kill, torture, rape and mame. If this were the case we would not have seen the massive anti war protests of every major war of the 20th century besides WWII. Men and women gallantly responded to the call of duty in the Second World War both to avenge their country men lost in Pearl Harbor. These individuals were not bloodthirsty killers, merely dutifully citizens protecting and avenging their fellow countrymen.

Global Issues/Annual Edition 2007-2008
The Five Wars of Globalization

The five wars of Globalization are drugs, arms, intellectual property, people, and money. While these are the largest commodities being sold illegally throughout the world they “are not the only commodities traded illegally for huge profits by international networks. They also trade human organs, endangered species, stolen art, and toxic waste” (Naim 67). “The promise of enormous financial gain motivates those who battle the government in these five wars” (Naim 65) and numerous smaller ones. The illicit drug trade alone is approximately $400 billion dollars a year, nearly ten percent of all world trade. “Globalization, especially the information revolution has allowed these criminals/terrorists far more freedom, access, and success than ever at reaching their goals” (Naim 65). “The world’s governments are fighting a qualitatively new phenomenon with obsolete tools, inadequate laws, inefficient bureaucratic arrangements, and ineffective strategies. Not surprisingly…governments are losing.” One of the greatest disadvantages that the authorities have in fighting these crimes is that the perpetrators are in essence ‘stateless’. “Their allegiance is to their cause, not to any nation” (Naim 69). This is not true of the authorities trying to fight them which gives them a “crippling disadvantage” (Naim 69). The major international crime fighting organization, Interpol, has a total staff of only 384 individuals and the average single boat or plane used by these criminal organizations. So why is organized crime so successful? Because it is exactly that: organized. Mistrust amongst the nations fighting these wars undermines any effective international police network.

Democracy Now (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/12/1455210)
Take Over:
The Return of The Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy
When addressing the look at “The Protect American Act” by Congress in hopes to restore some checks and balances to the Executive Branch of the government, Bush says “It must grant liability protection to companies who are facing multi billion dollar law suits only because they are believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend our nation following the 9/11 attacks.” I can’t help but immediately think of Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine and how such disasters grant government officials such carte blanche ability to do things such as warrantless wiretapping of private American citizens and breaking laws without repercussion, things that could have never happened in a pre 9/11 environment in this country. He goes onto to say, “Terrorist in far away lands are plotting and planning new ways to kill Americans.” Once again feeding on the fears of Americans to create a state of shock and fear to gain imperialistic freedoms that would never have been granted to a democratic leader prior to the 9/11 attacks. The checks and balances of the “executive branch secrecy and unchecked power” need restored immediately if we are to remain a democratic society. Charlie Savage, a Pulitzer Prize winning author of the book Take Over: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy discusses this problem in depth. Cheney’s political agenda upon entering the White House was to return the imperialistic power to the Executive Branch of the government. This goes all the way back to his time as the Chief of Staff for Gerald Ford at a time when Congress was reimposing checks and balances on the Executive Branch of the government after a long lapse as a result of the Cold War. “Finally, as Vice President, the most experienced Vice President in history dealing with one of the least experienced Presidents in history he was in a position to shape this administrations practices and tactics as it went forward.” A shocking example of this came on 9/11 itself when Cheney, from the White House bunker, ordered the military to shoot United 93 out of the sky (killing Americans on American soil without even a Presidential order). During the 9/11 commission Cheney stated that Bush had given him prior authority to make such a call. Cheney and Bush insisted during the commissions inquiry that they would not give any sworn testimony and that Cheney would be sitting directly next to Bush throughout the proceedings as well as preventing any recording of their testimony. This administration has been more aggressive than any presidential administration in the history of our country. “President Bush has challenged more laws of restraint than all previous Presidents in American history combined.” Bush asserted that he has the power as commander in chief to “bypass laws at his own discretion.” He proceeded to disregard a 1978 law requiring all wiretappings to have warrants. To worsen matters there was no resistance by Congress. The democrats allowed this to happen without question as a result of the atmosphere of crisis that the country was in following 9/11 (again bringing into play the very important issue of Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine showing how individuals, even government authorities and in this case Congress itself will follow a leader blindly when in a state of shock as occurred following the 9/11 attacks). “Congress is again unwilling to push back against the White House’s assertion that it needs ever more authority and checks and balances will result in bloodshed.” Since the President has asserted that he can bypass, disregard, or break laws, however one might like to look at it and this assertion remained unquestioned, any President from this moment forward can follow Bush’s example, leading our country farther and farther away from a well balanced Democracy which once had three equally powerful branches of government. Bush is also seeking to close off all means of accountability in providing retroactive immunity to the companies who assisted him in breaking the 1978 law against unwarranted wiretapping. Bush has expanded the secrecy, power, privilege and so on of the Executive branch far beyond any President in America’s history. He has made the Executive branch like a “black box” so that neither Congress nor the voters have any idea what the officials are doing with these powers. Civil Rights Law enforcement is another area in which this power is clearly obvious. Prior to 2002 whenever the Civil Rights Division was in need of filling a position they hired career veterans to decide who should fill the position in the Civil Rights Division, “that meant that they were still hiring people who had demonstrated commitment to enforcing Civil Rights laws.” In 2002 the Bush Administration changed that by appointing the position to members of the federalist society, to the extent of giving positions to people who had fought against Civil Rights in the past. This has allowed the Bush Administration to seize control over this division. Rather than protecting African American rights, as this division was formed to protect, it has instead now focused its cases on reverse discrimination against whites, Christians, etc., whatever fits the bill of Bush’s agenda. If this crisis is not brought under control in our government we will soon find ourselves in a nation that is no longer free or democratic but rather closer to resembling a dictatorship. We should be at this point forced to fall back on the possibility left open to us in the Declaration of Independence “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness), it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government).

Political Science Summaries

Darfur: Another Rwanda, Another Holocaust
In her article “Darfur: No More “Never Again””, Ann-Louise Colgan discusses the horrific atrocities taking place in Darfur. She explains the necessity for a large scale international peace keeping force. “In a significant step, the U.N. Security Council authorized such a peacekeeping force in Resolution 1706—authorizing the deployment of U.N. peacekeeping troops—passed at the end of August. We believe that Darfur is a real test for the international community of what is known as the “Responsibility to Protect” principle, affirmed by the United States and other nations just one year ago.” “The Responsibility to Protect doctrine was created so that “state sovereignty could not be used to justify atrocities—or to bar collective international action to protect those citizens:” [It] provides that diplomatic and other peaceful tools are tried first to bring the violations to an end, but where ‘national authorities manifestly fail to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity,’ the U.N. Security Council could put a Chapter VII military force on the table.” Many important voices such as Fatima Haroun of the Sudan Peace Advocates Network and Archbishop Desmond Tutu call for the international community to make a significant and irrevocable stand against the Sudanese Government and its Janjaweed militia. Archbishop Tutu “chastised the international community for its slow response to the Darfur crisis, saying in a BBC interview, “The harsh truth is that some lives are slightly more important than others. . . If you are swarthy, of a darker hue, almost always you are going to end up at the bottom of the pile.” Many members of the African Union are calling the genocide in Darfur another ‘Rwanda’. Everyday the deployment of peacekeeping troops is withheld, countless more lives are lost, and women and girls are raped.
YouTube - Darfur: Not on Our Watch

Howard Zinn’s Passionate Declaration’s Chapter Two Summary
Machiavellian Realism and U.S. Foreign Policy: Means and Ends
In Howard Zinn’s Passionate Declarations Chapter Two, “Machiavellian Realism and U.S. Foreign Policy: Means and Ends”, Zinn discusses the origins of Machiavellian policies and explains how our ‘democratic’ government has come to rely on a policy that permits any means (be that torture or atomic bombs) to be used to reach a desired end. Niccolo Machiavelli wrote what has become “the world’s most famous handbook of political wisdom for governments and their advisors”, (9) entitled The Prince about 500 years ago. Machiavelli is considered “the father of modern political realism” (10). His assessment of human nature is that we are “basically immoral” (11) and as a result need authoritarian figures to rule us rather than being capable of living in a humanitarian fashion through independent thinking and activities. The foundation of his beliefs requires “th notion that all our interest are the4 same (the political leaders and the citizens, the millionaire and the homeless person)” (11). We constantly hear terms such as “national interest”, “national security” and “national defense”. These deceptive phrases suggest that it is possible to generalize the needs of any country, its government and citizens alike. The United States Declaration of Independence states that “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness), it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, ad to institute new government” (12). Adversely, Machiavelli did not place any rights within the citizenry of a nation, but rather believed in ultimate governmental authority, power and control. America has clearly followed Machiavellian principles in regards to its foreign policy for many decades. We have spent billions of dollars and hundreds of thousand of lives overthrowing left-wing governments in Central America and replacing them with right-wing governments, committing monstrous atrocities, torture and violence, which has been left totally unaccounted for. Government officials explaining the ‘necessity’ for these actions like to use an excuse called “The Domino Theory” (14) to justify our coups, military and police actions, and wars. They feed on fears of communism to persuade citizens that without these military offensives, we will be mercilessly attacked by a communist regime. During these types of actions a doctrine known as ‘plausible deniability’ (16) comes into play. Presidents themselves escape ‘involvement’ and therefore accountability by having these actions committed by others within their administration, allowing them to escape any consequences for the wrong doings. “Machiavelli would have admired” (16) these operations. “A prince”, he suggested, “should emulate both the lion and the fox” (17). The lion uses force” (17). “The fox uses deception” (17). The government uses force as desired and lies to appease the citizens of the necessity of the force. This way when a so called democracy “engages in a war that is clearly against a vicious and demonstrably evil enemy, then the end seems so clean and clear that any means to defeat that enemy may seem justified” (22). Dropping bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified by this very principle. “It was morality limited by nationalism, perhaps even racism. The saving of American lives was considered far more important than the saving of Japanese lives (24).” “There have always been people who did think for themselves, against dominant theology, and when there were enough of them history had its splendid moments: a war was called to a halt, a tyrant was overthrown, an enslaved people won its freedom, the poor won a small victory” (27). While Machiavelli’s realism is the dominant political strategy of our time, idealism will never be completely defeated in the hearts and minds of men and women around the world irregardless of the state of “reality” they have been forced to live in. Machiavelli believed people to be naturally wicked; however, there will always be individuals who will test and even disprove, his ‘theory’.

YouTube - Howard Zinn: On The Stupidity Of War

Naomi Klein and The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
A review of an interview from the September 17th Democracy Now Broadcast
The Shock Doctrine exposes what is called “shock and awe” political and military strategy as well as insidious tactics used by ours as well as other governments to control their citizens and get them to behave in ways normally not possible. The premise is based on the fact that after any shock or disaster, whether natural, terrorist, military, economic, or individual, we are more likely to follow, rather timidly, authority figures, whoever they might be. Milton Friedman, renowned as one of the greatest political thinkers of our time and advisors to such politicians as Margaret Thatcher, both Bushes, Reagan, Pinochet, Rumsfield and so on, was a radical freemarket economist. Nixon had hired Friedman as an advisor during his first term but realized that his radical ideas were not yet possible in a nearly peacetime democracy. Nixon found he would be “absolutely defeated at the polls if he were to keep him on staff.” Instead, Nixon used Chile as a laboratory for these ideas under a dictatorship government. After the coup on September 11, 1973, and the total shock and disorientation of the population of Chile through mass murders and torture, Chile was now ‘prepared’ for Pinochet’s radical free market government. On September 12, 1973 a document called “The Brick” was placed on every government official’s desk. This was the foundation of Pinochet’s economic policy. It is interesting to note that Bush Sr. was head of the CIA at the time and the document is almost identical to the economic platform of George W. The Shock Doctrine uncovers the principle that politicians use periods of severe shock and disaster to push through every possible free market economic platform possible before citizens have had time to regain their bearings. The military is using this same shock and awe doctrine as its strategy for the war in Iraq and on the prisoners in Guatanamo. If carefully considered, this must also lead one to question if these disasters (which are necessary to supply the shock needed for sheepish government compliance) are truly natural and unpreventable. Should we entertain the possibility that some have been allowed to happen and some even caused?
YouTube - Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine - Part 1 of 6

With God On Our Side by Bob Dylan

"With God On Our Side"

Oh my name it is nothin'

My age it means less

The country I come from

Is called the Midwest

I's taught and brought up there

The laws to abide

And the land that I live in

Has God on its side.

Oh the history books tell it

They tell it so well

The cavalries charged

The Indians fell

The cavalries charged

The Indians died

Oh the country was young

With God on its side.

The Spanish-American

War had its day

And the Civil War too

Was soon laid away

And the names of the heroes

I's made to memorize

With guns on their hands

And God on their side.

The First World War, boys

It came and it went

The reason for fighting

I never did get

But I learned to accept it

Accept it with pride

For you don't count the dead

When God's on your side.

When the Second World War

Came to an end

We forgave the Germans

And then we were friends

Though they murdered six million

In the ovens they fried

The Germans now too

Have God on their side.

I've learned to hate Russians

All through my whole life

If another war comes

It's them we must fight

To hate them and fear them

To run and to hide

And accept it all bravely

With God on my side.

But now we got weapons

Of the chemical dust

If fire them we're forced to

Then fire them we must

One push of the button

And a shot the world wide

And you never ask questions

When God's on your side.

In a many dark hour

I've been thinkin' about this

That Jesus Christ

Was betrayed by a kiss

But I can't think for you

You'll have to decide

Whether Judas Iscariot

Had God on his side.

So now as I'm leavin'

I'm weary as Hell

The confusion I'm feelin'

Ain't no tongue can tell

The words fill my head

And fall to the floor

If God's on our side

He'll stop the next war.

Misconceptions

My Wallet and its misconceptions...

If someone was to find my wallet they might first judge primarily that I am a woman who likes expensive brand items. This is a total misconception. My husband loves thrift store shopping and found a three hundred dollar wallet for a dollar and a half and bought it for me, as he loves being a treasure collector. Once opened, my wallet would appear to be rather empty, no checkbook, no pictures, no credit cards, etc. It does have mirrors on one side which came built into the trifold wallet, but they have never once been used. I am not a person that makes much use of mirrors. The middle section is totally empty and the far side contains in very precise alignment, my driver's licence, my debit card, my disability card, my library card, my UW patient card, and my build a bear workshop card. My husband teases me that I am obsessive compulsive because the cards always have to be perfectly aligned with one another in the slots provided within the leather. From the information one would be able to determine my age from my driver's licence; however, not my appearance. My driver's licence picture was taken days after being released from a three month hospital stay and I am 40 pounds heavier than now, or ever, as well as exremely pale, my long blonde hair having been cut off from my coma, has now regrown, and my tan face and pronounced cheek bones which are normally easily defining are missing. Many people question if it is even my driver's licence at all. I had trouble getting my son's car out of impound as a result as they did not believe that the person in that picture was the same tall, thin, tan, blonde standing before them. So once again, the individual examining my wallet will have formed a misconception about my appearance based on the picture on the licence. They would then perhaps notice a total lack of credit cards and checkbook and assume this is a result of poor credit rather than a choice to use only cash under all circumstances with the exception of purchasing gas, as I cannot be out in the cold and need to use my debit card for quick gas purchasing and emergency bank withdrawals. My disability card might place a picture in one's mind of a person in a wheel chair. Often I am yelled at by people for using handicap parking spaces even though I have handicap plates on my car. They conceive that only those who are in wheel chairs need handicap parking spaces. Mine was issued by my neurosurgeon, who does not want me exposed to cold air which will put me back in the hospital, and another misconception has been formed. I have a library card. The library is something that I use primarily online and order many downloadable audio books to listen to when I am sick, historical fiction, biographies, etc. The assumption that I like to read would be a correct one; however, the perception that I spend time in the library or even go to the library is again false. I order my books online and have my kids or husband bring them home to me. My UW patient card does give some information about me: I am a patient of the University of Washington Medical Center. The types of assumptions this might result in are too numerous to tell and most would probably be again, inaccurate. Finally, there is my build a bear workshop card. This might lead one to believe I have small children or frequent the store often. Both of these assumptions are also incorrect. My children are grown; it is my grandchildren and stepchildren that I have used this card for. Furthermore, it has not been used since last Christmas; however, since there was one more slot in the wallet, I put it in to even the spaces out between the cards precisely. Now this is the one thing my husband notices the most and I wonder if a stranger finding my wallet would even notice how carefully I place the cards in perfect alignment.

So the most important issue to discuss would be what would they miss about me based on the contents of my wallet. Well my wallet would tell nothing of meaning to anyone about me with the exception of my birthdate and driver's licence number, not even the address is right on it. My wallet tells no one of my relationship to GOD or my family, as it is totally lacking photographs. Would this lead someone to the proper conclusion: that I am just not the type of person interested in or having time for frivalities, I doubt it. I have countless beautiful pictures of my children, grandchildren and husband, who are more important to me than anything else on the planet; however, someone who rarely leaves the house, has no reason to carry these sort of things around in a wallet. Any extra's in my wallet just increases the weight of my purse, which pulls on my neck and increases my pain, which is one of the most defining characteristics of my life and this no one can see in my wallet. This, everyone would miss who did not know me personally. This inanimate object tells nothing of my life, my identity, or personality.