Archive for August, 2008

In many parts of Europe, a Labor Day is celebrated—but on the 1st of May.  America couldn’t possibly share that day with the parades in Soviet Russia, back in the day, right?  So, our Labor Day marks the end of summer, the last hurrah before school children return to the books.

The books where they usually do not learn who deserves the honor of this day.  There was a time when the word “Haymarket” didn’t make anyone think of cows or horses….

Please read the history of the holiday you are having to relax, it was paid for in misery.

http://oakcreekforum.blogspot.com/2008/08/labor-day-reason-for-it-and-innocent.html

If you thought Denver was bad for having chain link pens ready if case anyone got too rowdy, that was “Preparation Light” compared to what is going on in Minnesota. We all know that during the Bush Administration, protesters have not been allowed near motorcades or speech sites, but a whole new level of crack-down has begun to make sure things look Pollyanna Pure for the Republican Convention.

I direct you to a phoned in description of a police raid on a neighborhood well before the beginning of GOP partying. An Army vet describes how about 30 police armed with assault rifles closed off the streets and began beating on doors and detaining anyone asking to see a warrant. See, they don’t call it “arrest” when there is no legal reason—they call it “detention” just like at Gitmo. These people were detained for “conspiring to riot”…that is the new code for “legal protest.” Kiss the First Amendment completely goodbye.

The Blog: http://majikthise.typepad.com/

What a shame we can’t send these “heroic” law (dis)enforcement officers down to just detain Hurricane Gustav, eh?

Taz meets Sparta the Lovey Kitty

My first reaction?  “Who the F**k is she?”

My second reaction after I read up on her?

“Unbefuckinglievable!”  This is supposed to make us woman switch sides?  Are you shitting me?

That is all…it is my early Sunday Snark, ok?

The list since the last moon phase. I am sorry, there are at least 2 deaths in Afghanistan and one in Iraq that the names have not been released yet.

Spc. Michael L. Gonzalez, 20, of Spotswood, N.J. – Army – Iraq – IED

Sgt. David K. Cooper, 25, of Williamsburg, Ky – Army – Iraq – small arms fire

Pvt. Tan Q. Ngo, 20, of Beaverton, Ore. – Army – Afghanistan – RPG & small arms fire

SFC Tim C. Christiansen of Denmark – Danish Army – Afghanistan – IED

Staff Sgt. Brian E. Studer, 28, of Roseau, Minn. – Army – Afghanistan -IED

Staff Sgt. David L. Paquet, 26, of Rising Sun, Md. – Army – Afghanistan – unspecified cause while on patrol

This list brings my total count for American and Coalition troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan to 5400. So, another strand of counting beads went on the memorial stone tonight. Photo below. This is a strand of 100 beads of mixed types: some glass, some stone, with shell counters (the long spiny ones) between.

My sympathies to the loved ones, may your hearts someday find comfort.

This week, finally got me through the stack to a book I bought when the author died earlier this year: “The Sacred Hoop” by Paula Gunn Allen.

This book was a large revelation to me on several levels. First, I was confused by the initial chapters that seemed intent on schooling me in literary criticism. Her point in beginning this way was to show how she felt Anglo-Americans did not “get” Amerindian authors and why not. I feared what I was reading was a sort of Amerindian version of revisionary history such as feminists of a certain type were fond of when re-writing history and mythology. But that was not what she was about; she actually made a good case for European readers not starting at the same conceptual point as Amerindians.  Those who think, for instance that time in linear, do not get a cyclical view; and those who think in terms of only the physical success, do not understand spiritual victories.

The second surprise really did make me shudder at first—rediscovering the gynocratic nature of many American tribes. But she makes good use of history written by Europeans, finding between the lines how hard the colonizers had to work to undercut centuries of a deep respect and partnership for women tribal leaders. The myths of the peoples she recounts were deeply moving, and adequate to make me feel that conquest was much more than taking land and rights.

With the destruction of the power of tribal women added to all the other issues—loss of livelihood and homeland to name major ones, her next topic is one near and dear to my heart: alienation. She perfectly captures the agony of being neither in nor out for Indians (and as she says, others alienated by some traumatic process). One cannot be a “proper” Indian any more with the traditional life destroyed, yet one cannot be white either. Her work on this topic, while tightly specific to the Indian experience, spoke volumes to me about the alienation of other women—since feminism for instance, a stay-at-home-mom cannot be a proper feminist, and thus is an improper version of a modern woman. A man who comes home from war cannot be a non-soldier again…and this is doubly hard if he is an Indian or half-breed. This section was the most effective and devastating part to read.  Especially when I think how many soldiers–white and otherwise are coming home to a world that has no clue of their new war-borne “conceptual” base!

My favorite section in terms of pleasure was her comparative treatment of a single myth about Yellow Woman. She told it as her translator father John Gunn told it from the white male perspective, she recounted the ritual tribal telling, she analyzed it as a feminist and then as a tribal feminist. I feel some of her analysis was spot on, but her view that her father’s telling forced the reader down a patriarchal shute was lost on me. In this story of the turn of the seasons revolving around Yellow Woman leaving her winter husband for her summer husband, I saw the wonder of seasonal change akin to the Wiccan stories of the Oak and Holly Kings , but controlled by a WOMAN. But I tend to put a LOT of me and my own analysis of mythic topics into my reading, perhaps she is right for the ordinary reader?

Finally, she discusses the most sensitive topic of all….how with conquest first by sword and gun, and then by Bible and forced entry to white societal values, the homosexual and lesbian components of Amerindian tribes were nearly eradicated. Their legends, their original cultural surround was all uprooted and violently dealt with by patriarchal Anglo-Americans or Spanish Catholics intent on eliminating “sin” from the tribes.

I enjoyed the book greatly, I will do more research into various topics as a result of her work. My personal life, with my tiny genetic drop of Indian blood, felt an infusion of both regret and pride—my world view, it seems, as defined by Paula Gunn Allen IS tribal, is Indian—which she contends springs into the world both mystical and practical in balance and harmony. I am proud to know I can read the writers she discussed and most likely understand them as their authors meant; I am filled with regret over even more of an alienated sense of being cut off by my white skin and blond hair from a bit of my ancestry that seemingly most informs my spiritual life.  And I feel deprived that this Indian woman, this feminist, this lesbian, this wielder of words and wonder is gone from this planet….we are all so much poorer for her loss.  Blessings upon her and all who loved her!

Ok, I note in the stats that I get people looking for pictures of those who have died.  I want to provide some linkages, and the first one is one that always punches ME in the gut…why should I suffer alone?  Pass this one on to your conservative friends who think we women should be at home baking cookies, will you; cause they are notably silent about ending the wars that have killed gods know how many Iraq and Afghani women and more than 100 American servicewomen.  These are the work of one artist trying to keep up:

http://www.borntowar.com/thumbnails/borntowar.html

Otherwise, you might be able to search for a photo here:

http://www.rememberthefallen.com/

Or, of course, the two CNN sites, one for Iraq and one for Afghanistan:

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2004/oef.casualties/

Except it has moved from Germany to Vermont.  Yep, you read it correctly and you have Homeland Security to thank.  They want a fence through the center of a little town in Vermont that straddles the border with Canada.

Yep, Canada.  Because, you know, Canadians are foreign…they may as well be some of them Afghani Taliban types or something.  (Sorry, I just can’t type misspellings for stupid dialect!)  And the many paranoid gun-toting sorts posted to this formerly peaceable place are creating the very problems that never existed before they got there–the things they say they protect against.

When do we know when to call bullshit?  Really?  Come ON!!

Read it and point & laugh, weep, swear, whatever works.  Gods, I HOPE something works, cause the stupid …yes, yes, it burns.  It isn’t patriotic to behave like Brown Shirted assholes or Soviet draftees on watch towers.

http://tinyurl.com/6pqwg5

(hat-tip to Les H.for the source of my rantage)

Ah, how many heroic epics have instructions about fighting to the last man? Doesn’t it make good movie footage, and how very “300-ish” it is, eh? Note, however, even in “The 300″ the man so wounded as to not be able to fight effectively was sent home. I guess America is more Spartan than Sparta. We are sending men and women incapable of battle readiness back over and over again. The military contends that sending men and women who are on “medical hold” is usually a case of minor things like waiting on glasses or needing a cavity filled. I wish that were true, but I think the need to fill the numbers of “warm bodies” required is making those judgment calls more than a bit questionable. It gives a whole new meaning to the term “recycled”…which in military parlance usually means something very different than the local ecologists mean.

When I was in the military, I passed out on runs occasionally; I had undiagnosed asthma. And since I was considering a career, I was happy enough with that—because asthma would have gotten me tossed out of the Army. Now, they routinely deploy troops with asthma to a war zone. Hard to move out of harm’s way when you cannot breath or stop coughing, hard to move quickly at all.

What else counts as similarly minor? Let’s list a few things:

Diabetes.

Sleep apnea severe enough to require a machine to breath at night.

A rare and difficult to treat and incurable lung illness called eosinophilic granuloma.

Pain from war wounds so severe that helmet wearing is forbidden by medical profile. Or pain so disabling that you cannot bear the weight of the protective armor plates and do without them as you go on patrol in IED loaded zones.

Herniated spinal disks. I have HAD this, I wrecked four of the disks out of seven in my neck. The pain is unrelenting, I could not grasp items securely in my hands, I could not possibly have held a gun steady enough to hit the target, nor could I have put on a gas mask in time to save my life. It took two surgeries and FIVE YEARS of healing and rehab to regain even 65% of my former strength and use. These soldiers are not getting surgery, they are given useless and addictive drugs and sent back to war. Or they are given surgery and more pain and then sent back to war.

Knee surgery recipients…some of them classed as “permanently disabled” afterwards. My son was medically discharged in this condition. He can’t walk more than 100 feet without nigh incapacitating pain, he sometimes can’t drive a standard transmission vehicle because his “clutch” leg locks. He can’t bike, carry heavy gear, or any of other favorite activities. He cannot run and is often in agony. Men just like him and in worse shape on in a war zone now.

I could go on and on. The Army contends that it is just innocent and honest mistakes. The men and women being sent not only fear for their own lives since they know their incapacity, they fear for the comrades they cannot adequately protect in desperate situations. And when doctors DO find their medical ethical p’s and q’s? Commanders have the option of over-ruling them and sending the troop anyway.

Besides the physically battered and broken being sent back, many units have now served FOUR terms in the war zone. In Viet Nam, they served 12 months…and only more if they voluntarily signed up. But now, in the “Volunteer Army” they can be sent back again and again, and the popular (not with soldiers) “stop loss” order keeps them in the military past their expected tour of service. It is a back door draft and without it, they would have already had to admit they don’t have enough military for the wars already in progress.

How many more will they need if we start more wars? With Iran, or Gods forfend…with Russia? The mind boggles. And here is where I must interject a bit of real mean nastiness for the small crew of Democratic voters who are angry enough to “vote Green” or otherwise rather than support Obama. If you truly believe it doesn’t matter who wins the next four years in office, make sure your high school and college aged children take Spanish as a language choice. Because Canada is slamming the door and your sons and daughters will NOT be safe. It is one thing to be patriotic, it is another to throw a whole military into a meat grinder with no exit door. Eventually, they will draft. Because they will run out of volunteers.

Your Senator most likely has a staffer who is dedicated to military and veteran issues. Learn the name and phone number and email address of this person and keep after them. Do NOT shut up or be re-assured that it is “only a few mistakes” or be told that “a few soldiers contacted us and we helped them” because getting through to the Senator’s office is a bit tougher from Iraq or Afghanistan.

And remember, after all, the walking wounded won’t be able to walk or fight forever. Even angels and valkyries must weep as witnesses to this horror. Athena turns her head in shame. If you don’t all speak up for these men and women NOW, who will be left to speak for your children?