00:21 - 17.07.06
slow boil
Happy Birthday Duchess.
World events are pretty overwhelming right now, aren't they dear diary. There is so much violence - overt and passive - across the globe right now that it is difficult to see how the sickness can be contained and stopped. Maybe this is the real pandemic. It is a mental health issue and a sickness for someone to see violence as the first or only recourse to resolving a conflict - whether it be a school yard tussle, domestic abuse, gang fights or civil/national war. It is our failure - the sin of omission - to stand up to bullies and systemic oppression at all levels of society that allows it to fester and grow. Those who use it often don't even know there is another option, or have been trained to believe that it somehow reduces their manhood if they try something else. In reality it is an expression of impotence - no cojones - and ignorance - no brains.
I think anyone who can stand by and watch the tender flesh of a child blown apart watching their blood soaking into the ground, while splinters of their tiny bones and pieces of their entrails, eyes and brains are splattered across the landscape, is no man. In fact they are no longer human either. I don't care either, how the blame is diverted onto a faceless enemy for wrongs that were committed in the past. How does destroying the life of an innocent child in the name of revenge, or whatever else is their justification, change the past or restore balance. It doesn't. Statistically 80% of all deaths, assaults and injuries in any armed conflict are women, children and the elderly. Usually the thinly veiled purpose of the violence is simply commerce for the sake of power over others. Mask it with the name of any deity or nation you choose, but the obscenity committed is still the same. Cowards all.
When Greece became a harbour for numerous terrorist organizations some years ago, international sanctions, including closing off the tourist trade, forced the government of that country to clean out the vermin. In any of the current conflicts the death of every single child, woman or senior - every non-combatant - should come with such a severe economic penalty that the combatants finally realize that their raison d'etre is forfeit simply by each act of violence they choose. The "profits" of any of their incursions whether land, money or natural resources should be treated exactly like the proceeds of crime. No benefit accrued and charges for the attempted theft of it too. Each terrorist found or supported by a country should be the source of a fine for that country. Every parent, teacher, or leader who teaches or incites hate in a child under their care should also be fined. Violence can only be stopped one person at a time. Peace is not the absence of war. (Spinoza). Address the root causes instead of the symptoms. No self respecting doctor would put a bandage on cancer and declare it healed; yet our governments and corporate bodies do nothing but, it seems.
Hermann Goering at the Nuremburg trials for the war crimes of Nazi Germany - "Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
I guess I should tell you how I feel, dear diary. Maybe tomorrow.
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