A LIFE WASTED: STOP THE BUSH WAR!
Holidays have come and gone; it is time to get back to reality. I have to admit, I stuck my head (mind) in the ground during those retail days of Christmas and New Years, not looking or reading, very much about the horrible state our country, since the ignorant and the criminals put Bush in the oval office for the second time.
I must admit, I did need a break, just to hang on to the little bit of sanity I have left. Now, it's back to the dark days of truth and my little escape from reality (a getaway of sorts, so I could see the light of day, even if that light was just a dim artificial ceiling light-bulb in a dismal paint peeling room of make-believe) is over. But you know, even though, everywhere I turn seems to be cloaked with the fog of sadness and betrayal, it's good to be back.
I will never by able to understand those who go on rationalizing and justifying what they must know is wrong... are they really alive? We must face the fact that we have an insane bunch of people in lead positions who have squandered the cachet our Nation once stood for and has spiraled our good name, in just a few short years, into an entity of disgrace and dishonor. I am hanging on to a thread of faith that we will recover but why did this have to happen in the first place?
Did we lose our innate ability to discern? Had we become too comfortable thus fearful of sacrificing our comfort zone to the harsh actualities of life. I don't know why we as a nation closed our eyes and pulled the lever to elect what most of us must have realized, was bad leadership. Was it just the plain old willies because our country was attacked or was it even a more sinister culprit called proselytizing. If so, the proselytizers who turned rational people into sheep really studied up on how to put blinders on so many folks of reasonable intelligence, allowing them to be manipulated so completely.
The most poignant thing I ever heard was yesterday, when the people of West Virginia were first told the miners were alive only to hear a few hours later, that was a mistake and they were dead. A woman put in front of a camera blurted out in her anguish, "WE MAY BE STUPID BUT WE LOVE OUR FAMILY" ... Was she, a person so in tuned to her fate of not being too worldly wise, a representative of the average Bush voter, so easily manipulated? If so. this is quite Cimmerian a future for us all.
Let us hope the propagandize experts have over stepped their bounds and people will once again start acting like responsible adults and put a stop to the plunderers who are killing, maiming and pillaging in the guise of "THE WAR ON TERROR.
Read below an essay by a parent who bravely sees through all the proselytized jargon and meets the deadly sorrowfulness of his son's wrongful death, in hopes of preventing more of the same for others caught up in the spiral of lies. ThinkingBlue Click here to go to webpage
PS: A comment on this article from a friend: This is one of the best things I've read about the awful "hero worshipping" being done. The everyday hero is the guy who gets up every single morning and goes off to work to support his family no matter how ill-paid he is. And the same for women. These are the true heroes. That we adulate our killer people is sick. We need to have banquets and medals for the ordinary Americans. maddi
CACHET n. 1. A mark or a quality, as of distinction, individuality, or authenticity: "Federal courts have a certain cachet which state courts lack" (Christian Science Monitor)
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PROSELYTIZE v. To cause to hold an opinion or belief without a rational basis:
• brainwash • mold • bias • condition • influence • move • poison •sway
• prejudice • propagandize
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CIMMERIAN adj. (adj.) Dismal; gloomy:
• somber • glum • grim • long-faced • lugubrious • melancholic • mirthless
• morose • mournful • saturnine • solemn • sullen • unsmiling • melancholy
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Published on Tuesday, January 3, 2006 by the Washington Post
'I'm OK,' wrote the former Jerseyan in last e-mail
(The Star-Ledger) A few months after the 9/11 attacks, Marine Lance Cpl. 'Augie' Schroeder enlisted. He died Aug. 1, 2005 when a roadside bomb hit the vehicle carrying 14 Marines
Early on Aug. 3, 2005, we heard that 14 Marines had been killed in Haditha, Iraq. Our son, Lance Cpl. Edward "Augie" Schroeder II, was stationed there. At 10:45 a.m. two Marines showed up at our door. After collecting himself for what was clearly painful duty, the lieutenant colonel said, "Your son is a true American hero."
Since then, two reactions to Augie's death have compounded the sadness.
At times like this, people say, "He died a hero." I know this is meant with great sincerity. We appreciate the many condolences we have received and how helpful they have been. But when heard repeatedly, the phrases "he died a hero" or "he died a patriot" or "he died for his country" rub raw.
"People think that if they say that, somehow it makes it okay that he died," our daughter, Amanda, has said. "He was a hero before he died, not just because he went to Iraq. I was proud of him before, and being a patriot doesn't make his death okay. I'm glad he got so much respect at his funeral, but that didn't make it okay either."
The words "hero" and "patriot" focus on the death, not the life. They are a flag-draped mask covering the truth that few want to acknowledge openly: Death in battle is tragic no matter what the reasons for the war. The tragedy is the life that was lost, not the manner of death. Families of dead soldiers on both sides of the battle line know this. Those without family in the war don't appreciate the difference.
This leads to the second reaction. Since August we have witnessed growing opposition to the Iraq war, but it is often whispered, hands covering mouths, as if it is dangerous to speak too loudly. Others discuss the never-ending cycle of death in places such as Haditha in academic and sometimes clinical fashion, as in "the increasing lethality of improvised explosive devices."
Listen to the kinds of things that most Americans don't have to experience: The day Augie's unit returned from Iraq to Camp Lejeune, we received a box with his notebooks, DVDs and clothes from his locker in Iraq. The day his unit returned home to waiting families, we received the second urn of ashes. This lad of promise, of easy charm and readiness to help, whose highest high was saving someone using CPR as a first aid squad volunteer, came home in one coffin and two urns. We buried him in three places that he loved, a fitting irony, I suppose, but just as rough each time.
I am outraged at what I see as the cause of his death. For nearly three years, the Bush administration has pursued a policy that makes our troops sitting ducks. While Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that our policy is to "clear, hold and build" Iraqi towns, there aren't enough troops to do that.
In our last conversation, Augie complained that the cost in lives to clear insurgents was "less and less worth it," because Marines have to keep coming back to clear the same places. Marine commanders in the field say the same thing. Without sufficient troops, they can't hold the towns. Augie was killed on his fifth mission to clear Haditha.
At Augie's grave, the lieutenant colonel knelt in front of my wife and, with tears in his eyes, handed her the folded flag. He said the only thing he could say openly: "Your son was a true American hero." Perhaps. But I felt no glory, no honor. Doing your duty when you don't know whether you will see the end of the day is certainly heroic. But even more, being a hero comes from respecting your parents and all others, from helping your neighbors and strangers, from loving your spouse, your children, your neighbors and your enemies, from honesty and integrity, from knowing when to fight and when to walk away, and from understanding and respecting the differences among the people of the world.
Two painful questions remain for all of us. Are the lives of Americans being killed in Iraq wasted? Are they dying in vain? President Bush says those who criticize staying the course are not honoring the dead. That is twisted logic: honor the fallen by killing another 2,000 troops in a broken policy?
I choose to honor our fallen hero by remembering who he was in life, not how he died. A picture of a smiling Augie in Iraq, sunglasses turned upside down, shows his essence -- a joyous kid who could use any prop to make others feel the same way.
Though it hurts, I believe that his death -- and that of the other Americans who have died in Iraq -- was a waste. They were wasted in a belief that democracy would grow simply by removing a dictator -- a careless misunderstanding of what democracy requires. They were wasted by not sending enough troops to do the job needed in the resulting
occupation -- a careless disregard for professional military counsel.
But their deaths will not be in vain if Americans stop hiding behind flag-draped hero masks and stop whispering their opposition to this war. Until then, the lives of other sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fathers and mothers may be wasted as well.
This is very painful to acknowledge, and I have to live with it. So does President Bush.
Paul Schroeder is managing director of a trade development firm in Cleveland.
At Least 130 Killed in Separate Iraq Attacks
Five U.S. troops die in single blast. String of attacks brings two-day death toll to at least 189.
– Nelson Hernandez and Saad Sarhan 3:00 p.m. ET
Warning very Graphic REAL PICTURES OF WAR
CAROLYNCONNETION - I've got a mind and I'm going to use
it! ThinkingBlue blogspot 
posted by thinkingblue at 2:22 PM
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