Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Wednesday July 26, 2006 - Year 4, Day 127 - we were peace keepers
14C/59F, light breeze & clear; another hot day, a cool walk around the lagoon – like walking through an air conditioner; road crews & construction crews & landscaping crews seem to have converged on me early, perhaps a noisy cacophony metaphor for what is rattling around my brain this morning
last night was too hot – even the 4 AM breezes did not disturb me
too hot to remain covered by a blanket or even a sheet
my mind is in the country, my mind is on the next project, my mind is in the pile of things on my table, my mind is on so many things, my mind cannot understand a city celebrating its 1 millionth citizen when so much blood has been spilled
it is too hot
‘A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.’ – Ralph Waldo Emerson
be my friend, listen to me
yesterday, finally, our government compensated hepatitis C victims who got their disease through tainted blood – good; too late, too long, too little to help enough & impossible to fix the problem the government & the blood agency could have so easily prevented; easy to understand why our government stood by so long doing little when against a backdrop of a world community is letting Africa wither & die of AIDS & conflicts around the world; so easy to understand why our government (that’s US) doing so little . . after all, they are alive aren’t they?
governments are us; we cannot blame them for what they do because they represent us, do our business for us, do our dirty business for us & they are not separate from us
which adds to my rage, my dismay at all of us; it is convenient I think, as Canadians, to not think of ourselves as war mongers because we are so often the blue-hatted UN peacekeepers; lately it seems we are coming to grips with the ‘in harms way = body bags’ elements of participating in conflicts; I would like to say conflict resolution but it doesn’t feel that way any longer
it is time we recognize 21st century demographics disprove the rationale of 20th century geo-politics; discard the notion that the information revolution, consumerism & democracy would sweep the world, discard that comfortable blanket we have been resting under
it is too hot to remain covered by a blanket or even a sheet - or any other device that shrouds us from seeing what is going on in the name of OUR country, OUR UN, our WORLD . . these governments, these governments are us
yesterday, as Israel bombed a UN facility & then their ambassador to the US condemned the UN’s outrage made me roll my eyes & wonder why our government is so strongly supportive of the Israeli position in the current conflict when that bombing, among other things, killed a Canadian peacekeeper – just another soldier we don’t know personally like the ones who have come home from Afghanistan in a body bag or on a gurney
it would be easy to distract ourselves with summer heat fun & frolic, to turn off the news & the rest of the world but it seems the powder-keg middle-east is on fire again/still; the notion of cease-fire & intervention by political rhetoric is more than gag reflex inspiring; we are so fortunate to live in a young country with only 3 major founding peoples in a much more gentile struggle of Aboriginal, Quebecois & the rest of us as a majority; not a melted pot but more a pacifist collage – it angers me that we (us, our leaders & our media collectively) ignore all things until they warrant 24 hr. news-channel coverage, then we focus on little else
my mind is in the country – my country & I am troubled by what we are doing
we need to stop being peace-keepers & start being peace-mongers; the protest movement of the 1960’s should be a pale compared to the kind of world wide uprising of rage against this senseless blood letting
if we are going to spill blood, tainted or otherwise it should not be as significant as one grain of sand, one soldier, one police officer or one anything – the point is that it is one of us
every time a bomb lands or a bullet flies, the person it kills is one of us
what comfort can it be to know that the blood is one of these, or those or that other group; it not about race, religion, sovereignty, economics, power, hatred, oppression or self-determination – it is ALL of those
but the body on the ground, the evaporation of a life – that’s one of us
we were peacekeepers, but we cannot call ourselves that because peace is no one’s objective any more; defending land & borders & ideology is not what it is about
I do not pretend to understand anyone’s conflict or multi-generational rage
when we were children squabbling someone would separate us – the peace maker I suppose – then minutes later or the next day we would play again, oblivious to past hurts & conflicts
when will enough be enough?
enough already
it is too hot
Mark
last night was too hot – even the 4 AM breezes did not disturb me
too hot to remain covered by a blanket or even a sheet
my mind is in the country, my mind is on the next project, my mind is in the pile of things on my table, my mind is on so many things, my mind cannot understand a city celebrating its 1 millionth citizen when so much blood has been spilled
it is too hot
‘A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.’ – Ralph Waldo Emerson
be my friend, listen to me
yesterday, finally, our government compensated hepatitis C victims who got their disease through tainted blood – good; too late, too long, too little to help enough & impossible to fix the problem the government & the blood agency could have so easily prevented; easy to understand why our government stood by so long doing little when against a backdrop of a world community is letting Africa wither & die of AIDS & conflicts around the world; so easy to understand why our government (that’s US) doing so little . . after all, they are alive aren’t they?
governments are us; we cannot blame them for what they do because they represent us, do our business for us, do our dirty business for us & they are not separate from us
which adds to my rage, my dismay at all of us; it is convenient I think, as Canadians, to not think of ourselves as war mongers because we are so often the blue-hatted UN peacekeepers; lately it seems we are coming to grips with the ‘in harms way = body bags’ elements of participating in conflicts; I would like to say conflict resolution but it doesn’t feel that way any longer
it is time we recognize 21st century demographics disprove the rationale of 20th century geo-politics; discard the notion that the information revolution, consumerism & democracy would sweep the world, discard that comfortable blanket we have been resting under
it is too hot to remain covered by a blanket or even a sheet - or any other device that shrouds us from seeing what is going on in the name of OUR country, OUR UN, our WORLD . . these governments, these governments are us
yesterday, as Israel bombed a UN facility & then their ambassador to the US condemned the UN’s outrage made me roll my eyes & wonder why our government is so strongly supportive of the Israeli position in the current conflict when that bombing, among other things, killed a Canadian peacekeeper – just another soldier we don’t know personally like the ones who have come home from Afghanistan in a body bag or on a gurney
it would be easy to distract ourselves with summer heat fun & frolic, to turn off the news & the rest of the world but it seems the powder-keg middle-east is on fire again/still; the notion of cease-fire & intervention by political rhetoric is more than gag reflex inspiring; we are so fortunate to live in a young country with only 3 major founding peoples in a much more gentile struggle of Aboriginal, Quebecois & the rest of us as a majority; not a melted pot but more a pacifist collage – it angers me that we (us, our leaders & our media collectively) ignore all things until they warrant 24 hr. news-channel coverage, then we focus on little else
my mind is in the country – my country & I am troubled by what we are doing
we need to stop being peace-keepers & start being peace-mongers; the protest movement of the 1960’s should be a pale compared to the kind of world wide uprising of rage against this senseless blood letting
if we are going to spill blood, tainted or otherwise it should not be as significant as one grain of sand, one soldier, one police officer or one anything – the point is that it is one of us
every time a bomb lands or a bullet flies, the person it kills is one of us
what comfort can it be to know that the blood is one of these, or those or that other group; it not about race, religion, sovereignty, economics, power, hatred, oppression or self-determination – it is ALL of those
but the body on the ground, the evaporation of a life – that’s one of us
we were peacekeepers, but we cannot call ourselves that because peace is no one’s objective any more; defending land & borders & ideology is not what it is about
I do not pretend to understand anyone’s conflict or multi-generational rage
when we were children squabbling someone would separate us – the peace maker I suppose – then minutes later or the next day we would play again, oblivious to past hurts & conflicts
when will enough be enough?
enough already
it is too hot
Mark
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Comments:
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I wondered who got killed. I figured they'd killed some UN rep from some powerless African failed state.
They killed a countryman, a Canadian.
But we knew that the whole "accident" "mistake" thing was a damnable lie. It is utter nonsense, it is insulting, it conveys a disdain for us, a certain disgust: Israel will persue its existence to a certainty, against all costs, like a Pascal wager: since the benefit of the survival of Israel is infinite, any costs are by comparison zero.
The ends do not justify the means. No, the means are the point where the ends will converge: they will be one and the same.
It might just be that Israel is lost.
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They killed a countryman, a Canadian.
But we knew that the whole "accident" "mistake" thing was a damnable lie. It is utter nonsense, it is insulting, it conveys a disdain for us, a certain disgust: Israel will persue its existence to a certainty, against all costs, like a Pascal wager: since the benefit of the survival of Israel is infinite, any costs are by comparison zero.
The ends do not justify the means. No, the means are the point where the ends will converge: they will be one and the same.
It might just be that Israel is lost.
<< Home
