Someone Else's War

We can add a new list of atrocities to the Iraq War.

I just finished watching a documentary entitled Someone Else's War.

In addition to outsourcing torture, we have also outsourced manual labor jobs for the US military. These jobs have been filtered through a convoluted system of military contractors and subcontractors, all of which fall under the responsibility of a company you may be familiar with--Halliburton.

Poor migrant workers, primarily from India and the Philippines have forced into essentially indentured servitude, providing basic services like housekeeping and food service for American troops. These are tantamount to slave labor: wages on which no American could survive. They've been promised grand sums of money such as $1000 American dollars for their efforts, but, in fact, forced to pawn off their few possessions to raise the money merely to be employed. The military's grunt work is done primarily by these migrant workers who live in hastily constructed shanty-towns that no civilized person would consider neither sanitary nor humane.

I've always wondered how we could fight this ill-fated war with such a relatively light tax burden and now I understand why. Halliburton has acted like every other American corporation--outsourcing jobs it can have performed much cheaper elsewhere. Yet, through a convoluted system of network, Halliburton itself can claim to not be accountable for the actions of its subsidiaries.

Halliburton's self-serving promotional commercials feature a parade of actors, all of whom are American. The company thus tries to justify its existence, directly denying that it is neglecting to hire American workers. The reality is that of the 40,000 workers Halliburton employs in Iraq, only 20% are American.

This sort of trickery is further emphasized by the way in which a Philippine man was told he was going to be sent to work in Kuwait. Then, after he arrived in Kuwait, he was told he was going to work in Iraq, instead.

If this happened to ordinary American citizens, there would be a public outcry surrounding the proceedings but since this happens to the poorest of the poor, no one bats an eyelash.

Within the framework of the documentary is a direct accusation of the minimal amount of tax we pay, while whining and bitching about it, while the rest of the world bears a much higher tax burden than we do. It may be human nature to complain about taxation. Rest assured, I pay around 30% of my wages in tax but at what cost?

It also begs the question. How are jobs evolving in this country? As more and more corporations realize the cost benefits in outsourcing jobs overseas, where they are obligated to pay only a fraction of the wages to employ Americans and certainly without being obligated to provide basic health services---what jobs will be left for Americans?


For more information: Someone Else's War.

Thanks Be

To Cee Jay, who nominated me for a Thinking Blog Award.

I seem to be out of profundities at the moment, but life has been slow here in the Chrestomathy. Don't worry. I'll be full of fire at something soon.

Dearth

I seem to be out of opinions for once in my life.

I mean, how many different ways can you say

• We need to be out of Iraq
• President Bush is a moron
• We really really need to be Iraq

Don't worry. It's just a slow time in the lefty blogosphere and with your humble narrator for right now. All will pick up soon.

The World According to John McCain

Yes Sir, no Sir
Where do I go Sir
What do I do Sir
What do I say
Yes Sir, no Sir

Where do I go Sir
What do I do Sir
How do I behave
Yes Sir, no Sir
Permission to speak Sir
Permission to breathe Sir
What do I say, how do I behave, what do I say

So you think that you've got ambition
Stop your dreaming and your idle wishing
You're outside and there ain't no admission
To our play

Pack up your ambition in your old kit bag
Soon you'll be happy with a packet of fags
Chest out stomach in

Do what I say, do what I say
Yes right away
Yes Sir, no Sir
Where do I go Sir
What do I do Sir
What do I say
Yes Sir, no Sir

Permission to speak Sir
Permission to breathe Sir
What do I say, how do I behave, what do I say
Doesn't matter who you are

You're there and there you are
Everything Is in its place
Authority must be maintained
And then we know exactly where we are

Let them feel that they're important to the cause
But let them know that they are fighting for their homes
Just be sure that they're contributing their all
Give the scum a gun and make the bugger fight
And be sure to have deserters shot on sight
If he dies we'll send a medal to his wife

Yes Sir, no Sir
Please let me die Sir
I think this life is affecting my brain
Yes Sir, no Sir
Three bags full Sir
What do I do Sir, what do I say
What do I say, how do I behave, what do I say

History Repeats Itself

I've been recently reading Barbara W. Tuchman's book The Guns of August, which in great detail mentions the frantic month of orders, counter-orders, and downright lunacy which characterized the start of World War I.

I used to believe that those in power pandered only to their overarching interests, like say for instance, the military-industrial-complex but I'm beginning to understand how individual personalities shape a war. The Kaiser of Germany's inflexibility, both in his character and in his war plan directly lead to the defeat of Germany in the First Battle of the Marne.

It never ceases to amaze me the ways in which human folly, ego, and petty rivalries, tied together in one neat package become the undoing of humanity over and over again. The successes of World War I were successes in deed only, and the the winner ended up with the person who made the least mistakes or at least the least mistakes at the least critical time.

I don't know how much more I can write about this Iraq quandary. I just see examples through history that prove what short term memories human beings have. We get so preoccupied with our own lives that we fail to see when the wool has been pulled over our eyes yet again.

Poem

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of their guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid fire
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

-Wilfred Owen

Why I Don't Like Slam

A score or so
of decidedly
hackneyed

morality plays
life lessons
divorces
jail sentences

each speaker
legends in
their own minds

all churned out
to the same metronomic
beat

that seems to
suffice for
dramatic emphasis.

am
I missing
the point?

When Catastrophy Strikes

Everytime I learn about some new means by which the Patriot Act has wormed its way into our every day lives, I think about this passage.

Everytime I think about the means of control by which the inevitable tragdies such as Blacksburg and Columbine, I fear for the means by which our human rights will be controlled under the guise of protection.

O'Brien smiled faintly. ‘You are no metaphysician, Winston,’ he said. ‘Until this moment you had never considered what is meant by existence. I will put it more precisely. Does the past exist concretely, in space? Is there somewhere or other a place, a world of solid objects, where the past is still happening?’
‘No.’
‘Then where does the past exist, if at all?’
‘In records. It is written down.’
‘In records. And—?’
‘In the mind. In human memories.’
‘In memory. Very well, then. We, the Party, control all records, and we control all memories. Then we control the past, do we not?’
‘But how can you stop people remembering things?’ cried Winston again momentarily forgetting the dial. ‘It is involuntary. It is outside oneself. How can you control memory? You have not controlled mine!’
O'Brien's manner grew stern again. He laid his hand on the dial.
‘On the contrary,’ he said, ‘you have not controlled it. That is what has brought you here. You are here because you have failed in humility, in self-discipline. You would not make the act of submission which is the price of sanity. You preferred to be a lunatic, a minority of one. Only the disciplined mind can see reality, Winston. You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident. When you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you. But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact that you have got to relearn, Winston. It needs an act of self-destruction, an effort of the will. You must humble yourself before you can become sane.’

-George Orwell, 1984

Is Unitarian Universalism a Cult?

No, but it certainly resembles a social organization more than it does an actual faith tradition.

Those who comprise its ranks have rejected traditional Christianity, usually, as a result of feeling out-of-sorts and disenfranchised. Thus, its ranks are often full of people with low self-esteem.

Those who comprise its ranks are often loners. Thus, it's difficult to find a lot of commonality between membership.

It's also difficult to network between individual congregations as each congregation has its own dynamic. I've found that, despite my disagreements with Traditional Christianity--at least Traditional Christianity has more of a communal mindset than a hyper-individual mindset. If I missed a service in the Non-Denominational Christian church I attended, I received a card wondering where I've been. In every Unitarian church I have attended, I have received no word at all from others.

I wonder if removing the Christianity from our faith tradition has done us more harm than good. We have so much work to do and all I end up doing is beating my head against a brick wall. Existentialist philosophy, which is what Unitarianism has defined itself is, only creates a fortress mentality with a bunch of fellow lost souls all desperately seeking to find common purpose with a bunch of other seekers.

Every Unitarian church is a blue oasis of souls who feel as though the only people who can understand them are them. Ask any Unitarian what pulls us all together and you'll be greeted a variety of answers, most of which are I'm not quite sure. I just didn't feel as though I belonged anywhere else. Unitarian churches tend to be a hodgepodge of people with issues.

Many of us have identified the problems, but I wonder without any sort of coherent faith doctrines besides some nebulous principles and statements of faith if we will ever accomplish our goal. Unitarian churches are hotbeds for activism and statements of overt political banter but should that really be the focus of any church? If we're a social organization, then let's call a spade a spade.

I attended a church where the circle of lights was hijacked for every two-bit activists' personal grievance.

I attended a church where I was summarily asked to take a leave of absence for six months, while my harasser was allowed to attend--this because she had been a member longer than I and had given more money to the church. Aren't churches places of inclusion rather than exclusion.

And I don't think I need to point out how suspicious we are out of outsiders. It is as if we have to prove that they are worthy of our attention before we acknowledge them as one of us. This stems from our own inherent insecurity. But I think we must formulate a coherent doctrine and stray from our fear of creedal requirements and dogma.

This may be my own personal experience, but I have found that Unitarians are groundless without faith doctrine. The more I question Unitarianism, the less I find it appealing, and the more I find it alienating.

My Experience

The inevitable comparison has been made between the Virginia Tech shootings and Columbine.

I graduated high school the year Columbine occured. The obligatory copycat threat was made by our classes' resident bad boy, which only stirred up an already frightened administration and student body. The threat proved bogus, as I suspected. He was summarily expelled.

They did take the precaution of making us walk through metal detectors and I unzipped my cheaply made black robe to ensure that I wasn't carrying a concealed weapon. I suppose it made everyone feel safer.

Catastrophes like this happen and people search for answers. Again, I hope that no one makes a hasty, knee-jerk reaction that will only make things worse in the end. There is some sort of poision that I notice in my own generation--some kind of hate. I speculate it is that we have been exposed to so many images at so young an age. We've grown up with violent acts on television and in assorted media. We've been aware of sex at younger and younger ages.

Can we distinguish properly between fantasy and reality at such young ages?

Can the human mind truly process these things correctly? Is their some virtue to innocence? Studies have shown that the human brain does not finish developing until the early twenties and yet we are exposed to more images in a day than our grandparents and great-great parents experienced in a lifetime.

Take a look at television, for example. Notice that the pace of television has picked up considerably over the years. Instead of slow framing of shots and gradual pacing, we're subjected to jump cuts, rapid fire editing, and constant stimulation. No wonder our attention spans are not where they need to be. Has our technology evolved faster than we are capable of responding to it?

I pose only questions and I have no answers to them. I wish I did.

Maxim of the Day

One day, Roger came home from work very upset.

"I can't go on!" he cried, to anyone who would listen.

"I can't go on! I can't go on!"

The next day was Thursday. Roger woke up, put his pants on, and went to work.

Processing the Virgina Tech Shootings

Over the next several days, columnists, bloggers, and talking heads alike will be pointing fingers towards causes of random acts of mass violence.

We want to know why. The usual suspects will be cited: environmental factors such as impurities in food, pollution, a hyper-violent society, particularly on television and on video games. Some will delve into the psyche of a killer: want to know whether these accusations of molestation were true or were, in fact, the rambling of a deranged psychotic.

I have to say that I slightly disagree with the majority of my lefty bloggers. This is not to say that I think gun control isn't an important issues, just that it's a facet of a larger problem that we in society have yet to confront. This country has had a history of violence, no matter how we've tried to obscure it in fantasy and mythology.

We fought for our independence. We fought and killed off a race of indigenous peoples. We fought and enslaved another race of people instead. We fought between North and South. We fought for land and conquest and money many times over.

I've been watching D.W. Griffith's silent masterpiece, Broken Blossoms. The plot is inconsequential to this post, but one inter-title struck me. It mentioned how the older Asian religions had long since shunned overt violence, but the Western Anglo-Saxons were brutish figures, violent and aggressive--apparently born that way.

How ironic, then, that the native shooter is a native of the seemingly non-violent Orient: talk about irony.

I do mirror some of the comments made by fellow bloggers. We must confront an epidemic of mental illness that runs rampant in this society and raise more money to find its cause and treatment. We must remove the veil of shame that, despite having been muted over the years, still stigmatizes those who suffer. We must forgive the killer for his evil actions, knowing how troubled he must have been. It is the least we can do.

Massacres and The State of Things

Here's what concerns me most about the Virgina Tech shootings. (I hasten to call it a massacre. It was no more a massacre than the Boston Massacre. I try to avoid hyperbole in all forms).

In Iraq, more than 33 innocent people have been killed in car bombings or sectarian violence and it we've become so desensitized to it that no one thinks twice. Any time any human life is lost is tragic and ought to grab our attention. Yet, we are so insulated (we think) in this country that it takes a random act of violence to snag our attention.

What concerns me even more is how we judge chaos by mere body count alone. Had this been 1 or 2 people killed rather than 33, then it would be a one day story, not a three or four day story. If 1 American soldiers dies in Iraq, we scarcely bat an eyelash. If ten die, then it's somehow newsworthy.

Some talking heads have taken this tragedy to begin talking about gun control again. My own feelings are deeply ambivalent. I doubt the effectiveness of true gun control. It has worked, to some degree in some countries, but ours is a country where people metaphorically laminate the Second Amendment and stick it in their wallets, displaying it in front of strangers like pictures of their children. Violence, particularly gun violence, is so endemic to our society that I doubt anyone would willingly trade in his or her shotgun .

What we ought to question is why we are so violent a society. What we ought to question is what we can really do to ensure that our lives are not taken by the act of madmen. What we ought to question is what about our society causes people to break down into lunatics.

Hatred and Violence

The Virgina Tech shooting reveals a deep scar within this society.

What has caused such anger? What must be done to heal the wounds that go far beyond someone willing to kill 25 + people?

We've always been a violent people but clearly something is making certain people snap. Are they the miner's canary, predicting more violence?

What are the roots of this anger? How do we stop it?

The answer lies in love, not in hate. That's one of the oldest cliches in the book, but it applies to this situation.

My Thoughts Exactly

Quote of the Week

"He that will not reason is a bigot, he that cannot reason is a fool, and he that dares not reason is a slave."

• Sir W. Drummond

Forgive your humble author for not posting more. He is recovering from a sinus infection.

On Heroes

We are taught, in this society, to believe in heroes.

Our own parents are our heroes, until we learn to rebel against them.

Through media we are bought and sold on the idea that we ought to idolize and deify certain people. I hear the voice of my father, who told me from a young age: most people are followers and few people are leaders. Being that the truth, I would also hold that merely because our disposition is not to lead does not mean we should be complicit in lifting up those heroes who proven themselves to be less than perfect.

Everyone I look up to is inherently flawed, thus human. I try not to have heroes anymore because I've had my heart broken over and over again.

If you want to look at a Scriptural passage to prove this: look at the Old Testament and the story of King David. A great man, full of wisdom, but also the murderer of the husband of a married woman--a woman whom he coveted. Naturally, David paid the price for his sin, as do we all. The true irony is that most of the time we are our own worst enemy.

Expanding this premise further: I think you'd find underneath the historical Jesus, a flawed creature no more divine than we are. And the choice that remains is this: do we love our heroes as they are, if we choose to have them? Do we become bitter and hateful of fellow human beings who do have heroes and will always sell into the tasty lies perpetuated in the sake of glory and particularly in money?

The choice is ours. But I would urge each of you to be your own hero. Don't be hard on yourselves when you do sin but to seek to live a life where you take stock of your own issues and not cast the blame on others, though to do so is as human as humanity.

On Classism

Tomorrow, I head to a very tragic event. The double funeral of two distant relatives. I couldn't help but think that this is the sort of tragedy which most of us read about without blinking an eye, so long as it happens to someone else we know. When it hits close to home, it's a totally different event altogether.

Nothing makes me more aware of my own hypocrisy as a human being than when I contemplate class differences in this country. For me, I prove myself a hypocrite with that sort of internal cringing I feel when confronted with working-class stock. Do I believe that I'm better than the backbone of this country? Once I did.

I've gotten better at looking down my nose at the less fortunate than I. Now, I just am painfully aware of how little I share in common with my Father's side of the family. I see in them the reasons why there will always be miscommunication between class so long as there are disparities in income, education, and commonality.

The idealistic part of me wonders if there's any way to change it. The pragmatic part of me realizes that, just as Jesus of Nazareth mentioned, "the poor will always be with us."

Mortality

I've never been particularly close to my father's side of the family. They are blue-collar and live a life totally foreign from my own.

Still, the family received some tragic news. My first cousin was killed in a particularly gory automobile accident this morning. He was driving his Grandmother on an errand and both of them were killed. That side of my family has gone through a lot of tragedy. I won't rehash it all on one post, but they have been through some seriously horrific things.

This is where my guilt kicks in and I recognize the ways that I have been snobby towards that side of my family because they haven't had the same level of education that I have. That doesn't make them any less or any more than me. Any time two human lives are snuffed out is a tragedy.

Still, I will grieve more for my father and attend a funeral that isn't too far away from where I now live. This will be at some point this weekend.

I'll probably post tomorrow but posts this weekend will be sporadic.

Games Smart People Play

Recently, in some circles, a question has been posed.

Aren't we taking ourselves a little too seriously in our blog posts? Can't we appreciate the more prosaic things about the world around us without having to apologize?

The answer to both questions is a resounding YES.

What lies beneath the surface is the unfortunate fact that those of us who are more intelligent than others often feel misunderstood and out-of-sorts from the rest of society. It stems, first and foremost, from insecurity. Deep underneath the surface, our own deepest secret fear is that we really do wish we could be average---whatever average is. We wish we could appreciate what we often decry as banal and shallow.

Yet, if we have a refined intellect, we also recognize the effort that goes into making quality art and have a tendency to be harshly critical of those who we perceive are running in place rather than pushing the envelope.

This is why we play games with each other. This is why sometimes our banter with each other is tantamount to a huge game of "King of the Hill"--all of us trying to push the other off with the best repartee or enlightened comment.

All people have guilty pleasures and I've come to understand that guilty pleasures are okay. Furthermore, they shouldn't be guilty. Life is too short to be deadly serious all the time.

**********************************************************************************

In other news, Kurt Vonnegut died late yesterday. I certainly am glad that Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions, et al existed in my late teens. Vonnegut was an unintentional young adult novelist, because when you get right down to it, his books are loved and adored by very intelligent teenagers. This is not to detract from the brilliance of the books or the fact that they exist---just to say that his books appeal most to the sort of alienation and angst present in at least this generation's intelligent young adults.