Opinions. I Like To Share Mine

I mailed off a letter to the Editor of the Indianapolis Star today. Here’s what it said.

Dec 3, 2009
Indianapolis Star
307 North Pennsylvania Street
PO Box 145
Indianapolis, Indiana 46204-1819
Dear Indianapolis Star,

To the editor:
On Tuesday night, I was very disappointed to hear from President Obama that our country is sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.   I imagine that many were saddened by the announcement as I was, however the coverage and opinions presented following Mr. Obama's speech did not reflect those opinions.

The U.S. and allies have sent troops to Afghanistan for 8 years now, with little to show for it but the immense human cost of war.  What will 30,000 more troops accomplish that tens of thousands of troops over eight years have not?

I wanted to hear the President call for a new vision of security,
rooted in bold, new ideas rather than more of the same.  Given that the White House budget director says that it costs taxpayers $1 million for every soldier sent to Afghanistan, we cannot afford this war.  Instead, we should invest in jobs and in the U.S. while pursuing diplomacy and civilian reconstruction to improve conditions on Afghanistan.

Then we will be investing in improving  lives, rather than continuing a failed war policy.

Sincerely,

Elie Weisel Voices Words Many in the World Only Think

REMARKS BY PRESIDENT OBAMA, GERMAN CHANCELLOR MERKEL, AND ELIE WIESEL AT BUCHENWALD CONCENTRATION CAMP

Weimar, Germany / June 5, 2009

Here, in it’s entirety, is Mr. Wiesel’s amazing words.

MR. WIESEL: Mr. President, Chancellor Merkel, Bertrand, ladies and gentlemen. As I came here today it was actually a way of coming and visit my father's grave -- but he had no grave. His grave is somewhere in the sky. This has become in those years the largest cemetery of the Jewish people.

The day he died was one of the darkest in my life. He became sick, weak, and I was there. I was there when he suffered. I was there when he asked for help, for water. I was there to receive his last words. But I was not there when he called for me, although we were in the same block; he on the upper bed and I on the lower bed. He called my name, and I was too afraid to move. All of us were. And then he died. I was there, but I was not there.

And I thought one day I will come back and speak to him, and tell him of the world that has become mine. I speak to him of times in which memory has become a sacred duty of all people of good will -- in America, where I live, or in Europe or in Germany, where you, Chancellor Merkel, are a leader with great courage and moral aspirations.

What can I tell him that the world has learned? I am not so sure. Mr. President, we have such high hopes for you because you, with your moral vision of history, will be able and compelled to change this world into a better place, where people will stop waging war -- every war is absurd and meaningless; where people will stop hating one another; where people will hate the otherness of the other rather than respect it.

But the world hasn't learned. When I was liberated in 1945, April 11, by the American army, somehow many of us were convinced that at least one lesson will have been learned -- that never again will there be war; that hatred is not an option, that racism is stupid; and the will to conquer other people's minds or territories or aspirations, that will is meaningless.

I was so hopeful. Paradoxically, I was so hopeful then. Many of us were, although we had the right to give up on humanity, to give up on culture, to give up on education, to give up on the possibility of living one's life with dignity in a world that has no place for dignity.

We rejected that possibility and we said, no, we must continue believing in a future, because the world has learned. But again, the world hasn't. Had the world learned, there would have been no Cambodia and no Rwanda and no Darfur and no Bosnia.

Will the world ever learn? I think that is why Buchenwald is so important -- as important, of course, but differently as Auschwitz. It's important because here the large -- the big camp was a kind of international community. People came there from all horizons -- political, economic, culture. The first globalization essay, experiment, were made in Buchenwald. And all that was meant to diminish the humanity of human beings.

You spoke of humanity, Mr. President. Though unto us, in those times, it was human to be inhuman. And now the world has learned, I hope. And of course this hope includes so many of what now would be your vision for the future, Mr. President. A sense of security for Israel, a sense of security for its neighbors, to bring peace in that place. The time must come. It's enough -- enough to go to cemeteries, enough to weep for oceans. It's enough. There must come a moment -- a moment of bringing people together.

And therefore we say anyone who comes here should go back with that resolution. Memory must bring people together rather than set them apart. Memories here not to sow anger in our hearts, but on the contrary, a sense of solidarity that all those who need us. What else can we do except invoke that memory so that people everywhere who say the 21st century is a century of new beginnings, filled with promise and infinite hope, and at times profound gratitude to all those who believe in our task, which is to improve the human condition.

A great man, Camus, wrote at the end of his marvelous novel, The Plague: "After all," he said, "after the tragedy, never the rest...there is more in the human being to celebrate than to denigrate." Even that can be found as truth -- painful as it is -- in Buchenwald.

Thank you, Mr. President, for allowing me to come back to my father's grave, which is still in my heart.

The plane! The plane!

“New York Paper Airplane Flight”

Flying from Sam Fuller on Vimeo.

Sam Fuller had a straightforward idea: Toss a paper airplane from the 31st floor of a New York City office building just to see what would happen. The outcome, however, was sublime.

Fuller’s two-minute clip never lets the plane get out of our sight: At first it appears on course for the Brooklyn Bridge and the East River. Then it veers left and begins a slow, graceful descent. Somehow the trip manages to be nerve-racking and soothing at the same time.

The One Where He Admits He Loathes Dick Cheney

IRAQ -- CHENEY SAYS IRAQ WAR WAS 'WORTH' THE 4,500 AMERICAN LIVES LOST: In an interview yesterday on PBS's News Hour, host Jim Lehrer asked Vice President Cheney about the American soldiers who have lost their lives in the war in Iraq. Lehrer asked, "Mr. Vice President, getting from there to here, 4,500 Americans have died, at least 100,000 Iraqis have died. Has it been worth that?" "I think so," Cheney responded with little remorse. Cheney's comments mirror those of other conservatives, such as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), who said that the lives lost in Iraq have been a "small price" to pay, and right-wing commentator Frank Gaffney, who declared that all these troops "did have to die" in Iraq. Despite Cheney's claims, the Bush administration chose to go to war with Iraq. It made everyone believe that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction at that time and an active relationship with al Qaeda. The Iraq war has decimated the readiness of the U.S. military, radicalized insurgents in the Middle East, and strengthened many of America's enemies. As David Sanger of the New York Times notes, the war also "occupied so much of the attention and the resources of the top levels of the U.S. government that we ignored much bigger threats, short-term and long-term."

John Adams famously described the American government as one of "laws, not of men." In eight years, the Bush Administration has reacted to the attacks of September 11, 2001, by turning that dictum on its head in their zeal to ensure that another attack does not occur on their watch. In particular, the President's confidence that he is a "good man," has led him to embrace the advice of Cheney, and his consigliere, his chief of staff David Addington, when they circumvented the Geneva Conventions to make torture the covert law of the land and whose first article of faith is that there are no limitations on presidential power in a "time of war."

Quoted article via: thinkprogress.org

Empire or Humanity?

"Has America not reached a point in history where we are ready to embrace a new way of living in this world... expanding not our military power into the World, but our humanity?"

Mr. President

"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer."

--Address in Chicago Accepting Election as the 44th President of the United States, November 4, 2008

Symptoms of Inner Peace

Some signs and symptoms of inner peace:

• A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than on fears based on past experiences.
  
• An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.
  
• A loss of interest in judging other people.
  
• A loss of interest in judging self.
  
• A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others.
  
• A loss of interest in conflict.
  
• A loss of the ability to worry. (This is a very serious symptom.)
  
• Frequent, overwhelming episodes of appreciation.
  
• Contented feelings of connectedness with others and nature.
  
• Frequent attacks of smiling.
  
• An increasing tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen.
  
• An increased susceptibility to the love extended by others as well as the uncontrollable urge to extend it.

© 1984 Saskia Davis

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