Category Archives: violence

More on the Bush Library

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Common Dreams has this up on the Bush Library dedication today:  http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/04/25-5

I think I’m going to be sick….

From a letter quoted in the article:

Last month, on the tenth anniversay of the start of Bush’s invasion of Iraq, wounded Iraq war veteran Thomas Young, who remains in hospice waiting to die, wrote an open letter to Bush and his vice president Dick Cheney which included:

“I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.”

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Ending his letter, Young wrote to Bush:

“My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.”

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Domestic violence mirrors war

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I swear that I did not see this before making my previous comment on the connection between domestic violence and war.  Wow, what a timely article.

From the article:

Some 3,073 people were killed in the terrorist attacks on the United States on 9/11. Between that day and June 6, 2012, 6,488 US soldiers were killed in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the death toll for America’s war on terror at home and abroad to 9,561. During the same period, 11,766 women were murdered in the United States by their husbands or boyfriends, both military and civilian. The greater number of women killed here at home is a measure of the scope and the furious intensity of the war against women, a war that threatens to continue long after the misconceived war on terror is history.

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On the photos taken of the violence at home:

The photos are remarkable because the photographer is very good and the subject of her attention is so rarely caught on camera. Unlike warfare covered in Iraq and Afghanistan by embedded combat photographers, wife torture takes place mostly behind closed doors, unannounced and unrecorded.

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An excellent point–because in Communications, the Vietnam War is known as the media war —a war that was lost because of the diligence of the press–they brought the war home every night on the nightly news.  People could see with their own eyes what was happening–politicians in Washington could not whitewash it.  The violence we were doing to others could not be denied.  The thought of a photographer taking photos while someone commits domestic violence makes my stomach turn…and at the same time, I’m thinking “is this what it takes to make it *real*….???”  Do the people have to see photos of women beaten to a pulp on the nightly news, every night to grasp how horrible this is?

Here’s another report on domestic violence in Africa following war.  Does the war cause domestic violence or is it a cycle repeating itself?

 

 

The bombing

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Bear with me, I’m still trying to move stuff, so I’m trying to keep up with the news of the Boston bombing, and may have missed something…

What strikes me about the story is that everyone around these two brothers describe them as “normal”.  That is, they didn’t talk of guns and violence, and no indication of their wanting to harm the public by setting off bombs.  Of course, you would expect that from the parents, but others are saying it, as well.  And the uncle?  He was livid at what they had done and demanded they turn themselves in (before they were caught).

The one detail that is pretty much downplayed here is that Tamerlan had a police record for hitting his girlfriend.  Domestic violence will not be given the importance that it deserves, as far as character and indicator of disregard for boundaries.  This, I believe, is a bigger reason for what happened…somehow Tamerlan got the idea that hurting someone weaker than you is okay–perhaps he saw it in the home.  I would go out on a limb here and say that if the reporters would dig, they would find a link to domestic violence in situations such as this.  I think religion is just an excuse for justifying the behavior.  Islam also has the “do unto others as you would have done unto you…” in the q’uran, so this goes against their religion.

Something else that bothers me is the recent statement by George W. Bush, who announced that he wasn’t sorry for anything that he has done.  Has anyone explored that as incitement to the Boston bombing?

And does anyone else see the irony of the definition of sociopath being applicable to both boys and Bush?

 

More on Thatcher

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After reading this, I wanted to come back and comment on the fact that she had dementia.  Reagan did, too.

Does anyone else wonder at this?  What about heavy metal poisoning for the cause?  Could the meanness of the world be caused by toxicity?  We know it’s a known fact of mercury poisoning that anger and rage come with it.  The Mayo Clinic’s site on dementia–note that heavy metal poisoning is way down on the list.  It mentions low thyroid, which is good, but depressingly doesn’t mention diet. 

More here from someone who recovered from dementia after adopting a gluten-free diet.

Finally, here’s a report on the connection between criminal behavior and high levels of heavy metals. So much grief caused by toxins…and yet, it’s ignored by the medical profession, the corrections system, the public, etc….

Bush isn’t sorry

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common dreams has this up on an unapologetic George W. Bush .  The cartoon says it in ways that words could never come close.

From Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary:

so·cio·path Listen to audio/ˈsoʊsijəˌpæθ/ noun

plural so·cio·paths

[count] : someone who behaves in a dangerous or violent way towards other people and does not feel guilty about such behavior
— so·cio·path·ic Listen to audio /ˌsoʊsijəˈpæθɪk/ adjective
▪ a sociopathic personality ▪ sociopathic behavior ▪ He is sociopathic.
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Oil company profits and/or new business from the Iraq War.  This was one of my arguments for my friend who was in the military–that the war was being fought for oil.  She was adamant that we would not be lied to about weapons of mass destruction.
From the article:
At the same time, representatives from ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Halliburton, among others, met with Cheney’s staff in January 2003 to discuss plans for Iraq’s postwar industry. For the next decade, former and current executives of western oil companies acted first as administrators of Iraq’s oil ministry and then as “advisers” to the Iraqi government.

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Note further down the word privatization.  Sound familiar??

I tried to search for Afghanistan profiteering, but coming up empty.  I’ll wager that it’s the same, since there is an oil pipeline there.

I found this on the companies that profit the most from war.

Feeding the dark side.

 

 

Dealing

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I’m trying to get away from Boston for my own health, but I can’t stay away.  I went home yesterday and could not stop crying.   With my Mom’s passing and all, I really think I am on the brink of PTSD.   I wonder how everyone else is doing?  Have we all reached that point?

All I can say is bravo! to those who went in after the blast when everyone else was running away.  I bow to you.

And to Bill, the 78-year-old whom the video showed collapsing after the blast….who got back up and finished the race….bravo! to you, as well.  And extra Bravo! for even running a freaking marathon while 78-years-old!!  Our aussie friends said it best, when they reportedly said, “Bastards can’t keep Bill down!” A report here from down under.

 

 

The latest on Boston

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A report here from the Boston Globe.  I heard a report of a 5-year-old child sitting with eyes opened, dazed, with his parent lying next to him with a limb blown off.  Good God.

After I left here yesterday, I went to our community room and watched the news coverage of it.  CBS had cameras already there because of the race, so they had footage of the bombs going off.  Mayhem.

It’s just hard to wrap one’s brain around this.  I woke up crying about my Mom this morning. And yesterday.  There’s been another death in the family–an uncle–and I don’t know if it’s just me or if anyone else is just feeling overwhelmed with Newtown and now this. I’m borderline post traumatic, I think.  Too much.