Category Archives: violence

Silkwood

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My apologies, I meant to blog on this last week, at the anniversary of Karen Silkwood’s death, November 13th, 1976~

So now it’s been thirty-six years since her mysterious death after she had raised too many questions about the safety of the plutonium processing plant that employed her.  The TV movie “Silkwood” raised a stir when it was aired.  I remember watching it.  For some reason, my memory had Cher as the lead role…apologies to Meryl Streep.

The only complaint I have about the movie is the emphasis on Karen’s personal life…perhaps they didn’t want to leave stuff out to make an accurate portrayal, but it seems that whenever a woman makes noise about something, her morals are always questioned and if she is not a freaking saint, then she is not to be believed.

And I wonder if anything has changed…whether plutonium is still going missing–and where it’s going to…

Passages and Peace

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The dear lady that passed on in our building left behind some wonderful gifts–we were apparently like-minded, but she had barriers up and wouldn’t let people in.  I knew that she had been hurt to put up those boundaries, so I gave her that space to feel protected.  It’s a loss, however, as I have learned she had a B.S. degree and loved to read the same kinds of books I love to read.

One of those books, The Birth House by Ami McKay, had me reading it all weekend.  It’s rare that I read a book through, but since I have an interest in midwifery, I had to find out “what happened next” in the book.  As one of the commenters on the Powell’s website said, I would have liked a little more complexity to the main characters.  There’s something that’s nagging at me but I can’t bring it up to the front of my brain right now–

In the book, the main character, Dora Rare, eventually marries a man who is a conscientious objector.  Archer is the son of a wealthy widow and his objecting to the war brings scorn from a group of the women, who give him a white feather to show the world he’s a *coward*.  (the book goes on to portray him as a drunk who forces himself upon Dora–another issue with the book is that there are no men who are main characters who are good guys–this bothers me greatly.)

I had forgotten about the  custom of pinning white feathers on men during the wars…

…and then I thought of how the white feather was used.  I think that would be a powerful statement–putting a white feather on one’s clothing to show the world that you were objecting to war.  More powerful, perhaps, than the peace sign?

And as is stated in the book, the wearing of the feather brings about such controversy.  Why?

Why is it so difficult to live in peace?  From my parents’ generation (WWII) to my generation (Vietnam) to my children’s generation (Iraq, Afghanistan)…none of us have known a time without war.  Living in such times makes it so much harder to even grasp what a world would be without war…to actually know peace…

Why should one feel guilty or a coward for wanting peace?

I used to think that way before my own metamorphosis, but came to  see how badly the conscientious objectors were treated–how the youth of the Vietnam era went to Canada and were told by their parents that they would turn them over to authorities if they tried to come back home.  It took courage to leave anyway.  Or how they were beaten, hosed down with water, arrested, etc.  I now see standing up against war as an act of courage.

Even now, it takes courage to speak out against war.  You’re viewed as unpatriotic.

And with every holiday being tied to the military, it gets harder and harder for those advocating peace to speak out.

And one never hears about the Quakers, the Church of the Brethren, or the Amish–the religions who do not believe in war….it’s only the religions who somehow have managed to link Good Christians with the military that are promoted.

And the question that they cannot answer is:  Who would Jesus bomb?

Whitley County tea party billboard

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<sigh> from people who claim environmentalists are scary, scary people….

….the Whitley County *cough* Patriots put up billboards that implicitly compare Barack Obama as a terrorist who needs to be “taken out”.

Link here:  http://www.wsbt.com/news/wsbt-tea-partiers-forced-to-move-controversial-antiobama-billboard-20121016,0,4031528.story

All that’s missing is the bulls-eye that Sarah Palin had painted on Gabby Giffords’ head…

 

Weekend

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I checked out videos of Hotel Rwanda and Schindler’s List from the library for the weekend.

Yeah, it’s not something I would recommend…pretty depressing.

I go round and round about what pushes people to treat another human being as “cockroaches” (Rwanda) or “vermin” (Nazi Germany).

I used to think of it like psychiatry has promoted–these folks were abused as children, therefore, they acted out their anger.  But then I realized that there are many people who are abused who do not go on to hurt others–they go on to be good parents, wives/husbands, citizens, etc.

So, then I go back to the start and ask again why some folks grow up to be bullies and others don’t?

I mean, in Schindler’s List, Goeth, a high raking officer, was clearly mentally ill by being torn between loving his Jewish maid, whom he said he wanted to grow old with, but beating her because she was a Jewish “bitch”.  He randomly would shoot people for no reason at all.  He had a Jewish woman engineer shot because she was telling him that the concrete foundation they had poured for a building was not level and it needed to be re-poured.  After she was shot, he  told them to tear up the foundation and redo it like she said.  Just craziness.

But none of what happened in Rwanda and Nazi Germany could have been possible without people going along with it.  People who fed their hatred and jealousy and fear.  People who loved having power over others.

I’m reminded of the Native American story of the Grandfather and the grandson.  The grandson had told his grandfather that he had two wolves inside him:  one was dark that was mean, hateful, selfish, greedy; and the other was Light that was kind, loving, compassionate, and generous.  He asked his grandfather which wolf would win, and the grandfather replied, “Whichever one you feed.”