Friday, December 7, 2007

My rant and rave inspired by Charla... It is a rainy day and an early out which means all my kids are home early. I want to get out of the house but I don't, so here it goes (as the kids are pillow fighting in the living room and screaming with glee as I ignore them.
O.K. so I have already broken the first rule of ettique and have written a bit about religion with "the Golden Compass", now I will break the second one: POLITICS! I should know better...
Our Christmas card this year has the greeting of Peace on Earth and our personalized message is “seek peace and pursue it” Psalm 34:14. It is done in jest. But I really do mean it. Peace is understated. There is so much that could be accomplished if we as a people put our resources into bettering the world not killing each other. There was a news article from the military that Richard read- I'll cite it if you want to read it, but it said something like this when describing the killed Iraqis: Of the 14 dead, 10 are suspected terrorists, 2 women, and 2 children. All the men are suspected terrorists! I think that is way way off.
I can’t stand it when my kids fight. When we were little and fighting, my mom would always say, Bla Bla Bla “Don’t fight and serve the devil!” My sisters and I thought the phrase was funny, but I think that Bush is serving the devil with his fighting and war-mongering!!!
War is expensive, Peace is priceless
I bet world hunger could have been eliminated had the trillions of war dollars for Afghanistan and Iraq been spent on food for those who need it! Also I think that all of the politicians are so corrupt. Power corrupts and ultimate power corrupts ultimately... Dumb presidential candidates. Did you know that Obama quit smoking right before announcing his candidacy? I am so disappointed in all of them- at least the ones getting the media attention. I think that there should be no money involved in running for political office. Only the rich ones run. It is ridiculous the amounts of dollars that are spent on stupid political advertisements. They are all wimps! Bush should have been impeached a year ago. Clinton was impeached over an affair- yes he lied under oath, but Bush has lied so many times that I have lost count! He also encourages spying like the fascists and communists. A good movie to see is "The lives of others" it is in German and it is great!
When I heard and saw the twin towers fall I was so sad, but I don't think that the attack should have been used as en excuse for war. My saying was then and still is: Turn the other cheek. America was attacked, but that is no reason for a war. Forgive and lets try to understand one another better. Not invade and fight war. Senseless war.

6 comments:

Midge said...

Thank You! I fully agree with your sentiment and it's nice to know there are a few people in Utah County that don't worship Bush. I could go off on this subject but since you don't know me so I'll spare you, but Amen! sister friend.

Cammie said...

I know! I can't believe he is still President! I hate what this says about Americans. . .just letting things happen and not taking a stand for what is right and in their own government. If the Republicans are so Christian then tell me how killing people and starting a war under false accusations can go without fault. And we impeach Clinton for an affair. Suvi did a post a few months ago about the war in Iraq and started a good discussion. I'm just so frustrated that NOTHING changes and Bush isn't accountable for anything right now. Jason and I watched a really good documentary a bit ago that you would love--Independent Media in a
Time of War. It is so good and it talks about all the control that the government has on what we see is happening in the news. Amy Goodman (an independent journalist) says that if we could really see what is going on the horrible realities of killing Americans would end the war.

When the war had just started (i think it was about that time) Jason and I went to hear a speech in Salt Lake by Sulak Sivaraksa who is an activist for peace --(Blaine had been working with him in Thiland). He talked about how Bush was a weak person to start war and that turning the other cheek is way. I went to work after that and talked about it with my boss and some of the other guys I worked with (all in there 30-40-ish years) and they acted like I was totally absurd and one of them quoted a scripture about Christ coming to rule with the sword for an example of the war being good. There are so many faults with the misuse of that and lying to start a war is absolutely unethical. Never justifiable. NEVER.

Thanks for your post.

Jason said...

It all has really turned into a mess. I have to say that I did support sending troops to chase down Bin Laden. I think most of the world did. There is some justification for attacking a terrorist organization. It immediately struck me as odd that we were bombing the people of Afghanistan who we said needed to be liberated from a radical fundamentalist government. Looking back on it, it is more absurd considering that the US has refused to hand over people who are known to have committed acts of terrorism in other countries which seems to have been the whole justification for bombing all of Afghanistan instead of just the terrorist training camps. I don't know where this idea came from that it is OK to bomb innocent civilians. That just seems evil to me.

It would be easy for me to get really upset at the older generations who have allowed our international policy to degenerate to imperialism. I don't know how it all happened, but it seems to have begun after WWII. It seems that a lot of evil has been done by our CIA and military as a result of a fear of Russia, and it has just grown from protecting ourselves to exercising control and power over the rest of the world. It seems that a lot of our generation feels that we can't do a lot to change the way our government works now because we are so deep in it and it just seems to be the way things have to go. It is all so frustrating.

Michelle said...

Well said Bridget and well said Cammie! I agree on all parts.

charles said...

We LOVED The Lives of Others. I'm telling you, we like Dennis Kucinich.....

suvi said...

Interesting fact-- with money from three months of fighting the war in Iraq, we could eliminate extreme poverty. The source is Jeff Sachs, a leading economist a tthe Eath Institute at Columbia and author of the End of Poverty. Sick. Imagine how much good we could do with no war at all. I love you for posting about peace Bridget.

Oh! and I love your Christmas cards-- here is my address: 214 Prospect Pl 4E, Brooklyn NY 11238-- come visit any time!