You don’t me to tell you, or even suggest to you, what to think. But the point of this posting which I hope will bother you, bothers me first. So please indulge yammering bloggerman in a conversation with myself, and if you want to tag along for the read, you are most welcome here.
I wonder why I’ve lost my outrage over the criminally perpetrated war in Iraq, and why tortures that we executed equally criminal Germans and Japanese for committing are now tolerated by the people and by the leaders of the United States of America. I wonder why I have gon soft in the belly. The protestors pictured above and below, whom I photographed with their permission, have not gone so soft in the belly and other areas associated with fortitude. I envy them and appreciate them. For all of 14 minutes Saturday I joined them. There were things demanding my attention elsewhere: an appointment with a 90 year-old World War II veteran who had flown 50 missions over North Africa and Sicily in 1943; other aviation history book research, a poetry event, a classical guitar concert. My 14 minutes holding the sign that said something like STOP ILLEGAL TORTURE which I pulled from a collection of about 50 signs (already made in case 50 Honey and Quinine readers decide to attend the next Saturday noon vigiil) was like a precocious nine-year old boy bending a bare arm and showing his big bicep to a fawning uncle and showing what a big boy he is. I know it takes more than a bulging bicep to make a man. It takes more than a contrived war to bring justice to wayfaring Middle Eastern nation. The notion that “might makes right” is as “yesterday” as “Deutschland Uber Alles” and for this deadly contrivance to cost our nation one more life of a legal citizen of the USA is a blight upon my humanity. How dare I to call myself one of the stoic species who, like nameless gazelles in the herd graze near the lions who just eviscerated their brothers and sisters and now consume them?
How dare I NOT protest the wanton betrayal of the founders of our nation as so many of our leering leaders rant and reel in blood lust while blowing kisses to a holy ghost?
My humanity lies in my capacity not only to understand justice but to work for it as I can. In a curiously-titled song All You Need is Love, John Lennon wrote “Nothing you can do that can’t be done” and I believe him. By doing, by working for the return of law to the white house and those who genuflect in that direction, I show that it can be done. I will have my say in harmony with brothers and sisters who feel the same. Whither goest conscience? It goes as far as my heart and soul.
It must go further than that. It must touch the world.
Live long . . . . . . and proper.
