To Mike Golby

Posted on May 4, 2004 in Courage & Activism Liberals & Progressives Occupation of Iraq Social Justice

It’s politics Tuesday!

Mike Golby wraps up his own jeremiad against the sins of the United States like so:

It is quite apparent, reading the blogs of those with the power to speak out, that most bloggers agree with his chosen course of action. This being the case, those who remain silent should be coerced into justifying their support for continued violations of their fellow human beings’ most fundamental human rights and the desecration of everything for which the United States purports to stand. To do anything less is to echo and lend value to the mealy-mouthed verbiage emanating from the U.S. administration’s spineless apologists.

I need to speak to this from the place of gentle horror, where we have paved over the sufferings of the Iraqi people like we have paved over and channeled the streams gushing from the canyon mouths. For my antiwar views on this blog, I have suffered, not only from the Right but from members of the Left who one year and one month ago, were telling me that there was nothing to do but go along. A year ago, I spoke to the war. A year ago, I protested loudly against it. I questioned and I questioned the weapons of mass destruction. One year later, everything that I thought would prove true has: we breezed into Bagdhad, then entered a long period of occupation where our soldiers were picked off one by one. One year and one month later, we have not found a single weapon of mass destruction. We’ve caught Hussein and it doesn’t matter. We haven’t found any links between Hussein and Al Quaeda. The economy totters and we need more money to keep this “operation” going. This butchery that we class as a surgery.

One year later, this critic of the Bush Administration is tired. He’s tired not only of Bush, but of the Democrats who have gone along and gone along with the war in Iraq. He’s tired that the majority of the population of this nation doesn’t see beyond the Walmart greeters and the pretty products lined up on the shelves. He’s tired of all the people who have closed their doors on him, whose votes and decisions perpetuate the evil he sees.

The war isn’t the only issue we have to face here, Mike. Last week, I spoke up about my feelings about the whole abortion controversy, how I felt that both the Pro-Life and Pro-Choice camps failed to help the Woman. I think that some people took this as a betrayal of the Left. If I can’t speak out in favor of taking steps to decrease the number of abortions being performed in this country, then I don’t want to be a member of the Left. It’s not the only issue. Sticking my neck out on that one will undoubtably cost me friends among those who cannot fathom that there’s a Middle Ground here. I think it already has.

Then there is the issue of what is happening to our media in this country. I have commented on this again and again on this blog. It is as if I do not exist as a person or as an idea. The kooks have attained center stage and anyone who gainsays them becomes a kook. It does not feel good when people nod their heads and smile and say “There goes Joel on one of his rants again. They can’t be based on anything meaningful. Otherwise we would have heard about it on television.”

Many of my fellow activists treat peace as a chance to party. They paint their faces, strip down their bodies, carry signs and then . . . .

Then we come to the politicians. I am told that it must be anyone but George W. Bush. Patrick Buchanan? John Kerry still has not advanced a plan to get us out of Iraq and I wonder, if he is elected, will he? American politics wants to replay Vietnam, how it might have been if only we’d been cruel. We make no checks on our armed forces. We build invisible prisons.

And when I look beyond the war, beyond the stupid sniping between the sides of the abortion controversy, I see more of the same. I see Thomas Friedman in The New York Times being touted as the Liberal View on Iraq and Israel. Which seems to amount to “there’s nothing to be done and pulling out would only make things worse. We should have done it right in the first place.” But no one says “The Right Thing to have done is not to have gone in in the first place, not to have supported Hussein long ago. Not to have lied about the weapons. Not to have styled ourselves as liberators of people.”

This White House aims its axes at the forest primeval. This White House joins in jeers against women. This White House has auctioned off our children to the bond market. This White House will after it seizes the 2004 election raise our taxes. This White House wants to stay in power at all costs and people let it because they don’t want their lawns trampled, their trees uprooted by a civil war.

I can’t say that I blame them. I’ve seen first hand what war does in neighborhoods. When I mention this, people tell me that sometimes it will all be different, that this war will be clean. The news of torture comes as no surprise to me. What can I do?

Among the other issues that I see and fight against:

• Racism, especially against Latinos whose crime is wanting a better living than they had in Central America.
• Materialism
• Stigma against those who admit to being worn down by the system, the mentally ill such as myself.
• The unintended consequences of post-modernism and cultural relativism, where the Right justifies its atrocities by appealing to there being “no Truth out there” or “the nature of our culture”.
• Ignorance about Christianity, not only by outsiders, but by Christians themselves.
• Calls to tolerance and unity that only serve partisan interests.
• The constant sniping sniping sniping over abortion that only divides us, that elects madmen like John Ashcroft.
• This stupid idea that having money makes you more virtuous.
• Creationism and its attendant anti-Science conceits.

I’m blanking out at this point, Mike. There’s a longer list. And there’s a blue-black knot in my belly forming as I write this because I know that what I have said here will piss off other people. I’m tired of being the doll that others use to stick pins in when they cannot take the criticism I offer. I am tired of the thickheadedness of those who sell out for a song, for the mere opportunity to “beat Bush” — as if a cheating tyrant could be defeated in an unmonitored election.

I fear that the country is heading for civil war, that I will be lined up against the wall in time and shot for no other crime than being Joel Sax. To tell you the truth, I am not sure which side will do the deed. If not that, then I anticipate being institutionalized. I take Effexor for my depression. That makes me incompetent in the eyes of some, a drone controlled by the power elite by others. I know that I have a competent mind, that I think for myself. But once you admit to suffering from any kind of mental illness, others spend their lives striving to discredit everything you say the moment you stop toeing their party line.

You can count on me to hold these views, which are mostly unaltered from what I believed a year ago, from what I believed ten years ago. The only change from ten years ago is my view on abortion: I hate the term “Pro-Choice” because I reject as vile abortion for rejecting a child because of its sex, for example, but I do not think we can regulate this without doing substantial and unnecessary harm to the doctor/patient relationship. Nevertheless, I think it should be a government aim to decrease the number of abortions being performed by treating it as a symptom of a far more serious social problem, namely the disempowerment of women who choose to have families. Here is my list:

• I utterly oppose all wars. I think the power to wage war should be selectively granted by the Congress and that it should be unconstitutional to grant any president carte blanche to wage it. No war may be waged without a 2/3rds approval of the Congress.
• I call for bilingual education in the Southwest. All students should speak both Spanish and English fluently upon graduation from high school.
• I call for separation of Church and State.
• I oppose the teaching of Creationism and “intelligent design” in schools.
• I oppose the death penalty.
• I call for the decriminalization of street drugs and the treatment of addiction as a public health problem. We will be far more effective in curbing damage wrought by ill-manufactured street drugs if we can sue the pushers who circulate them.
• I call for same sex marriage because I believe in the right of everyone to choose a relative for themselves who will hold the power of life and death over them.
• On abortion: make no law that is inconsistent with Roe vs. Wade. Like drugs, I would rather have this performed in legal clinics than in back rooms. But do not speak of abortion as a necessity. Empower single mothers is how I see it.
• On gun control: use common sense. Guns in the city are a stupid idea. When someone lives out in the country and it takes thirty minutes to an hour for law enforcement to arrive, it’s a different matter. Ban handguns.
• National service: everyone should have to spend two to five years of his life working for the good of the country as a soldier, as a trail clearer, as an orderly in a hospital, etc.
• Education: reinforce our public schools.
• Taxes: shift the burden to those who suck the most out of the economy and give the least back. Dick Cheney, I mean you and your pals.
• The Border: Strive for world government for crying out loud.
• Accountability: the actions of US forces in Iraq should be investigated and tried by civilians. The military serves us. It cannot, therefore, object to our holding it accountable.
• Electronic voting machines: Always have a paper backup.
• Freedom of speech: sacred.
• The media: Time to break up the corporate monopolies.
• Stop polluting the earth. Honor the Kyoto Accords.

I have forgotten many issues dear to me. But the number of issues facing me — just me — as one American citizen should tell you why many of us are numbed and unable to speak. There’s madness all about. The question I have for those who think people like me should speak more is this: what are you doing to ensure that I am not made to suffer beyond all reason for being me? What are you doing to sustain the likes of me?

I have spoken out, Mike. But it’s tiring as hell to do so and then hear that I am not doing enough, that because I am not hammering at this twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, I must be just “another American”.