- As my web browser pulled up CNN.com this evening, the
feature story was entitled "America remembers." This article
contains reminiscences of last conversations friends and family had with
loved ones who perished in the September 11, 2001 attacks. CNN did an excellent
job bringing the losses of these families to their audience. For example,
one final telephone call between a daughter and father went as follows:
"I just wanted to let you know I love you and I'm stuck in this building
in New York." The father could hear in her voice that she "knew
she was going to die." News agencies around the United States have
printed a plethora of these first hand accounts; Americans and people everywhere
truly can sympathize with those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001.
-
- But why aren't CNN and other claimed "international"
news agencies publishing feature stories with titles such as "Afghanistan
remembers"? They claim to be covering the news and opinion of the
entire world, but it is quite clear that they are more interested in covering
news with a bias that puts American lives above everyone else.
-
- I do not believe there is any difference between an Afghan
life and an American life; people deserve to live peacefully regardless
of their citizenship or ethnicity. So, I will do the work for the American
news agencies who have shown they are concerned only with the lives of
those inside the United States.
-
- "Afghanistan remembers"
-
- KABUL - What if you had only one last chance to contact
your loved ones before you died? In those final seconds, would you be able
to find the right last words? These are the questions that were posed to
at least 4,000 civilians in Afghanistan who have perished under the guns
of the Bush administration, with the full sanction of a majority of the
American people. (1)
-
- Their deaths occurred at various times, neither daytime
nor nighttime were an escape from relentless bombing by the U.S. military.
-
- On October 31, while Americans were busy handing out
candy and chocolate to Halloween trick-or-treaters, Afghanis in the Red
Crescent hospital of Kandahar were trying to avoid U.S. bombs. A doctor
from the hospital explained to journalists later that 15 civilians were
killed in the attacks. (2)
-
- Justin Huggler, a journalist with Britian's The Independent,
wrote that he had confirmed the deaths of 100 unarmed civilians in Khanabad,
killed by American bombings. (3)
-
- At 3 a.m. on December 1 the U.S. military destroyed the
entire town of Kama Ado. At least 156 of the town's 300 residents met their
untimely fates that morning. One resident managed to survive the attacks
because he had stepped out of his home to take a walk before the attacks
took place. He now lives with the pain of knowing that twelve of his family
members were bombed to death by ten-foot long, 1,000 pound JDAM MK-83 bombs
dropped from U.S. military B-52 bombers. (4)
-
- British journalist Richard Lloyd Parry visited Kama Ado
after the U.S. attacks and stated that the town had "ceased to exist."
Parry reported that many "of the homes here are just deep conical
craters in the earth. The rest are cracked open, split like crushed cardboard
boxes." (5)
-
- In early January 2002, Britain's The Times commented
on U.N. spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker's concerns over recent reports that
"non- combatant women and children were chased and killed by U.S.
helicopters during an attack on an Afghan village that left 52 dead."
(6)
-
- According to the reports, residents of the town of Niazi
Qala fled for their lives, only to be gunned down by the U.S. military.
Bunker said that after the women and children were killed in the village,
a second group of civilians fled the attack and were gunned down by U.S.
helicopters. All fifteen fleeing villagers were killed in addition to the
ten women and twenty-five children they were trying to help. (7)
-
- What was on the minds of these women and children as
they were fleeing the metallic birds overhead? As they lay dying, soaked
in blood, were they reminiscing over the joys they experienced in life?
Or, while coughing up their lungs, were they fearing death?
-
- The surviving family members of these residents now mourn
their losses. They ask the international world what their family members
did wrong to be attacked in such a manner. Whether the attacks were intentional
or accidental makes no difference to these survivors; explanations by the
Pentagon won't bring their children and loved ones back from the dead.
These surviving families do not understand why an attack against civilians
in the United States by a group of killers should mean that their children
and innocent family members have to die too.
-
- [Ash Pulcifer, a lifelong activist for international
human rights, lives in the United States. Ash finds it unacceptable that
the world often turns its back to those less fortunate members of our species
who are forced to endure poverty and civil strife.]
-
- Ash Pulcifer encourages your comments: apulcifer@YellowTimes.org
-
- Sources:
-
- (1) Christopher Reilly, "Over 3,767 civilians killed
by U.S. in Afghanistan; Pentagon misleads," YellowTimes.org, January
02, 2002, http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=67. (2) Ibid. (3)
Christopher Reilly, "More chilling reports of civilian deaths in Afghanistan,"
YellowTimes.org, December 05, 2001, http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=33.
(4) Christopher Reilly, "Over 3,767 civilians killed by U.S. in Afghanistan;
Pentagon misleads." (5) Ibid. (6) Christopher Reilly, "U.S. helicopters
gunned down fleeing Afghan women and children," YellowTimes.org, January
05, 2002, http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=72. (7) Ibid.
-
- YellowTimes.org is an international publication. YellowTimes.org
encourages its material to be reproduced, reprinted, or broadcast provided
that any such reproduction must identify the original source, http://www.YellowTimes.org.
Internet web links to http://www.YellowTimes.org are appreciated.
-
- http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=670
-
- ***********************************
-
- ''Women have ruined the world'' Printed on Wednesday,
September 11, 2002 @ 00:41:12 EDT http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=669
-
- By Paul Harris YellowTimes.org Columnist (Canada)
-
- (YellowTimes.org) - I write the way I speak, the way
I think. So there's always a touch of humor about it since I believe there
is some level of humor in almost everything. But this article is no joke.
I am about to declare the rule of men obsolete and beg the women of the
world to take over. Right now, I blame women for the mess the world is
in: not for what they have done, but for what they haven't done. I'll get
to that later, but first a little background.
-
- It would never enter my mind to discriminate on the basis
of race, or color, or religion, or national origin, or most of the usual
areas of discrimination. But I am choosy on the basis of sex. Let me explain.
-
- Most of my friends throughout my whole life, even back
to my childhood, have been girls or women. There is nothing sexual about
that, or even unusual. I'm just naturally attracted to the best people
and the names of all the men who could ever make the list of "best
people" could be inscribed easily on the head of a pin. These days,
when speaking to women, or even in mixed groups, I often gloss over errors
or dumb things I have said or done with: "I'm a man. What are the
odds that I'm not a complete idiot?" It's never said to be cute, or
controversial - it's said to be honest; it is what I really think.
-
- It has been my experience over a half century, most of
that alive, that women tend to be much better people than men: more honest,
more loyal, more caring, more thoughtful, more trustworthy, and much less
dangerous. But women are to blame for the state of the world because they
have utterly failed to take charge of it. Picture this: a mother standing
at a street corner with a three-year-old and the child darts out into traffic.
Is the child to blame for this, or the mother? The world as a whole is
an analogous situation. Women have spent centuries standing on the corner
watching children (men) darting out into traffic. They know that we don't
know what we're doing, but they've let us do it anyway.
-
- I don't know if women simply think this is just one more
load for them to carry or if they have not realized their power and their
value. They have certainly been subjugated for millennia but it is fair
to say that if you don't like your situation, you work to change it. And
so, women have worked for cosmetic improvements but they have not tried
to grasp the reins of power and I think they should, indeed they must.
Women are definitely the smarter sex, on average, and are fully capable
of taking charge of this world and making it into a place where the only
disasters we need to worry about are the natural ones, not the ones that
men persist in providing us with such regularity. The fact that women have
not taken the reins of power is shameful and they bear the blame for this
themselves. The state of this planet derives from the failure of women
to rise up and take over. They all know they're smart enough, resourceful
enough, and fully capable of directing the evolution of society and yet
they have timidly or complacently sat to the side and watched men botch
it, over and over and over.
-
- Now, it might sound like a heavy burden that I want to
lay on women and it might seem unfair that I expect women should have to
clean up the messes of my sex. But consider the alternative - more of the
same.
-
- Let me repeat what I said in the first paragraph; this
is not a joke, it is not tongue-in-cheek. I am being as serious as I know
how to be.
-
- I am proposing a "new world order" - not that
crap that George Bush the Elder was always talking about or even the biblical
stuff that believers are always trying to force on others. I mean something
real, something substantive, something designed to fix the mess we're in.
I am proposing a political movement whose sole purpose is to convince all
the nations of the world to change their laws so that only women can hold
political office.
-
- I know most of what I am writing here is based on generalities
but since my early twenties it has been my belief that women should be
far more active in the political arena. I have observed over the years
that men and women seek office for different reasons. Women usually stand
for public office because they believe they can make some positive difference
in the world around them or can help society in some way, even if only
on a minor local scale. This seems to be true even for those women who
may be misguided or, occasionally, downright stupid. And men almost always
seek office for one reason: power, pure power, and the groin-charging thrill
that arises from exercising it. I can't help believing that a positive
desire to improve society is a much better starting point than a need to
get and exercise power for its own sake.
-
- I suppose I could simply advocate that more women should
be in politics but we already have women in politics. What is really needed
is only women in politics! When forced to serve alongside men in public
office, women are routinely marginalized. In those countries where women
form the bulk of elected representatives such as Norway, for instance,
government is better for all, people are happier and more pleased with
the society around them. And when's the last time you heard of Norway starting
a war anywhere? Trying to simply increase the number of women in politics
will not help us turn the corner fast enough before men manage to incinerate
the planet.
-
- Throughout our long history, men have been at the helm
almost exclusively and there is no question there have been good men in
politics. But consider this - just how good have men been, as a whole,
in running the planet? Have they managed to eliminate hunger? Have they
managed to stop us from killing each other? Have they helped us to rise
up at least to the level of the rest of the animal kingdom (remember, animals
may be vicious but they are not malicious)? Have they learned to get along
with one another? Have they learned to provide charitable help where needed?
Or does the world still largely operate on the principle of "bugger
your neighbor"?
-
- Can any of you honestly look around you and say that
this is the best of all possible worlds? If you cannot, why not? If the
world was a sports team you'd have no trouble knowing what to do - you
would fire the coach. Maybe it's about time the world did the same thing.
Maybe it's time the world hung out a sign saying: "Under New Management."
Women could not possibly do worse than what we've got. Frankly, I think
we could have our governments run by lawn furniture and be no further behind
than we are (the folding metal kind, not the plastic stuff).
-
- I don't believe if women ruled the world that there would
be starving children. I don't believe if women ruled the world that they
would readily send their sons and daughters off to kill or be killed over
some piece of dirt or some ego-driven trifle. I don't believe we would
have genocide occurring all over the world from time to time. I don't believe
women would allow the world to be shattered by the nonsensical behaviors
that make up most of the world's religions (by this, I mean the foolish
rituals, not the actual faith). I don't believe women would allow nameless
and faceless corporate bastards to rape and pillage the world's wealth.
I don't believe that most of the troubles that afflict the world would
exist if women ruled.
-
- I can't think of any examples where women have been the
cause of the sort of monumental strife that we see in the world almost
every day. To be sure, there are natural disasters over which none of us
has any control. But most of the tragic events of our history, those that
have resulted in untold misery, have been the acts of men. Not mankind,
but men. Maybe it's time that we took a fresh approach to all of this and
realized that we have the wrong people driving this car.
-
- For those of you who will tell me this would be against
the natural order of things, I say bollocks. For those who would say it
is against God's law, then I say God needs to give his/her/its head a shake,
to wake up and smell the coffee. How did societies ever get away from matriarchy?
Clearly that is the way we started out as a species and it allowed us to
survive some pretty hostile times. How did we ever let men take charge
of the day-to-day operations of the planet and of our religious and spiritual
life? All we have achieved is a pretty poorly run place and the institutionalization
of male-dominated power over spirituality and, in particular, over women.
-
- I don't believe most men are smart enough to agree with
my proposal of a "women-only" government. And I'm not sure that
many women can expand their minds enough to say out loud that they know
I'm right. But they do know it. That's why we need an international movement
of women, and those men who don't think with their crotches, to set this
plan in motion, to lobby for it. We need the kind of mass education and
social upheaval that will shake the world to its very foundations and throw
off the old mantle of ego and violence that has been our history.
-
- That doesn't mean that men are useless and should be
thrown on the scrap heap. But it has been clearly demonstrated over several
thousand years of history that it was a huge mistake to let us be in charge
of anything. Let's try to find something that men are good at and have
us do that. It is far too dangerous to let men continue being in charge.
We could take a lesson from honeybees - let the queens run things, let
the males take care of the production tasks.
-
- Think this is an idiotic notion? Then think on this:
If men don't run things, there is no Hitler. There is no Mussolini. There
is no Napoleon. There is no Hirohito. There is no Attila. There is no Genghis
Khan. There is no Inquisition. There are no Crusades. There is no Robert
Mugabe. There is no Ariel Sharon. There is no Arafat. There is no Stalin.
There is no George Bush.
-
- And wouldn't that be a safer and happier world.
-
- [Paul Harris is self-employed as a consultant providing
Canadian businesses with the tools and expertise to successfully reintegrate
their sick or injured employees into the workplace. He has traveled extensively
in what we arrogant North Americans refer to as "the Third World,"
and he believes that life is very much like a sewer: what you get out of
it depends on what you put into it. Paul lives in Canada.]
-
- Paul Harris encourages your comments: pharris@YellowTimes.org
-
- YellowTimes.org is an international publication. YellowTimes.org
encourages its material to be reproduced, reprinted, or broadcast provided
that any such reproduction must identify the original source, http://www.YellowTimes.org.
Internet web links to http://www.YellowTimes.org are appreciated.
-
- http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=669
-
- ***********************************
-
- ''The Government vs. The People'' Printed on Tuesday,
September 10, 2002 @ 13:12:25 EDT http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=668
-
- By Matthew Riemer YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States)
-
- (YellowTimes.org) - Here in the United States there exists
a democracy. We elect our leaders through popular elections on both the
state and national levels. These literal "representatives," whether
they are actual representatives, senators, governors, or presidents, are
then obliged to "represent" us. Their job is to represent our
interests, needs, and well being, as well as those of the country. We are
able to correspond with them so as to vocalize our concerns and ideas and
to establish a dialogue. If ever we were to become dissatisfied with their
representation, we could simply choose not to vote for them in the next
election or to support and/or vote for someone else.
-
- Inherent in this model is an emphasis on the participation
of the represented, usually called the constituency, and the accountability
of the representative. This should be fairly obvious. If someone is chosen
to represent a body of people then that body of people must express themselves
to that representative to guide and advise him/her regarding decisions
that affect them. The less input there is from the constituency, the less
effective the representative will become at representing them; in short,
the more difficult it is for them to perform their assigned jobs. Over
time, as less of the constituency participates in the process of correspondence,
the less the representative will believe they are actually supposed to
be representing the needs of a specific group of people when making their
political decisions. Eventually, the representative will begin making decisions
based on his or her own personal interests and agendas.
-
- Once this process has been allowed to evolve and remain
intact for many years the idea of a representative representing a constituency
will be fairly devoid of meaning; it will cease to have value. Unfortunately,
this is the case in the United States today. For the most part, especially
on the national level, the constituency (of which we are all a part) is
almost completely removed from the participative element. One could even
say that this renders the concept of voting moot. The less we make our
voice heard through our representative the less important our choice of
them becomes. I would posit that more important than the actual voting
process is the post- election process of active participation in the form
of both correspondence with representatives and correspondence and organization
within the constituency and general populace. The idea that voting every
four years alone constitutes "being involved" is unfortunate.
-
- To speak practically and idealistically, this is what
makes democracy great. In the last one hundred years, however, we've seen
a consistent and growing gap between the ideal and the reality. Representatives
are now more the tools of large corporations and wealthy private interests
who have the vast resources to effectively lobby them. Politics has become
an exclusive insiders' game with the voice of the individual becoming increasingly
drowned. The complexity of issues and the following of events have now
become so difficult and confusing that most individuals feel quite detached
from the political process. It's virtually a full-time job to understand
the world and to know who does what and why. In general, this has led to
a state of apathy within the citizenry. Everyone has the right to know
what's going on in the world, why it is going on, and to participate in
intelligent dialogue with their representative and constituency so as to
possibly affect the what and why. We must strive to uphold this paradigm,
again emphasizing participation.
-
- We must come to the reluctant conclusion that there is
now a fundamental conflict of interest between the masses (the people)
and those who govern us (the government). The United States (or any country
for that matter) is not a single entity. The government does not equal
the people. We (the people) are the people, but the government is not the
people.
-
- This is all very fine and good. One might say, "Why
should I really care about what's happening in the world? I'm pretty well
off. Why get involved in all that political mumbo jumbo. I'm not affected
by all the injustice in the world. I know that there are people starving,
even right here in America; but even so, what could I actually do about
it?" All of these really make perfect sense. We all can't be Mother
Theresa's or Gandhi's. So if you aren't affected maybe you're better off
tending to your personal duties.
-
- But what happens when you are affected? What happens
when you do become involved? What happens when you're pulled right into
the middle of something that's not your own doing and your world is turned
upside down? Suddenly you care, right? Well, that's just what happened
on September 11, 2001. Everyone is in the game now. With the shock of the
horrific attack on New York City and Washington still reverberating through
the psyche of the mass consciousness (as it will for some time) we're all
a bit more reflective than in the comfortable past. Maybe, and hopefully,
even a bit more critical. We all want answers, but we can't take the easy
way out. And somewhere along the line there'll be answers we won't like.
-
- Right now the government is imploring us to "go
back to life as normal." Don't worry about what's going on; leave
that all up to us. We're told not to be intimidated by our attackers and
to return to our routines. We'll tell you what's happening with all that
terrorist stuff, just go back to being distracted. We'll tell you who the
good guys are and who the bad guys are.
-
- On the contrary, now more than ever before, we must become
intimately involved and familiar with the goings-on in the world. We must
make our leaders aware that they still need to be held accountable for
their actions. We must remind them that we live in a democracy. We must
make our voices heard, whether through our representatives or not (the
former route seems sketchy at best considering the amount of suppression
in the world). We must educate and empower ourselves so as to be able to
view the global dance with 20/20 vision. We must once again make "the
people" a viable political and social entity with which an unjust
and unsympathetic government must contend.
-
-
- Matthew Riemer has written for years about a myriad of
topics, such as: philosophy, religion, psychology, culture, and politics.
He studied Russian language and culture for five years and traveled in
the former Soviet Union in 1990. In addition to his work with YellowTimes.org,
he's also maintaining http://www.rottenindenmark.org, as well as being
in the midst of a larger autobiographical/cultural work. Matthew lives
in the United States.
-
- Matthew Riemer encourages your comments: mriemer@YellowTimes.org
-
- YellowTimes.org is an international publication. YellowTimes.org
encourages its material to be reproduced, reprinted, or broadcast provided
that any such reproduction must identify the original source, http://www.YellowTimes.org.
-
- http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=668
|
