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Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Bombed in Boston, Weeping in Somalia

On the very same day that bombs at the Boston Marathon injured and killed innocent people, many other innocent people died in bombings in Somalia, Kenya, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. However, the major world news media gave their attention almost exclusively to Boston.
Immediately I grieved with those who grieve in Boston, and was angry against those individuals responsible for this horrendous deed, and hoped they would be brought to justice. It is human nature to grieve most strongly for our own people; that is a fact. Bostonians grieve for the dead in Boston, Somalians grieve for the dead in Somalia. But it is my contention that, in an age when the world has become very small, that we need to think of the entire world as our local community.
That is why I grieve not just for Boston but likewise for those in other countries who also weep for their loved ones killed by premeditated violence – every day. Their emotional agony is no less real and heart-rending than the agony felt in Massachusetts.
Some heartless people informed me that Boston has more of a right to grieve because such acts of terrorism are relatively rare in the United States, and/or that it’s “news” in the States, but not in Somalia. They told me that people are used to death in Kenya, so their grief is lessened by the frequency of it. They assured me that life is of little value in Iraq and Afghanistan, so nobody cares when a mother or a brother or a child is killed.
I am shocked by such attitudes. Their views verge on verbalizing bigotry, that the worth of a human being in Somalia is far less than the worth of a human being in Boston.
A child whose mother has been killed by a bomb, or a mother whose child has been killed by a bomb, is the same worldwide. Just because it happens more often in Kenya, for instance, doesn’t mean a husband or wife, a father or mother, says to him- or herself, “Ah, these things happen every day in my country, unlike Boston. So those Bostonians have a right to grieve, but I should just suck up and forget about my dead spouse or child because life means nothing here, not like it does in Boston.”
Some people object to my views, saying that drone missiles and bulldozing Palestinian homes are necessary acts of war, but that bombing the Boston Marathon is terrorism. What these people forget is that that innocent people are dying in both situations, including innocent children. And these people forget, too, that the perpetrators of both horrors each believe that their deeds are a necessary act of war. Those who commit violence against innocent people in the United States and Western Europe say they are at war with the West, and that these bombings are necessary acts of war. Likewise, the United States government says it is at war with several other countries, and that the drone missiles that kill innocent people are a necessary act of war. I say that bombing innocent civilians at a footrace is incredibly evil – and that drone strikes on innocent civilians are likewise incredibly evil. Neither should be tolerated.
I am an absolute pacifist. I do not believe war, or acts of violence, are ever good. I want to see all of this stopped, before the world is turned to cinders floating in space. I refuse to justify drone missiles, and I refuse to justify bulldozing Palestinian homes, and I refuse to justify bombing the Boston Marathon. They are all violent deeds that solve nothing.
So why is it that the corporate media only tell us about Boston, and not about the hundreds who die in bombings elsewhere in the world? Because they want us to hate all Muslims and all Middle Eastern countries. The plutocrats who own the media also own the military hardware corporations. They make fortunes by selling war material to the government, and additional fortunes rebuilding, at taxpayer expense, the same buildings and bridges they destroyed at taxpayer expense. War brings them big profits. If the people of the United States start to feel sympathy for Middle Easterners, war will be harder to sell. These billionaires know that prejudice and parochialism is good for business.
Therefore, those terrorist plutocrats want us to feel that the deprivation, enslavement, torture, and killing of people in other countries, and of other religions, is justified. They want us to believe it promotes our sense of safety and plenty. The truth is that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made the world even more unsafe.
Nor – despite common belief – is the United States innocent or immune. Drone missiles are killing children every day – and they’re made in the United States. At Guantanamo Bay people are incarcerated without being charged and without trial, in defiance of the U.S. Constitution. The police in the United States were ordered by the plutocrats to crush the Occupy movement. And yet U.S. citizens think their country is immune from the horrors done by the terrorist plutocrats.
Thus, I do not hate nations or religions, nor do I blame them for this deed. All religions, including Islam, preach peace. All religions, including Christianity, preach understanding. It is understandable to hate the perpetrators of an evil act and want to see them brought to justice. But it is horribly wrong to blame entire nations or religions for such an evil deed. The deity I believe in is a God of Peace. And the deity I believe in is not only the god of the United States, but of the world. That deity loves all people, and not just those in one country.
This world is small and extremely fragile. It is victimized by two kinds of terrorism: the terrorism of the plutocrats who make fortunes from war, and the angry extremists who will go to any means to express their hatred and fear of the plutocrats. As long as we only grieve for some and not for all victims of terrorism, terrorism wins. As long as we hate other nations and other religions, terrorism wins.
When we start thinking globally, standing united with all who grieve in the world, then we begin to walk the path that heads toward real peace. As long as we think only of ourselves, we walk the path that will lead to destruction of this planet. We need to think globally, or the warmongers (including the corporate war merchants in the States) will win, and this planet will be destroyed.
So – yes, I grieve the tragedy in Boston, and I hope those responsible are brought to justice. But I grieve no less for all those, everywhere in the world, who have died at the hands of evil: bombs, drone missiles, “collateral damage”, and all the rest of it. I believe we all, worldwide, need to make vigorous effort to hook up against the corporate masters, the plutocrats who run the governments, who prey on the innocent and feed financially from war.
People are programmed by the media and government in the West to believe that drone attacks are somehow necessary. People are programmed by the media and government in the Middle East to believe that bombings are somehow necessary. We need as people to free our minds from the programming and to reach out and embrace each other, and make peace. Governments and media thrive on war; that’s where their profits are made. But the people, worldwide, suffer. The sooner we wake up and realize this and stand together in opposition to the warmongers, the likelier it will be that this world can be saved from destruction.
I hope you join me on the path to peace.

18 comments:

  1. What an insightful post and I agree that we all live in one world. I turned my back on the 'professional' news media long ago because I do not like my truth filtered through corporate agendas.

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  2. Thank you, Cairn!

    By the way, folks; I apologize for the zigzag appearance, but Blogspot wasn't separating the essay into separate paragraphs, so I had to do it this way in order for the paragraphs to appear at all.

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    1. On my recent posts, I had to go back in and edit them and format it manually; then it worked.

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  3. I thought of you when I saw this on fb this am: Unvirtuous Abbey: For a world where terror reigns every day whether it makes the news or not, Lord send Your peace; help us to wage love. (via Emma Jordan Simpson)

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    1. Thank you, Mrs. Swizzle; that is a beautiful little prayer.

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  4. Thanks for posting this James. 'Tis a shame how oft ignored the rest of the world goes by us.

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  5. Many of you know that I'm working on a history book that will detail the sometimes violent battles amongst factions of the nascent Christian religion over the original manuscript of the Gospel of John (which I have restored, translated, and published).

    My friend Merwyn Ambrose has a fantastic blog on Pelagius, versus both Augustine and Patrick, which is germane to my work-in-progress. This latest entry and his entire blog I recommend to you -- http://opinion.alaskapolicy.net/pardonme/

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  6. Hermano, what a wonderful and thought provoking post. Thank you.

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  7. Thank you for not only writing this but posting it. We all live in the same world and any violence, wherever it may be, should bother us all.

    As a side note - I actually enjoyed the zig-zag.

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  8. Excellent post James. We need more thinkers like you.

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  9. What shocks me, is to read that anyone finds your post insightful, you merely point out the obvious. American citizens have mostly become so insular, guided by by their media they seek no further truth.

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    1. Quite so, Mr. Barnes. While of course I'm humbly grateful to the kind people who say nice things, I tend to agree with you. I'm just saying what is logical and true, no more. The reason, it seems to me, is that the corporate news media no longer simply report news. Now it is carefully "spun" by news-spinners such that a certain Weltansicht (German word; no equivalent in English; more or less, a view/perspective on reality) is presented. And the corporate owners want that perspective to be: Hate Muslims, so we can make a huge profit from bombing them at taxpayer expense and then rebuilding their countries at taxpayer expense, and meanwhile take over their oil fields at taxpayer expense.

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    2. and with that I totally agree.

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  10. Tragically what seems to have been entirely missed in the response to this event is that at the same time it occurred the American Senate was unwilling to pass a bill that would place some trivial restrictions on gun ownership in the country. What if this attack had been carried out by individuals of whatever persuasion and they had done it with weapons openly purchased without identity checks in the United States. Would that somehow have made this event less devastating because they were after all citizens freely exercising their Second Amendment rights. The terrible conclusion to be drawn from this is that unless some individuals or groups who can be clearly identified as "terrorist" does something like this with guns, all gun control measures in the United States however minimal will be impossible to implement. It seems unbelievable that deranged individuals killing adults or children with assault type weapons is acceptable to the gun lobby and its supporters in the US and that this is somehow construed as a lesser evil and will continue to be seen this way in the foreseeable future

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    1. Mr. McSheffrey, you make some important points. I am personally acquainted with the village of Sandy Hook; I have friends there. The weapons used there were quite legally obtained by the perp's mother, as I'm sure you know. I have mixed feelings on background checks and sanity checks and the like, since this perp's mother would have passed with flying colors, and still handed her purchases over to her clearly insane son. I'm not saying I'm "agin" them, but that it may not be that simple.

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    2. Mr. Audlin
      Thank you. I did not mean to imply that background checks alone were the answer to a more effective system of gun control in the USA. They are not but that is why this weak measure even achieved consideration from the determined opponents of all stronger measures in the Senate. We can only hope that the majority of American citizens who appear to favour more stringent controls over firearms do not continue to have to bear witness to many more tragic events like Sandy Hook. Furthermore when easily obtainable weapons of a dangerous kind do find their way into the hands of serious terrorists, the gun lobby and and its political apologists may regret their misguided championing of putting too many guns in the hands of too many people who should never have had them.

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  11. I think you could have the decency to just talk about Boston at this time ... not try to belittle the tragic bombing by comparing numbers killed to elsewhere. It's right and natural for America to defend itself and talk about news that is at home and fresh. The USA does far more to help nations around the world than any other. Give USA a break.

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