Changing Times
Current mood: 
Category: News and Politics
I was playing a private gathering the other day, and the whole topic basic to "Changing Times" (http://www.myspace.com/howlerswamp to hear the song) came up. The question was, how could I say "We're all the same, and we're all to blame, if we send our beautiful children to die".
I look around this world, with instant communication via the internet, and nothing is hidden anymore. I watched Serjavo reduced to ruins on primetime TV, and I remembered the olympics, and how beautiful that city was. Rubble. I saw Lebanon blown to bits, day by day, the beautiful resorts and spas churned into rubble. The list goes on and on. And throughout it all, children were being killed by slightly older children, and I wondered how I would have felt if our son had been one of those doing the killing. How I would react if my beautiful baby grandaughter had her legs blown off by some young partisan's roadside bomb or a soldier's grenade.
I see our American children, boys of 18 & 19, being sent into harm's way, given guns and bombs and using them. And in the middle of it all, I see children dying, and the young GIs coming home having nightmares, seeking oblivion in drugs and depression and suicide.
I see tribes and governments murdering in the name of anything at all, revenge, philosophy, ethnicity, whatever, and I realize that behind it all is greed and ego and rabid desire. In other words, politics. Power. Aggrandizement. Insanity. Men and women who willingly order the mass destruction of whole civilazitions simply for cars and planes and bank accounts, and make up ridiculous reasons for it all to motivate their troops.
And in the middle of all this murder and mayhem, the young children, by virtue of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and defenseless, die by the thousands every day. They died today while I pondered this blog. They are dying as I type it out in the safety of my air-conditioned home. So I am also to blame by virtue of inactivity, and if you do nothing and say nothing, you are also to blame. Many many people all saying the same thing and demanding the same actions can provoke political response. We allow these monsters to stay in power by our vote or inaction or lethargy. Politicians are nothing if not cowards who react to keep their power. Eventually they will give in to the masses, as all bullies do if we make a continual concerted outcry.
Why do humans continue to act this way? I'm not asking a rhetorical question. I'm seriously trying to understand and I cannot.
Why? Do the "leaders" who direct these wars, the battlefield commanders who direct the troops, the young men and women who carry the guns, not understand what they are doing? Do they not realize that there is absolutely no excuse, no rationalization, no convoluted reasoning available to serve as a defense for these actions?
How can we, who are flooded with the continual barrage of images of torn and bleeding carcasses, continue to go to work, stuff ourselves at restaurants, build up our IRAs and 401Ks, take out the garbage and fight with our spouses over trivial crap, allow this to continue? Are we so desensitized that we think it's all a video game? It is real, and the blood of our children is the currency with which we pay.
Until the human race as a whole stands up on our hind legs and demand that the killing stop, it will continue. As an American, born on this soil, I am embarrassed to do nothing. So I do what I can. I wrote a song that put myself and my friends under scrutiny, that accused those in power of criminal neglect, that hopefully opened a few eyes to this horrible tragedy. Perhaps it's not enough, and perhaps it's too simplistic, but it's a start for me personally.
I am going to continue to point fingers and demand attention be paid to the useless destruction of our children. For me personally, it's a start. I intend to finish it. I imagine I'll be gone from this world long before any change is made, but I swear I'll go to my grave screaming and cursing the "cowards who send them to do these violent deeds".
A CURSE ON THEM ALL
Stephen Foster
Keel Mountain, Alabama
June 8, 2007
