Memorial Day Celebrations?
Mikal Hutto 5/24/07
Sometimes I feel like going out into the streets and screaming at people.
“Stop living your lives as if nothing is wrong!” We are in a war, the
life is draining out of people. We are dying and we are killing, and for
what?
Because we started a war in error and now we don’t know how to stop? I
still do not know the reason we continue in Iraq. I still do not know
why we are sacrificing our strong, brave young people. I still do not
understand why we went to war with Iraq in the first place. It just does
not compute in my mind that we are willing, as a nation, to continue a
war, which the majority of citizens have decided is “unwinnable,” was
started on faulty information, and which was perpetrated by an
Administration that has since lost the support of its citizenry.
Memorial Day Celebrations?
Sometimes I feel like going out into the streets and screaming at people.
“Stop living your lives as if nothing is wrong!” We are in a war, the
life is draining out of people. We are dying and we are killing, and for
what?
How can Americans accept this? How can we continue our lives everyday,
going to work, taking care of our homes and our children, while citizens
of our country are being shipped off to a foreign country to be
sacrificed. Citizens of this country are being disenfranchised,
disrespected, disinherited and disregarded by a government that is now
controlled solely eir communities.
Yet, all I hear on television is how much gas people will buy this weekend,
how many people will be celebrating by “getting away.” I’m glad THEY can
get away. I cannot “get away.” No matter where I go, what I do, I
cannot “get away.” Americans can just put this out of their mind and “get
away?”
Can someone, anyone please tell me exactly WHAT we have to celebrate?
Americans have decided they want to end this war. Americans have decided
this war has been misrepresented, mishandled, misdirected and is and was
a huge mistake. Americans elected the opposing party to represent them
last election, with full confidence that these people would get the
message and fight to end this war that is draining America of her
resources and her pride. These very same people sold out America
yesterday. Caved in. They gave the President even MORE power to CONTINUE
his war, knowing full well this is not what they have been directed to do
by the people who pay their salaries and elected them to office. Maybe
we should “get away.”
Maybe someone can tell me how to “get away” from
this. I want to “get away.” I want to crawl into my bed, pull the covers
over my head and stop thinking about what we are doing, what is being
done to us, by our own government. We are being told Congress can’t do
anything, that “this is a POLITICAL reality”. Doesn’t anyone see anything
wrong with those words? POLITICAL reality? What about HUMANITARIAN
reality? The reality is, people are dying for pure political and
financial gain.
Americans should be using this weekend to take to the streets, and show
government that we rule them, they do not rule us. Exactly WHEN do the
citizens of this country plan to show their power? After the next
holiday? When 60,000 Americans have died? When does it sink in that we
have once again, been betrayed by those we hired to represent us? When
does it sink in that this war will NEVER end until the people refuse to
allow it to continue? When does it sink in that no one is going to take
care of this for us? Maybe Americans should unite in a show of strength
and REFUSE to go to the pumps on a weekend that traditionally makes BIG
OIL huge profits, and is the real reason they have raised prices at the
pumps so drastically the past few weeks. Why do Americans refuse to see
what is obvious? WE ARE BEING RIPPED OFF, PEOPLE.
Time and time againour government steals away our children, puts their hand into our
wallets, and undermines our efforts to be responsible human beings. If a
person was doing this, we’d be outraged. Yet when our government does it
we sanction it by lying down for it. We make excuses. We act helpless.
We rationalize that our government has taken on a life of its own and we
are not responsible.
I will spend this weekend sticking flags in the ground. One flag for every
American casualty of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Nearly 4,000 and
growing, and growing, and growing. Over seventy in May, SO FAR, the
month is not over. I’m not saying this to pretend that I am any better
than those who are planning to “get away.” I’m merely pointing out that
maybe Americans should forego some of their “fun.” Maybe we should all
stop telling ourselves all the time that we deserve holidays, we deserve
new cars, we deserve that new dress, or that new pair of shoes, we
deserve that expensive green fee, or baseball ticket, we deserve to take
a break because we “work hard,” while OUR money is being spent killing by
people who do not deserve us. We deserve to have our elected officials
use our money for the good of our nation, that’s what we deserve. We
can’t buy that anymore, we’ve been outbid, people.
It is going to take more than money, more than letters, more than phone
calls. It is going to take a huge wave of people to make these people
understand that they are in danger of losing control of their population
entirely if they do not listen to their citizens.
We can’t blame our government and divorce ourselves from this war. We can’t
claim we aren’t responsible. We can’t claim that we aren’t morally and
ethically BOUND as human beings to stop something that we know in our
hearts and brains is wrong, can we? Isn’t that what we are doing? It is
our money, our lives that are being spent to perpetrate this war. Doesn’t
that make us responsible? Are we willing to become a country run by
tyrannical people so we do not have to take responsibility?
With Democracy comes responsibility. That responsibility is to make sure
that we aren’t used for evil and destruction. We have a moral and ethical
responsibility to stop these people, because if we do not, WE are culpable.
Otherwise we will become just like the Iraqi, the North Koreans, the Nazi
Germans who all made excuses for their leaders to perpetrate crimes
against
humanity, until they also become the victims of thier own government. We
become a people that other countries snicker behind their backs at, and
remark about those poor oppressed Americans, who have no control over
their own government and believe their own propaganda.
Maybe we should just forego the next elections. They are an expense we
can’t really afford, and elections have become nothing more than a facade in
America, which allows citizens to believe they have some measure of
control over their government. Our elections now remind me of past
“elections” in the USSR. They merely exist to give the world the idea
that our leaders are
elected, and thereby represent the people, but no one is really fooled.
Or maybe, Americans ARE fooled because they WANT to be fooled?
Mikal Hutto – Outraged Citizen of The United States of America – former
Democratic country, currently run by Fascists.
Texas