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Established on the WWW 1996 Issue #456: ROD'S TOY STORE G21 BOTTOM TEN 2006 YOU, The World JOIN OUR MAILING LIST. It contains more jokes than not. SMOKE & MIRRORS ROD AMIS, G21 World HQ RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT BILL STEVENS, United States THE PREVIOUS EDITION MEET THE G-CREW! These are the people behind this jam-band every week. HOME TABLE OF CONTENTS & BACK ISSUES BECOME A SPONSOR OF THE WORLD'S MAGAZINE.
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RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT - MAN IN THE MIRROR 2: Op-Ed contributor BILL STEVENS shares his Christmas Eve ref
lections about out future. Tacoma, WA, USA - For those of us who harbor wishes for peace on Earth and goodwill for all, the 21st Century is opening as a echo of the last century, a century of merciless wars - Total Wars - in which more average, civilian people were killed than members of the much-hallowed military. I don't understand how anyone can be but saddened and horrified by this fact. I don't understand how we can abide these last few years of some of the greatest refugee crises in human history. Worse yet, I wonder if my dreams and those of many others for a better world are even realistic anymore. It is difficult to have a merry Christmas: I look in the mirror and cannot but see a person who must bear some responsibility for the suffering of his brothers and sisters around the world. As I write this on Christmas Eve, it is rainy and we expect a high of 44 degrees Fahrenheit here in Tacoma. They say we'll have a wet, rather than a white, Christmas. It is almost five years since I last wrote anything for submission here at G21. I was looking for work then, in order to pay my mortgage and support my family. The Editor here told me that what I had submitted was a rant. [See "Damn the Shallow", Jan. 2002. - Ed.] He paid me for it anyway, something he said at the time he almost never does, because of my circumstances, I suppose. I was very grateful. I have not submitted anything since. Maybe that's because I was worried for my family and about finding a job; I eventually did land a new job - taking all of my attention - and I had run out of things to say. Like many of you, I kept reading this quirky little Web magazine, off and on, enjoying the knowledge I gained and the insights about what people around the world are thinking, and - yes - trying to figure out what it was all about. What I do know is that I kept coming back because there was breath of fresh air here that I could find at too few other places. And, I suppose, there was a lot of gratitude to it left for me, too. I only worked a half-day Friday, most of my shopping was done, the kids didn't want me in their hair, nor did the wife. That meant that I actually had time to read the local papers and survey the levels of misery, violence and nothing resembling good will around the world. So much for peace on Earth. I saw on Lou Dobbs that some people, like New York Congressman Charles Rangel, are calling for reinstatement of the military draft, arguing that our armed services are stretched by the war on terror and other commitments and that (get this!) the draft would ensure that all Americans, not just the underprivileged, would bear the brunt of the national sacrifice. What a bunch of bat guano! Anyone who lived through the last national conscription knows that rich kids always managed to avoid any chance of being shot at. Consider George W. Bush or Dick Cheney. Even back when the first draft came along, under President Lincoln, it was a national scandal that the scions of rich families would go out and pay poor Irish and others to take their places on the firing lines - as well illustrated in the movie by Martin Scorsese "The Gangs of New York." The Selective Service System was corrupt from its inception and the rich only went into military service if it served one of their other goals - like getting elected to political office. And, unbelievably, rich kids always got into the officer corps. I don't know what you see when you look into a mirror but what I see is a man who doesn't want his son facing another national draft. I don't want my son going to Afghanistan or Iraq when he reaches the age of majority and fighting to take over somebody else's country. I'm willing to pay more for a gallon of gas if it means saving my boy's life or keeping him from getting maimed or mutilated or worse. I read this week, on LewRockwell.com, that the United States has troops stationed in the following countries: Yeah, I know. I don't have any idea why the U.S. military would complain of being stretched thin. Seriously, though, I have to wonder why we need to have our boys and girls in just about every country and region on the damned planet? What does any of this have to do with defending our homes or "our way of life?" I certainly don't expect the Liberian army, for example, to be launching an invasion on us any time soon. I know what you're going to say, if you're a necon with dreams of empire: we need to have a regional presence, maintain a "sphere of influence." To which I would quickly respond, "If we got troops in Morocco, why do we need them in Liberia and Tunisia, too? They're all in the same region." Makes sense to me. The wife informs me, when I take a break from trying to compose this Op-Ed, that the younglings, Timothy (17) and Beth (15, named Elizabeth after her mother,) are off to the mall. Though it is a Sunday, because it is Christmas Eve the mall is the jumping place in town today. I can only imagine what the traffic out there is like. I tried to collect my thoughts - about the world I would prefer to leave to my children and their (potential) children - and about what my dreams for the future are really all about while going downstairs for more coffee. Beth was busy finishing up wrapping the last presents while talking to her sister on the telephone. She paused just long enough to tell me the kids had taken off, getting as far away from the boring adults as possible. After all, tomorrow we "inflict" the family gathering upon them. My brother-in-law and his brood arrive this afternoon. When I look in the mirror, on a good day, I see a man who believes that there is hope for us all. I see a man who believes that all of this turmoil and strife are not all we are about as people, no matter from what country, and that we really do all want the same things. I see a man who believes that peace is possible, though a long time coming, and that the problems that face us are not intractable. That's on a good day. When I pray, I pray that my children - when they reach my age - will live in the world that man staring back at me in the mirror believes is desirable and possi
ble. In that world I pray about for my children, solving problems like AIDS and other diseases, like climate change and hunger, will be more important to us than building empires or that we have different religious confessions than each other. You've heard and maybe felt some of this yourself. But I have to wonder if such prayers can be answered anymore and if they are anywhere close to realistic, looking at the kind of people we really are. I want share the little truth that bothers me, this Christmas Eve, when I look in the mirror. When I pray for a better a world, it's not a better world for some boy or girl in Bulgaria or Darfur or Bangladesh, I'm praying for, it's a better world for my children, Tim and Beth. I have a feeling that when the man we chose to lead our country prays, he prays for Jenna and Barbara, and the idea that a Tim and Beth even exist doesn't cross his mind. I go on to suspect, looking at myself, that Hassan in Baghdad only prays about his children, as does Moshe in Tel Aviv. There is no Love Thy Neighbor in any of our minds when we dream about the future. We only want our own to be taken care of and might spare a minute or two for a couple of friends. No acquaintances, though. The writer Thomas Wolfe said the biggest problem threatening America was "single-selfishness and compulsive greed." But I think, though America has helped to increase the infection and elevate it in most of the world, we are not the only carriers of that sickness. I look in the mirror and ask myself how I am working against instead of for the disease of our times. WEB SITE PICK OF THE WEEK: Here's a fun place to play. BlogThings
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