It's All Just Politics

I am growing more and more annoyed at the Georgian-Russian conflict, the news coverage of it in America, and especially the Georgian President, Mikheil Saakashvili. Mr. Saakashvili, in my opinion, looks like an utter fool, standing in front of his people, begging the United States to come and have his war with Russia for him. The United States, however, would be the bigger fool if it listened.

What the American news networks like to sidestep in their discussions of this conflict is that Georgia instigated it by entering South Ossetia. The Georgian-South Ossetian dispute has been going on since before the 1920's. South Ossetia declared independence in 1990, though Georgia has not recognized it as independent. South Ossetia happens to be an ally of Russia, North Ossetia lying therein; Georgia happens to be an ally of the US.

Does this remind you of anything? Kosovo perchance? Kosovo declares independence from Serbia, and, of course, Serbia does not recognize it. The US supports Kosovo's independence, because they support the goals of the US.

Say, ten to fifteen years from now, Serbia decides to send its troops into Kosovo. Do you think the US would not respond to this? Especially if Kosovo were located on the United States border? Then suppose Serbia cries to the rest of the world that they've been invaded and are totally outraged. Who would laugh in their face?

Don't get me wrong. I understand and recognize that Russia has over-reacted, and that now they have indeed invaded Georgia proper. I also see that they are telling bold-face lie after bold-face lie to the press about their whereabouts and intentions. So, let's blame them for that. Why confuse the facts and not put blame where blame is due? Mr. Saakashvili made a huge miscalculation regarding the capabilities of the United States military forces at this time. Russia takes this opportunity to flaunt its shit.

CNN asks me, "Is Russia trying to take over the world?" Perhaps. But no more than the United States is. Russia is doing everything the United States would do. The only difference is that we live in the United States, and they live in Russia. We all want the money and the oil and the power equally. It's only weak posturing by the United States and Georgia to pretend there is anything more to this conflict.



Addendum: I later founnd out that it is not quite so clear that Georgia actually started the war; it was much more complicated and Russia was a lot to blame for it. But I still think the news coverage of the entire ordeal was confusing and lacking the depth that the situation required. I also still believe it is usually a matter of alliance, rather than objective morality when it comes to these kinds of conflicts.

Internal Battles, Part 3: Meanwhiling Away

Zimbabwe's opposition leader banned from holding rallies and arrested twice in the past week, leading up to the re-run of the Presidential elections. Current elected president threatens war if the opposition wins the election. More proof of failure of imposed democracy, as if Kenya was not enough. Alexis De Tocqueville knew that a country's government must grow organically out of it's mores in order to be properly nurtured and to flourish. Beyond a more than persuasive argument for this theory, he offers Mexico's attempt and failure to adopt the United States' exact constitution for an example. I suppose the western cultures just want to offer more examples for the doubtful. I suppose since our own governments are so perfect and free of corruption, we ought to concentrate our efforts on imposing our beliefs on the rest of the poor, unfortunate world.

Meanwhile....
The square people with their square heads wile away their time in their square houses with their square yards staring at their square boxes with its strictly-regulated, square broadcasting. But I understand why they don't want to know. I understand why they do their best to keep their heads tucked out of the rapid fire of bad news. Even the ones considered aware of or even active in the problems of the unfortunate and helpless, these people only have the energy, the heart, to care about one thing. These martyrs have to choose just one thing to focus all their energy into. Because how do you deeply care for the entire world? Who has a heart so big? You have to leave some room for yourself. So of course I would rather buy my Dolche and Gabana sunglasses than try to choose which cause to fight for. Better to stay inside the square world.

A girl stares at the black wall flying by, in the honeycombs under the city, and wonders where she can find a man. A man who could be her lover and her beloved. A man who might respect her as much as she does him. She left a man, whom she loved dearly, and who doubtless loved her, but he loved his own life and his own thoughts more. She left him in a hopeful state of mind, with the faith that she could find someone who would not only love her, but who would also care about her life and her thoughts. She believed she could find a man who would get excited about her pursuits instead of jealous of them. She would try to do the same for him. So far, no one, and hope is fading, but she refuses to settle.

Meanwhile...
Women in Mexico City can't travel to work without being fondled, gawked at, cat-called, and even raped. The city had to make women-only buses and train cars to try to reduce the occurrences. They say the problem is that it is embedded in their culture to treat women as mere sexual objects. If the women take the incidents to court, judges question them on their lifestyles and the way they dress. They try to figure out how the women bring these incidents on themselves.

Internal Battles, Part 2

My half-Jewish, half-Swedish boyfriend taught me about Jewish stereotypes. Everything: the big noses, the dark curly hair, the greedy hoarder image, the Goldberg's and the Rosenblatt's. I didn't even knew they existed.

Ignorance has a bad rap. I wonder if pure ignorance really is bliss. It's the partial ignorance that can get so muddled and cause so much trouble.

I came out of college one year ago knowing practically nothing about our War on Terror. The towers were hit my senior year of high school. I watched it on television during drama class. None of it registered at the time. I watch the same footage now, and I am horrified. I think how awful it must have been for the people who were there. Then I remember that my brother, Ned, and my sister, Ellen, were there, right there.

Just as quickly as the smoking image came in, the image went out. I didn't want Bin Laden's blood. I didn't want to comfort the dead. I didn't want revenge. I didn't want to watch the terror-meter. I didn't want to worry. I just wanted to forget, and I did.

I had a few encounters with political conversations during college, for which I vehemently expressed my displeasure. I remember being disgusted by the idea of bringing Democracy to Iraq. Mostly because I had recently read "Democracy in America" for school, and I thought the idea went against everything Alexis De Tocqueville had so eloquently professed.

When the 2004 elections came along, I did my part as a citizen. I registered to vote, and voted against Bush. Bush stayed. I got angry. I went back into my haze.

I didn't know what to think when I heard that my brother, Lance, and later my cousin, Max, were going to Iraq, going to fight this war. Not knowing what the war meant made it hard for me to form a judgement. I knew others were horrified, but I found it hard to feel anything. I actively forgot.

When my temp agency called me for a job at a place called Al Jazeera, I was clueless. I looked it up in Wikipedia, and all it said was "Arabic news channel". I couldn't fathom what I could do for an Arabic news channel, but I took it anyway. I spent the next six months with Wikipedia and the Al Jazeera English channel (the English news channel I was actually working for) as my only friends. I felt like a character in a science fiction film getting zapped with infinite information all at once. When I found the entry for "Guantanamo Bay," I felt like the pure being in The Fifth Element looking up the word "WAR". Total disillusionment.

Now I consider myself "politically aware," even well-informed. Not just on Bush's War on Terror, but everything considered of note happening all over the world.

So I ask myself, "what now?" Now I shake my head a lot, like a boat rocking back and forth on calm water. Now my eyebrows find themselves in an upward bow pose quite often. Now I hurt for other people.

I'm just not sure of the value of information. Things stay as they are, regardless of my knowledge of them. The elections in Africa are still corrupt. Powerful nations still torture, withhold, and stifle. The children are still starving.... I know that knowledge contributes to my feeling of impotency. I just wonder if it does anything positive.

I watched a special on US soldiers who went to Iraq on our channel. The special said that many soldiers cannot re-immerse into society, and long to go back to war as a result. The special showed a few soldiers talking about their experiences coming home. How they can't sleep. How they feel constantly threatened. How they are always on edge. That's when I realized that I never asked my brother what it was like, how he felt. I never spoke to my cousin about it. I didn't even wonder. Then I was truly horrified. Then I cried.

Now I long to know. I can't wait to ask. I want to hear everything. I want to feel my bowing eyebrows, my sinking stomach, my tightening throat. I want to feel it with Lance. I want to feel it with Max. I want to hurt for them, not just for strangers and far away children. I want to understand.

Can knowledge lead to understanding?

Internal Battles, Part 1

I watch it bubble over on the rotating plate and make no attempt to stop it. I'm not a fan. I thought split pea soup was supposed to be creamy. This is just water with hard peas literally split in half all sunk at the bottom with a piece of celery here and there to dress it up. I'm gonna eat it anyway, though, because there are starving children in Africa, and because a enough salt and pepper can make almost anything bearable. I'll even drink the birth water; they can't say I didn't do my part to help the skinny kiddies.


"Myanmar Devastation," "Mexico Drug Violence," "Peru Floods," "Lebanon Clashes" flash past my eyes. Save everything in our jurisdiction. Myanmar out, Mexico in; Peru in, Lebanon out. Each screen shows me some new piece of reality, and it is stark. The news is never good news. And I can't care about Mugabe, because I cared about Kenya. I can't like Clinton, because I love Obama. I have to choose my internal battles.


A recent grain of sand in the ocean of horror -- a pearl really, as it is a product of that ocean, is Sami Al-Hajj, cameraman for Al Jazeera. A name I heard at least once a day, everyday, announced through a picture of a dark-skinned man with round glasses. 2139 days in prison, 465 days on hunger strike.


Now he is freed. No reasons, no apologies, just freed. Can this really be? Can I be witnessing the end of this appalling injustice? One of several festering in my stomach? How do I celebrate the freedom of a man I never knew? A man I effectively helped imprison? A man who must despise me, my country, and everything I believe in? Yes, he has a right to his hatred, too. I daydream about kissing his feet. I imagine bowing my head in shame at the sight of him.

I rejoice at the recognition that I will never have to meet him. I can love him from afar, admire his courage, and say my prayers for him, but I can never face him. I cannot celebrate his freedom, because his imprisonment remains a fact. I cannot celebrate his freedom, because I have no right to. I cannot celebrate his freedom, because I still believe in all the things I believed in before I learned of the injustice he endured. Injustice is a fact, a disgusting, horrifying, relentless fact, laughing in the face of the ancient philosophers. I cannot celebrate his freedom, because I am still powerless to stop that injustice.


My friend's reaction is an easy one. "Did you know that a freed prisoner of Guantanamo Bay blew himself up in a suicide bombing the other day?" This observation echos through me for weeks. I doubt it is enough to make him feel justified, but perhaps it serves as a comfort to him. There is indeed evil everywhere.