by Don Hynes
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| Vantage Point | Culture and Politics by Don Hynes |
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"No man is prejudiced in favor of a thing, knowing it to be wrong.
He is attached to it on the belief of its being right; and when he sees it is not so,
the prejudice will be gone." - Tom Paine
January 16, 2006 Today is a national holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, an American with a profound influence on our society and culture, a shining example of leadership embodied, one of those oh so rare occasions in human history forever imprinted upon our individual and collective psyches. It’s been a good day for me to review Vantage Point, why it seems important enough to write and to ask you to take the time to read. I get lots of heartfelt support from many of you, letting me know that you appreciate the column. I also receive a fair amount of criticism, which for some oddball reason I tender to ponder more than the praise. As a good man Brian Doyle writes in his memorable book “The Wet Engine” dedicated pediatric cardiologists often “remember the ones who die, (not) the ones who make it.” Maybe chasing after one lost sheep and neglecting ninety nine is a shepherd’s aberration, but for whatever reason I’ve been asking myself why, why keep pounding away at the heartless way our country raises ignorance to power and our continuing free fall into miltaristic nightmare? Why bear witness when the machine of the powerful waxes ever strong and the hope of those without money and influence is as diminished as tattered rags snapping in the wreckage of last summer’s hurricanes? Why? What came to mind is a story, and if there ever was a time when we needed more stories in our culture this is the time. It happened one day, way back in the 1950’s. My dad used to deliver bread to grocery stores, small and large, on a route near New York City. He’d have me along as “help” on Saturdays. I’d pack the bread for him on the shelves, tear down boxes and generally get in the way while whining about going home. At the end of the day he’d give me a quarter for my efforts with a brief lecture about wasting my money which we both knew I was going to do, and so with one of those precious quarters I stood at the counter of a store with a Nestle’s Crunch and a pack of Juicy Fruit in hand, waiting behind an old woman. She was one of those immigrant types who never adjusted their clothing for the new world, every inch of her wrapped in some dark wool that seemed more preparation for a forced march than a trip to the corner store. The clerk, whose face bore the resignation of how he knew this encounter would proceed, was slowly adding up her items on the cash register. When he told her what it cost she looked at him as if he had struck a dagger into his own mother’s heart, so cold and bloodless his callous guilt and she began muttering in some foreign dialect even I understood without translation as she unclasped her purse. Now today we have little sense of the value of money, what with talk of billions and trillions of dollars. We get coupons from ATM machines and trade them in at restaurants. When that old woman began to take her money from the purse it might as well have been her life blood and shame upon the poor clerk who was taking it from her. She counted out the exact change one bill and coin at a time and placed the money on the counter. As she pushed her little pile toward the clerk her sleeve rode up on her arm and there on her wrist were a line of tattooed numbers. When I saw the branding it was like an antique camera flash bulb going off with a blinding pop. Before me from the newsreels I’d seen were the skeletal figures in striped pajamas with hollowed eyes, bones and human skulls, women forced to strip and run in front of their children and husbands and neighbors and the shame I felt looking at them, piles of empty suitcases with nowhere to go, piles of teeth, children’s toys. The snap of the woman closing her purse brought me back into my place in line. She was lifting her net bag with her groceries and I was standing there with a candy bar I didn’t want and the gum I couldn’t chew. I didn’t want any of it; I just wanted my dad. That’s why Vantage Point and why I believe we all need to continue to care despite the sense of impotence that the mass propaganda and perhaps even those close to us mistakenly impart. Now more than at any time we cannot become entwined in hate but neither can we stand silent. We’ve got a God given voice, and just as the great Dr. King used his in the public theater, we can each raise our own voice in whatever fitting way to bring light upon these times and to let our witness be known, of compassion, of justice and for the new day for which with our most zealous faith we fervently hope. Martin Luther King - "A Time to Break Silence" http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm 'We the People' Must Save Our Constitution by Al Gore http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0116-34.htm Environment & Energy Environment in crisis: 'We are past the point of no return' Article on James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia theory http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article338878.ece The End of the Grid http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/010306_end_grid_summary.shtml New Orleans Controversial Rebuilding Plan Outrages New Orleans Residents http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1520611/20060112/index.jhtml?headlines=true In New Orleans, Bush Speaks With Optimism but Sees Little of Ruin http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/13/politics/13bush.html?pagewanted=print The day the music died - Nik Cohn on the New Orleans poor, during and post Katrina http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,1686412,00.html Washington Scandals Abramoff and the Israeli Connection by Justin Raimondo This one touches all bases from White House and Congressional corruption to Republican power and corporate influence peddling to U.S. foreign policy – the Neocons – and Israel’s far right. You can’t make this stuff up! http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8372 The Other Mega-Scandal – Defense Contractors Linked to Cunningham Bribery http://www.thinkprogress.org/index.php?s=The+Other+Mega-Scandal&SubmitButtom=Search Iraq Michael Schwartz on Iraq as a Killing Ground The unreported air war in Iraq http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=48180 Losing the War on Terrorism by Michael Klare http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=47757 Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre A Film by Sigfrido Ranucci http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/110805Z.shtml URGENT APPEAL TO SAVE IRAQ'S ACADEMICS http://www.petitiononline.com/Iraqacad/petition.html International China Losing Confidence in the Dollar http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/09/AR2006010901042.html?sub=AR Ariel Sharon by Robert Fisk http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11479.htm The Holy Trinity: Anti-Semitism, Holocaust and Israel by: Yamin Zakaria http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a2065.htm#001 National WALMART 21st Century Leadership by Lee Scott I’m not all warm and fuzzy about this latest declaration from WalMart’s CEO, but it’s important to support a vision that could carry us forward out of the environmental morass and into a more productive future. This statement is worth considering. http://walmartstores.com/Files/21st%20Century%20Leadership.pdf Moving Mountains, The battle for justice in the coal fields of West Virginia begins - by Erik Reece Oh yeah, voluntary regulation by corporate America. Of all junior’s ridiculous ideas, his crass opportunism clothed in compassionate treacle takes the cake. http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/06-1om/Reece.html Mine Inspectors Questioned Administration’s Commitment To Mine Safety http://thinkprogress.org/2006/01/05/mine-inspectors/ The Real Secrets of 911 If you think 9-11 isn’t worth continuing to examine think again: On September 6-7, 2001, 4,744 put options (a speculation that the stock will go down) are purchased on United Air Lines stock as opposed to only 396 call options (speculation that the stock will go up). This is a dramatic and abnormal increase in sales of put options. Many of the UAL puts are purchased through Deutschebank/AB Brown, a firm managed until 1998 by the current Executive Director of the CIA, A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard. http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a2070.htm Friends of Nazi Germany Revealed There is a direct link between this story through the AB Brown banking firm mentioned above that intimately involves the Bush family. http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a2062.htm Bush White House Served with Indictments http://www.bushcommission.org/ Bush declared “A Saint” by Methodist minister http://uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?id=10000 *** |
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