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
November 26, 2006 All War is War against the Earth I’ve been brooding on a Vantage Point for Mother Earth, Her protection, care, Her return to health, an end to our human abuse of this beautiful planet. However, an article in this morning’s paper on returning Iraq War veterans touched me so deeply, calling me to speak out about the charnel house that was once the nation of Iraq. Recent studies have now shown that brain injuries are present in 23 to 40% of returning soldiers, this within Army medical circles notorious for obscuring the effects of Pentagon and White House policies (i.e. Agent Orange, Gulf War syndrome, depleted uranium, etc.). Yet in thinking about this grief filled issue, it seems obvious that beyond political theater, all war is ultimately war against the Earth. The tons of explosive that were launched in the bombardment of Afghanistan killed many humans, some supposedly our “enemies,” but all of the deadly poisonous material fell upon and punished the Earth. The shock and awe of which the American presidency once prided itself destroyed many of the Baathist regime’s buildings, yet also despoiled vast tracks of the Iraqi landscape while depleted uranium weaponry poisoned the very ground of Iraq, to wreak havoc in the human DNA life stream for an unknown time forward. The UN estimates that as many as a million unexploded cluster bomblets remain as land mines in Lebanon, turning that once fertile land into killing fields often for children and for farmers who must return to their land. The wars that rage in Africa are the most horrible and humiliating for women and children who are pawns in the struggle for mineral wealth and political power, victims in the corporate funded competition to determine who will be in "best" position to rape the Earth for profit. Outside of military war there is another great violence, the overwhelming human consumption which is poisoning the land, the seas and the very air we breathe. Consumerism has become a religion in the United States with celebrity status during the “holidays,” as people maul one another for a discount toy or trinket whose half life to the garbage dump can be overnight, whose manufacture depleted the earth and whose refuse is often poisonous. The Earth has vast regenerative power and She has born the burden of our ignorance until this present point when Her life systems are breaking down world wide. Members of our government, proud of their retrograde thinking, still debate the merits of global warming as valid science, that which (Vice) President Al Gore termed an inconvenient truth, and scientist James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia movement, now terms the end of Eden. This week I call your attention to these articles on what we euphemistically refer to as the “environment,” a.k.a. our Mother, the body and blood upon Whom we live and breathe and have our being. May She be healed as we are healed, and take our place as stewards of this precious Home. In the name of that healing and forgiveness, there are several following articles on those who suffer from the many wars now raging on Earth, wars which always have "two losers." Earth The End of Eden: James Lovelock Says This Time We've Pushed the Earth Too Far The Breathing Earth Climate costs: The global picture A disaster to take everyone's breath away Deep in the heart of the world's greatest rainforest, a nine-day journey by boat from the sea, Otavio Luz Castello is anxiously watching the soft waters of the Amazon drain away. Every day they recede further, like water running slowly out of an immense bathtub, threatening a worldwide catastrophe. Standing on an island in a quiet channel of the giant river, he points out what is happening. A month ago, the island was under water. Now, it juts 5m above it. It is a sign that severe drought is returning to the Amazon for a second successive year. And that would be ominous. New research suggests that one further dry year beyond that could tip the whole vast forest into a cycle of destruction. Africans are already facing climate change Voices from the Gas Fields Cracking Up: Ice Turning to Water, Glaciers on the Move and a Planet in Peril An Inconvenient Truth The Post Carbon Institute War Iraq war vets struggle with hidden wounds 57 unarmed Palestinian minors killed by IDF since June Lebanon mines continue to kill US rides wave of weapons sales According to the annual Conventional Arms Sales to the Developing World released by the Congressional Research Service in November, the US provided countries in the developing world with more than $11 billion in arms last year. Of these 25 countries, all had human-rights problems, according to the State Department's Human Rights Report, and 10 (including three of the top five) were "undemocratic" in the sense that citizens of those nations "did not have a meaningful right to change their government" in a peaceful manner. This is the eighth year in a row that the US has led in global arms deliveries. Behind the Numbers: Untold Suffering in the Congo War in the Congo is driven by the desire to extract raw materials, including diamonds, gold, columbium tantalite (coltan), niobium, cobalt, copper, uranium and petroleum. Mining in the Congo by western companies proceeds at an unprecedented rate, and it is reported that some $6 million in raw cobalt alone—an element of superalloys essential for nuclear, chemical, aerospace and defense industries—exits DRC daily. Any analysis of the geopolitics in the Congo requires an understanding of the organized crime perpetrated through multi-national businesses, in order to understand the reasons why the Congolese people have suffered a virtually unending war since 1996. In War-Riddled Congo, Militias Rape with Impunity Amnesty International USA uman Rights Pledge Save Darfur Every War Has Two Losers: William Stafford on Peace and War *** |
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