Mostly I'm Tired of People Being Ugly to Each Other

Again, I'm cribbing a quote to make a point, this time with video...

First, of course (Of-course fucking of-course. I wasn't asking, I was telling-- Bricktop "Snatch")... the obligatory drivel: If you're observant enough to consider time and date stamps on my posts, it's been a while. In fact, you missed all the dreary and uneventful details of my Spring Break. I've come to realize the more visceral details of memories fade the fastest. Therefore, I'm trying to put this post together now...

That being said, I've had an odd day.
Stumbled upon an interesting first today, that at first didn't seem all that unique. Only after a little introspection there after did I realize it was in fact a first.

Was sitting in Public Policy class today, and we were receiving a lecture on decision making. Nothing all that interesting or unique yet, we're getting there... building context...

Turro, (Turro is a good cat, a little older, but I'm pretty sure he's active/connected in the Ohio Democratic party, and offers a varied perspective... I don't want to assume a man's age, but he might be a P60 student, and I think I've expressed my high regard for them here previously.) raised a scenario he'd phrased as 'hyper-avoidance' where in an official puts off/ignores a problem then rushes through the decision making when called on their inaction. This leads to Dr. Sneed putting forward an example involving "The MOVE Organization."

Now, oddly enough, I was previously unaware of MOVE. Which is surprising to me personally, in the fact that I have soft spot in my heart for injustice. It's worth mentioning that details surrounding this incident are unclear, especially depending upon one's perspective/side. But, the details presented in class today culminated with the fact that the Mayor of Philadelphia (Mayor W. Wilson Goode)(and a very small, and intentionally selected group of individuals) decided to lay siege to their compound (in the middle of a series of "row houses").

And, lay siege they did. We're not talking about a tactical assault, (which concerns itself with the wellbeing of individuals and the preservation of life, even though we're all against criminals and extremists -- they still deserve the rights and protections of our criminal justice system) we're talking about laying siege, as we did in the age of empires. They attempted to force them out by flooding the building with fire hoses. When that didn't work, they decided to drop explosives on the roof of the building. It's not quite the molten oil/lead of the days of old, but it did just as well to burn down 52 houses in the surrounding area. It's important to note here that the half dozen children (most too young to even understand what was transpiring around them) inside the building had in fact drowned to death.

This hit me like a ton of bricks. This was 1985 in the United States of America. In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania... The City of Brotherly Love, one of the birthplaces of American democracy...

I was, at first, incredulous that the plan involved fire hoses and explosives. But, that was in turn sort of the moral of the story... The dangers of rushing decisions, excluding knowledgeable individuals, etc...

It took me a little longer to draw the appropriate contrast, which was even more devastating. I eventually thought of those British troops that refused to fire upon Ghandi and his followers. Yes, I realize that the situations were drastically different... Ghandi and his followers insisted upon non-violent resistance, and John Africa and his followers had amassed weapons and held themselves in a row house retrofitted into a bunker reinforced with steel. That being said, we're contrasting India in 1930 verses the United States in 1985.

It was all just too much. The class moved on after a prolonged debate on the topic, and the lecture continued... I actually raised my hand, before taking a moment to consider that what I was about to put forward was in whole simply spiteful and cynical, dismissively and silently waved off the concept of my participation in the debate... waited thirty seconds or so, and walked out of the classroom.

This was the first time I ever actually walked out of a class, at least with the intention to step outside for a ciggi and a moment to recenter myself. Came close once, after watching the documentary on Rwanda last semester, but fortunately class had ended almost directly after finishing it.

"God is in the Rain" Evey Hammond -- V for Vendetta. I'll not include the context alongside the quote, but rather suggest you go track down a copy of V for Vendetta yourself (personal favorite).

Fortunately, for me, it happened to be raining when I stepped outside. It was cold and sharp and refreshing, exactly what I needed it to be at the moment. So, I paced around a few moments and had a cigarette, calmed down a bit and found my center again... It was exactly what I needed it to be. It took all of three minutes, and didn't serve as much of a spectacle to those third parties that might have been looking on. In fact, beyond the spatter of rain upon my clothing no one would've been the wiser upon my return.

And that was that... Now, on to the title of this post. (and, the promised video... please excuse the formating... I blame Blogger and YouTube)

The line is actually from "The Green Mile." It's worth noting that this was one of the only movies I actually saw, then went back and read the book, then went back and read the screenplay. I don't know where the misconception began, but I don't like reading. I read that which is assigned to me, but I don't read for leisure. In reading the novel / screenplay, I came to discover why it's not a great idea. The novel and screenplay/movie are significantly different, in important ways.

Beyond that, this is a concept I've been mulling over for a few years now:

I can't conceive why we treat each other so poorly.

There is just so much unfounded hatred in the world. I know that seems like a baseless and blanket statement, just one of the most recent manifestations of my inability to repress my idealism, but give it a moments thought.

Really, consider for a moment why we choose to treat strangers like competitors? Where does this rampant distrust stem from? Is it really just a race to hoard all the scarce resources we can? And if so, to what end? He who dies with the most toys, still dies.

This actually comes to tie into one of my newest favorite quotes... "Why are we kind? Not because we expect the kindness of others in turn, but because we believe the world needs more kindness..."

You can see how this concept would culminate into the forefront with today's discussion, and force me to step away a moment. I can't say it feels like shards of glass in my skull (watch the video if you don't understand the reference), but someone squeezing my heart.

It's worth noting that today is the five year anniversary of the War in Iraq, and I'm sure somewhere, someone is celebrating... Perhaps the boardroom of KBR or Lockheed Martin? More to the point at hand, today on the Huffington Post (www.huffingtonpost.com) their homepage of course featured the anniversary, and included various statistics:

Almost 4,000 dead American soldiers (i'm sure that excludes contractors, both mercenary and otherwise), 25,000+ injured (we're not talking bumps and bruises here, we're talking debilitating and serious injuries) and finally, 2,100 suicide attempts by troops after returning home. And, that's just "us."

But, what I find more irksome is the remainder of the statistics:

4.5 million (4,500,000) refugees created by the Iraq war. Imagine if a civil war was installed in the middle of Alabama (a state whose population just happens to be 4.5 million), and the violence caused the entire population to flood outwardly from the state. I don't pretend the situation is analogous, but its close enough for my purposes. Not to mention extremist groups have been classically most successful in recruiting new members from areas of transient populations. Such as refugee camps set up on the borders of neighboring countries...

82,000-89,000 Iraqis killed. Those are the numbers from the Iraqi Coroners, the same coroners who received political pressure to stop counting, which are most likely soft numbers. The estimates from "independent organizations" (those lacking political/military influence) put the count closer to a half million. Perhaps it's better to expound upon that a bit... 500,000 ...

500,000 men, women and children. Children who'd done nothing but come up on the wrong side of the dice roll of universal proportions that decided they were to be born there and then.

This is the ugliness of which I speak.

I don't know what it is inside of us that lets us draw some arbitrary distinction between them and us... Because they happen to live half a planet away? Because their skin is slightly darker than ours? Because they happen to believe in a different god?

How is their suffering not our suffering? How is the death of an Iraqi child less devastating than the death of a lily white farmer's daughter from the Midwest? One certainly receives a disproportionate amount of news coverage.

But, no one enjoys this darkness. No one has the time to shed a tear for their lives, we'd spend our days and weeks and years crying. Perhaps it's that same survival instinct that turns strangers to competitors that turns our heart cold to human suffering.

Either way, as promised, the video:

Till next time,
Cheers and good luck,
-Rys

p.s.- This post got a little long and convoluted, but as I said, it's been a weird day.