Guest Editorial
Toward A Broader Vision Of We, The People
| The Progress Report welcomes a new writer today, Schuyler Lake. |
by Schuyler Lake
We are going to war. Forget about all the pre-war rhetoric, 200,000 US troops on the borders of Iraq speak louder than words. We are going to war. Yet again.Anti-war rhetoric notwithstanding, intelligence and knowledge of history notwithstanding, all practical knowledge of cause and effect notwithstanding, against all common sense, the age-old ritual is being re-enacted as we speak -- yet again. Once again, governments are forming collusions against the will of the general populace, to wreak havok and brutality and mayhem upon us.
But to term this "American" destruction of huge numbers of Iraqi people a "war" is to grant it a dignity it doesn't deserve. It is rather a deliberate slaughter of innocent civilians for political purposes. And it's time for it to be recognized for what it so obviously is -- just plain wrong.
Ordinary people of good will and intelligence, of whatever nationality, are loathe to use the term "evil" to characterize their opponents. The average Iraqi doesn't think of Americans as "evil", nor does the average American think of Iraqi people as being "evil". We are all simply ordinary people who are caught in this bind of political, economic, and often religious idiocy. The only ones who bandy about the word "evil" are the terrorists -- the people who think it is justifiable to kill other people, for some superior "cause" or other.
And paramount among these "evil-seeking" terrorists is George W. Bush. He is so intent upon rooting out his version of "evil" from the world, that he feels it neccessary to look for it literally, in his own back yard. He is willing, not only to contravene the spirit of the US Constitution, but also to kill untold thousands of innocent foreign peoples, in order to make his fearful vision a reality.
Religion is in the air. People everywhere, from Madagascar to Queens, N.Y., to the Aleutian Islands, are trying to figure out the cosmic significance of their very own being. Religion is no longer just a side-line, it is the very stuff of existence. Or as the poet & prophet Leonard Cohen said some years ago..."magic is alive, God is afoot..."
-------------------
Schuyler Lake lives in New Mexico, and has spent much time in Europe and Canada. He works as a painter of houses and "very odd and almost completely unsaleable canvases." Lake observes that patriotism and a sense of global brotherhood are not at all incompatible.
| Email this article | Sign up for free Progress Report updates via email |
Tell your views to The Progress Report:
| Page One | Page Two | Archive |
| Discussion Room | Letters | What's Geoism? |
