Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2003-10-04 12:24 am
azurelunatic) wrote2003-10-04 12:24 am
Thoughts on War and the US in general
The reason I started this journal (not the LJ, but the journal I've been keeping since January 16, 1991 (the day Operation Desert Storm was declared to be started) was so my descendants would know what my thoughts and reactions were during the war.
I sort of missed out on doing much of that, but here...
If I were a good Wiccan, I would be utterly and completely opposed to the thought of war and violence as means to an end. I'm not a good Wiccan; I may not even be a Wiccan.
I was opposed to the idea of the US waging war on Iraq this time, initially because I really do believe in the idea of the UN. I believe in the ideal of a world committed to working together peacefully and talking things out at a boardroom table instead of making people die to work out problems. I believed that the US believed in peace, and cooperation, and I was appalled that the government was even thinking of defying the UN and going and blowing shit up anyway.
I was listening to NPR while walking around, and a calm person was interviewing an expert, and I was ... boggled, I guess ... that the invasion of Iraq was being presented as something already determined, rather than something that was still yet to be decided on.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cryuntothemoon might want to offer violence to garnetdagger, who would return his thoughtful gift -- but I'm not used to being hated for who I am. I don't tend to spend time with assholes, anymore, not after Shawn -- I'm not used to being hated for who I'm with, anymore. (People who saw me with Shawn, actually, pitied me after they got to know me...)
I don't like being hated for the place I live. I heard from people, while I was still living back home in and before 2000, that if you're traveling abroad, you're not supposed to say that you're an American -- you say you're an Alaskan. American gets you the scorn and bad service and "all of you are rich arrogant assholes" treatment; Alaskan gets you questions about the weather, about the wildlife, about the daylight.
I resent being associated with an arrogant asshole superpower. I was raised gently, relatively simply. I would not object if MTV, microwave dinners, and Doritos vanished from the planet forever. I would not mourn the passing of McDonald's, though I might miss the occasional burger. I've never shopped at Old Navy or the Gap. I can't remember the last time I watched TV. My strongest connection to the US monoculture is that I'm on LJ and many of my friends are also US-based, and I reside there, I shop there, I attend school there.
I was raised with the core US values -- individual freedoms, honor for the historical heroes and observation of the holidays, freedom to worship as we will. I was also raised Liberal Quaker, and technophilic, with a stay-at-home mother. I believe that ignorance is the root of many conflicts, that hatred is learned rather than instinctive, and that people must be taken individually, not judged by my preconceptions of their culture. I believe that bullying is never right, and that with great power comes the potential to misuse it badly, and the responsibility to take care that this doesn't happen. I have learned that I am happy with things that are simple, and that simple does not equate to bad or ugly.
I like my pampered life, but I grew up without most of the things that my peers take for granted. No toilet. No running water. No TV. No garage. No grocery store within five miles. I also grew up with love and support and education and beauty that I take for granted, that other people did not have. My father never hit my mother. There was always enough money for books. If I was interested in something, I could study it. No matter what I decided, I knew my parents would still love me, though they might be fearfully upset.
I sort of missed out on doing much of that, but here...
If I were a good Wiccan, I would be utterly and completely opposed to the thought of war and violence as means to an end. I'm not a good Wiccan; I may not even be a Wiccan.
I was opposed to the idea of the US waging war on Iraq this time, initially because I really do believe in the idea of the UN. I believe in the ideal of a world committed to working together peacefully and talking things out at a boardroom table instead of making people die to work out problems. I believed that the US believed in peace, and cooperation, and I was appalled that the government was even thinking of defying the UN and going and blowing shit up anyway.
I was listening to NPR while walking around, and a calm person was interviewing an expert, and I was ... boggled, I guess ... that the invasion of Iraq was being presented as something already determined, rather than something that was still yet to be decided on.
cryuntothemoon might want to offer violence to garnetdagger, who would return his thoughtful gift -- but I'm not used to being hated for who I am. I don't tend to spend time with assholes, anymore, not after Shawn -- I'm not used to being hated for who I'm with, anymore. (People who saw me with Shawn, actually, pitied me after they got to know me...) I don't like being hated for the place I live. I heard from people, while I was still living back home in and before 2000, that if you're traveling abroad, you're not supposed to say that you're an American -- you say you're an Alaskan. American gets you the scorn and bad service and "all of you are rich arrogant assholes" treatment; Alaskan gets you questions about the weather, about the wildlife, about the daylight.
I resent being associated with an arrogant asshole superpower. I was raised gently, relatively simply. I would not object if MTV, microwave dinners, and Doritos vanished from the planet forever. I would not mourn the passing of McDonald's, though I might miss the occasional burger. I've never shopped at Old Navy or the Gap. I can't remember the last time I watched TV. My strongest connection to the US monoculture is that I'm on LJ and many of my friends are also US-based, and I reside there, I shop there, I attend school there.
I was raised with the core US values -- individual freedoms, honor for the historical heroes and observation of the holidays, freedom to worship as we will. I was also raised Liberal Quaker, and technophilic, with a stay-at-home mother. I believe that ignorance is the root of many conflicts, that hatred is learned rather than instinctive, and that people must be taken individually, not judged by my preconceptions of their culture. I believe that bullying is never right, and that with great power comes the potential to misuse it badly, and the responsibility to take care that this doesn't happen. I have learned that I am happy with things that are simple, and that simple does not equate to bad or ugly.
I like my pampered life, but I grew up without most of the things that my peers take for granted. No toilet. No running water. No TV. No garage. No grocery store within five miles. I also grew up with love and support and education and beauty that I take for granted, that other people did not have. My father never hit my mother. There was always enough money for books. If I was interested in something, I could study it. No matter what I decided, I knew my parents would still love me, though they might be fearfully upset.
no subject
I think it's ironic that Americans should now be going through this abroad, as many people who came here from foreign countries experienced hate from some Americans simply because they were foreign. Not that I think it's right in any situation. Hate is always wrong no matter how or where it's expressed.
A lot of what you wrote in here resonated with me. I still like being American, but for the original values that America was founded on. Right now the leadership of this country is taking us way off course. I don't believe in war, but I do believe in the right of a country to defend itself. What gets me the most is that we are the worlds greatest superpower, so the war in Irag could hardly be called self-defense. And I liked it less that the war started on my birthday. It was the same nite I went to the emergency room with severe abdominal pain (that led to my finding out I had cancer that went liver metastasis), and I watched the war unfold on the waiting room tv. Since then the world has made less sense to me - and now I just focus on what's important, my family and those that I love.
I quess i'm rambling...just your post got me thinking and I thought i'd post it anyway.
no subject
no subject
Well, I don't think this is a recent thing. I've seen advice to Americans to call themselves Canadian for many years. (Since most people - especially non-English speakers - are unlikely to notice the accent differences, and everyone loves the Canadians.)
no subject
In Alaska, Canada is our neighbor, no big deal. In the Lower 48, Canada is a lame joke, and Mexico is an embarrassment. From what I pick up here. Which, in Arizona, is not so fair & balanced towards Mexico.
...
Days like these, I wouldn't mind Alaska seceeding, because then I could claim Alaskan citizenship, and dissociate myself from the rest of the country...
no subject
Info on Wicca
Re: Info on Wicca
http://www.pagansunite.com/
Those are some good places to start.
There are about as many different sects in paganism, neo-paganism, and so forth as there are subdivisions of Christianity, except not as well-defined, and a bazillion of the different varieties will be calling themselves Wiccan. So, don't expect anything like coherent agreement between any two Wiccans. There are several "official" subdivisions of Wicca -- Alexandrian, Gardnerian, for a start -- and two Gardnerian Wiccans will probably have closer to the same idea of what Wicca is all about than would two eclectic Wiccans. (I'm very strongly eclectic, as Wiccans go, though I've been strongly questioning whether that's the right label to slap on my religious identity.)
I would be suspicious of any site that declared the God of the Jewish and Christian peoples a myth. Many people who have their head on straight will acknowledge that that particular Deity does exist, just that they question the veracity of the holy texts of that religion, and furthermore, they owe allegience to different or older gods/goddesses. Another widely held belief is that all Gods -- Christian, pagan, Hindu, etc. -- are merely different faces on one great Deity who is utterly beyond human comprehension, and all the faces are different manifestations of that Deity, and humans' attempt to understand.
Quite honestly, when fellow pagans say, "The Christians are worshipping a god that does not exist," I look at them with the same expression I usually reserve for someone brandishing a Bible at me and telling me the same thing about my gods. Not only is it untrue and betray a flawed understanding (I've been to Christian church, been in pagan circle, same mystical experience, different flavour) but it's also vastly rude.
(Incidentally, there are almost as many different kinds of Satanists. http://www.churchofsatan.com/ is one of the better sites; it's true that there are Satanists who will slice & dice kittens, but the variety that hold true to LaVey's vision would kick the asses of that kind for betraying LaVey's Satanic law of not doing harm to innocents. The Bunco Sheet from that page has many, many bits of good advice that work for almost any religious group. A group bashing any given other large group without treating the members as individuals is suspect, especially.)
Re: Info on Wicca