New Poll-What do you think?

[[deleted user]]

we don't care
even those of us who care
don't care
as long as i can have my mixed tapes
online chat forums
favorite tv shows
chocolate
walks on the beach and 12 step program of my choice
i don't really care
at least not enough to do anything

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

For me my study of the Middle East has deepened and broadened. I read a lot of things that are about or related to Iraq and the Middle East as a whole. I watch CSPAN and the Military Channel. I watch all the documentaries that air about Iraq, and recently I have watched all the Hollywood has had to offer. Two of the best that come to mind are "The Valley of Elah" about the effects on soldiers coming home... and "Rendition" about the clandestine disappearing and torture of an Egyptian man (married to an American woman) and living in the US since he was 14) when he mistakenly gets linked to a suicide bombing.

I think the American media have the attention span of gnats, and they think the rest of us do as well. It's the rare journalist who has hung in there for the long haul. You have to look around the fringes of things to get anything except a passing remark about bombings or body counts.

I think most people are looking towards the election to see a change in our foreign policy, and Iraq in general. I think most people have given up hope of getting anything changed with the Bush administration still in the White House. I think the Surge has shown enough "success" that people don't have enough information to make a case for getting out NOW. I think they have sent most of the journalists home and less information is coming out of Iraq. I think it takes something extraordinary to jar most of us out of complacency, as Maureen intimated. I think real misery, that exists in many portions of the world outside the US is a foreign concept to most of us. I think we are sheltered and isolated as a culture. I think most people are thinking more about their mortgages and their gas prices at this juncture in time.

I think a lot about working with returning vets in some way. Those poor men and women are going to be suffering from PTSD so badly. And our mental health systems are completely unprepared to deal with it... especially since many of them are being closed... CLOSED!!!... because of budget cuts. I think when this thing rolls out our domestic violence and other related things are going to escalate like mad.

[[deleted user]]

losing sight of iraq 4 posts
fav tv show 101 posts
fav songs 255 posts

ok so the other two topics have been around longer and no one likes to talk about the tough stuff

entertaining ourselves to extinction

[Paul]

The USA will be stuck in Afghanistan and Iraq for years and years. And it looks like the public will now tolerate it.

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

ha ha ha... yeah, I've been observing the post counts as well Maureen. It's kind of interesting. People will talk more on this site about the tough issues than most other blogs I've been involved in... but I don't like to hang around on the purely political ones. Too much flaming going on, not enough intelligent discourse. At least people are mostly civil here. But yeah... I think people find it too depressing.

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

we are Rome with TV and internet. we have entered our decadent phase.

[[deleted user]]

yah-eschew entertainment

economics play a part too
the struggle to keep what we've got

i rolled over like everyone else

i'm not initiating protests

i was cowered by the patriotic fervor the cheney administration whipped up

gitmo doesn't horrify me as much as it did at first

i'm a coward

now everyone resist the urge to say buck up ol girl

fuck consolation

listening to cake right now with my 25 year old struggling son

sheep go to heaven
goats go the hell

well we're all fuckin goats at this point

yah know-my daughter is in the fuckin navy!!!

i live in military housing and take care of her children

the wars are my meal ticket

could you get any more fucking ironic

think i'll start a neighborhood anti-war protest

i wonder how well that would go over?

[[deleted user]]

but that is the point
we all wait for someone else to do something
how hard is it to take an ad out in the paper that says peace rally at 6:00 p.m. Wednesday evening
and then show up
and do it again
and again

$15 and 1 hour of your time a week?

http://wri-irg.org/from-off.htm

ok helpless bastards
let's begin
meet me online tonight at 6:00 pm for a peace rally
headbands optional
i'll have the chat room set up on goodreads
bring your ideas for some effective (legal) action to change the world
and eliminate our shared sense of helplessness

[shellyindallas]

In TX you don't have to register as a Dem or a Rep, so when I went to vote in 2004 I mixed it up (I generally vote for Libertarian judges), then voted for Kerry. It was a diebold. At the end it said I voted for Bush. Luckily I caught it before it was too late, but I'm sure (as results of voter fraud in Ohio suggests) many others didn't.

In 2003 close to 10,000 people flooded the streets of downtown Dallas to protest going to war in Iraq. It wasn't on the news or in the paper, I only know b/c some of the participants came into the bar I worked in after.

Neither anti-war Obama or Clinton have plans to withdraw all troops out of Iraq.

As Ron Paul says: "We marched right in, why can't we march right out?"--someone will say something about a civil war...a civil war that will likely occur whether we leave now or 50 years from now.

Progressive Americans say "we're ready for tough talk on the environment. just tell us what we need to do. we're prepared to sacrifice. we don't want to be so dependent on foreign oil"--but they're waiting for the word.

[[deleted user]]

sorry-i went away for awhile

nothing wrong with entertainment at all

i like it too

i just think i like it too much

and some social responsibility might be a good thing for me

doesn't have to be for you-this was just the topic of the posting

i started the goodreads group Weekly Peace Rally and we have 3 members and a plan to meet here this evening online at 6:00 pm pacific time

anyone who would like to join us or want to be entertained Ko ;) come along for the shenanigans

the purpose is to feel less helpless and take positive well thought out action rather than tutus and rainbows

regards

m

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

That's a good point King. I have a lot of liberal friends in hippie colleges... I went to a kind of hippie college myself... but I often become frustrated at the dissipated efforts of the Left. There's a lot of emotional arguments and few well put together ones. There's a lot of bizarre dissent that honestly I think does more harm than good. I think the question comes down to what would be effective, rather than what would make us feel good about ourselves. I think most of the protest that goes on is ineffective.

My mom and dad have both taken to writing letters now that they are retired. They focus mostly on local issues, because that is where they have the most impact. They both (we all) protested the Vietnam War... I remember being at Peace Rallies in my stroller at the age of 3... but I think the body counts in that war for American soldiers made it much larger issue. This administration has been smart enough to keep the body count lower and to keep the images of dead American soldiers out of the news as much as possible. Vietnam ended because Middle America got up out of their Barka Loungers and took to the streets. The Left simply gets looked at as the fringe lunatics. When Middle America decides this war should be over, that's when the gears will move.

I like the quote on Donald's profile: "If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace."
— John Lennon

But at the end of the day we will still have to decide as a nation how we are going to address the serious global threat of militant Islam. If we put our heads in the sand about it we will be fucked later on. Pure military solution is no solution... we have to come up with something more comprehensive. I have yet to hear someone with a serious and plausible approach that goes beyond "bomb the shit out of them".

[[deleted user]]

body count for americans is lower but injured and disabled is 10 times the body count or approximately 40,000 and the injuries are more severe because of advanced medical techniques
amputees are one thing but wait until the number of head injured hit the streets, literally

my city has seen this wars vets become homeless in staggering numbers

this is something of which i know of which i speak
my 25 year old son had a severe head injury when he was 15, he still is dependent upon my care

it's not physical, it's much more insidious, judgement, impulse control, social functioning, personality disorders, anger, depression, increased rates of substance abuse, homelessness, reinjury (50% of head injured have a second head injuury within 5 years, 70% of those have a third)

check out frontal lobe injury on the internet
brain injury is happening in increasing numbers than any other war due to ied's and concussive injuries

we can't handle 20,000 vets with frontal lobe injuries

I think the last estimate of dead iraqi's i heard was somewhere in the 200,000 range (i could be wrong but what's an acceptable number)

what don't we get about shock and awe bombing raids

WAR not agression, anger, lack of negotiation
WAR maiming, killing, devastating, men, women, and children, and the land they walk upon, the homes they sleep in, the schools they attend, hospitals, parks, markets, countryside with craters and explosions and body parts raining down upon you

war

let's stop waiting for the armchair peace activists
it started with the writers folks, the singers and musicians, the college students, the hippie freaks who were at the rally for the weed

6:00 pm pacific time tonight here on goodreads Weekly Peace Rally group-apple snail moderator