While US casualties in Iraq hit another comma milestone, 4,000, US contractor fatalities climb above 1,123, the number of British soldiers killed is at 175 and other nations have lost 134. But the grand winner by a landslide, remain the Iraqi people at 1,220,580. According to a standard margin of error, the real total could be as high as 1,446,063. And if medical researchers start taking into account an increased infant mortality, Iraq could be nearing the 1.5M mark. Break out your candles!
UPDATE:
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It would be good if the pacifist and Democratic Party PEACE crowd, before we get to commemorating the deaths of 5,000 American troops with them, could be convinced to start a campaign to commemorate every 100,000 more Iraqis killed, too. Unfortunately, they (especially the DP people, but the AFSC types, too) seem totally tied to posing as being ‘patriots’.
And what about the Afghans? The US has murdered off hundreds of thousands of them, too, since promoting warfare in their country since way back 30 years ago. Don’t they get some sort of semi regular PEACE ceremony, too?
I get so fed up with the lack of any real anger from the PEACE crowd about all of this. They think it bad to express anger even. Oh, yeah, unless it comes to expressing anger at those that are fed up with their lackadaisical mindset. Then they can get quite viciously angry! Watch out.
So, we head tomorrow for the ceremony of the 4,000. Meanwhile,the mass of America sleeps stupidly in its sheep-like politics. Who’s bringing the damn candles?
It would appear that apathy has entered with a candle in hand…It marches up to the line of protestors and says, “Don’t show anger. Don’t get loud. Walk softly. The sound of stamping feet and human chants might disturb the powers that be. Shhhh. Don’t cause a fuss because of the nature of the immoral occupation of a soveriegn land and the millions dead because of lies. Shhhh.”
They don’t mention, in any of it, the names of the 3997th,3998th,3999th and Da Big 4000, just that the roadside bomb took all 4 of them to their eternal homes at one shot.
What if, you know, one of them was my nephew? I think he made a fundamentally retarded decision to join the Army in the first damned place. His mom yelled at me for daring to suggest that somebody should counsel him against it. Not a word about the highly organized campaign to counsel him, and every other kid who goes in, to recruit high school kids and even junior high/middle school kids have recruiters give them the ol’ Uncle Sam wants YOU to join up, forgo your education, just join as soon as you get out of High School either by graduation or just dropping out, don’t make a fuckin’ bit of difference to the Army, you’re gonna be Meat anyhow.
But you counsel the kids that the Recruiters are lying, and the Pseudo Patriots start saying you should STFU and “let him make up his own mind” meaning, let the lies of the Army Recruiters go unchallenged.
They haven’t released the names of the four “milestone” soldiers, pending notification to their next of kin.
3999 was just as important as 4000. 4001 was equally as important, excuse me, will be equally as important. #1,000,000 on the casualty count, all “sides” counting, was just as important, and no more, than #1.
You realize that, I realize that.
To recite their names, in a reading while playing “Flowers o’ the Forest”, if all the names are known, even, do you realize how long that would take? Even the 1,000 killed since December 30th of ’06, would require an hour of patient listening. And that’s just one “side”.
Think, and remember, how it felt for you, personally, on that day when you realized, that all the Boy Scout, flag-waving, pledge-reciting BULLSHIT you had been spoon fed for the entire rest of your life till that point, was a long and seriously amoral string of Lies.
Remember the days, weeks, months of systematic denial you put yourself through before the bubble could no longer be denied, the 2000 pound hog in the parlor could no longer be stepped over or gone around, you couldn’t pretend any longer that the stench of “essence of pigshit” was anything other than the vile offensive odor that it truly is.
That’s why there’s milestones. Milestones reduce the horror of disillusion to something that maybe won’t cause mass psychoses.
There was a Frank Herbert “short” (for him) book published in installments in Analog magazine, late 70s, about a bio-engineered virus which caused people to become radically more intelligent, within hours of being “infected”.
Imagine, if you will, what would happen to the RealPolitik if those (high estimate) 28% who are still radically devoted to the Bu’ush Regime and its amoral policies, the Bu’ushiite Wars, the thefts, murders, enslavement… had their “head-pulling-out” ceremonies simultaneously.
Of course, that’s so statistically improbable it could count as being Impossible…
But any sizeable and nearly synchronized disillusionment would still pose a great leap into the unknown for all of mankind. If only a tenth of them, during a day or even a week, were to wake the fuck up….
You hit the nail on the head, poetryman.
‘Anger is not responsible, not like Jesus, not like we want to show the powers that are how we really are. Mute your voices so that they will hear us.’
In reality, it is only anger that will move them, for They fear that more than anything else. Anger gets things done, and says to Power that we mean business. Unfortunately, the pacifists and DP people try to act like little choir boys and girls before their pastor or priest.
‘Please listen to us, Sir. We’re good people like you.’
Some sad ‘opposition’ all that makes, all this The Meek Will Inherit the Earth Crowd! Not that we should all just glory in anger, but when it is appropriate, it’s a form of sickness to hold it all inside and think that that is somehow a virtue. It is not, and is nothing more than the personal internalization of the Police State into one’s own character and personality, all the while praising oneself for being so damn proper and correct.
NOW y’all have the vigil.
OK. But you know, there’ll be others, and God willing I’ll at least be able to get up for that.
I’m getting tired. I think.
I think, therefore I am confused.