Quotes, musings, and tunes

The German exchange student who's been here since August is flying back to Germany tomorrow, so my "wow-I-can-actually-just-speak-German-without-trying-to-figure-out-which-words-she-probably-already-knows" buddy will be gone. **sigh** For her last day in town, we went out to eat at Surin West and then for coffee to Starbucks, and then shopping in a novelty place in Southside, where I found the following on a postcard:

"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag people along ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country." --- Reich-Marschall Hermann Goering, at the Nuremberg Trials

It is so close to what was said and done in the lead-up to the Iraq war, I thought it couldn't possibly be real. But no, Snopes affirms that Goering indeed uttered these words in a private conversation with Gustave Gilbert on April 18, 1946. And it is sadly utterly true. We were brought to the bidding of our leaders, despite the fact that they were clearly not being truthful: reasons for attacking Iraq changed from week to week, posturing and empty, militaristic rhetoric were the rule of the day, rather than straight-forward honesty. And let's not kid ourselves, they're still lying to cover their butts as well as possible. There were countless voices who very accurately noted that 1) Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with Al Qaida and the attacks of September 11; 2) Iraq posed no immediate threat to the U.S.; and 3) attacking Iraq would prove to be a huge mess. But what does truth matter, when our honor is on the line? We're Americans, darn it, and as such can do no wrong.

You might write me off as being someone who "doesn't like this country", but that's not true. This is a great country to live in. People are usually friendly and fairly generous. Our school system needs some serious work, as do our priorities as far as taking care of those in need, but we're a country that values the individual and individual effort and creativity, and for the most part gives people the freedom to express themselves (as long as they don't choose to be gay or a commie).

But that belief, that as Americans we can do no wrong, is one of the most dangerous things in this country. We chose to start a preemptive war. Even though we would never accept that behaviour by another country, it's ok for us to do, because "we're good people". The Cute One (aka the One Who Wants To Be Called The Genius) has a great entry concerning this (see her "Shrub & Co." post). We've allowed our leaders to weaken our economy and our civil rights in the name of protecting us, but it's ok, because they're Americans and, like us, are therefore inherently good and can only do good things. They can go ahead and lie to us and bully anyone who doesn't agree with them and cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands, because they are "democratically elected, god-fearing men". [Never mind the fact that we don't worry too much about whether a leader is "democratically elected" when we decide to depose or sanction the killing (Allende in Chile) of those we don't deem pro-America enough --- which means pro-American-business-and-capitalism. But I digress.]

There are very good things about this country, and about the people in this country, and I sure do wish we could get back to some of our better moments. Did you know, that during the Revolutionary War, George Washington charged his officers with treating prisoners of war with kindness and humanity? He said that because they were fighting for an honorable cause they should behave with honor. Imagine that. Many of the Hessian soldiers who had come to America in order to fight with the British as mercenaries were so shocked by their treatment that they ended up staying on after the war. How different things would have been, if we had remembered Washington's behaviour instead of doing our best to justify mistreatment of our prisoners.

Sorry about the rambling, but it's what's been on my mind today. There's nothing wrong with having a certain basic pride about who we are as a country, but we can't let it blind us to the fact that we are not perfect. We also cannot let it blind us to what our leaders are doing in our name, which is decidedly UNamerican.

On that note, a funny William Shatner and Henry Rollins song. It's the background music for someone's kitten video....



Power to the People, peace and comfort to the suffering.