I don’t miss the irony. A double espresso is costly, and this is my second.

I continue reading, this time about millions of hungry people in this country, many of them are children, and though it doesn’t specifically say so I’m fairly certain some of them are veterans. I know because we feed a lot of veterans at the mission and homeless shelter here.

I’m not alone. I’m considering lunch, while listening to co-workers discuss the political anthropology of our organization. At the same time I’m concentrating haphazardly on a discussion between two individuals I have great fondness for. A Chicano and a Cuban American. The conversation/argument surrounds the differences between Chicano and Cuban Americans. I, being neither Chicano or Cuban, unless non bio family osmosis counts, am a happy to monitor this type of thing after a couple of glasses of wine, but I prefer not to deal with it while drinking my 2nd pre-lunch Espresso.

I grab the laptop, briefly click through to TPM where they were highlighting John Stewart’s wtf talk with Lou Dobbs. I appreciate the observation made by one commenter — “that for Dobbs advocating for the military industrial complex is the middle of the road and advocating for health care for the soldier running up Omaha beach is taking a hard turn to the left “. I want to add that Dobbs has always been covertly irrational. Covert because his voice doesn’t squeal with hysteria and he doesn’t cry like Beck. His patronizing, yet almost calming, tone deceives those for whom overly cynical, strict fatherly love has a calming effect, giving the illusion of a rationality he does not possess, and making him all the more dangerous.

peace

Brave New Films has partnered with RAWA, to help Afghans displaced by US war, focusing on what is really happening in Afghanistan as a result of US policy. The partnership is to provide direct aid to displaced people living in desperate conditions in suburbs of Kabul. The plight of these people has been covered in a documentary viewable in segments at the Rethink Afghanistan.

There are five segments up at the site currently. Most are quite disturbing. The site itself is worth tooling around. I’ve been following it for some time, as I’ve followed RAWA. The site boasts a blog, and a separate section for Veterans for Rethinking Afghanistan.

Unlike Iran Afghanistan is technologically isolated. The people, their way of life, are unfamiliar to most of us. Iran, though isolated via sanctions, is a country whose people we relate to, and proudly twitter about, because they look more like us, are educated like us, have access – even if limited – to advanced technology, and we fear their country. We find it harder to relate to the Afghan people. Consequently we are less bothered by the fact that the women of Afghanistan suffer some of the most horrific circumstances we could ever imagine. We don’t twitter about them, or turn our faces green over them.

There is no logic to how we choose our causes. At times it seems merely a matter of convenience, though we tend to act much quicker, and with more careful consideration, when we can see ourselves in others. The more people seem like us, the more likely we will be bothered by their distress and act, if only symbolically, on it.

We choose our causes based on sameness. Women are going to have to help women. First we have to listen to the women we are hoping to help. The 5th segment of the documentary will help with that. Bombs will kill women in Afghanistan.

We should be aware of what our policy is doing to women around the world, even if it is not as easy for them to communicate this to us and our nightly news is not reporting it.

The site also has a direct link to donate to RAWA. The donations will purchase a variety of things, from ghee and rice, to blankets and tent carpets.

A comments off FYI posting.

peace

I’m not as well schooled on the Vietnam era as I am on other things, though I know more about it than most people my age, if only because I find it more interesting than shopping for Jim Choo’s — they are out of my price range and my legs look quite fine without heals because they are fairly long.

I gather, from what I’ve read on McNamara’s passing, that people think he owns Vietnam, or he should. So they’ve assigned it to him. Understandable, but I’m not convinced he should be sole owner. It’s as convenient, and right, to blame Vietnam on the likes of McNamara as it is to blame Iraq on Bush and friends (liars), a congress unwilling to listen to the sense of Robert Byrd (cowards), and complicit or incompetent journalism (caught in the middle with you). Next time it will be our fault.

History has changed things. So has the internet. We saw that with the presidential election, we are seeing it in some way now with Iran’s Executives of Construction Party dismissing the vote and siding with the opposition. Next time we will be to blame. As the internet continues to grow, and access to real and substantive sources of information increases, there will be fewer excuses for complicit apathy by way of intentional ignorance. Yes, it is still a free country, and everyone should be free to practice both ignorance and apathy as they see fit. No one should be denied their preferred intent. This is merely a reminder that we should enjoy the scapegoats while we can.

I’ll have to do more reading on Vietnam. Not immediately, as I have my second summer session, work, and Infinite indiJestion, along with My Sister My Love, will consume most of my summer reading time. I’m am up for general or academic reading suggestions on Vietnam though.

Speaking of Infinite Jest. I haven’t been an end note virgin for years, but now I am an end note whore, having given myself up to my first 9 8.4 page end note experience. Isn’t this a rite of passage? Shouldn’t there be gifts and parties, or at least a dinner out, for this?