"Where Does It Hurt?": Charlottesville, Barcelona, and Trump

In the past several months, I have been piecing together some thoughts on both the spiritual danger of hating the President, while necessarily resisting his policies, and the importance of cultivating empathy for him, even though he shows no empathy to anyone else.  I have found myself hating him and taking a very dualistic approach towards him and his supporters, with little empathy for them.  I will have to return and continue those semi-original thoughts, now with more fodder, as this past week has given us Charlottesville, Barcelona, and the ignorant responses of Trump to both attacks. 
What the attacker and the white supremacist marchers in Charlottesville, what the attackers in Spain, what Donald Trump, and what even many of us on our most puritanical days have in common is: a lack of love, a lack of wisdom, and an inability to inhabit gray spaces.  With that, I share the following pieces.  Only two are strictly related to this past week, but all speak to some degree to this interior life, or lack thereof.
A. Life After Hate, full interview with former white supremacist, on Democracy Now! (1 hour, 7 minutes)
B. Where Does It Hurt? full interview with Ruby Sales, from On Being (52 minutes)
C. Living in Deep Time, full interview with Richard Rohr, from On Being (52 minutes)
D. I Voted for Trump. And I Sorely Regret It. Julius Krein, op-ed contributor, New York Times 
E. And James Baldwin gets the final, brief word. (2 minutes)

Nagasaki: 72 years ago today

"The most racist, nastiest act by this country, after human slavery, was the bombing of Nagasaki," Kurt Vonnegut once wrote.  
And now, how horribly fitting that Donald Trump speaks of "fire and fury" upon North Korea in between Sunday and today, i.e. in between the two anniversaries.  How absolutely reckless.
Stop this reckless child. 

Hiroshima: 72 years ago today

72 years ago today, the United States used the world's first ever nuclear weapon.  The "Enola Gay" gave birth to her "little boy" in the skies above Hiroshima, in what could be described as the anti-Nativity. Meanwhile, 72 years later, we build and stockpile more "little boys" and "fat men."  Write a letter to the editor: We don't want another nuclear catastrophe. 
As the people of Hiroshima teach us and Wendell Berry wrote, we must "practice resurrection."   

Assumed the Watch, revisited (2): Okinawa

While onboard the USS Cowpens, forward-deployed out of Yokusuka, Japan, I had the opportunity to visit Okinawa twice.  The first time was uneventful.  I recall going out into town with fellow officers, drinking a lot of beer, singing karaoke poorly, and drawing attention to ourselves on the streets—not a scene per se but loud enough to be obnoxious and attract stares from locals.  That was par, though.  The next morning, we ate a tremendous Sunday brunch (with subsidized prices) at the Air Force officers' club.  The second time involved more drama.  While we were out to sea, a sailor from our ship who had previously deserted stabbed and killed a Japanese taxicab driver.  News had been released that the suspect was a Cowpens sailor and that the Cowpens was pulling into Okinawa that weekend (Good Friday and Easter weekend, no less).  While the crime occurred on Honshu, the main island of Japan, and not in Okinawa, Okinawans were no strangers to crime committed by U.S. military personnel.  We were restricted to the base that weekend, but a little murder/international incident did not stop the crew from enjoying two nights of revelry at the base club.

The latter example is dramatic, and one might argue that we should only blame the "few bad apples."  But, both instances are emblematic of American-style imperialism in the 21^st century: we take for granted that we should and will be “over there,” if we even think about it at all; we get on with our normal American lives; and we don't know anything about the people whose land our bases occupy. 

What did the Europeans say about American GIs after World War II?  "Oversexed, overpaid, overfed, and over here."  That seems apt.

Despite these two visits and despite my being a history teacher and peace activist, I have remained embarrassingly ignorant of Okinawa.  For instance, I obviously know of American neo-colonialism because I partook in it, but I did not know much about the earlier Japanese colonialism.  I just assumed Okinawa was always part of Japan.  Asian is Asian is Asian, to the American officers at the brunch and the golf course. 

With that in mind, I share two relevant stories on Okinawa: first, a eulogy for former governor Masahide Ota by Veterans for Peace and The Japan Times; and second, an article on the ongoing anti-imperialist struggle on the island.

 

 

Appetite for War

More on the making for war in Iran, by Vijay Prishad.

Stop the Impending War with Iran

Like the war in Iraq in 2003 had been in the works for years before it happened, war in Iran has been in the works for decades.  Now, enter Trump.  The Mask Is Off, as Trita Parsi writes.

The 2015 Iran nuclear deal, while not perfect, was a crowning achievement of the Obama administration and of the other countries involved, to include Iran.  Our Democratic senator, Bob Menendez, by the way, voted against the agreement, as did fellow Democratic Senators Joe Manchin (WV), Ben Cardin (MD), and the minority leader Chuck Schumer (NY).  So did our Democratic Congressman, Albio Sires.  Contact them: vis-a-vis Trump in the White House, where do these Democrats stand now?  

Protect the agreement.  Stand for peace!

Close US Foreign Military Bases

Say No to Foreign Bases.