The recent diary
http://www.dailykos.com/...
on the posting/banning "rules" for the IGTNT diary series has garnered more than a thousand comments.
It's a sad but fascinating study of human nature, as a few posters at IGTNT believe that they should have either the "free speech right" or the "moral imperative right" to post anti-war statements, while the majority, and the diarist above, believe that doing so might be offensive to family members of the dead (especially non-Kossacks) who visit the site to see references to their loved ones who died.
IMHO, three issues are paramount:
- Who will see the content of the IGTNT diary, and how will it affect them?
and
- What is the purpose of a "funeral?"
- "Wasted Life Vs. Wasted Death"
More below.
As to the first issue: Some posters on the recent Meta-IGTNT diary seem to believe that only Kossacks read IGTNT (and a special curse-out -- that is the opposite of a shout-out -- to the poster who referred to the IGTNT as a "grief circle-jerk," this person is clearly in need of a compassion booster shot). But (see poll, below) who among even the marginally net-savvy has never googled a lost love or lost friend? When we are lonely -- and who is lonelier than one who has just lost a loved one -- we reach out. We look for evidence that others miss the missing one. In this day and age, we turn to the internet. Family members of the dead -- at least some of them -- DO see the IGTNT diaries, no matter their political views.
As to the second issue, the metaphor of "Funeral = IGTNT Diary" is often used in the diary, like this:
"If you'd refrain from doing it at the funeral, don't do it in the diary."
Some posters make statements of the:
"...I would hate to go to a funeral and hear that my loved one died in a great and noble cause, while I knew that his or her death was a waste, caused while pursuing an unuseful or negative goal..." type.
Yet this is common at most funerals, pretty much S.O.P. and in line with the adage "Speak no ill of the dead."
Funerals are about grieving, and about giving comfort to those who grieve.
They are generally not -- unless it is with the consent, tacit or not, of the closest survivors -- about speaking truth to power, making political statements, etc.
The funeral of a martyr is a different story. It's a political/social event to affect the survivors' or attendees' attitudes or actions. If the family of a dead soldier CHOOSES to do this -- as Cindy Sheehan did -- well, then it is their choice. It is no one else's to make.
The third issue: A "wasted death" is an abstract thing, a political concept. There are few here who would agree that the Iraq war has, as it was carried out, served a useful socio-political purpose for our nation. There are few who would say that alcoholism, fat and sugar or tobacco addiction, or risky behavior is useful (and waste is the opposite of useful). Yet at few funerals do the speakers attack and decry the liquor or tobacco industries, or that tendency of teenage boys to allow their testosterone to control their minds. After the funeral, if a "Mothers Against Drunk Driving" or an Anti-Fast Food Action Group or a Community Program for Inner-City Boys group springs up, that is a wonderful way of using the agony of a loved one's death to positive effect. The need for it is not stated at the funeral. It comes afterwards.
But I still have not addressed that third issue.
A death can be a waste. But a life is never wasted. A life is not wasted just because its death was a waste. A "wasted death" is an abstract, after-the-fact. The life IS the fact.
(I might make one exception: a live lived only in pursuit of self-gratification might be considered, by some, to be largely a waste of a life...especially if that life is of one who has been given great advantages, as is the case with everyone who posts here, since no matter our bankbook or body, we have the intellect, background, and ability to use a computer, as many on our planet do not -- for more on this, please visit my sig line).
There is a fourth issue, looming above all here.
Among some posters, lack of compassion and civility.
To hate anything -- even war -- so much that you are willing to kill indiscriminately, to carpet-bomb, to conduct collective punishment, makes us less than fully human.
To paraphrase Joseph N. Welch during the McCarthy Hearings: "Have we no sense of decency, Kossacks?"
Can we not be "decent" to each other? We can cut a little slack to those that get so angry at reading the IGTNT diaries (as I sometimes do) that they are compelled to make an inappropriate comment (as I prevent myself from doing). We can, with compassion, cut off -- yes, BAN, at least for some period of time -- those that persist in it.
We can want to stop the war, while offering compassion to those who grieve its dead.
We can want to stop the war, while understanding how that hatred can make some act inappropriately.
We can want to stop the war, while keeping ourselves from acting inappropriately.
We can grieve for all the dead, of all nations and types.
We can strive to be decent.
No?