While I am glad to see democrats win the elections yesterday, I was sad to the Italian War Documentary vanish so quickly from the Daily Kos site. If we don't see it with our own eyes, we'll never know the true cost of this war. If we don't keep bringing it up, if we don't send it to our friends, families, and represenatives there will not be a demand for the atrocities to stop.
I am the mother of 2 young boys. This is my plea that we work even harder to ensure that this is not done in our names.
My children are beautiful. Luke is 3 1/2 and Xander is 28 months. Already both of my sons are advanced for their ages. Luke is reading and counting. Xander can keep a beat, can count to 6, and is good with names. Luke is shy, always has been. He likes cars (BTW he can name over a hundred of them from the Lotus Elise to the Honda Civic) he like animals and he thinks that bugs are the coolest thing on earth. Xander was a ladies man from day one, smiling and flirting with every pretty waitress or receptionist. He likes our cats, follows his big brother around all the time and loves Clifford the Big Red dog. The differences in their personalities is already great; Luke an introvert, Xander the extrovert. They both love music. You can see in the eyes of both grandads visions of little league and pee wee football.
Last week Xander learned how to tell me that he loves me. He crawls in my lap, kisses my cheek, and says "I lub ooh, mama."
I think of the children in Iraq, some as young as my own. I picture sitting in my living room and hearing a black helicopter hovering over my roof. It's loud, from a speaker I hear what sound like orders being angrily shouted in a language I don't understand. Then I hear the loud crashing of a bomb falling through my ceiling. The last thing I see and hear is my children screaming as acid eats their tender flesh away.
Although I might be a raging liberal, my children aren't, well not yet anyway. Luke could care less about gay rights or tax incentives for oil companies. He is too busy playing video games and learning about different cars. Right now all he cares about is that the news makes mama sad and that I need a kiss to make it better. Xander could care less about the war or Diebold, he just wants to be picked up and if he hurts himself he knows that mama and daddy will be there with a hug and a bandaid. They are innocent of any political persuasion, children just like them, the same ages as them, are being killed right now.
I had seen the pictures before, this story is old, this documentary is not. The realities of that carnage are available for the world to see, it is our duty to fight this, to demand that it stops.
These images are horrific and definiately depressing. After viewing the video I couldn't sleep, my heart aches for any mother that has witness their children being destroyed like this. It's so hard to deal with, knowing that our troops are being told to do this, knowing that they will forever be warped because they have to follow orders. After seeing this video I was angry and so sad.
I decided to listen to lots of music to help me cope, I listened repeatedly to Jeff Buskley's cover of Hallelujah, Rage Against the Machine and finally Where is the Love by the Black Eyed Peas.
I know that their is plenty of Peas hatred, Clear Channel has the tendency to destroy plenty of good bands with excessive play, so while I understand that some may ridicule me for listening to that song for comfort, that is what I did.
While listening I am taken back to 2003, we had just gone to war with Iraq and this was the ONLY song played on the radio that seemed to say anything important. Back in the days of Bush 80% approval ratings and ignorant patriotism, this song reminded me that some people get it. This song makes me feel optimistic, so I went back to it for comfort
Lyrics:
What's wrong with the world mama?
People living like aint got no mamas
I think the whole worlds addicted to the drama
Only attracted to the things that bring you trauma
Overseas yeah we tryin to stop terrorism
But we still got terrorists here livin
In the USA the big CIA the Bloodz and the Crips and the KKK
Link to secret CIA prisions:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
But if you only have love for your own race
Then you only leave space to discriminate
And to discriminate only generates hate
And if you hatin you're bound to get irate
Yeah madness is what you demonstrate
And that's exactly how anger works and operates
You gotta have love just to set it straight
Take control of your mind and meditate
Let your soul gravitate to the love y'all
People killing people dying
Children hurtin you hear them crying
Can you practice what you preach
Would you turn the other cheek?
Father Father Father help us
Send some guidance from above
Cause people got me got me questioning
Where is the love?(where is the lovex3)(the love2x)
It just ain't the same all ways have changed
New days are strange is the world the insane?
If love and peace so strong
Why are there pieces of love that don't belong
Nations dropping bombs
Chemical gases filling lungs of little ones
Link to Italian Video:
http://www.rainews24.rai.it/...
With ongoing suffering
As the youth die young
So ask yourself is the loving really strong?
So I can ask myself really what is going wrong
With this world that we living in
People keep on giving in
Makin wrong decisions
Only visions of them livin and
Not respecting each other
Deny thy brother
The wars' going on but the reasons' undercover
The truth is kept secret
Swept under the rug
If you never know truth
Then you never know love
Where's the love y'all?(I don't know)
Where's the truth y'all?(I don't know)
Where's the love y'all?
People killing people dying
Children hurtin you hear them crying
Can practice what you preach
Would you turn the other cheek?
Father father father help us
Send some guidance from above
Cause people got me got me questioning
Where is the love?(where is the lovex3)(the lovex2)
I feel the weight of the world on my shoulder
As I'm getting older y'all people get colder
Most of us only care about money makin
Selfishness got us followin the wrong direction
Wrong information always shown by the media
Negative images is the main criteria
Infecting their young minds faster than bacteria
Kids wanna act like what the see in the cinema
Whatever happened to the values of humanity
Whatever happened to the fairness and equality
Instead of spreading love, we're spreading anomosity
Lack of understanding, leading us away from unity
That's the reason why sometimes I'm feeling under
That's the reason why sometimes I'm feeling down
It's no wonder why sometimes I'm feeling under
I gotta keep my faith alive, until love is found
People killing people dying
Children hurtin you hear them crying
Can you practice what you preach
Would you turn the other cheek?
Father Father Father help us
Send some guidance from above
Cause people got me got me questioning
Where is the love?(fade)
So with that, I beg of you, please help my children and theirs. Send this video to everyone, have the courage to actually watch it.
http://www.rainews24.rai.it/...
Also it wouldn't hurt if you posted something nice on this blog, it belongs to Garret Reppenhagen and Jeff Englehart, they are the 2 American soldiers that were brave enough to to talk to the Italian media about the war. Their mothers should be proud, they taught their sons the value of human life and decency. They taught them to stand up for the innocents and right now a bunch of right wing warmongers are posting vicious comments on their blog. They are called pussies and traitors for speaking the truth. Please defend them, please lend them your support.
http://ftssoldier.blogspot.com/...
The only way to make this stop is to force people to see the faces of sweet children that did nothing wrong but be born to the wrong parents.
Thank you.
