Families are still on my heart today. Families and war are on my mind. So I let my "googled" fingers do a little bit of walking to find some references that go toward connecting the dots between families and that all-too-human activity that scars and decimates not only all families, but all human endeavor and creativity, "war". The word meister in me insists I get tangential for a second and provide you with the origin of the modern word "decimate":
Decimate originally referred to the killing of every tenth person, a punishment used in the Roman army for mutinous legions.
On my travels I found this at Common Dreams: Families of Iraq War Dead Target Bush in Ads
That said, my own family and my human family is on my mind. The wake of human governmental and corporate addiction to war continues to decimate my human family more than 200 years beyond The Enlightenment. Still. I think, still they're doing it ... ripping bodies, lives and families to pieces, and still idiotically justifying it ... a necessary evil ... human beings are innately violent. My ass.
My own personal WayBack Machine functions like a finely-tuned Bugati, or a Stradivarius violin if you will. It takes little prodding to take me back decades to when I was a child of seven, already schooled in the potential for humankind, via their governments, to self-destruct without warning at any moment. I'm still really angry about having my peace of mind destroyed at age seven. Really pissed about it. (Photos at left are from Christmas of 1959 when I was seven. I'm the tallest, the big sister. Susie is next, and then our baby sister, Shari. The white dog's name was Shaggy.)
So,... cutting finally to the chase... since the notion of ending war and cultivating peace disappeared from the list of top priority items for presidential candidates after John Kerry was nominated, I'm returning to my prime directive... teaching peace, and pointing to others who also think it's a "good idea".
Iraq Veterans Against the War
Veterans for Peace
Traprock Peace Center
Military Families Speak Out
End the War.org
For my parents, my sisters, my children, my husband and the rest of my beleaguered human family.
