Saviors
When it is cold like this, the expression, “colder than a well digger’s ass in Montana” comes to mind. Sergeant Monroe said that. He hung out with some of us privates; I think it was at Fort Lewis, Washington where we were getting ready to ship to Korea. He was full of stories about his family and of his adventures in the army. I remember one particular story all too well. He was in Korea during the war, and was assigned along with another soldier to take 110 prisoners to a prison camp 20 miles away. He was told to be back in 20 minutes. He said, “We were,” indicating that they had killed those prisoners. I wonder if they were forced to do that by circumstances, or did they kill them just because it was the most convenient thing to do?
I hate war, and always have. It is stories like that one that reinforce my dislike of war. It is too often a case of humans being less than human. Such incidents are all too common. I never fought in a war, so I can’t say what sort of pressure those men were under. What about those soldiers at Wounded Knee, South Dakota in 1890 who killed about 300 Native Americans? The Natives were having a religious ceremony, dancing and asking The Great Spirit to get rid of the white men and bring back the buffalo. There was no command given. One soldier fired his weapon and the others followed. Were the soldiers punished? No, they were given medals for shooting unarmed civilians, mostly women and children.
A sign was put up at that site saying, “Battle of Wounded Knee.” Fern and I were there a few years ago and we found the sign had been changed by the Natives to “Massacre at Wounded Knee.” It was a massacre and not a battle.
Vice-President Dick Chaney was on TV last night telling that the Bush Administration accomplished great things while they were in office. He made it sound like we were all saved from attacks by hoards of terrorists with nuclear weapons. On the face of things, it looks like he could be right, but I doubt it. The administration was failing miserably, and started a war so they could pretend to be our saviors. If they had not handled matters so poorly, I might believe it; but, the results have been that they did more damage to American citizens and other innocent people than to any terrorists. Our economy is a train wreck. Many people in the world who were our friends now hate us. Cheney lined his own pockets by giving lucrative no-bid contracts to a company he had been CEO of, and likely still owned shares in. I think we can at least say that the Bush administration were bad managers.
It seems like humans are constantly trying to get even, to get back at groups they believe have harmed them, and all that leads to more and more war. Maybe it’s a natural thing to keep populations in check. The wars between Christians and Muslims go back something like 700 years. The Muslims and Jews are killing each other daily here in recent weeks. These sorts of things are something I will never understand or get used to.
What will happen in the future? I like something by Alan Kay I read on a wall at a high school. He said, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” I think he was right. We can make this a better world by our own efforts.
Many Christians now portray Jesus as a man who will come back to Earth and punish all the bad people, and take the good ones to Heaven. This comes from the last book of the Bible, Revelation. Common sense seems to have flown out the window. God gave us strength and brains. Let’s use our resources to make this a better world rather go around spouting dogmatic crap. I like the Jesus who said, “Love one another,” and a few other wise things. I think that if he were alive today he would tell us to help others and make the world a better place to live. He was a good man who preached wisdom, but he was a mortal man who died nearly 2,000 years ago. We need to stop dwelling on personalities and dwell on the good. We are One with God, a part of everything that is. Our responsibility is not to destroy; our responsibility is to create a constantly improving Universe. Let us make a good future for our children, our children’s children, ad infinitum. We have found the Savior and He/She is us. We don’t have to form an organization called Saviors United; we are already that. We need only to realize who we are and move forward.
I hate war, and always have. It is stories like that one that reinforce my dislike of war. It is too often a case of humans being less than human. Such incidents are all too common. I never fought in a war, so I can’t say what sort of pressure those men were under. What about those soldiers at Wounded Knee, South Dakota in 1890 who killed about 300 Native Americans? The Natives were having a religious ceremony, dancing and asking The Great Spirit to get rid of the white men and bring back the buffalo. There was no command given. One soldier fired his weapon and the others followed. Were the soldiers punished? No, they were given medals for shooting unarmed civilians, mostly women and children.
A sign was put up at that site saying, “Battle of Wounded Knee.” Fern and I were there a few years ago and we found the sign had been changed by the Natives to “Massacre at Wounded Knee.” It was a massacre and not a battle.
Vice-President Dick Chaney was on TV last night telling that the Bush Administration accomplished great things while they were in office. He made it sound like we were all saved from attacks by hoards of terrorists with nuclear weapons. On the face of things, it looks like he could be right, but I doubt it. The administration was failing miserably, and started a war so they could pretend to be our saviors. If they had not handled matters so poorly, I might believe it; but, the results have been that they did more damage to American citizens and other innocent people than to any terrorists. Our economy is a train wreck. Many people in the world who were our friends now hate us. Cheney lined his own pockets by giving lucrative no-bid contracts to a company he had been CEO of, and likely still owned shares in. I think we can at least say that the Bush administration were bad managers.
It seems like humans are constantly trying to get even, to get back at groups they believe have harmed them, and all that leads to more and more war. Maybe it’s a natural thing to keep populations in check. The wars between Christians and Muslims go back something like 700 years. The Muslims and Jews are killing each other daily here in recent weeks. These sorts of things are something I will never understand or get used to.
What will happen in the future? I like something by Alan Kay I read on a wall at a high school. He said, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” I think he was right. We can make this a better world by our own efforts.
Many Christians now portray Jesus as a man who will come back to Earth and punish all the bad people, and take the good ones to Heaven. This comes from the last book of the Bible, Revelation. Common sense seems to have flown out the window. God gave us strength and brains. Let’s use our resources to make this a better world rather go around spouting dogmatic crap. I like the Jesus who said, “Love one another,” and a few other wise things. I think that if he were alive today he would tell us to help others and make the world a better place to live. He was a good man who preached wisdom, but he was a mortal man who died nearly 2,000 years ago. We need to stop dwelling on personalities and dwell on the good. We are One with God, a part of everything that is. Our responsibility is not to destroy; our responsibility is to create a constantly improving Universe. Let us make a good future for our children, our children’s children, ad infinitum. We have found the Savior and He/She is us. We don’t have to form an organization called Saviors United; we are already that. We need only to realize who we are and move forward.
posted by Dale at 4:33 AM
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