Tilted parenting? Tilted politics? (sigh)...you diecide - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

clavus · 01-29-2005, 11:51 AM

You change his diaper again. You’ve done it countless times before. You will do it again. And again. You lovingly stroke his chest and look into those deep brown eyes. You wonder what he thinks. He’s not saying. Despite the distasteful aspect of changing diapers, it harbors a few precious moments between parent and child – one person giving care, the other receiving it. It is a natural act of love. It imposes a moment of order on a world which seems to make less sense every day.

You think of Iraq and gaze down at your son. There is little chance that he will have to face the dangers of that foreign land. But still, you worry. WMD’s that didn’t exist. People who were supposed to greet us with flowers but chose roadside bombs instead. A failure in intelligence. Somewhere there is a “Mission Accomplished” sign that was hung up a little too early. It’s sadly unnerving to think of all that when you look down at your precious son. What is in his future?

More diaper changes. That’s in his future. You will change his diaper and tend to his needs as long as you are able. And when your bad back, your arthritis, or a thousand other potential maladies make it impossible for you to minister to his needs, you will find someone else to do so. Your son will be cared for.

He is changed. You look at him again and feel overwhelmed. There are no words strong enough describe the way a parent loves a child. There are no words terrible enough to describe how a parent feels when the child is injured. You gently touch the scars where the left side of his face was. Your finger traces the cruel path of the bullets, from cheek to neck. Your son was lucky – saved by the finest battlefield medical technology known to man.

His kevlar and combat boots are a distant memory. He is changed.

Blackthorn · 01-29-2005, 11:59 AM

Only the dead have seen the end of war - Plato

Very sad...but very true.

I'm not sure that I completely agree with Mr. Valenzuela but this LINK should fuel some spirited debate about the current state of affairs in Iraq. It's a long read or I would quote it here so make sure you grab a cup of coffee before you begin.

Quote:

By Manuel Valenzuela
11-21-4

To be in war is to be in hell on Earth, captured by lunacy and bewilderment, panic, fear and unmatched levels of stress invading your body. Bullets whizzing by, helicopters flying low, machine gunning anything that moves, fighter jets roaring overhead, explosions everywhere, 500 pound bombs flattening entire city blocks, cluster bombs maiming and killing, the tremors of the ground rattling your conscious, concrete flying everywhere, screams of pain and agony surrounding you, hidden snipers killing indiscriminately, platoons of men caught in hours-long fire-fights, bullets, artillery and rockets flying everywhere, the smell of blood in the air, the odor of sweat and urine festering about, your heart palpitating thunderously, body parts strewn everywhere, pools of fly-infested blood lining the streets, the nauseatingly putrid stench of rotting death omnipresent, hundreds of mutilated bodies thrown about, the ravaged remains of a once vibrant city laying at your feet, your house destroyed, your family huddled in the corner of your most secure room, your children shaking, lying in a fetal position, hunger overcoming you, your belly hurting for food, your tongue and mouth desperate for water, your spirit eager for escape, your instincts telling you to survive, to hug your children and never let go.

Welcome to Hell on Earth, where the devil's excrement bleeds black and the neocon delusion dwindles into twilight. Welcome to state-sponsored terrorism breeding unending crimes against humanity, where torture has replaced torture, where human evil has replaced human evil and where tyranny has replaced tyranny. Welcome to the American Crusade and Iraq Invasion, where 100,000 innocent civilians have died, in a year and a half, at the hands of the military-industrial-complex and the killing machines it trains to push, aim, fire, direct, guide and launch its weapons of death, carnage, destruction and human misery. Welcome to Fallujah, where bombs and missiles rain down from the heavens above and cold-blooded monsters on a wanton murdering spree roam hellish streets below.

Iraq is where over 1,200 American soldiers have been killed. Iraq is where 15,000 American soldiers have been maimed, burned, shredded, disfigured, physically scarred and mentally devastated, never to find normalcy again and never again to know inner peace, becoming an army of psychologically mutilated energies, joining their physically healthy comrades in arms in a future battle against inner demons never to be fully exorcised from within.

To be in Iraq is to be witness to a Pandora's Box opened by Bush and the neocons where the destruction of Fallujah and other cities is seen as liberation, where the introduction of martial law is seen as democracy and where the importation of chaos, mass killing, utter destruction, terror and guerilla war is seen as a human rights campaign to free the Iraqi people of tyranny. To be in Iraq is to see firsthand how an army lays waste to a large city in a grisly act of collective punishment, how citizen soldiers turn into savage barbarians, torturing and dehumanizing innocents, murdering wounded Iraqis, bombing civilian homes, targeting innocent hospitals and assassinating dozens of medical personnel.

It is to see trigger-happy, zit-faced, video-game conditioned, television desensitized, military-brainwashed twenty year olds indiscriminately shooting innocent civilians, women and children all, trying to escape a city of death. It is to see an army, priding itself on virtue and morality, purposefully making targets of all living humans in a city of 300,000, granting the green light for their foot soldiers to kill anyone, prosecuting the guilty only when caught red handed, to salvage public relations or to play the game of politics. It is only when the criminal policies of those at the top are somehow forever recorded on tape by the actions of soldiers that scapegoating of grunts in order to save the hides of the brass is allowed. In the military, it is not a crime if nobody sees it.

.... More available through the link ....

Schwan · 01-29-2005, 01:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kjroh

Only the dead have seen the end of war - Plato

Very sad...but very true.

Modern military strategists tend to agree. One of the current trends in military strategy and doctrine planning (at least at my academy) is to percieve absolute peace as something unattainable. We just live in various stages of crisis. Plato returns with a bullet.

martinguerre · 01-29-2005, 08:58 PM

damn, man...

some very moving words. it's a scary act of hope to bring a child in to the world...your kids are very lucky to have someone like you to show them the way.

01-29-2005, 11:51 AM	#1 (permalink)
clavus pow! Location: NorCal	Tilted parenting? Tilted politics? (sigh)...you diecide You change his diaper again. You’ve done it countless times before. You will do it again. And again. You lovingly stroke his chest and look into those deep brown eyes. You wonder what he thinks. He’s not saying. Despite the distasteful aspect of changing diapers, it harbors a few precious moments between parent and child – one person giving care, the other receiving it. It is a natural act of love. It imposes a moment of order on a world which seems to make less sense every day. You think of Iraq and gaze down at your son. There is little chance that he will have to face the dangers of that foreign land. But still, you worry. WMD’s that didn’t exist. People who were supposed to greet us with flowers but chose roadside bombs instead. A failure in intelligence. Somewhere there is a “Mission Accomplished” sign that was hung up a little too early. It’s sadly unnerving to think of all that when you look down at your precious son. What is in his future? More diaper changes. That’s in his future. You will change his diaper and tend to his needs as long as you are able. And when your bad back, your arthritis, or a thousand other potential maladies make it impossible for you to minister to his needs, you will find someone else to do so. Your son will be cared for. He is changed. You look at him again and feel overwhelmed. There are no words strong enough describe the way a parent loves a child. There are no words terrible enough to describe how a parent feels when the child is injured. You gently touch the scars where the left side of his face was. Your finger traces the cruel path of the bullets, from cheek to neck. Your son was lucky – saved by the finest battlefield medical technology known to man. His kevlar and combat boots are a distant memory. He is changed. __________________ Ass, gas or grass. Nobody rides for free.

01-29-2005, 08:58 PM	#4 (permalink)
martinguerre whosoever Location: New England	damn, man... some very moving words. it's a scary act of hope to bring a child in to the world...your kids are very lucky to have someone like you to show them the way. __________________ For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life. -John 3:16