Marketing History

Yesterday, I marched on Washington to call for an end to the war, along with about 10,000 other people. This makes my third trip to DC, my first trip being only a month and a half before 9/11 when I was a fifteen years old from Arkansas visiting with 4-H through Citizenship: Washington Focus. Back then, I remember going to the National History Smithsonian and thinking it was absolutely amazing, and being annoyed that the other girls in my group moved through the museum far too quickly for me because they didn’t care about history. Now that I’m older and finishing up my Master’s degree in History, my reaction to the museum was much different. I call this rection “disgust.” There’s so much left out, and so many exhibits created by a certain cable channel reputed for its bad history skills. It’s emphasis is sensationalism to get more viewers, thus, more money, instead of creating factual programs–which is very strange to me because history is sensationalist enough all on its own because people have the tendency to be dramatic, selfish, impulsive jerks (also, cynical). Now that I’m older, the Smithsonian, to me, is like calling a fast food burger nutritious. The Smithsonian, to me, is now just like high school textbooks, full of heroification and one-sided lies.  Nowhere is there the story of how George Washington became General, then President, because then he would just seem like another egotistical, greedy mortal. Instead, inside the Smithsonian and all over DC, there are various statues for Washington, many of which make him look like some Greek god. But he wasn’t a god, not at all. He was just a dude with bad teeth that showed up on purpose in his soldier uniform to make himself look important, even though he’d only had relatively minor roles in the British army as a Lt. Colonel during the French and Indian War, and surely nothing to prepare him to be a General in a war. (For an explanation of Army ranks, click here. Note the great difference between Lt. Colonel and any kind of General.) It’s like a con, really. But they can’t make him seem like you or I. Instead, they call him “noble” and erect giant phalluses to, perhaps, symbolically show the world for what he was compensating. Instead of telling a fuller, more honest story of history, they devote a huge portion of the museum to war, war, war, of course saying nothing of imperialism or deaths or the suffering of fellow human beings in our names. Why not? What do they fear would happen if they told the American story, both good and bad? Perhaps it is like Langston Hughes’s deferred dream. If they told a fuller story of American history, would those who viewed the exhibits and learned of this mourn, then revolt? Yesterday, I watched as Americans that don’t know their own history walked around like the Smithsonian like a shrine, like they’ve found the holy grail of what it means to be American, which is why the line for the entertainment portion–tv and actors and pop culture and stuff, where they keep Dorothy’s shoes and Archie’s chair–stretched all the way to the lobby. Because fiction is more popular than non-fiction.

It was outside the Washington Monument, however, where Cindy Sheehan had set up camp, where she and others had created a GIANT recreation of Arlington Cemetery for those who’d been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, including civilians, that I watched a fat man point and laugh and suggest to his family that they go look at the protest, to look at the fake cemetery, with all the very real dead people from two sides of the world. I think this is when my dream exploded.

Will You Be There on March 20?

Because I will be.

The Real Death Panels

Last night, I made a trip to the pharmacy to pick up the medications that, well, keep me alive. I left, instead, empty handed because I could not afford my medications. My insurance had changed its plan on me, so that it no longer paid $2,000 per semester for medications, but rather, $2,000 per year. As someone with a chronic illness, that is absolutely nothing. Had I paid for my medications last night–Advair, Singulair, and Allegra–I would’ve been less more than $400. As I walked back home, I pondered my options. I couldn’t beg my parents for money every month. They can’t afford to pay that much every month, either. I once looked into a prescription program through the state, but I wasn’t eligible because I’m not a legal resident of the state I live in now. It occurred to me on this trip home that insurance companies were the real death panels. It was they who really decided who was to live and who was to die. Because I have severe asthma and allergies requiring medications to keep my airways open, and therefore cost my insurance a lot of money each month, I was marked for death. My previous insurance did this to me once, too, after a concussion. They refused to pay for my doctor visits because it was an accident, then raised my bill, first, by $15 a month, then by $40. My mother canceled her own insurance in order to afford this. When she developed degenerative disks in her back last year, she had no insurance to cover her medications or doctor bills, so she initially refused treatment for months because she knew she couldn’t afford it. She was in too much pain to drive, dress, or bathe herself, and her emails to me began to contain hints of suicide after my father was diagnosed with cancer.

How is it that we praise our country as such a free, democratic society, when our citizens cannot afford their own medications? Did my ancestors fight against what they saw as British tyranny so that, over two-hundred years later, I could slowly begin going into respiratory arrest the same way that my grandpa, who had the same insurance, died? Do we, like Nathan Hale once famously stated, each day regret that we have but one life to give for our system of government that allows our citizens to die for lack of affordable health care?

And why don’t we have affordable health care, anyway? Each day of the Iraq war costs the US $720 million–that’s $500,000 per minute on war, imperialism, and death in the Middle East. That money could be used to provide 163,525 people health care every day. Every day? That’s enough to provide health care for everyone in the United States that needs it. Why must our tax dollars be spent on death, and not life? The Declaration of Independence declares that all have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Where is my right to life if I cannot afford my medications, and how can I be free to live my life or be happy if I am sick? America needs a new system of health care that would ensure the wellness of all people. Instead of protesting an unborn child’s right to life, why not demand the right to life of the already born?

Will War Go the Way of Cannibalism or Slavery?

This was asked this past Sunday at meeting, and I’ve found myself pondering it ever since. Even if it takes a thousand years, the man asked, will society someday look at war the way we, today, think of cannibalism or slavery?

Of course, Hitler arose. Hitler always comes up during such discussions (even in monologues, apparently). It’s hard for many people to be against war to fight such an evil as Hitler and the Holocaust. Yet, I find myself pondering: If we were not such a society of inequity and war, would Hitler have been Hitler?

Discuss.

There Will Always Be

Growing up, I was taught that there would always be war because the Bible said so. There would always be injustices in the world and people would always be unhappy until the Second Coming of Jesus, until the final battle between good and evil, when many will meet their doom, trumpets will sound, all of the dead shall rise, and the righteous meet in the skies. Therefore, our efforts should be put on saving souls to believe that Jesus is magic the exact way that the man in the pulpit believed Jesus is magic, so that the appropriately saved 144,000 didn’t unnecessarily rot in hell for all eternity, do not stop at Go, do not collect $200.

You’re poor and you stop at church asking for a bit of money or food. Are you a member of the Church of Christ, non-instrumental, Campbellite? Do you attend regularly? If you meet all of this criteria, then of course our dear secretaries or elders will help you; otherwise, allow me to turn you down, bless your heart, you heathen. Would you like to come to Sunday services, and did I mention you’re going to hell? This, indeed, was not merely reserved for strangers, either. When an F4 tornado destroyed my town when I was eleven, I suggested to my Sunday school teacher that our class (read: me, since I was the only one in it) should do something to help. She allowed this only if I could think of a family that was Church of Christ, which I did.

What is such an action supposed to teach a sixth grade child? That some people are better than others? That some people are not worth help? That there are some people we just shouldn’t care about because they’re different, and that being different is almost like bringing disasters onto oneself?

Neglecting problems in this life as a matter of dogma because the hereafter will be so wonderful is lazy and, frankly, unChristian. Christ gave his life for his beliefs, but some of his followers can’t even give a warm meal to a hungry family ringing the church doorbell? I seem to recall a story of someone turning a few loaves of bread and some fish into a feast for everyone. Who was that? It’ll come to me . . .

Once, as a child, I informed my parents that they should treat their children well because it would be they who picked out their nursing homes. There is much to be said, as well, for teaching your children well, for if you don’t, this may one day be turned on you. I believe that children should be taught to love and respect other people. I believe that children should be taught to help others in need, regardless of how different that person might be from themselves. We all have to live in the same world, and wars can only bring death and hatred, while God is love. Why not bring that love to the here and now?

“I Am Afraid of a War”

In March 2003, I was seventeen years old. I attended the Kansas City 4-H Conference (whose actual title escapes me, but it was something of a giant career fair with workshops and the like). If I remember correctly, I’d made a friend on the bus there who wanted to attend the journalism workshop so, hey, why not tag along? It would turn out to be my greatest memory from the entire trip.

After the journalist gave his spiel about what he did every day and what it was like working for a major newspaper, he confessed that he was interested in what we had to say, since we were the future. I don’t remember the exact phrasing of the question–what were our concerns about the future, what were our fears for the future? Something along those lines. At any rate, a chubby blond boy wearing a Kansas City Chiefs football jacket to my left was the first to volunteer: “I am afraid of a war,” he said. In the minutes that passed, he stated his fears of an imminent war with Iraq. He didn’t want his friends, people his age to die. He didn’t want to fight this war. Our generation had never really seen a war, since we were so young during the First Gulf War. The honesty and sincerity behind his words struck me. If a war comes, he said, we will be the ones to fight it–our generation.

Though I was six months shy of being a legal adult, until that moment, a part of me had still hidden behind my age of minority. Perhaps it is only human to think first of oneself in regards to the potential of Mortal Peril.

Finally, the boy ended with a question of his own: do you, mister journalist, in your vast knowledge of current events, think there will be a war soon? Yes, he said, and it could start any day.

The war on Iraq started two days later. I watched Baghdad burn in a brilliant neon green color that day on television while journalists yelled back and forth at each other opposite the live coverage. I watched the bombs drop and heard in my head the screams of children on the other side of the world, killed by an army not much more than children themselves. Now, all these years later, our generation has not only seen a war, but seen our classmates and friends return from war broken or dead. It is strange for me to think of children I grew up with that have died. I remember playing hide and go seek in the dark of the church auditorium during a potluck, hiding under pews and seeking other children trying to slide underneath the pews to avoid my gaze. It’s strange to me to think of my most frequent playmate from those years, and later a school bully, would have his funeral in that very auditorium and the husband of my best friend delivered the colors. This, indeed, was our war, though few of those I knew in childhood probably could locate Afghanistan or Iraq on the map, and we, surely, did not start it.

What I think is most important about any war or any disagreeance, period, is that both sides are human. All adults were once children. While you see a soldier, someone else might see the young boy she once played hide and go seek with in a dark church auditorium. Someone else might see a friend, a brother, a daughter, a neighbor–we are not without connections. It is easy to vilify those you may call an enemy, but they, too, are human. They, too, were once held in their mothers’ arms during late-night feedings.

(By the way, read the article about that photo here.)

Psst, Hey Kid: When People Say to Take a Photo Because It’ll Last Longer, They Don’t Actually Mean for You to Do It

Yesterday, I received an Army jacket in the mail that I had bought for 75c on ebay. Since receiving it, I’ve worn it somewhat religiously. Today, I noticed a teenaged  boy photographing me with his cell phone while I waited in line. First, he photographed my jacket. Then, he photographed the numerous buttons on my backpack. The side in particular that he photographed has a button reading “honor diversity” along with another featuring a rainbow and a heart. I’m sure he also photographed the numerous antiwar buttons on the front of my backpack before I noticed him. The thing is, he wasn’t even stealth about it. He didn’t pretend to not be photographing me, even with me staring right at him. He didn’t smirk while photographing me, like he thought I was funny, so I have no idea why he was photographing me, whether he thought I was funny or liked what he saw. Either way, I have a feeling I’m going to be an Internet sensation tonight.

Wearing an Army uniform plastered with peace signs while also wearing a backpack with antiwar slogans is a fascinating experiment. Just by wearing it, I find that it draws attention to me, which is incredibly awkward at first, but after this strange photography experience, I find myself thinking of how I am making people think about the soldiers or the war, if even briefly.  By wearing it, I am standing up quite tall for what I believe, even though I’m aware of the dangers of doing this. Strangers could yell at me or attack me. Mostly, though, people just stare.

Today, after the impromptu photo shoot, I found myself pondering whether people would photograph Jesus if he were alive today. Would he stand out so much against the crowd that people whipped out their cell phones to text photos to their friends to have a little giggle?

To this kid, I was some strange outsider to photograph and have a few kicks with his friends. I was the crazy hippie to stereotype and to make assumptions about my life, to photograph like a circus animal. To me, I was just going about my life waiting on my turn in line.

Support Our Troops: Bring Them Home Now

While I was proud to have extended Operation Toy Soldier to total of five states so far in my recent Amazing Tour d’New England, my travel companion–aka, my politically-apathetic sister–wasted no time in ranting to our mother about it who, in turn, is again obsessing at my daring to utilize my First Amendment right to protest. (Thanks, sis. Really.) My mother feels that to protest diminishes morale and isn’t “supporting the troops.” As I’ve told her before, not wanting the troops to die is supporting the troops. No matter how many times I explain it, I’ve come to the conclusion that my family will never understand my peace activism. They’d rather I just blended in–just sat back and looked pretty and acted like a Good Little Godly Girl ™–not someone who goes to antiwar conferences and started her own peace protest involving leaving toy soldiers everywhere (see link above). They’d rather I was like my sister, perhaps–never appearing to have opinion of my own about anything, and never being able to have my own opinion because I don’t know the facts about anything outside my own tiny little life. They’d rather I was too weak to stand up for myself and my beliefs and, instead, either yielded in conversation or immediately began screaming so that the other person would not bother arguing because they want her to shut up so very badly.

No, I will not be like that. I cannot be like that. I’ve been watching the news obsessively since I was nine years old. I don’t even own a tv, but I still watch Democracy Now online almost every day. I read blogs, I read CNN’s website–I get around. I seem to hear about things an average of two days before it appears on MSN.com’s home page. A part of me truly hates when my routine of news-absorption is interrupted and I have to play catch-up. I hate not knowing what’s going on in the world around me. I don’t understand how anyone can so willfully choose to be ignorant. Give me the stories of people my sister has never heard of: the hate crime of an innocent Muslim woman, the war against women in Congo, the disappearing of the island of Tuvalu, all of that. All the stories of the “underdogs,” the stories that are truly important and generally ignored by the mainstream media. I’m okay with having never heard of most actors, even when others almost always look at me like I’m from another planet. Have you seen King Corn, Eulogy, or The Business of Being Born? Have you seen whatever fascinating documentary, indie flick, or foreign film I watched last? Do you like reading the Bible to find examples of how Jesus was a social activist liberal misunderstood by even his own disciples? Do you love Howard Zinn and Michael Moore? Did you talk your parents into voting for Ralph Nader when you were fifteen years old? All of that said, do you find this song to be an awesome rallying cry?

My sister thinks it’s a phase. My parents think I’ve “gotten in with the wrong crowd” because I want peace. It’s not a phase. I’m not going to wake up some day and think “you know what? Our country should go bomb the Cradle of Civilization for imperialistic reasons. Huzzah, I thirst for me some blood of dead Iraqi children!” As for the wrong crowd, I hang around social activist feminists, GLBT people, Quakers, peace activists, and history graduate students. We talk about Spongebob, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and enacting positive change in the world. Sometimes we have cookies.

Though my family might want to change me, I’m always going to be me and I’m always going to stand up for my convictions. Whether they like it or not, my family members were the ones who taught me this. Between my religious right-wing brother bullying other people into being afraid to voice opinions different than his and my mother’s lectures about organic gardening, the backwood’s movement, and how if homeschooling became illegal, she’d be arrested before the state put me back in public school, I learned to question everything because some people don’t want you to question anything. I cannot be some mindless robot with little sense of self. I must be me, and being me entails believing in peace.

Do you know what’s worth fighting for?

Green Day’s latest single, Twenty-One Guns, wants to know: Do you know what’s worth fighting for/When it’s not worth dying for?

Well, do you?

One, twenty-one guns,
Lay down your arms, give up the fight.

End the War Against Women

Yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled to Congo to demand an end to the war on women in that country. As Congo, at war for over a decade, doesn’t have the money to supply enough guns to its troops, sexual violence is used as a weapon of war. Hundreds of thousands of women have been raped in the past decade, not to mention men and children, making Congo the rape capital of the world. So far, over 500,000 Congolese have been driven from their homes by fear and fire. While it is difficult to make another country stop such vicious behavior, we can talk about Congo here and fight against rape in our own country.

“Children are killed, women are raped and the world closes its eyes.”