Saturday, March 24, 2007

Innocent Weapons: a Destructive Short Circuit in Conciousness Evolution

Last night, I couldn't fall asleep. I tried everything...you know, tea, yoga, deep breathing, watching TV, reading, counting my remaining civil rights (doesn't take very long lately) but nothing worked. my mind wouldn't sleep, and my body was having no luck reasoning with it.
I knew why. Earlier that day I had been watching a documentary about North Korea. What I saw had shocked me out of a good measure of my optimism about humanity. Pride and fear had killed so many people, so many children. Aid workers were banished, and 3 million people died of starvation. The most painful facet in this cruel window was yet to be revealed; 40 percent of North Korean children today are severely malnourished. I think that we sometimes gloss over this concept in our heads, but when was the last time you were really hungry, so hungry that you couldn't think, so exhausted that you couldn't stand up, so short tempered and low on energy that people fled your presence? It's not a good feeling, is it? Most of us never experience this feeling, and if we do, it is not on a daily basis, but once in a while when we forget to eat, are sick with the flu, or perhaps even just run out of money for a few days.
These children in Korea were so thin they couldn't lift their arms above their heads some could only limp slowly along-their legs are bowed, and their faces shrunken. Most are not fully dressed, none have shoes, and their hair has ceased to grow. They are perpetually cold, perpetually hungry, and surrounded by adults who are the same way, and can offer little or no comfort to their children. They didn't forget to eat. They are denied sustenance by a government who seems not to see the huge, staring eyes of the children, hopeless with privation, yet so hungry they look as if they could eat the whole world. They would gladly do anything, farm, work, hunt for food-but there isn't anything there. An ironclad ban on imports and international humanitarian aid denies these malformed children, the "Stunted Generation" any chance at life or a future-yet Kim Jong Il is know for his personal collections of expensive imported art and liquor. He eats like a king while in the country he is supposed to care for, children in the streets of North Korea fight over kernels of corn in cow dung.
As the tears on my face traced a path to my clenched fists, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Was it too monstrous to be true? Do people really do things like this?
Interestingly enough, the next video answered my question. It was three videos of US soldiers in Iraq, one where they punish children for a practical joke by beating them with weapons and kicking the barefoot children with their steel toed boots. The second video showed soldiers on US tank taunting children running behind it with a bottle of water. Temperatures in Iraq in can reach 130 degrees or more, and in poor regions, water is scarce and must be transported long distances. The children run as fast as they can, trying to catch up so they can have some of the water, while the soldiers laugh and taunt them. They drive away, and never give them any water. The third video shows 3 US soldiers throwing rocks at an old stray dog. As it runs away, they shoot it in the foot. Unlike my hometown, this town does not have the resources to pay for medical or rescue centers for strays...and so the soldiers have doomed the dog to a slow, torturous death by infection, starvation, thirst and sun exposure, whichever kills her first. The whole time, they laugh, very entertained. Never once does one of them question their right to abuse and hurt the weak, children, stray animals, anyone they feel superior to.
It tortured my thoughts all night, I never slept. I have since begun to wonder how long we have all been asleep, allowing greed and brute force to alter our concept of human rights, and our willingness to defend what we know is right.
I feel ashamed to use the colloquialism "I'm starving" to describe my own hunger anymore, and ashamed of any solider who would abuse children and animals and then pretend to be on a mission to help others. The reason people get away with it? We aren't watching. We're too busy running in the hamster wheel of capitalism, making money, paying off debt, racking up more, buying newer and bigger things, watching TV, following the love lives of celebrities and the fictional crimes of court TV. Corporate fortunes weren't made by accident-credit cards and mortgages have given America no time to think, only time to work for the stuff-they have given us consumer ADD, and then obligated us to pay into it for the rest of our lives. Our consent...
has been manufactured.
Next time you say in response to a diatribe like this one, "the world is too big" and "what can I be expected to do about it"
pat yourself on the back for being smart-the first part of your statement is absolutely correct.
That being said, the second part is easy-by buying from local businesses, you have already made a difference. You have just removed your support for outsourcing and child labor.
There so much you can do by asking a little less, wanting a little less, caring a little more where your money goes.
give it some thought.

Posted by Green Scribe at 3:09 PM