We stepped into the blackness. One moment we were in country on a search and destroy mission and the next we all stepped into a void. I remember that the jungle wrapped around me and I figured I was dead. It was a VC trap. Sarge had Boyd on point and he hadn’t said anything, then Sarge stepped in and the rest of us sort of followed. At first I figured it was just super heavy brush. But in one step, I could no longer see even the low lights we had. There was a bit of moon light before we stepped over, but now nothing. Sarge whispered to Boyd. “Where the hell are you?” I heard Boyd’s muffled voice saying “Here Sarge”. I followed it, since really I had nothing to guide me. I knew I was dead and this was how it was. At least I didn’t feel anything.
A few steps ahead, I saw something. I saw Boyd and Sarge crouched by a wall. There ain’t no walls like this in country. Maybe in the cities… Sarge motioned us forward and we took up positions around Sarge. “Where are we? This is a city, there ain’t a village within 20 clicks of us let alone a city.” The night air smelled different. I looked around and saw that somehow we were in a depression in a city like Siagon. Behind us, somehow was a long wall. But we just came from there. Sarge told us to keep our heads down. He saw some bushes over to our right and told us to stay low and follow him. We did and headed towards the only cover we saw.
The grass under our boots was cut. The ground was soft. The air smelled of flowers and food. American food. I could smell hamburgers cooking, I swear. The temperature was about 70 degrees, something I haven’t felt since I was home. And I also smelled a small squad of dirty Americans. For the first time in a while, I realized we reeked of sweat and dirt. We had been in-country for a few days only. We checked our perimeter and saw no one.
Then Sawyer piped up. “Sarge, look over there”. We looked where he was pointed and we saw, well we somehow saw an illusion. There is no way that was in Viet Nam. I didn’t do the drugs of choice and so I knew it wasn’t a hallucination. I shook my head a few times and kept looking at it. What the hell was the Washington Monument doing here? Sawyer started to shake. “Sarge, I’m from DC. This is DC man. How the…” Just then we heard a car rev up. We got flat and Sarge and I went over the small hill to look. Sarge turned to me and said “I have never seen that kind of car before. It wasn’t built like anything I’ve ever known. It must be food poisoning or something turned on all of us. We need to get out of here.”
We crawled back and Sarge got with Specs and tried the radio. Nothing but static. He tried a few times to get a chopper in so we could get the hell back to base or where ever, but no luck.
Then we saw two people walking through the trees talking and holding hands. Sawyer brought up his weapon and Sarge grabbed him and told him to hold fire.
“Hang tight”.
“OK, the best thing to do is to try and go back the way we came. If we can find the LZ and hold up, we should be able to get this through our systems and we can go back to base. I figured something went wrong with our rations or the water and we got a weird bug.”
We crawled back along the open area and under the fence. And we came to the wall. It was black and long. “Sarge, we must have come over it, right? I don’t remember falling”. As we got closer we saw it up close. Sawyer said, “I remember this part of DC. The Lincoln Memorial is right over there. The Washington Monument is there. The Reflecting Pool is right there and I don’t remember this being here.”
Sarge and I got close and saw the wall had etched names. We could see where we came through because of the dirt and stuff from our boots and clothing as we dragged the jungle with us. The jungle bits and dirt start right at the edge of the wall. I looked up and said, “Sawyer, what’s your first name?” “Steve, why?” “Your name is here in this wall. And…so is mine”.
Sarge stepped up and put his hand on the wall. It passed right through it. “I don’t understand this but I think we got some weird Nam bug. I think this is the way back”. He then just stepped into the wall like it wasn’t there. “Let’s go guys, I think it is time to go home”.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Why I will not join the Occupy Wall Street Movement
I can not join the Occupy Wall Street movement for many reasons. I do feel that I have been part of the 99% for a long time. I haven’t had a ‘real’ job for over 11 years and have finally come to terms with doing what ever I can. I have read through their ‘demands’ and although some of them are not germane to the subject at hand and some are too far to the left for me, I agree with some. And I have written before about the role of protests in the US in that I feel they help to increase the divisions between the political divides. Not every worker agrees with this movement. Few if any Republicans agree with the marchers. And so by continuing to beat their proverbial drum for far left causes, the Republicans become more entrenched against anything these people want. I’m not a Republican but rather an independent. I tend to be left of center. I don’t feel they are representing me either and I assume others do not agree with them either.
This movement was formed by Adbusters and by Anonymous. Adbusters is a anti-comsumerist group that up to know has been creating spoof ads. I don’t think I saw anything that gave their political opinions, but given their anti-consumerism, I would assume they want a very far left view of buying less, using less etc. It is a nice sentiment, but not all of us want to live in Vermont on a collective farm. Anonymous is a very left anti-corporation, anarchistic group who likes to hide in the shadows and attack people and organizations that they don’t like. They have been very active in hacking web sites and infiltrating other groups to cause disruptions. Their reason for supporting and starting the Occupy Wall Street is unknown (to me).
So who leads Occupy Wall Street? When you read the literature, they say no one. But to me, a bunch of people without a clear leadership is a mob. I don’t think this is a mob, but I think there are clearly people who are at the head of the movement that do not want to be identified for some reason. Frankly, I think they have overstated their own worth, since I doubt the government wants to arrest them. I also noticed that they were able to raise money and opened a bank account. How can a leaderless group open a bank account? Someone had to agree to it and some names must appear as capable of depositing and removing money from the account. I find when people do not want to be known, there are a couple of reasons. One is that they fear for their life. Even though they again overstate their view of the movement as a “Tahir Square” which it isn’t, I doubt anyone would be arrested in the night. Or they want to remain hidden because they do not want the world to know who they are because they represent groups or ideas that are not in agreement with what the movement wants to accomplish.
My fear is this is a great farce played on people who really are hurting by anarchistic groups. They hope to embarrass the big banks and corporations and are willing to use real people to accomplish this. I think of it as virtual rioting. They want to smash the virtual windows of Wall Street wearing their dumb V for Vendetta masks or black baklavas. Their desire is not to help the 99%ers. They don’t care about them. It is to create chaos and trouble.
Another area is the division this is cause. A protest only helps the people that basically agree with your cause. In most cases, there are three groups, the people that agree, the people that disagree and the people that are on the fence and even in that group there are sort of agreement and sort of disagreement. There are few who will be magically transformed from one side to the other. But this is a national issue. What the protesters are doing is helping reinforce the right’s view, regardless of what positive things are being said and done. The longer and more confrontational this protest is, the deeper the divide between the groups. Yes a few of the people who sort of agree might come over, but they are widening the gap between the two groups. And I think that will not help the cause.
So one of the items mentioned is that the Wall Street people feel this is a Tahir Square. This is so far from one it is laughable. Where is the true despot such as Mubarark? Where is the Secret Police that can arrest anyone? Where are the secret prisons where you might come out in a month or so? Where are the rooftop snipers? Where are the thugs attacking the square while the police stand by? Where is the specter of death? None of this really exists here. Yes, it could happen, but since it has never really happened in the US, I doubt it will. This is not an American Spring or Fall or anytime.
I’ve read through the long list of demands from the protesters. Some are ultra far left silly. Some are just far left. And some I believe in. It is difficult to join a movement that has ‘demands’ that I can’t accept or don’t believe are feasible. As much as I want to end the wars, as much as I believe the war in Iraq was illegal, I feel walking away would make the US less safe and look weak in the eyes of the world.
And the demands do not have a consistent theme related to the Wall Street crisis. I realize that the group is ‘leaderless’ but somewhere creating a consistent theme and keeping the demands to a manageable few would make the group seems more palatable.
Another issue is that the group or some part of the group has taken confrontational methods to keep the movement together and to gain publicity. It may also help in getting those people who sense a sympathetic tone and want to help. Getting arrested doesn’t help the cause. Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge has no purpose to the cause other than to get confrontational with the police. Since most of the cops around Zuccotti Park probably are somewhat sympathetic to the cause, it does no good to make them work harder just because some management person wants to clean up the park. As a friend pointed out, it is just good theater. We don’t need theater, we need concrete action. Confrontation will hurt the movement more than it will help, unless you are into anarchism, which I still believe exists within the leadership.
In General Colin Powell’s auto-biography, he states some of his beliefs on war and starting a war. One of those rules was - be careful what you want, you might get it. Now in this case, my corollary is what if you got what you want, are you ready to do it. If the world capitulated to the Occupy Wall Street, what then? Are they ready to put in real laws and tell the world what to do? I don’t think so. They may have a few glimmers of good ideas, but nothing is close to concrete. Now I don’t always apply this rule to everything, but having an idea of what should or could happen next would be good. To stand and complain is just well, complaining. To stand and complain with a few good ideas is making a change.
One last issue is the endgame. This has to end eventually. I don’t think the world is going to change their mind and start to implement these some what nebulous demands. At some point, people will either 1) leave because the movement has run out of steam, 2) leave because it is too cold to stay in some park, or 3) be forced out because the owners of the parks (either the city or the private property) has had enough and wants them to go somewhere else. I don’t see a scenario where the protesters win. If the protesters just leave because they run out of steam or get too cold, the movement fails. If they are forced out, the movement can either claim martyrdom or take the fight to another place. In the end, 1 or 2 will occur. And the enemies of these will point to the failure of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
So what could be done? There is great power in the people. There is anger. But to become so angry that they do not see what strength they have weakens the group. The Democrats have obviously abandoned the cause of Wall Street Reform because they are addicted to the money. The Republicans have always had an addiction to the money. And Wall Street is not the only problem; corporations are using secret influence through lobbyists and money of which Wall Street is only one player. I believe one solution is to work to fix the campaign finance system so that lobbyists, corporations, unions and individuals are forced to give through an independent group so that any money is very transparent. All ads by special interest groups must have strong rules as to what can be said and what can’t be said. And we create a way to finance elections so that our elected officials do not have to coddle up to lobbyists and the rich in order to get elected. But that is work. It means creating a lobby system to tell our officials to vote for election reform. It means putting candidates who are in favor of campaign finance reform and then getting them elected. I may mean creating a third party that steps away from the anachronistic Democrats and Republicans and restates what most Americans want.
But some people might think it is easier to go sit in the park. I don’t.
This movement was formed by Adbusters and by Anonymous. Adbusters is a anti-comsumerist group that up to know has been creating spoof ads. I don’t think I saw anything that gave their political opinions, but given their anti-consumerism, I would assume they want a very far left view of buying less, using less etc. It is a nice sentiment, but not all of us want to live in Vermont on a collective farm. Anonymous is a very left anti-corporation, anarchistic group who likes to hide in the shadows and attack people and organizations that they don’t like. They have been very active in hacking web sites and infiltrating other groups to cause disruptions. Their reason for supporting and starting the Occupy Wall Street is unknown (to me).
So who leads Occupy Wall Street? When you read the literature, they say no one. But to me, a bunch of people without a clear leadership is a mob. I don’t think this is a mob, but I think there are clearly people who are at the head of the movement that do not want to be identified for some reason. Frankly, I think they have overstated their own worth, since I doubt the government wants to arrest them. I also noticed that they were able to raise money and opened a bank account. How can a leaderless group open a bank account? Someone had to agree to it and some names must appear as capable of depositing and removing money from the account. I find when people do not want to be known, there are a couple of reasons. One is that they fear for their life. Even though they again overstate their view of the movement as a “Tahir Square” which it isn’t, I doubt anyone would be arrested in the night. Or they want to remain hidden because they do not want the world to know who they are because they represent groups or ideas that are not in agreement with what the movement wants to accomplish.
My fear is this is a great farce played on people who really are hurting by anarchistic groups. They hope to embarrass the big banks and corporations and are willing to use real people to accomplish this. I think of it as virtual rioting. They want to smash the virtual windows of Wall Street wearing their dumb V for Vendetta masks or black baklavas. Their desire is not to help the 99%ers. They don’t care about them. It is to create chaos and trouble.
Another area is the division this is cause. A protest only helps the people that basically agree with your cause. In most cases, there are three groups, the people that agree, the people that disagree and the people that are on the fence and even in that group there are sort of agreement and sort of disagreement. There are few who will be magically transformed from one side to the other. But this is a national issue. What the protesters are doing is helping reinforce the right’s view, regardless of what positive things are being said and done. The longer and more confrontational this protest is, the deeper the divide between the groups. Yes a few of the people who sort of agree might come over, but they are widening the gap between the two groups. And I think that will not help the cause.
So one of the items mentioned is that the Wall Street people feel this is a Tahir Square. This is so far from one it is laughable. Where is the true despot such as Mubarark? Where is the Secret Police that can arrest anyone? Where are the secret prisons where you might come out in a month or so? Where are the rooftop snipers? Where are the thugs attacking the square while the police stand by? Where is the specter of death? None of this really exists here. Yes, it could happen, but since it has never really happened in the US, I doubt it will. This is not an American Spring or Fall or anytime.
I’ve read through the long list of demands from the protesters. Some are ultra far left silly. Some are just far left. And some I believe in. It is difficult to join a movement that has ‘demands’ that I can’t accept or don’t believe are feasible. As much as I want to end the wars, as much as I believe the war in Iraq was illegal, I feel walking away would make the US less safe and look weak in the eyes of the world.
And the demands do not have a consistent theme related to the Wall Street crisis. I realize that the group is ‘leaderless’ but somewhere creating a consistent theme and keeping the demands to a manageable few would make the group seems more palatable.
Another issue is that the group or some part of the group has taken confrontational methods to keep the movement together and to gain publicity. It may also help in getting those people who sense a sympathetic tone and want to help. Getting arrested doesn’t help the cause. Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge has no purpose to the cause other than to get confrontational with the police. Since most of the cops around Zuccotti Park probably are somewhat sympathetic to the cause, it does no good to make them work harder just because some management person wants to clean up the park. As a friend pointed out, it is just good theater. We don’t need theater, we need concrete action. Confrontation will hurt the movement more than it will help, unless you are into anarchism, which I still believe exists within the leadership.
In General Colin Powell’s auto-biography, he states some of his beliefs on war and starting a war. One of those rules was - be careful what you want, you might get it. Now in this case, my corollary is what if you got what you want, are you ready to do it. If the world capitulated to the Occupy Wall Street, what then? Are they ready to put in real laws and tell the world what to do? I don’t think so. They may have a few glimmers of good ideas, but nothing is close to concrete. Now I don’t always apply this rule to everything, but having an idea of what should or could happen next would be good. To stand and complain is just well, complaining. To stand and complain with a few good ideas is making a change.
One last issue is the endgame. This has to end eventually. I don’t think the world is going to change their mind and start to implement these some what nebulous demands. At some point, people will either 1) leave because the movement has run out of steam, 2) leave because it is too cold to stay in some park, or 3) be forced out because the owners of the parks (either the city or the private property) has had enough and wants them to go somewhere else. I don’t see a scenario where the protesters win. If the protesters just leave because they run out of steam or get too cold, the movement fails. If they are forced out, the movement can either claim martyrdom or take the fight to another place. In the end, 1 or 2 will occur. And the enemies of these will point to the failure of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
So what could be done? There is great power in the people. There is anger. But to become so angry that they do not see what strength they have weakens the group. The Democrats have obviously abandoned the cause of Wall Street Reform because they are addicted to the money. The Republicans have always had an addiction to the money. And Wall Street is not the only problem; corporations are using secret influence through lobbyists and money of which Wall Street is only one player. I believe one solution is to work to fix the campaign finance system so that lobbyists, corporations, unions and individuals are forced to give through an independent group so that any money is very transparent. All ads by special interest groups must have strong rules as to what can be said and what can’t be said. And we create a way to finance elections so that our elected officials do not have to coddle up to lobbyists and the rich in order to get elected. But that is work. It means creating a lobby system to tell our officials to vote for election reform. It means putting candidates who are in favor of campaign finance reform and then getting them elected. I may mean creating a third party that steps away from the anachronistic Democrats and Republicans and restates what most Americans want.
But some people might think it is easier to go sit in the park. I don’t.
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