Carlos's Blog – October 2008 Archive (18)

My brothers and sisters,

It is now a time for change, as it is looking as though Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States. The polls show that it is a 49.9 to 43.9% lead over John McCain, who intends to keep U.S. troops in Iraq, to continue fighting and to continue exacerbating the hate for the United States that is already felt throughout the world thanks to President George Bush. The war is expensive: our economy right now has been the worst since it has been since… Continue

The song peace train inspired me to write. The world is very vulnerable right now: it is about to change...and I think for the better. With the elections in the U.S. coming up (early voting starts tomorrow), we will see in what direction this country will be taken. I would like to just say that I do not support John McCain solely because he intends to keep the troops in Iraq until "the job is done."

A poll taken by America Online predicted John McCain as the winner by "a little bit." I do… Continue

Free speech radio news

"Last year, like many others, I too made the mistake of scoffing at this post- September 11 rhetoric, dismissing it as foolish and arrogant. I've realized that it's not foolish at all. It's actually a canny recruitment drive for a misconceived, dangerous war. Every day I'm taken aback at how many people believe that opposing the war in Afghanistan amounts to supporting terrorism, or voting for the Taliban. Now that the initial aim of the war -- capturing Osama bin Laden (dead or alive) -- seems… Continue

In the face of trouble, I rely on my own solitude. Whenever the world around me seems like it is going to fast, I take a step back, perhaps take 15 deep breaths, and then I go into alkalinosis.

I digress, once I find a place in my head where I can RELAX, I find that any little blurb that presents itself in the face of this craziness makes me laugh a little bit.



Other people, namely those who are aggressive and are pro-violence do not have this solitude. Their answer to any… Continue

What rings true to my ears inspires me for a lifetime. When I hear the truth spoken, it is like a melody to my ears. I listen to music that gives me reason. I feel that peace is a viable truth that has been spoken. Too much fighting, too many debts, too much money has been spent on killing people for OIL. Instead of fighting, we should come up with clean energy to use as fuel. Relying on fossil fuels only hurts our planet.



What I feel is in my right is free speech. I would like to… Continue

One day, I would like to have a conversation with a war supporter and tell him that his hope is lost. In the end, love conquers every soul.



What I would tell the supporter is that I am neither a politician or a professor. I am not a general or a CEO. I am a young person who believes that there are better ways at solving disputes other than pulling a gun on someone else's loved ones.



I would not try to convince them in my direction in the least. In fact, I would try to say… Continue

One day a very sheltered person told me that this statement is false because of his religious convictions. I respect his faith. However, I will counter his notion by proving that the statement is true because throughout history, independent thinkers have made it true.



"To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson



To be blindly led by groupthink is to be a slave to… Continue

"It's not a clever enough subject to speak of from a public platform. But what I would really love to talk to you about is loss...loss and losing, grief, failure, brokeness, numbness, uncertainty, fear, the death of feeling, the death of dreaming, the absolute relentless, endless, habitual unfairness of the world. What does loss mean to individuals, what does it mean to whole people, to whole cultures, who have learned to live with it as a constant companion?"
-Arundhati Roy

"Yet each person who has lost a loved one knows secretly, deeply, that no war, no act of revenge, no daisy cutters dropped on someone else's loved ones or someone else's children will blunt the edges of their pain or bring their loved ones back.



War cannot avenge those that have died. War is only a brutal desecration of their memory. To fuel yet another war, this time against Iraq, by cynically manipulating people's grief by packaging it for TV specials sponsored by selling detergent… Continue

Feeling irie, with the strength of my hands to survive

No one can take it away, and I revel at those who are jealous because of it

I think in rainbows, because the world has provided for me

A chance to be free, unchained from mental slavery

No guns in my hand will trigger me to save others



With my own unarmed hands will I be able to make this world a better place

With my free speech I will make sure that children around this world are saved from poor… Continue

"An inability to see the world in terms other than those the establishment have set out for you. If you're not a Bushy, you're a Taliban. If you don't love us, you hate us. If you're not good, you're evil. If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists."
-Arundhati Roy

Winston Churchill (no, he's not for peace...V is for Victory.) That's how the peace sign started. From Wikipedia: "The V sign is a hand gesture in which the first and second fingers are raised and parted, whilst the remaining fingers are clenched. With palm inwards, in the United Kingdom and some other English speaking countries, it is an obscene insulting gesture of defiance. During the Second World War Winston Churchill popularised its use as a "Victory" sign (for V as in… Continue

"When independent-thinking people and here I do not include the corporate media, begin to rally under flags...

When writers, painters, musicians, filmmakers, suspend their judgment and blindly look the aught to the service of the nation, it's time for us all to sit up and worry.



Recently those who have criticized the actions of the U.S. government, myself included, have been called 'anti-American.'

'Anti-Americanism' is in the process of being consecrated into an… Continue

"My writings are about power. About the paranoia and ruthlessness of power. About the physics of power. In India those of us who have expressed views on nuclear bombs, corporate globalization...views that are branded anti-national- while this accusation doesn't fill me with indignation, it is not an accurate description of what I do and how I think. Because an anti-national is a person who is against his or her nation, and by inference, pro-some other one. But it isn't necessary to be… Continue

The state of the U.S. economy has been at its worst since the Great Depression. Dow Jones dropped 800 points five days ago, and only went up 400 points four days ago. The Bailout Plan did not pass through Congress, but then it did pass (give thanks and praises). My physiology professor said that at the rate that we are going, if the nonsense in Washington does not stop, then my university and all public and private institutions will close within two months. We need a solution to the… Continue

"A time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has come for us, even when pressed by the demands of inner truth. Men do not easily assume the task of opposing their governments' policy, especially in time of war. And I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyors of violence in the world today: my own government.



What do they think as we test out our latest weapons on… Continue

I had a conversation with a Vietnam war veteran this morning at the Methodist Hospital cafeteria. He was an engineer of some sort. However, what was important in our conversation was his take on war. He went to Vietnam twice: once in 1966-67, and again in '73 when the war was nearing its end. He said that the goal of war was to kill everything in sight wherever it is that the vehicle of transportation for the soldiers unloads. He said he jokes around with his wife by telling her that in a war,… Continue