Playing Fair and Being Kind

My day yesterday was filled with metaphor and irony. My friend Ron, a high school class mate, has been hospitalized for feeling woozy and falling over. Now that he is better he is being placed in an assisted living place until his chemistry stabilizes. Vague I know but that is about what it is. He has also been prescribed prozac and that is what scared me the most. That is until I found out all the other things he eats to stay upright. Which brings me to my own revelation as I was researching the chemicals available to us. You know what I mean. Remember those days of the sixties and seventies? A pill for every ill? Better living through chemistry? We were young enough to try things. Who knew we’d live long enough to become part of the furniture, the backdrop, the ground floor upon which all of big pharma is built?

I was chatting with Bill, a savvy nurse married to another savvy nurse, yesterday to gain insights into what Ron is doing to himself. Bill went on a tear. He described chemistry, liver function, kidneys, and proper doctor/patient relationship to me in such a way that I forgot all about Ron and I started to worry about me. I thought I was on some mild med’s and that I was in touch with what my health is all about. Not as smart as I thought I was. My med’s are the type that doctors prescribe because they are just a bit better than the condition I’ve been diagnosed with. My med’s are not doing what I thought. I may be slowly and unwittingly poisoning myself. I called my cardiologist and left word that I needed to speak with her asap.

That’s all I have to say about that subject for now. More will be revealed. I thanked Bill. I also thank Tom. He is the one that planted the seed for me to be inquisitive about med’s. Mission accomplished, Tom.

I posted an old photo of me and some friends, the Boothbay Region Peace and Justice Group, on a thread honoring a recently passed member of ours. Here is the pic. In it I am sitting on a lawn chair next to our friend who died recently. The photo was taken quite a while ago. We were standing vigil in Boothbay Harbor during the days of the W. Bush administration. The country was at war and we knew it was not a just war, it was a war of enrichment, colonization. The oligarchy was in charge. Not the government.

After I posted the photo I was contacted by a relative of the person being honored. They were unhappy that I would post such an “inappropriate” photo. They said the honored person would never use such a photo and would never support such a gathering. I pointed out that the person being honored was in the photo and was in fact sitting right next to me. That ended that part of the conversation. I received an apology from the offended relative. Then we chatted about our military service in regard to the idea of war protests. At this point I mentioned General Smedley Butler, USMC. In 1935 General Butler wrote “War is a Racket”. It was a speech published in pamphlet style. A small, very thin book. You can read a little about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket

The other guy in this conversation is still on active duty and he has two teenage daughters. His question to me was what he should tell his daughters to prepare them for life. I told him that was not my job. It’s his to figure out. I did tell him that maybe his daughters don’t need his advice and that maybe he should ask them for some. Just a suggestion. He took it well.

All of this brought to mind what we tell ourselves to justify the glorification of war and then deflect attention to “veterans”. By veterans I mean the men and women we hire to protect the interests of the oligarchy, the business interests that perpetuate war in order to gain financial leverage to steer the United States into deeper more troubling waters.

First of all we veterans were never warriors in the sense that we were protecting our homeland. You may recall that nearly all of the people we fight on foreign soil are called “Insurgents” and I’m sure you know what an insurgent is. In case you don’t this is what we have labeled those who are trying to protect themselves, their families and friends, and their property from our invasions. Therefore we are not warriors, we are invaders, terrorists, or as I like to quote General Butler, we are thugs. Thugs for the oligarchs. Hit men. Leg breakers.

I’ll tell you what a warrior is. I know this because I have researched the term and applied it to a workshop I facilitate in prisons. The workshop is called, “Peaceful Warrior”. I found a description of “warrior” in a place on line that struck a cord with me. Each time I use the description the men always change the look and color of their eyes when they hear it.

“The Peaceful Warrior is the man who is able to listen, to communicate, to recognize conflict, to resolve conflict peacefully. The Peaceful Warrior does not cross boundaries. The Peaceful Warrior stays home and defends the boundaries.”

Our veterans do not perform this except as a collateral function. What we do is more invasive and disruptive to good world order.

That’s all I’ve got today.

Peace out,
G. M. Goodwin
17 March 2018
St. Patrick’s Day