Ghosts, Part I.

Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they've always done before

Look at the hate we're breeding
Look at the fear we're feeding
Look at the lives we're leading
The way we've always done before

My hands are tied
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands time can't deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil wars

~Guns & Roses, Civil War

I've been a few places, I've seen some stuff. Thankfully...owing as much to the time in which I came of age as anything else, I never had to go to war. I've seen a little of its after-effects though. Ironically, none of that stuff stayed with me so much as when I went to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana with my Mom on a gray, windy day in July of 1989. Not the first such place I'd seen, as a kid I'd been to Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, and the Petersburg National Battlefield in Virginia. My Dad was a Civil War reenactor, such places were important to him. But, for me, being a kid at the time it was just a big adventure...though being steeped in Civil War history from such a young age would go on to greatly affect my thought process as I got older.

As a young adult though (and several years after my Dad passed away) doing more serious things (for example, I drove off and on, on that trip, which would take us to Seattle and all the way down the West Coast to San Diego, a big deal for a 15-year-old kid with the ink on his permit barely dry, looking forward to getting his driver's license the following November) this time felt a lot different. Looking out across those low hills, and the gravestones, under that vast gray sky...I could almost feel the ghosts...

What must it have been like, for the Native Americans, or the Soldiers of the Seventh Cavalry? The desperate fight for survival as arrows and bullets zipped through the air, the pain of wounds, the blood...the cries of the dying or the wounded? Did the Soldiers know, or care, that they were dying for some rich man's bullshit ideas about "Manifest Destiny" did the Native Americans consider that even a great victory might buy their lifestyle, as they knew it, only a few more years? Or was everybody just trying to survive the engagement in one piece...as is usually the case with such things?

War is hell. It doesn't matter which side you're on.

We didn't say much, I got a couple of small books at the Visitor's Center that I kept for many years. I think both of us were pretty quiet for a good couple of hours once we got back on the road, too. I drove, lost in thought, until it started to rain hard...big raindrops that spattered hard against the windshield of my Mom's dark blue 1988 Chevy Cheyanne pickup truck, and made it hard to see. Not to mention the winds that pushed the trailer around and forced me out of my reverie as I struggled to hold the steering wheel steady. I still remember pulling over and getting damned near soaked as each of us got out to change drivers...there was a cooler full of stuff on the bench seat, as I recall. Once on the passenger side...recently having given up my habit of reading in the truck for a tendency to watch the road ahead...I settled back into my uncomfortable thoughts and peered ahead into the deepening grayness of the evening storm.

So it's been the last couple of days. I've thought a lot, I've wanted to write a lot on this subject but I've been unable to articulate my own thoughts to any degree that I thought adequate.

Like most people (and more aware of World War II-era history than many others are as well) I watched the events in Charlottesville, Virginia, with a combination of bemusement and mild irritation at the Tiki-Torch bearing, Sweater-vest-wearing Internet Nazis on Friday night. What a joke these people are! I mean, come on, Tiki torches? What is this, Triumph Of The Will meets late August Wal-Mart rollbacks? Are you kidding me? That'd turn to anger and horror by Saturday afternoon when a car driven by one of these loser Nazi dumb asses deliberately and with malice aforethought, plowed into a crowd of nonviolent protesters, killing one young woman and injuring 19 other people.

I found out about it many minutes after the fact, on Twitter. I'll remember seeing that video for the rest of my life, just like I'll remember the Invasion of Kuwait, the start of Desert Storm, the start of the Yugoslav wars, first hearing of the Rwanda genocide (and sitting there watching that rec-room TV in the dorms and wondering why we weren't on our way to try and stop it) or arguing with my ex-wife on Yahoo Messenger right before finding out about the (then-ongoing) 9/11 attacks.

Some things, they just stay with you, I guess.

The chants, the Confederate flags, the guns, the racism, the Swastikas...all that crap didn't really matter after that. The situation turned into a brawl and I watched one video where some fucking White Supremacist got repeatedly interrupted by some old guy shouting "Indict for murder now!" Then  he got beat up and run off and had to be rescued and escorted away by police. Not long after that, the Governor declared a state of emergency, citing the fact that most of the white supremacists were apparently from out of state, and endangering his citizens. The rallies were dispersed and riot police were called in.

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, among others, correctly called the vehicular homicide an act of Domestic Terrorism. Many various people on both Left and Right have also called that shit out. I've found myself agreeing with people that normally I'd check if they told me the sky was blue.

It's been a long time...since the end of the Indian Wars, in fact...since conflict has come to this country, on land at least.

Oh, sure, there have been plenty of conflicts other than war. Not least the long struggle by African Americans to gain the full Civil Rights that our Constitution says they are due...and that one is still not over. Do you think the ghosts of Rosewood, of Tulsa, or of individuals from Emmett Till all the way on down to Mike Brown and Philando Castile rest easy? 'Cause I sure don't. Most of the time though, we resolve these conflicts without mass bloodshed...or at least we have since the Civil War and the end of the Indian Wars.

A different kind of conflict is coming. One doesn't negotiate with Nazis, one destroys them. It may take a war...or given the weak nature of most of these idiots, a hell of a lot of punches to various young, white faces is more likely. We cannot reason with people who don't think the rest of us have a right to exist. This situation is made worse by the fact that all too many Americans cannot conceptualize the idea that some people would rather kill and steal than live, or that some people would rather hate than eat. These people are the reason I say we need to bring back the ass whuppin' here in America.

Look at the shit-fest that is social media most days, and all the evidence is laid out before us.

Our own history is much the same, only a lot more bloody at times.

We look out into the world, and judge...but we've had our own Concentration Camps here in America, and we've done our own ethnic cleansing...and we did it without no damn Nazis. In point of fact as a friend of mine who is Alaskan Native will tell you, we did it to her ancestors at the same time as we were defeating the Nazis and liberating the Buchenwald Concentration Camp.

Not even a full decade after that, as African Americans stood up and demanded their Civil Rights, with bus boycotts and court cases and protest marches...the racists stood up and said that Black people were destroying America. Never mind the century of abuse and discrimination and murders and terror that had gone on since those people were supposed to have gotten their rights in the first place! Black people are destroying America!

Fuckin' seriously?!?!?! Where did these people come up with that shit?

Christ, you'd think to hear the racists tell it...that the sole purpose of America is to perpetuate racism and protect their white privilege.

After all, don't most "Conservatives" these days, constantly bitch about how gay people, liberals, minorities, something something George Soros blah blah blah DESTROYING AMERICA!

Yet, if you look at the conduct of most of the Republican Party, not to mention the Trump Administration, vs. the decisions made by the previous administration, the courts, and people in general...it's not hard to deduce that right-wingers have basically decided that if they can't have America...and have it their way...they'll burn it down or sell it to the Russians for thirty pieces of silver before they'll see Black folks, or liberals or Muslims, or even their own poor white voters get their fair share.

Remember, these are the people who call this logic:

'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it', a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong. (Quoting war correspondent Peter Arnett)

But no, it's everybody else that's "Destroying America."

As I've said many times, being anti-liberal is not the same thing as being conservative. Blaming other people for your bullshit or your problems doesn't make them go away.

I'm quite sure that if you could go back in time, and ask one of the soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, or Sitting Bull, or some poor Sharecropper, or Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X, or the ghost of a murdered voter-registration worker in Mississippi "Are you intent on destroying America" they'd honestly tell you No. I'd further be willing to bet that if you asked them what they did want to do...most if not all of them probably just wanted to live life as they knew it, better themselves if possible, and help others along the way as needed.

Thankfully, in the history of this country a lot of people have stood up for what's right. A lot of others stood up for the wrong thing...and I'll bet that an awful lot of those people knew it was wrong, too. They just didn't care.

You know, one thing I consistently find appalling...in these recent events as much as the more distant past...is that white people refuse to recognize not only the basic dignity or humanity of African Americans (and other ethnic or racial minorities) but even their Christianity...the one thing that if we actually went by the Bible...should unite people. But of course, it doesn't.

Likewise with religious minorities...Jews and Muslims believe many of the same things that Christians do, and we all believe in the same God. I've never heard of a Buddhist, or a Hindu or a Sikh in this country going out of their way to hurt anybody else where it wasn't for a reason.

What makes all these white idiots think that everybody else is out to take their Jesus away?

(...Unless of course, the answer is that their "Jesus" is an idol made in their own image that would evaporate like rain from a Wyoming hillside if it were exposed to the Truth...)

All too often, people who've been handed an easy life care more about what makes them feel good about themselves than they do about doing the right thing. People will chase after ideological unicorns, follow after the dumbest conspiracy theories...and in general go to an amazing amount of work just to avoid doing the (often, easier if you think about it) work of facing down our bullshit and doing what we should have done in the first place.

Things, they're changing. The United States of America is becoming more diverse...and continues to do so no matter the political machinations of Fascists and Nazis and racists and Republicans. Hell, the social fabric of our country has changed in the last seven months, with a majority of people now saying that things like health care are a right rather than a privilege. People are sick of income inequality, and wars, and the various social problems that mostly are tolerated in this country because some old rich fool makes money off of them. As regards people? If you look at whole regions of the country...not to mention human beings under the age of about twelve or so nationwide...the demographics have already changed. Roland Martin said on his show this morning, that we should be ready for 30 years of conflict...until we hit the point in 2044 or so where no one group will have a majority nationwide.

Personally, I think we'll hit that point sooner than that.

On a more general level I think with all this Trump bullshit and the fact that they've appointed idiots as their champions, right-wingers are gonna go down faster and harder than that. Once that happens, I doubt that many people will be bothered by ethnic or racial diversity. I don't doubt though, that there will be a long period of conflict. Some are already saying we're in a period of Cold Civil War.

When someone consults the ghosts of my generation, I wonder what we will have to say? For me, I'll say that for one thing I've always thought that diversity was kind of the default setting of life...and I started out as a conservative. I've always thought that education, the environment, history, and maintaining the things we as a people...all of us...have, were important, and so is progress and people bettering themselves. Would I die for those ideals? Hell yes. I wouldn't want to live in a world without them.

Creationists don't build starships, and while the Nazis built excellent rockets, they decided they'd rather aim for London than for the Moon.

The horizons of such people are always too close.

I claim the right to master my fear and reach for the stars.

All people have to have the right to do that...or none of us do. We are all free, or none of us are.

We still have a long way to go.

When are we going to get there, and how much blood will be spilled by those fighting for decency and equality and progress vs. those fighting against it? Who can say.

Ask the ghost of Heather Hayer. The spirits of the dead are unfettered by the shackles of time.

...

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds. ~Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley.


Ghosts, Part II