Dru Blood - I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings: Candlelight Vigil

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Candlelight Vigil

September 9, 2004

I wasn't going to go to the candlelight vigil for the soldiers who have been killed in Iraq, because I had to work, and I'm teaching a class, which means I had to be AT work.

But I really started thinking, about mid-day, that I needed some sort of ritual to honor the dead. That perhaps being with other people holding candles in the dark wouldn't be such a bad thing to do today. That maybe this was an opportunity for me to heal and meditate a bit on hope and community.

So I arranged to take half of the evening off. And when it came time for me to go, I drove home and gathered up my candles and walked across the street to the vigil.

I was thankful that John was there with me. It was a small group, and they were enthusiastically mournful. Nice people. Solid democrats. The 45 minutes of semi-silence was helpful. I was staring at the sign that said "1000 dead" and I was curious about how we honor the dead American soldiers and yet forget or ignore the thousands who are injured and the countless who are permanently damaged. Not to mention who-knows-how-many dead Iraqis.

And the word Dead kept swimming in my eyes. And how many more? The other day, I heard Rumsfeld talking about the death count in his offhand manner. He seemed to be saying something to the effect of "Oh, yeah...well, WE might have 1000 dead soldiers coming home in pine boxes, but THEY have untold THOUSANDS." I could almost hear the "neener, neener, neener" in his voice.

And I'm thinking...really...ONE is too many. That's my limit. One. One person is way more dead than I can handle. Whether that person dies in combat, or dies because of their experience of combat, or whether that person dies because of the fucked up system that leads us to engage in combat in the first place.

It's too many. There are too fucking many walking wounded.

Too. Fucking. Many.

Posted at September 9, 2004 10:46 PM

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Comments

I also heard Rumsfeld's little comment about how many Iraqi fighters we have killed in the last few weeks. I don't think it is in the best interest of this administration to get in the business of body counts. They have been doing a great job at convincing people this was a liberation.

I also guess while we are on the subject of war related death we should ask how many Americans will die this year because they don't have access to proper healthcare in the richest country in the world while we spend 200 billion on this fiasco. So many are paying for this with their lives.

Posted by: michael at September 10, 2004 12:19 AM

I've seen pictures of Auschwitz with bodies stacked one on top of another. I've read historical accounts of the SS slaughtering whole villages of people in trenches. I've seen pictures of people high sky diving off the WTC towers. I've seen pictures of bombs hung from basketball rims in a gymnasium filled with children. I've seen pictures of mass graves that saddam filled with thousands of people. I've seen pictures of people he gassed in the streets of his own country. One where a mother is clutching her child as they lay lifeless in the streets. There aren't any easy answers in regards to this. Telling people to "chill out" doesn't always cut the mustard. I wish it did but it doesn't. Sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

Posted by: Ralph at September 10, 2004 8:22 PM

saddam is not hitler, saddam did not cause the 9-11 attacks and i don't know what the hell you're talking about in regards to the gymnasium thing. all i know is you're swallowing the administration's lies about this being a "liberation" hook, line, and sinker, all the while ignoring the fact that we subsidized this monster while he was gassing kurds and mass-executing his own people.

so when does someone get to carpet-bomb us?

or would you rather just stop this nonsense in its tracks before the whole world goes blind?

Posted by: dana at September 15, 2004 11:41 PM