Strange Fruit

With the ongoing tragedy in Iraq again making headlines, the content of this 2007 letter seems like "deja vu all over again". Can it be surprising that the vast consequences of corruption, death, and seething sectarianism have predictably borne strange fruit? The human sacrifice and sacrifices of this massive war crime are the festering legacy of our silence and grotesque complicity. Tim O'Brien wrote, " I was a coward. I went to war." Sadly, I too was a coward for not resisting this war with all of the energy my conviction demanded.

This letter has additional meaning for me. It was praised by Richard Walton, a friend and mentor and tireless advocate for justice and those without a voice, who sadly passed away last year, without knowing how much his presence on this troubled planet meant to me personally.  

[GPRI] Fine Letter by Longtime Green Jeff Johnson Richard Walton richard at soup.org Wed Mar 28 19:08:17 PST 2007]

Hi: This is a fine letter by longtime Green [and once our candidate for

lieutenant governor and other offices] Jeff Johnson. It is unusually long

for a Letter to the Editor so the editors must have thought highly of it.

As I certainly did. Peace. Richard.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007 10:06 p.m.

Kerry s gaffes vs. Bush s high crimes

01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Edward Achorn's accusation, in his Feb. 6 column "Politicians are all too

human", that John Kerry is a hypocrite is certainly reasonable. We all

might justly be accused of occasionally being hypocritical. However, the

Kerry critique is too simplistic in its partisan focus. Whether Kerry is

bashing America is not really relevant. The U.S. deserves to be

criticized. We are fighting a war that has been responsible for the deaths

of thousands of innocent human beings.

This war was sold like toothpaste to the American people with a series of

blatant lies emanating from the executive branch. The human and financial

costs of this illegal war are too numerous to count, but one very high

price, not often discussed, is blowback. We are considered a rogue nation

by the majority of the world's people. By many accounts, we have energized,

if not emboldened terrorism, with policies that demonstrate contempt for human life.

The face of Bush is a recruiting poster for all of the people of the world who hate

America not because we get to watch American Idol on television but because of the

terrible things we have done to them. And Bush's mendacity seems to lack

any boundary or constraint whatsoever. While he was supposedly listening

to advisers on the advisabilty of his surge, he was already implementing

this flawed policy that will only result in more death, hatred and

carnage.

As for Kerry's vote against the Kyoto protocol, Achorn makes another valid

point, but it certainly does not diminish Bush's responsibilities to this

nation to act on global warming. For six years and change, Bush has denied

the irrefutable and unambiguous science supporting the anthropogenic

causes of global warming.

Bush's science adviser, a lawyer, even altered a recent EPA report on the

seriousness of global warming to make its findings sound less ominous.

The first installment of the 2007 IPCC report (Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change) is positively chilling in its forecasts for the not too

distant future. Climate change is the biggest threat not only to our

nation s security, but to the security of our species. And what has Bush

done? Nothing, unless you call coal gasification and learning how to

pronounce cellulosic inspired leadership.

Don t get me wrong, I am not a Kerry supporter. In fact, I have equal

loathing for both of the mainstream political parties that have been

complicit in plotting the suicidal foreign and domestic policies of the

last two decades. But Bush is in a league of his own. Negligence and lies

have been the hallmark of his reign of errors. John Kerry may indeed have

gaffed again, but at least he is not guilty, as Bush is, of high crimes.

JEFF JOHNSON

Wakefield

"The only way out of our crisis (terrorism) is to reduce the anger of the

most rational, thus also reducing the constituency of the least rational."

Sam Smith.

"When they come for the innocent without crossing over

your body, cursed be your religion and your life." Anon. But often

quoted by Dorothy Day.

--

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"Richard Walton" <richard at soup.org>