Have You Seen Me Lately?
I had lunch with one of my dearest friends yesterday, a poet and an environmental activist. Although she’s more than 20 years older than me, she remains faithfully active, while I have become somewhat burned-out, fed-up, and a little apathetic when it comes to world affairs.
Over our Indian rice and dahl, she recommended an exciting new book, “Confessions of an Economic Hit-man,” in which the author, John Perkins, describes how, as a highly paid member of the international banking community, he helped the U.S. cheat poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then taking over their economies. “It’s very important to read this. The situation is worse than I thought it was,” she said, as she held up the hardcover book with a photo of the author on it for me to see.
Of course, then the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki came up. My eyes began to glaze over. Not because I didn’t care, but because I couldn’t absorb any more of the world’s suffering created by U.S. policies, especially since those in power and so many Americans are fervently invested in continuing with business as usual.
Trying to change the subject to something more current, I said, “Have you been following the protest of Cindy Sheehan outside Bush’s Crawford Texas Ranch? It’s gotten some good coverage. I’m sure some view her as a radical, but I wonder if I could be so brave. And what does she have to lose; she already lost her son in Iraq?”
“Did you write about her on your blog?” My friend asked.
“I started my blog partly to get away from writing about politics,” I answered.
“Why?” she pressed.
After explaining the intent and focus of “Loose Leaf” and how I wanted my writing to be less serious and more personal, I continued by giving her my policy on blogging politics, “I don’t do gratuitous politics, but if it comes up in the context of story or a stream of thought, I don’t shy away from it,” I answered. “Besides, I’m tired of preaching to the choir,” I added.
Just a few days before this, while in the Café de Sol to play scrabble, I pulled up “Loose Leaf” at the wireless computer station to show one of my Writers’ Workshop members who rarely touches a computer.
“How many hours a day do you spend on this?” was about all he said.
Later in the day, I thought to myself, “Hey, I didn’t ask him how many hours a day he watches TV, or how many hours a day he’s wasted at a job doing someone else’s work…”
But is does seem that, while blogging gives me a good forum to keep my writing practice sharp, it also can distract me from larger projects. And with so much pain and suffering and corruption in the world, shouldn’t I be doing more?
Ah…still explaining what the heck I’ve been doing lately to my friends…and sometimes to myself.
Post Note: For a thought provoking article, which I found via blogcruiser, check out “Writers make good bloggers, but does blogging affect good writing?” written by Tom Dolby and published recently in the San Francisco Chronicle. Also, here are a couple of good links on Cindy Sheehan’s activism as posted on Moveon.org: “One Mother in Crawford” Editorial, The New York Times, August 9,2005. Video Testimonial by Cindy Sheehan from TrueMajority. To read some of my past politcal commentaries you can go to my website.
August 11th, 2005 11:55 am
psst… make that the 60th anniversary.
August 11th, 2005 11:56 am
Madeleine L’Engle once wrote about not watching or reading the news anymore because the human mind and heart are not equipped to cope with that much suffering. She suggested focusing on the community around us, which is about all we can handle well. I like that idea–I know I am not capable of absorbing or even beginning to solve so much pain. But I don’t want to be an isolationist either, and someone has to act! I don’t know the answers either.
August 11th, 2005 12:15 pm
Mark – Thanks for the pssst….got it.
Laura – I recall reading something about the Native American tradition of being aware and responsible for only your own medicine wheel area of about 8 miles around. And of course the feasiblity of every action was judged by how it would effect 7 generations. But it’s hard to practice with today’s global small world awareness.
August 11th, 2005 1:37 pm
Hi Col,
If any of your readers want the political stuff send them over to my Blog “A Particularly Persistent Point of View ” http://ben-gal.tripod.com I blogged about Cindy today and also on the 7th and 8th (for anyone interested).
I also have “Confessions of an Economic Hit-man,” if you’d like to read it I can send it along. Let me know; meanwhile you can read a way back blog entry I wrote about this very book: http://ben-gal.tripod.com/index.blog?entry_id=634051
For a summery, I’ve snipped and pasted from Tuesday February 15th: ‘What’d reading now?’ he asked sounding almost afraid to ask.
“It’s a book written by a a former member of the international banking community, whistle blower, John Perkins. The book is entitled, ”Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.” I answered. “This book is educating me about the function of these extremely well paid “hit-men.” They go into third-world countries to persuade, using false growth projections, to take out enormous loans to build their infrastructure, loans by the way, that they have no way of paying back. It’s economic manipulation which in turn builds up the American empire!”
‘How so?’ Mr. Tiger quickly asked after hearing the word ‘manipulation.’
“It works like this Tige,” I responded while I had the chance. “Basically it is the job of these economic hit men to do some fancy deal-making with poor developing countries. It’s all legal too and wouldn’t work if these poorer countries could afford to pay the loans.” I added.
“They entice devastated parts of the world with enough loan money from international financial organizations to reconstruct or build new airports, electric generating plants, highways, dams, etc. and when they can’t possibly repay they have to play with what is theirs and that is their natural resources. Part of the deal is that American companies will be the ones to go in and build the infrastructure, and BINGO, vast sums of money come back into the US banks when the loans default. It’s done much the same way the mafia laon sharks do business.”
I continued, “It’s a game USA began playing in the early 1950’s, when Teddy Roosevelt’s grandson, Kermit, went into Iran as a C.I.A agent, a government employee, to set up a C.I.A. backed coup that overthrew the then democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh. Kermitt’s job was to create the impression that Iran was falling into anarchy. He did so in three weeks with phoney riots and lies that left people thinking the Communists would take over in this region. In the end, because of the deal that was struck, Iranians were getting only a pittance from the oil that came out of their own soil.”
“Today they don’t openly go about this kind of thing with government workers becuase it’s too risky but it’s still being done with hit men like Perkins who offer deals and bribes that are literally too good to be true.” I said. “Kinda reminds me of the way the banks deal with their credit card customers.”
‘Tell me more.’ Mr. Tiger said with what sounded like genuine interest.
“I don’t have the time right now.” I said. “I will though boil it all down for you to one word.”
‘Okay. What’s the word?’ he asked.
“Greed, Tiger, Greed!”
August 11th, 2005 5:11 pm
I know what you mean about preaching to the choir. The swing vote percentage is small and sensitive to being preached at, most of them preferring cake and circus and the chance of fistfights and will follow that wherever. One has to write for oneself. At a certain point one has to listen to the body and avert your gaze from trainwrecks and smell the flowers. The only other option is to go nuts.
August 11th, 2005 11:18 pm
”Do not ask what the world needs. Instead, ask what makes you come alive. Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive.” –Thurmond Whitman
August 12th, 2005 3:22 am
Reminds me of how I felt when I read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States.
Thanks for directing me to Jayn’s site. She does gorgeous work.
August 12th, 2005 1:46 pm
Blogging is a whole new animal. I don’t think any of us know how we want to use it and what we want it to be for us. It is not a journal in the traditional sense, since it is public immediately. It has many uses that we may or may not want to apply. It is tremendous communication tool. It is very strange and will change society forever, much as TV and computers have done.
August 12th, 2005 5:22 pm
We all need a hobby and a way to relax. I use to spend 3-4 hours most days on my blog or reading other’s blogs, but with new time constraints I’ve cut it in about half and it’s broken up more.