Greg Hartnett

I have my iTunes set this morning to shuffle through all of my Beatles and John Lennon tracks. It’s a special day for me, as it is for music fans and peace activists the world over. It’s a day for remembering and reflection. 26 years ago today, on a quiet Upper West Side street, Mark David Chapman took the life of one of the most talented musicians of our time. With four hollow point rounds, Mr. Chapman was able to extinguish the light of a generation.

For so many at that time, John Lennon embodied the peace movement. The US was coming to terms with the devastation of the Vietnam era, the civil rights movement was making great strides, and we had yet to enter the All-About-Me 80’s. In the nexus of this movement stood John Lennon; constantly reminding the world that there was an alternative to perpetual war for perpetual peace. Lennon’s bold message rang true for millions, and he was able to touch them in a way that few others had before him.

At the time, I was just a boy of ten. I recall the sadness of my mother, and my own lack of interest. “What’s the big deal”, I thought. “He’s just some past-his-prime singer” was my general attitude. My immature mind was incapable of grasping the magnitude of the loss. As I grew and learned more about Lennon I discovered all that he had done for society and over time the loss began to resonate.

What is it about peace and pacifists that scare so many people? To be sure, Lennon wasn’t he first pacifist executed: Jesus was a pacifist; Mahatma Gandhi was also a pacifist; as was Martin Luther King Jr. All great men with a vision of peace for mankind. All murdered for their message of love and equality. Is that to be the fate of any pacifist making strides?

When will the time come when we can truly give peace a chance?

I have long been a critic of guns. I hate them. They scare the hell out of me, and their widespread acceptance is a disgrace to our nation. The gun control issue may be the first thing that got me politically motivated.

The attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan in 1981 left Press Secretary James Brady nearly dead and permanently disabled. For the next decade Sarah Brady championed gun control legislation, and with much fanfare President Clinton signed the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (The Brady Bill) into law on November 30, 1993. Over the course of those 10 years, I was exposed to a lot of information on gun control and gun violence. As an inquisitive lad, I read what I could find on the topic (pre-Internet). The more I learned, the more I grew disgusted with guns.

Throwing all firearms to the bottom of the sea would be ideal, but a more reasonable goal would be an outlawing of all handguns and automatic weapons. If you want to go out and shoot some deer, quail, turkey, or whatever defenseless animal of your choice with your rifle and call it a sport, then knock your socks off. But there is no need for Joe Citizen to own a handgun or automatic weapon - or some semi-automatic knock off of some military assault rifle. WTF??

I can already hear calls of Second Ammendment garbage. Drop it already. It was written to keep the King out of your living room when his soldiers all had muskets, and maybe you had to worry about a couple dozen of them showing up on your farm. The Founding Fathers never imagined the advanced weaponry that we have today. If the FBI wants to come into your living room, they’re coming in.

Boo hoo - what about home protection?? Get an alarm - or a rottweiler. Or get both, and keep a shotgun in the closet. What the hell are you anticipating that you need that Bushmaster A3?? Hey Rambo, that’s what the National Guard is for. Go get your rocks off there one weekend a month, and keep your big toys on base. Believe it or not, you’re not making your neighborhood any safer with all that firepower.

Fortunately for America, the Brady Campaign didn’t end with the Brady Bill. For over two decades, the Bradys have been combatting gun violence and the country is a safer place for it. The latest November elections are proof positive that their vigilance and determination have paid off. According to their latest report: 95% of all Brady endorsed candidates won their races; 80% of Brady endorsed candidates beat NRA-backed candidates in head-to-head match-ups; and, 18 out of 26 Senate candidates backed by the NRA lost their race.

That’s a good start - now let’s follow it up with some responsible legislation.

On the 10th of December, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These rights were proclaimed inherrent to all human beings, regardless of race, religion, socio-economic status, or sex. In today’s world of polarization and nationalism, it would be wise for us to take a moment to remember all of these points.

In an effort to keep this somewhat manageable, I have decided to skip the Preamble, and jump right into listing the articles:

Article 1. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4. No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6. Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7. All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8. Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10. Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11. (1) Everyone charged with a penal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense. (2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offense on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offense, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offense was committed.

Article 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14. (1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. (2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15. (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 16. (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. (2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses. (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17. (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. (2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 21. (1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. (2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country. (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 22. Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23. (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24. Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25. (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 26. (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace. (3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Article 27. (1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 28. Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 29. (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible. (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society. (3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

A classic propaganda piece straight out of the Cold War era.

All hail King Joe. Thanks shandyking for hitting me with the link.

I am going to keep from any political agenda on this post…

Today is not the day to point fingers, or second guess. Nor is it the time for political jockeying, name calling, or agenda advancing.

It’s a time for all of us to remember. Remember those poor civilians who lost their lives that fateful morning. Remember the families that shattered as those buildings collapsed. Remember what life was like on September 10, 2001. Remember how we felt safe, and trusted that our leaders would take care of us.

As I sift through all the news commemorating the fifth anniversary of 9/11, I find that I am having trouble keeping the tears at bay. The emotions of the day flood back, as if the events happened only yesterday. I think of the guys that I knew who died that day. Chris Slattery, who grew up across the street from me, and in whose house I had my first sleep over. How did he die? Instantly when the plane hit? I like to think so.

Or Chris Ciafardini. A year younger than I when we went to school together. I never really knew him that well, but we hung out a bit. When I watched the names of the victims in the days that followed 9/11, the name jumped out at me. When I saw a street sign in Oyster Bay commemorating him, I realized that my fears had been justified.

Those signs became all too popular in my old home town. I saw them putting one up for Tim Byrne just up the street from where I grew up. A memorial street sign now hangs ominously over the kids playing on the quiet cul-de-sac, a constant reminder of the heart broken home just around the bend.

I remember seeing flyers adorned on store fronts and light poles, hung by family members desperately seeking information about a loved one. I remember learning from my sister that she had finally gotten in touch with my cousin who had worked at the NYSE. And learning from my father that my cousin, who was at the time a speech writer for Giuliani, was also safe.

I remember reaching out to people I knew who may have been afftected. Talking with Brian as the events unfolded, to learn that his buddy LP had gone missing. Unfortunately, Laurence worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, up on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center. Cantor Fitzgerald saw the highest casualties of any company - almost the entire workforce was decimated that morning.

Today as I work, the emotions of the event linger with me. I remember the tragedy each day, but today I permit myself to remember details and emotions of the day. So today, all I do is remember. Tomorrow, I rant.

While we pat ourselves on our collective backs, celebrating the awesomeness of US military might in what our leaders are calling a major victory in the war on terrorism, we should take a moment to pay homage to all the others that have died during the illegal war in Iraq. But exactly who, and how many of them, should we mourn?

I was talking a couple of days ago with some friends, and we started discussing US soldiers wounded in Iraq. I wasn’t very surprised to learn that neither of them had an accurate idea on the number of casualties. The DoD is reluctant to release fully accurate data, and the media is happy to fall into line, but there are plenty of non-traditional resources out there to get some ideas. Even though it would appear that our leaders “don’t do body counts”, others are keeping track.

According to some of the data I have found, as of today, the grim numbers look something along the following:

US Deaths Confirmed by the DoD - 2480
US Deaths since “Mission Accomplished” - 2343
US Wounded According to the DoD - 17,869
Iraq Coalition Casualties - 4769
Iraqi Civilians Reported Killed - 38,254 to 42,646
Estimated Civilians Killed - more than 100,000
Women and children accounted for almost 20% of all civilian deaths
Cost of the War - $287,012,509,117 (that’s 287 billion)
Estimate Total Cost of War - over $2 trillion

While the above numbers are alarming on their own, they do not reflect the number of deaths that could have been prevented had the funds spent on the war been directed to health programs or feeding the poor. What type of strides could we have made in the advancement towards a cure for cancer or HIV had we dumped almost $300 billion there? How many children could have been fed with that money? How many schools could have been built? How many immunizations distributed? Factor in the implicit deaths that may have been averted, and the numbers grow considerably.

Even though Bill O’Reilly would have us believe that “everybody who is a loyal American should be celebrating, and not doing this other stuff” I would argue that it is at these times that we need to stand up and remind our leaders that we have not forgotten the others that have fallen. It is at times when we are feeling our most self righteous that we must stand back and put things in perspective. Dropping half a ton of explosives on a handful of bad guys doesn’t justify the carnage that we are unleashing on an undeserving people. The tens of thousands of casualties can’t be washed away, or blown to bits, with the obliteration of Zarqawi. A few dead bad guys will not wipe out the sins of the fathers.

How high does the casualty count need to climb before we decide to pull out? Perhaps that is the wrong metric to judge. Perhaps a better question is how much money do Haliburton and Bechtel need to make before we can stop the carnage? Once the US has a couple of new military bases set up, then can we pull out? Will another notch in the imperialistic belt be enough to satisfy the war lords? How about a Starbucks on every corner?

Bush and friends continue to maintain that we will continue our operations in Iraq. According to our current administration, the end is definitely not in sight. So, how high will the casualty count get? At this rate, the sky is the limit. Maybe 50,000 Americans wounded or killed in combat. Maybe 250,000 or more Iraqis. But hey, we can’t put a price on freedom, right?

And in the midst of our celebrating, let’s not forget the most recent atrocity - the slaughter at Haditha, where two dozen civilians were murdered in cold blood by a Marine unit from Camp Pendleton. Should we cry more for the 24 civilians that met such a brutal demise, or for the poor boys from the Southern California military base? Those poor boys - most of them barely old enough to legally buy alcohol, their lives forever shattered. Their souls lost in the sands of some godless desert. How will they ever be able to come back into society and not lose their minds? How will you greet them when they return? What will you say? Do you have an apology ready?

Or the wretched townspeople of Haditha, which will now live in the history books alongside My Lai, Wounded Knee, and other sites where massacres have been committed upon an innocent population. Who cries for them? Who will mourn the children who were savagely murdered? In one house, little girls - ages 14, 10, 5, 3, and 1 - all died after being shot to pieces. One girl suffered nine bullet wounds, and others were torn apart by exploding grenades. What type of apology can we give to these people? What type of justice do they desrve? Do they not deserve the same happiness and protection that you and I deserve? Are their lives any less precious than ours?

What type of apology are you prepared to give them? Start thinking, because they’ll deserve one. Each day that passes, we will owe more and more apologies. I fear more than we will ever be able to dole out.

References:

Washington Post - Enemy Body Counts Revived
Daniel Bacher - Bush’s Illegal War
Iraq Body Count
Wikipedia - Casualties of the War Since 2003
Iraq Coalition Casualties
Lancet Study (PDF)
Guardian Unlimited - Body counts
The Globalist -The Cost of War in Iraq: A Checklist
Daniel Bacher -Bush’s Illegal War
ImpeachPAC - Who Really Killed the Civilians of Haditha?
Noam Chomsky - After Pinkville
Wikipedia - List of Massacres

Once again, the US has completely eclipsed the rest of the world on military expenditures. We spent approximately $420.7 billion for the military in fiscal year 2005 ($401.7 billion for the Defense Department and $19.0 billion for the nuclear weapons functions of the Department of Energy). The Arms Control Center has more 2005 highlights.

How many vaccines could we have provided with the money we burned on this B-52??

Approximately $100 million up in smoke…

While shopping at Whole Foods, I struck up a conversation with a college-aged girl about Thanksgiving. She expressed her love of the holiday, saying that it was one holiday that brought all Americans together, regardless of religion or sex. To which I replied, “How do you think the Native Americans feel about Thanksgiving?” She shrugged her shoulders, and said “They probably don’t get as excited about it as we do - just another day for them.”

Somehow I doubt it. I find it hard to believe that such a proud and strong people simply forgot about the atrocities committed upon their people in the name of advancing civilization. So below I present (courtesy of Howard Zinn) some history of the Iroquois, just a portion of the 25 million Native Americans killed so that we could have shopping malls from sea to shining sea.

In the villages of the Iroquois, land was owned in common and worked in common. Hunting was done together, and the catch was divided among the members of the village. Houses were considered common property and were shared by several families. The concept of private ownership of land and homes was foreign to the Iroquois. A French Jesuit priest who encountered them in the 1650’s wrote: “No poorhouses are needed among them, because they are neither mendicants nor paupers… Their kindness, humanity and courtesy not only makes them liberal with what they have, but causes them to possess hardly anything except in common.”

Women were important and respected in Iroquois society. Families were matrilineal. If a woman wanted a divorce, she set her husband’s things outside the door. Families were grouped in clans, and a dozen or more clans might make up a village. The senior women in the village named the men who represented the clans at village and tribal councils. The women tended the crops and took general charge of village affairs while the men were off hunting and fishing. Gary B. Nash notes in his comprehensive study of early America, Red, White, and Black: “Thus power was shared between the sexes and the European idea of male dominancy and female subordination in all things was conspicuously absent in the Iroquois society”.

Children in Iroquois society, while taught the cultural heritage of their people and solidarity with the tribe, were also taught to be independent, not to submit to overbearing authority. They were taught equality in status and the sharing of possessions. The Iroquois did not use harsh punishment on children; they did not insist on early weaning or early toilet training, but gradually allowed the child to learn self-care.

Gary Nash describes Iroquois culture:

No laws and ordinances, sheriffs and constables, judges and juries, or courts and jails - the apparatus of authority in European societies - were to be found in the northeast woodlands prior to European arrival. Yet boundaries of acceptable behavior were firmly set. Though priding themselves on the autonomous individual, the Iroquois maintained a strict sense of right and wrong…. He who stole another’s food or acted invalourously in war was “shamed” by his people and ostracized from their company until he had atoned for his actions and demonstrated to their satisfaction that he had morally purified himself.

So, Columbus and his successors were not coming into an empty wilderness, but into a world which in some places were as densely populated as Europe itself, where the culture was complex, where human relations were more egalitarian than in Europe, and where the relations among men, women, children, and nature were more beautifully worked out than perhaps any place in the world.

They were people without a written language, but with their own laws, their poetry, their history kept in memory and passed on, in an oral vocabulary more complex than Europe’s, accompanied by song, dance, and ceremonial drama. They paid careful attention to the development of personality, intensity of will, independence and flexibility, passion and potency, to their partnership with one another and with nature.

Some things to think about while we celebrate the awesomeness that is America.

In the year 1832, with American expansionism at its peak, North America was a dangerous place to be an Indian. Under president Jackson, and his successor Martin Van Buren, more than 70,000 Indians east of the Mississippi were forced westward. Most moved, some stayed, and some fought. When Chief Black Hawk of the Sauk and Fox Indians of Illinios was captured, he made the following speech in surrender:

I fought hard. But your guns were well aimed. The bullets flew like birds in the air, and whizzed by our ears like the wind through the trees in the winter. My warriors fell around me… The sun rose dim on us in the morning, and at night it sunk in a dark cloud, and looked like a ball of fire. That was the last sun that shone of Black Hawk… He is now a prisoner to the white men… He has done nothing for which an Indian ought to be ashamed. He has fought for his countrymen, the squaws and papooses, against white men, who came year after year, to cheat them and take away their lands. You know the cause of our making war. It is known to all white men. They ought to be ashamed of it. Indians are not deceitful. The white men speak bad of the Indian and look at him spitefully. But the Indian does not tell lies. Indians do not steal.

An Indian who is as bad as the white men could not live in our nation; he would be put to death, and eaten up by the wolves. The white men are bad schoolmasters; they carry false books, and deal in false actions; they smile in the face of the poor Indian to cheat him; they shake them by the hand to gain their confidence, to make them drunk, to deceive them, and ruin our wives. We told them to leave us alone, and keep away from us; they followed on, and beset our paths, and they coiled themselves among us, like the snake. They poisened us by their touch. We were not safe. We lived in danger. We were becoming like them, hypocrites and liars, adulterous lazy drones, all talkers and no workers…

The white men do not scalp the head; but they do worse - they poison the heart… Farewell, my nation!… Farewell to Black Hawk.

During his pursuit, after Chief Black Hawk had raised the white flag of surrender, the American soldiers fired upon him, killing women and children as well as warriors (a common practice for soldiers of the day). Black Hawk fled, and was captured by Sioux trackers, commissioned by the Army. He died in October, 1837.

More Reading:

Black Hawk War
Socialism and Liberation
Victims of Genocide?

Oct 14, 1964 Dr. Martin Luther King is selected to receive the the Nobel Prize, at the age of 35.

Astounding that he could have accomplished so much in such a short period. Oh, were Dr. King around today. One can only imagine the state of the civil rights movement; the strides that could have been made. The world could use a binding voice to bring together the masses.

The state of racism throughout the world is truly atrocious. As I read stories of white cops beating up old black men, South African class warfare, or scapegoat of the month, WIlliam Bennett, my heart is heavy with the constant reminder of the savagery of mankind, and the widespread intolerance of other’s lifestyles and customs. What a long road we have ahead of us…

Now Playing:
What If I Do? from the album “In Your Honor” by Foo Fighters