I do not know

by anniefay

Posted to Poetry and Politics on 2004-05-10 11:49:00

Parent message is 646028
who Mr. Jacobs is. I do not know his background or perspective in writing his article.

I do know that reading a list of the heineous crimes commited by Americans throughout their short history is not easy to handle without getting defensive and emphatically stating that our war crimes are no different than others and not as hideous as some.

Of course, it is foolishnes to justify misdeeds by “copping out” that you are doing the same as your “peers”. So, that just isn’t quite an argument at all, is it?

Also when you compare America with other countries and the history of other countries you find that this type abuse has occurred throughout history. And we might want to just move beyond the adjective “un-American” and just call them what they are “inhumane”. But just as Americans have done these “un-American” acts, isn’t it humanity that does “inhumane” acts? Hasn’t “humanity” commited such acts as far back as history has been recorded? Doesn’t history tell us that this is the way things like this are handled in “war” situations.

So we compare ourselves to our “peers”, to history, and may do our own smirk and say “hey we’re no worse than you are” but still find a foul taste in our mouths… knowing such acts cannot be justified for any reason. But they happen. Humanity committing gross inhumanities to each other is not a new concept.

I have no answers. Swearing that you will make a difference where you are just “doesn’t cut it”, because, throughout history, individuals do these things for whatever motivation. The only cure I feel is a change to the basic nature of humanity. Time to move to the next step in the evolutionary process, or whatever.

Justifying yourself and condeming America… isn’t going to change anything. Nothing is going to change… until we change.

Do we need to be aware? Of course we do. If we don’t we’ll never have incentive to change. But I think the “tsk, tsk, tsk” approach is ridiculous. Inform, learn, find creative ways to move beyond where we are… and collectively as “humanity” step to the next level.

And bye all means… stop all the wrongs we can stop as we are, hopefully, evolving.

The Literary Kicks message boards were active from 2001 to 2004.