perspectives

DEATH TOLL

It shakes my soul,
The rise in the Iraq War death toll.
More to come in Bush's reign.
Monday will bring more of the same.
Major operation is fully planned.
40,000 will be on hand.
How many bombs will kill and maim?
How many collaterals with no number or name?
Many more hearts torn and breaking.
Innocent mothers with unimaginable aching.
Children scared, watching their brothers die.
All because of a war president's lie.
Where's the rage?
How can so many be blind at this stage?
Still we look away.
"Much too busy, we say.
With our cells stuck in our ears,
We have no time for other's tears.
The numbers get bigger every day.
But most of us don't even question why we stay.

watch this

Debbe Kennedy
www.globaldialoguecenter.com

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"How many deaths will it take 'til we know that too many people have died.
The answer my friends in blowin' in the wind." --- Bob Dylan

Black Out on Memorial Day

In peace time, Memorial Day is a day of commemoration of those who sacrificed. My mind fills with memories of parades, picnics and a sense of national pride, respect and unity. I can't judge now whether this was right or not...it might have been an illusion. However, things have drastically changed with self-proclaimed war President Bush at the helm. Memorial Day takes on a different reality this year. Day-to-day our lives are now filled with mounting deaths and scary wars and rumors of wars. Our minds are barraged with double-talk and outright mistruths...no, let me say the harder words----big lies needed to pacify and perpetuate our indifference to it all. This is required for who is it that would willingly sign on for another son or daughter sacrificed, more unaccounted for killings of innocents and for more hatred toward the U.S.? This is the building legacy of the Bush Administration---one that will have rippling negative influences on you, me, our children, every nation and the world for years to come, if we do not wake up as a nation and as individuals.

Nations with vision are powerfully enabled.
Nations without vision are at risk.*

This Memorial Day can be a day of reckoning. Unfortunately, many of our citizens will continue to be blinded by the black out of truth and the foundation being crafted for more destruction, greater greed and loss of lives, while we eat hamburgers and hot dogs. Will you? Norman Solomon wrote a telling piece on this reality in his article:

The Silent Media Curse on Memorial Day.
Memorial Day weekend brings media rituals. Old Glory flutters on television and newsprint. Grave ceremonies and oratory pay homage to the fallen. Many officials and pundits speak of remembering the dead. But for all the talk of war and remembrance, no time is more infused with insidious forgetting than the last days of May.

This is a holiday that features solemn evasion. Speech-makers and commentators praise the "ultimate sacrifice" of American soldiers -- but say nothing about the duplicity of those who sacrificed them. War efforts are equated with indubitable patriotism. Journalists claim to be writing the latest draft of history, but actual history is no more present than the dead.

In the truncated media universe of Memorial Day, the act of remembering bypasses any history that indicates an American war was not inevitable and unavoidable. The populace is made to understand that God and nature must be death dealers. We are encouraged to extol those who bravely gave their lives and took the lives of others -- but not confront those, high in the U.S. government's executive and legislative branches, who cravenly gave their fervent blessings to gratuitous carnage. MUST READ more...

To honor those who have sacrificed, listen up! this Memorial Day. For the sake of your families, country and world, open your eyes! See for yourself. Think. Question. Get involved!  Be the change you want to see in the world. ---Gandhi

Debbe Kennedy
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com

* Joel Barker's Power of Vision

Life, Death and War

The headlines read, U.S. Unleashes "Surprise" Offensive in Iraq.
It is reported that the aim of this operation is to stop the killing.
The accompanying photo is a U.S. soldier writing numbers on the forehead of a blindfolded prisoner with a permanent Sharpie marker.
1867 US, UK and other soldiers dead in Bush's War.
Estimates of 100,000 - 300,000 collaterals deaths remain unacknowledged.
Over 600 deaths in the last week or so in this war we started.
US fingers pointed at the insurgents --- it's their fault.

Meanwhile, with blood dripping from his hands, Bush stands firm on his intent to to veto stem cell research, nearly spitting our the forceful words, "Every life is precious."

How is this just ignored?
Does this not make you crazy?
Tell me.

Debbe Kennedy

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Downing Street Memo

The Secret Downing Street Memo is hardly news, but it appears that the media and most of us have turned a blind-eye as it came into focus earlier this month. This is the secret and strictly personal - UK eyes only memo that outlines the intelligence report that led to the Iraq War. It is chilling to read about the power, vision and will of self-proclaimed "war president" Bush and to see first hand just how the people of the world and our brave soldierswere misled into harms way and untold bloodshed.

It is curious that we impeach a president for an affair, but we ignore the misjudgments that have led to nearly 2000 military deaths and estimates as high as 300,000 collateral deaths that are not even acknowleged.

READ IT: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-523-1593607-523,00.html

How many deaths will it take to get our attention?

Debbe Kennedy
www.globaldialoguecenter.com

What have we become?

I am no judge of Saddam Hussein. Certainly history appears to record his evil deeds, but as we splash his degrading pictures all over the world isn't it more a question about us? What have we become? These actions seem a small, but telling symptom of what is so wrong. What is our fascination with exploitation and the taking down of others? Just how greedy can we show we are?

At the same time, we listen to the President Bush cast his personal, politically-charged moral judgments against the use of embryos for stem cell research, while the blood of an estimated 300,000 + living, breathing people drips from his hands. We accept the VISION of a self-proclaimed war president that kills our children and other people's children. Why our passive indifference. Who is the criminal? What have we become?

Time out for an ad. The latest movie being hyped: War of Wars. No outrage as greed again comes to exploit our weakness for blood and guts. Is this what free speech was intended for to imprint violence on increasing levels in the minds of our children. Has no one noticed how we are manifesting violence in every part of our existence? Is this the VISION we want to hold for mankind? What you see is what you get. Is this the core message we are choosing to pass on to our children. Another symptom of our sickness.

These examples are trivial in comparison to the great injustices and crimes against humanity that exist across the world, but they are just what flew in front of my eyes today. I find myself feeling ashamed. Disgusted. Deeply saddened. Helplessness falling over me.

Frances Hesselbein, a beloved mentor and friend, told me a story one time that also flew into my mind to rescue my sinking soul.

While riding in a traffic jam en route to the airport, she was thinking what message would she bring to the meeting of the International Red Cross where she was to speak. What could she say that would translate to all languages and cultures across the world? As she turned her head, she saw a sign on a bus across the crowded street. Just a few words on a white background. It held the answer...

"To achieve greatness...
Start where you are.
Use what you have.
Do what you can."

--- Arthur Ashe

With hope renewed, I pick up my part, marching into the day seeing the world as it is. Looking around to find what I CAN DO right from the ground upon which I stand. Want to cast a new Light on things? Join me.

Be part of something significant. We can change the world. Come help build the vision and share your ideas for what you are doing!
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Debbe Kennedy

http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com

The Need for Change

How did the world end up in such a mess? A little knowledge is so painful. It makes every news report suspect. It makes government policies absurd. It turns all that I've known into a farce. It picks and pokes at you to make a difference. Don't just sit there, do something! In quiet desperation of what to do, I come here to think. Be kind. Love all. Take action. Do what next? The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind. ---Maya Angelou I suppose it is in that center where the Light will come in. Debbe Kennedy

War and Love

Unfortunately, Love and War has been reversed in our consciousness. The dominance of War vs. Love gives war first place in this familiar word combination today.

WAR
The headlines today boast of the success of the US Operation Matador in Iraq. As many as 100 militants have been killed since it began. In paragraph two or three, it quietly notes in near a whisper that three US Marines were also killed. Three more families shattered. We are all desensitized to these losses that are now buried in the hype of the Runaway Bride and the Michael Jackson Trial by design.

I bet few realize that the reported number of military deaths in Iraq's ill-conceived war for US (1609), UK (88) and Coalition Forces (92) has now risen to 1789, 2.28 per day for 783 days. I heard two days ago the Iraqi casualties have also climbed to an estimated 300,000. Who is the war criminal?

...AND LOVE
In contrast yesterday, I was struck by the example of mutualistic love we were all given. Remarkably, our self-proclaimed war president, leader of the free world and his administration were trumped by a little dog's demonstration of valuing and loving life...a little dog that showed us all how to truly love thy neighbor.

NAIROBI, Kenya - Witnesses say a dog with puppies save the life of an abandoned newboarn baby in Kenya. They say the dog found the child wrapped in a plastic bag in the forest near the capital of Nairobi. It then carried her across a busy road and through a barbed wire fence before dropping the baby among its litter of puppies. The baby is now in good condition in the hospital. Doctors say the dog didn't hurt the baby because it used the plastic bag to carry her. Associated Press.

How many deaths will it take until too many people have died?

Debbe Kennedy

www.globaldialoguecenter.com

War and Peace - a simple solution

The solutions to "war and peace" seem so complex...or do those creating the problems make it that way? American Centenarians, Sarah and A. Elizabeth (Bessie) Delany, seemed to see a simple remedy: "It's the simplest things that form the strongest ties between people...Love all your neighbors." This wisdom came after they both were well over 100 years old. Hmmm! imagine ... we have a chance to catch on much earlier. Debbe Kennedy www.globaldialoguecenter.com

On Friends Unseen and Unheard

Every day I continue to be fascinated by the people I have met on blogs and forums. I'm not talking dating here...just friends that have shared insights, thinking and their lives. When you mention the phenomenon to those who have not experienced this form of human connection, the eyes often glaze over, followed by a "you better be careful" or "what a waste of time."

What touches me most is how genuine people are when given a place to find common ground. My personal experience has been one where a widely diverse set of unseen and unheard characters show up. Different as day and night...and in the silence, they find the place where respect, dignity, love, gratitude and peace reside. Recently, in a poetic form, I asked a group I had met why they showed up:

Unseen and Unheard
Reflections on the Experience of Blogging
by Debbe Kennedy
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Content to be unseen and unheard
Representing just ourselves
Expressions of every sort and type
A poem, a story or words just so
Seduce us one day into another
A fascinating miracle takes place
We keep showing up

Simple lives and complicated
Sharing what's inside
Exposing what's outside
Unafraid of being different
Passionate in our causes
Open to the comments
Even the debates
It calls us back
What is it that captivates us? What's in it?
Being here, you with me, me with you.

An excerpt from one of the responses seemed to sum it up for the group, "In you I share my day. For that I thank you."

How about you, why do you show up?

Debbe Kennedy

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Copyright 2005 Debbe Kennedy