March 31, 2003
I started this weblog for lots of reasons, most of which have to do with my needs, as a writer, to have readers, and my needs, as a thinker, to prefer to formulate my thoughts outside my head. I started this weblog as a way to reflect on the world in general and on my world in particular. These days both of these worlds have collided in the virtual and the real spaces of war. It’s hard for me to think about anything else, since I believe that this war is going to change THE world and MY world, my country, my planet, my family, and my future in ways against which I have always fought.
And so I blog mostly about the war.
I don’t go looking for pro-war blogs to annoy with my contrary comments. I don’t go looking for arguments. I simply use my weblog to add my stand against this war to all of the others sharing that stand.
I watch the mainstream media coverage of the war, and I understand the purposes of propaganda. After all, I remember how it was used during WW II. I have non-blogger friends who email me information and news about the problems with this war and I often post these on my weblog – yes, because they support my positions against the national and international policies of this administration, against the notion that America has the right to wage this war without UN support, and against the assertion that America has some god-given right to use its military might to impose its will on other cultures.
I believe that our American government would best serve the interests of the world if it cleaned up its own act and set itself up as a true model of an effective democracy. Democracy, fairness, egalitarianism, justice, morality, and ethics begin at home. If other nations saw it working well here, they would more likely be more open to move in that direction themselves. Instead, what they see is what we have become. Enron Nation. Who in their right minds would want to emulate that?
And so I write what I feel in response to what I see and read and hear and think, and the self-styled pro-war patriots don’t like it. They don't like it that I believe enough in my country's Constitution to expect my government to live up to its tenets; they don't like it that I am a Patriot for Peace.
Maybe the pen used to be mightier than the sword. These days, it seems that it's not mightier than Cruise missiles and Smart Bombs. But, as always its strength lies not in its power to kill large numbers of people, but rather in its power to transform open minds. All writers know that.
And so many of us keep writing and blogging about the immorality of this war -- thinking and caring out loud.
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