OpEdNews - Diary: How Many Deaths Will It Take?

January 7, 2009 at 23:25:38 Permalink
How Many Deaths Will It Take?

Diary Entry by Kate Mucci (about the author)

Americans are brainwashed into believing they have no power to stop our government's involvement in war, but that's not true. We must utilize our rights under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and not be frightened into compliance by propaganda. The answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind. It is the sound of protest and resistance, but you have to get involved. You cannot expect others to do it for you.

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As I sat here at my computer this morning, the song, "Blowin' in the Wind", came on my the radio. It happened to play just as I was posting yet another terrible news story about the massacre in Gaza and it was almost more than I could take. The words written by Bob Dylan more than 40 years ago could perhaps never be more timely, and I must admit, the tears flowed like rain.

"How many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died?"

How many deaths will it take? How many children must be killed or maimed or orphaned? How many homes and lives must be destroyed? How many dreams shattered before the U.N. puts a stop to this? Isn't that why it was formed, to protect people against genocide?

Despite worldwide protests, the warcast media has sided with Israel on every point, continuing to assert that Hamas rockets landing in Israel justify the wanton destruction of a people and the murder of innocent children. What they never say is that the reason Hamas used its sorry rockets and risked the ire of the great U.S.-Israel war machine is that Israel has completely cut off the Gazan people from food, water, medicine and even education.

What they do not tell you is that the Israeli government is conducting its own holocaust against a people it invaded thanks to the U.S. and British governments fifty years ago.

The history of this region has been written by the victors, as is always the case. You will never hear the real story, the real history.

Well, it's time for all of US to set the story right, to demand that the outgoing Bush and incoming Obama administration put a stop to American taxpayer dollars being used to massacre innocent children.

Isn't it bad enough that we've decimated Iraq and Afghanistan? Isn't it enough that DU weapons supplied by us have made Iraq a nuclear wasteland?

Must we continue to fund and arm Israel's genocide?

I have posted on our website today an action alert from the A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition urging people to march on Washington or anywhere else they can, to demonstrate that we the people will not be party to the murder of children and the destruction of a people. That's one way to protest, but there are many others.

Call the major media outlets. Today. And often. Ask them why they're not covering the massacre, why they're whitewashing it?

Politely ask them who's pulling their strings to make them support genocide. You can start with NBC, which is owned by GE, a huge military contractor. Then call the white house, your congressman, the U.N.

Phone calls and protests still aren't enough, though. It is largely our tax dollars that make wars possible.

Imagine what would happen if everyone who is against the wars joined together in tax protests organized by groups like Environmentalists Against War (http://www.envirosagainstwar.org/know/read.php?itemid=6707 ) where this information is given:

"Just as military recruiters supply the bodies for the war, the IRS delivers the funding. Part of the responsibility rests with taxpayers who are against the war and continue to pay for it. Over $500 billion has been spent by the Pentagon for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the bill is still skyrocketing with an ongoing cost of over $700 million a day . . . most of it from US taxpayers today and far into the future as the debt rises.

This money has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis and over 4,000 American troops. Tens of thousands have been permanently injured. The American people need funding for healthcare, housing, education, and jobs that pay a living wage."

For a closer look at how your tax dollars are being used, you might be shocked to see the figures and pie charts at the War Resisters website. http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm

Americans are brainwashed into believing they have no power to stop our government's involvement in war, but that's not true. Now more than ever, we must utilize our rights under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and not be frightened into compliance by propaganda.

The answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind. It is the sound of protest and resistance, but you have to get involved. You cannot expect others to do it for you.

Kate Mucci is co-host and producer of The Matrix News Network, a weekly one-hour broadcast program airing throughout North America, Europe and The U.K. and worldwide on the web. See the website at www.matrixnewsnetwork.com

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.

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