I don’t know what to say. I read a diary over at Daily Kos by Robert Naiman saying that the death toll in Iraq has reached one million. One million dead. One million dead.
What can anyone say about that? The number is too big. Who can grasp the death of one million people? It would take years merely to hear the names of the dead said aloud. And for what? For what did they die?
This is too big for politics. I think we all have begun to see the unreality of what is going on in Washington, D.C., and around the country as politicians campaign and speak and try to persuade people to vote for them. This is too big for politics.
Little by little the veil is ripped away and people around the country and around the world are seeing the complete picture. The veil is ripped away and the horror has only begun to sink in. No American will be able to avoid this for much longer, no matter how busy with the accoutrements of life, the car, the job, the home, the family, the social activities, the community work. No American will be able to avoid this for much longer.
There’s a big rally going on this weekend. OPOL and pico, to name just two of our Dharmaniacs, will be there. I think that rally is going to be important — not because of politics, no. Not because of politics. But all those people know this, know the horrible human destruction that has been wrought in our name, paid for by our money. They are aware of the unreality of the messages by the politicians and the pundits. And they will be together, hand in hand, together confronting this monstrous misAdministration. They will help rip away the veil.
This is too big for politics. This is a human tragedy on a large and terrible scale. This is no longer about nations and armies. This is humanity itself, and the veil is being ripped away.
And when we see it entire, when Americans can no longer look away, it will be a terrible thing.
May the Iraqi people have peace. May they have peace and time to mourn their dead. May they have peace.
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… each and every separate piece of this hellish crime. Now the entire picture is emerging, each piece of the puzzle in place. We must not look away.
Have any Countries stood up and said Enough? How much longer will they let it go on? We are trying as hard as we can and yet the World sleeps on in silent slumber. Seems like this has happened before? Does no one learn?
can you image if george or dick had some kind of miracle awakening and the horror and guilt of that number sunk in with clarity? I could see someone clawing their eyes out and screaming as their heart seized.
republic, have to take responsibility for the actions of our government.
We are part of the problem, if we do not stand up and become part of the solution.
The deaths of these people, ard the destruction of their way of life, are our responsibility.
We must work daily to make the change in this policy.
…if I could think of anything to say.
One of the saddest things about this debacle is that it has gone on so long that you feel tired just trying to muster the arguments against it yet again.
I’m thinking perhaps around 31 million?
Let’s compare – California has what, 37 million citizens?
What cities in Cal. have a population of 1.2 million (the same percentge of 1 million out of 31 million)?
San Jose is at 950,000, and San Diego is at 1,200,000. San Francisco is at about 750,000.
Can you imagine San Francisco gone? San Diego a memory? San Jose just a cinder pile?
On a national basis, the number would climb to 10 million dead. No New York AND Boston AND Hartford?
The numbers aren’t real because we don’t translate them into what we know. Time to do – as Karl Rove says – THE MATH.
this diary has 337 words in the story, same as my user ID number. So forgive me for sounding like a broken record and taking it as a sign to contribute.
As a visual artist/musician, it has been only slightly less amusing than sticking my head in the toilet to immerse myself in finance media for several months now. For those who would, that is where the last true press seems to be laying out the mechanism of this all.
Oh doesn’t it all come down to money? And I’m still delving deeper into what is stuck about Congress. In the simplest words I can imagine, please try this gross caricature: We have a 9 trillion national debt. Economic academe held that because of the US dollar’s peculiar status as queen of the currencies (technical term = preferred international reserve currency), there could be no such thing as too much debt, because basically the US dollar and the FED which spawns it are able to slant the global money game any which way they like.
One might wonder: OK, if I have a huge credit card debt, I get regular notices about my balance, regular advice of how much interest and late charges have accrued. So then how does all that work for the national debt?
The short answer is: it is all quite “informal” but what has happened is to allow other nations to “invest” their US IOUs in US dollar-denominated markets for higher rates of interest than a T-Note provides. There went our housing market, our medical care industry and our pension systems to satisfy international market speculators on Wall Street.
Similarly other nations have huge “investments” in the war in Iraq. Briefly told, Congress is more beholden to “investor confidence” abroad than to its own electorate anymore. The short answer is, well, they can’t do anything because they have literally sold much of the US, its assets, its people, its mortgage market, and now its war.
The really depressing news is that we actually might get further by making a mass appeal to other “Iraq war investors” such as China and Saudi Arabia than by appealing to that whorehouse called Congress. I can’t summon harsh enough perjoratives to describe what liars, what a sockpuppet to the executive kleptocracy they all have become.
Sorry for the rant, but I wish more people understood what is at the heart of Congressional cowardice/paralysis. We are indeed beating a dead horse by appealing to them. I voted for Tester, Kerry before that, and I’ve pretty much jettisoned hope of anything effective happening via this kangaroo Congress anymore.
May I suggest a good link for those who would like to know more, with the caveat that I do not agree with everything that Michael Hudson, Kucinich’s economics guy says. But he does lay out the issue that Congress never intended to pay off the national debt. Only recently have esteemed academics (e.g. Samuelson) finally gotten on the carpet admitting that gee, maybe our scheme of keeping the dollar as queen of all currencies might not work out, which means that actually there could be too much national debt.
It is such a racket. And of course the bagholder is the US public. Oh we do indeed feel the national debt through these market “appeasements” such as lending our mortgage industry out for Wall Street and China and everyone to make high stakes crapshoots on the future of the US people.
Congress has sold the soul of the US to other foreign stakeholders along with the US wars. Again: maybe we should appeal to foreign “shareholders” about the war. It is more likely something would get done.
what a line… what a fucking line…
blow me away
it’s the plan, though. make it so big, objectify it. that’s why they are linked to terrorists.
the thing is. the hope is. that there ARE those of us who admit this: WE KNOW BETTER.
the change is slow. and there are not guarentees… no contracts with god saying it is so: that we will work it out…
we have been told that good wins over evil… but only until we are willing to admit that it’s a no-sum game can we begin to push back at
nobody is riding in to save us; we are the ones left; we are the ones who need to do the saving
it’s just more than we can understand right now…
The Muslim world has been seeing all the photographs and videos of dead children that are too offensive for the delicate sensibilities of those in whose name and with whose money this has been done.
They have been seeing them 24/7 since the invasion of Baghdad and understand very well what has happened.
Syria has absorbed a million plus refugees and we have taken what now, a couple thousand at most?
Win, win, win. We lost the moment the decision to invade was made. Everybody lost except the masters. They don’t care if the herd is culled occasionally. It is necessary.
A linear model predicted a million dead by next spring. (it’s a slightly old graph, so “now” was a few months ago; months on the x-axis), so I guess the surge surged.
of poetic inclinations: This is the third world war on the third world, or something to that effect.
The death toll in Iraq is already far too large to fathom, too large to ever justify, too large not to condemn as genocide. And it is only the beginning if the people making the most money off all this death are allowed to hold the reigns of power.
Every people and critter who lives on or near the dinosaur juice is going to be ravaged until every last drop is extracted and burned or converted.
There will be no peace on this planet until we turn our energy consumption and manufacturing away from the crude crude black shit. Violence is guaranteed, because the power holders and shareholders are ruthless and full of greed.
“When will the tears end” Whether its Iraqi civilians, our troops, Katrina victims, or street crimes. Will they ever end? Will there be a day again that is tear free?
Death follows him around.
…the methodologies for counting the dead have been very “conservative”. As in much more likely for the reported number to be under than over.
Tough place to count. Census methods other than going door-to-door with a clipboard are required.
FWIW. So many people displaced with their lives turned inside out – not just in Iraq, but also in Lebanon. Millions. And they all know who paid for the damn bombs.
But when the Lancet published 600k, Dubya just shrugged it off. “Don’t believe it”, he said.
If you said one name every two seconds, nonstop, it would take you 23 days
One million US quarters would weigh as much as 3 average size cars.
They seem to have been left out of the line to recieve a heart. To me they are both heartless and uncaring.
held to this wild (waay beyond tinfoil) idea that some apparent humans are what are known as “lizard people” whose souls are, well, different. Pure evil, masquerading often enough as being good.
Maybe one of these times I’ll call him up to ask more.
Welcome to the unofficial graphics department, how may I help you?
Each night I’ll be checking in on the site and my public email address thefuture at inbox dot com for requests for graphics.
It takes very little time to make a simple graphic, just make a request and I’ll create one and post or send a link to it for your use.
Helpful information in the request would be overall size, realistic vs abstracted, words or info to include on the image. If you send an email please include your username on here so I’ll know where to post it.
It’s that simple.
in witness to this you know. Something in bronze chiselled with the words “Democracy”,”Freedom”, “Liberty” and “Glory” picked out in gold leaf – though some of them will wish they could use flashing neon.
We can be sure that it won’t bear witness to the little girl who was calcified as she played with her dolls while her mummy did the washing with an ear cocked, casting confused glances at the sky.
God forgive us.
This brings up something I intend to write about on this board. This kind of computer-visible but reality-distant genocide is something rather new not just to the American public, but to the human condition in general. Living in comfort and enveloped in Paris Hilton-like nothingness while your own government is committing the equivalent of mass murder is not just f*cked up, it’s an entirely new territory of f*cked up. I think that’s an issue that needs to be explored further, and we are the generation that unfortunately is tasked with dealing with it. It’s going to take a different type of human effort to stop it, and I don’t seee anyone really addressing it well. So, I’m going to write about it soon. See you on the flip.