Rather than seeing myself as a citizen of the United States, I see myself a citizen of the Planet Earth. That may not make sense to some, but I could have been born anywhere. The fact that I've made it to 55 in America, instead of starving in Africa as a child, or catching an incurable disease at 20 in India, bears my thinking out.
That's why the whole renewed fervor around patriotism, as we near the 10th year since 9/11/01 is hard for me to wrap my head around. When one considers that every 9.62 days, there is an equivalent amount of casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan as September 11th. I mean Americans aren't "better" or "more important" than other people in the world. I find that I want to distance myself from the people who want to make this upcoming anniversary something larger than life.
Guess I've always been this way; believing that a candle light vigil should be going on every 9.62 days for all the people who have died in recent wars. Wars started by the very same people selling us the notion that we should care more about ourselves than "them".
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2 comments:
Glad there are people who can think outside the box and not think the way their moulded to think. We need to have love and compassion for all people, no matter race, religion or country they live in. We close our eyes to our evils and open them to everyone else's so called evils. David, keep continuing to open the eyes of your people. I respect your movement... our movement.. THE movement!
The issue is that 10 years after the fact, people are sure in what they believe. They've heard the same stories of what happened over and over, so there's not much chance to get them to look at something differently. It's no accident or coincidence that many Americans STILL thin Sadam Hussein had something to do with what happened. At one point a few years back, over 70% believed it. I think that people who know me, also know that I'm not a big fan of the way things are, but instead have hope for the way they could be.
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