on the new wiki-leaks, October 22, 2010

Well, Pia, their new leaks are really a zinger... of a quite different nature. Somebody in a high place was either sort of stupid, or wanted these facts to get out. But you should look into it. That's all an average person can really do: we're neither the beneficiaries nor the decision-makers in all this. But I suppose if we get enough people who want a better "paradigm" for our world and everybody's willing to do a little bit, then we become an unstoppable force like that which brought the Vietnam war to a halt, or freed John Sinclair. And we're doing it right now just by discussing all this with an effort at sincerity. I mean... of course it's not enough to take all the bleakness out of the world, but that would only lead to more bleakness in the long run. I'm actually not a pacifist at all: I just take the radical stance that blatant war crimes aren't ethically acceptable. your e-friend, Sean

To clarify, I'm basically of the "think globally, act locally" philosophy. I'm of an over-educated, fairly informed nature and so I try do my part by writing about some of these things. But I am, at the end of the day, cynical about even very eloquent words... and especially if it's finger-pointing. My favorite thing about this poem is that with the John Lennon quote, I included myself. Now, I've been loudly against the Iraq war from the very beginning, and I'm not very influential in this society. But the world's just too full of people condemning other groups while maintaining their absolute innocence. I could have done more to stand up against what was going on, all the more because I was aware of it. But for most people, action has to be local, or on a small-scale. If we want a more humanitarian world, we should give a sandwich to a hobo. If we want a more peaceful world, we should turn the other cheek when our neighbor yells at us(assuming of course that's not a regular thing.) And I suppose if we want to end the regime of silence(and there is a regime of silence,) we should say what's on our minds. your e-friend, Sean

Yeah, don't get me wrong: I'm not against actual political protests when something stinks like this. And, yeah, the culture of protest certainly shortened the horrors of the Vietnam War. I think that, without peacenik intervention, these wars could drag on forever. We could fight for a thousand years over skin-colors and ends of eggs, like highly technological street gangs of billions. And, no, I'm not a true pacifist but I don't consider all this just over the line or something: it's downright evil. You know, I attended university in a quite liberal city, and we had a truly massive peaceful protest on the day the first bombs fell on Baghdad. your e-friend, Sean