Give it up for CoCo county political awareness

More progressive and critical thinking from the other side of the tunnel...

Here was something I read in the Times this weekend about the crosses on the hillside on Deerhill Road in Lafayette. These crosses are meant to symbolize the fallen American soldiers that haven't made it home. The crosses have been causing quite a stir in the community, which isn't known for its political activism. The piece is also showcased online. I've presented a portion here. Check out the whole column, which was written by Andrew McGall.

War has no blinders: It strips artifice from human life. It is blood and bone, steel and sinew, comrades and death. We at home cannot afford to turn our attention from that reality. Our silence is assent. Silence dishonors the dead who cannot speak. Respect for the troops also means:

• We don't send them into meat-grinding fake wars based on lies, deception and outrageously misguided, cynical ideologies.


• We send troops in sufficient numbers to dominate an enemy whom we can identify, isolate and defeat. That's war. Any lesser situation should revert to peaceful, if tense, politics and diplomacy.


• We send them fully equipped and trained for the war at hand.


• We maintain an Army that controls its own supply line, giving no role to the war profiteers feasting like vultures in Iraq.


• We do not privatize war, we do not create a profit motive for waging and prolonging wars. War is not a no-bid payoff to our dues-paying buddies.


• We bend our whole will to bringing the troops home.


• We never stint in our care and support of those who return crippled in body or mind.

I get a little hot under the collar when I make critical statements about the war, and how people seem to instinctively link the criticism to the troops serving in Iraq. It was nice to see someone so clearly articulating the difference of being critical of an unjust Presidential administration, and respecting and supporting the men and women representing U.S. interests by putting their lives in harm's way every day of duty.

What Would Jesus Do in People's Park?

Someone vandalized the American soldier memorial on the hillside in Lafayette last night/this morning. In case you haven't heard anything about this Louise Clark, the property owner, and some other interested individuals put up hundreds of white crosses on her private land. A sign that reads "In Memory of 2,867 Troops Killed in Iraq." sits in the middle of the memorial.

It's been knocked down before. Some motorist pulled over, got out of his/her car and knocked it over. Now someone decided to throw tar or paint (it's not known which) on the sign.

Regardless of your stance on the war/conflict/situation in Iraq aka the war on terrorism (which, in my opinion is as useless as a war on traffic), we've lost sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends as a result. They're gone. They won't be coming to Christmas this year to open the present you got them, they won't be celebrating another birthday with you or your family, and they won't be meeting up with your friends to go out for drinks on New Years. While Bush and the administration would like you to believe that the terrorist killers in Iraq would like to take away your motorhomes and big screen TVs, the rhetoric is getting old.

These Americans made the "ultimate sacrifice", and at the very least it seems decent enough to recognize their loss. You're not being un-American if you acknowledge the loss of your warriors in what some might deem an unethical and immoral conflict. I can see how this memorial could be seen as both a protest and support of the presence of American soldiers in Iraq. As protest, it's indicating that we've lost these people forever. We already lost thousands on 9-11-01, which is why we're fighting (thanks for the spin turd blossom) over there. As support, families who've lost a loved one might feel a sense of communal acknowledgement for the grief they might be feeling - a sense that they're not alone. Of course, I'll be the first to admit that I find the protest angle a more likely motivating factor.

While the news about the new Defense Secretary asking for more troops in Iraq, and the attacks in the country are the highest they've ever been, I've felt a little insulated against it. This covert vandalism so close to home just really put the cherry on the top of the sundae. It reminds me that even in the Bay Area we have some people who'd prefer to just listen to Fox news and go along with every vile prognostication that flops out of Bill O'Reilly's evil face-hole. Pretty soon I might just have to turn off my brain and start a MySpace page. I'm sure Rove and Cheney would have a greasy, ruby-starfruit punctuated lovefest if I did that.

On a lighter note, you can now log your driving frustrations on platwire.com. For more info.

Lafayette: The New Berkeley

I'm not sure if you've all seen this hillside next to the Lafayette BART station, but I've seen it since it was first erected. The monuments stand on private ground, and are in clear view of the Highway 24.

My favorite part of the story describes how someone knocked down the sign. I'm willing to bet that this person probably drove some kind of SUV, and had one of the fashionable "Support the Troops" sticker on the bumper, and maybe...just maybe...a Calvin prayer sticker in the window.

I wonder what motivated that person? What was so upsetting to that person? Was it the fact that the number on the sign indicates that the number of Americans dead as a result of the Iraq War [...Conflict....what are we calling it now...Crusade?] now out-numbers the loss of lives from the Sept 11 attacks? Was it because the simply ugly fact that we have dead soldiers as a result of an unpopular war, thrust upon the world from a cowboy administration? Was it just upsetting to be so fired up about kicking Taliban, Iraqi insurgent, or otherwise terrorist a$$es, and to have the minor detail of dead Americans expressed through this display be so unpalatable....or if I could borrow the accusatorial tone of a certain former U.S. Senator: un-American?

Is it un-American now to make a public statement that serves to simply quantify the loss of American life on foreign shores for murky or contentious reasons?

I leave that up to you, gentle reader.

But I will give you my response: no it's not un-American. It galls me that the GOP party had used its machinery to support goals that detract from the foundations of the great country. I'm not ashamed to be an American, but I'm ashamed of this current administration. For all the "San Francisco values" that the Democratic party has, I find it terribly ironic that the Republican party and its army of neo-conservative Faith-based zealots has in its ranks meth smoking and juicy gay-love pastors, and senators who IM congressional pages in hopes of scoring. Clinton might've lied about getting a BJ from Miss Lewinsky, but given the current state of affairs: which is a worse lie told to the American people: "I didn't do it with her", or "There are WMDs over there and a bad man in charge of them, and we need to send our boys and girls, and if necessary, to ask them to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to make this world a safer and more democratic place for all our children." What's worse? What would Kenneth Starr do? What would you rather spend your taxpayer dollars on: the investigation of an illegal BJ or lying to the American people, and the mis-appropriation of American funds and lives to support a war campaign to secure an American position in the Middle East ?

Gentle reader, please thrall me with your acumen.