#136 - The eternal pessimist.

[reileen]

*reads about poor people being kicked out of their trailer park homes in the name of development at Slacktivist*

*reads about the thoughts of an ex-Marine officer turned peace activist on Truthout*

*reads about an illegal immigrant being held and subsequently forgotten in a cell with no food, water, or toilet at Orcinus*

The real world sucks. I wonder why I bother trying to live in it.

-Reileen
it's my life, it's now or never

Comments

[dantaron.livejournal.com]

Thotz on the first one - yeah, so much for charity in the world. >_< Another one sells out to the promise of big money, shopping centres, etc... story of the west, srsly. Been happening here for well over a hundred years - a similar happened up here in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the whole black sector was evicted on terms of "living conditions" in the early 1900s. Or hell, a hundred years before that, the Acadians being kicked out of New Brunswick because their ancestors were french.
Story of civilization, oy - it's sad but true.

Thotz on the second - wow, good on that Marine dude. ^_^ He had a lot of good ideas/morals there, even though some of it smelled like cop-outs (personally, I think you can't support the troops but not the war - if you don't support the war, you don't support the reason the troops are fighting and dying in the first place, and thus their deaths are meaningless).
And on the aggression thing - if you have an enemy or opposition who is wronging his people, as long as they leave you alone, do you sit back and do nothing? That's simply selfish.
That happened before - the result was Pearl Harbour. Poland and the rest of the countries in that area being taken over by Hitler. If he had just been thrown out in the first place...
Hindsight's 20/20, they say - best you can do is deal with it as it is now, and odds are, pulling out of Iraq may just cause tribes and gang lords to move in and take over. But again, we'll never know.

And >___< @ that last one. That's terrible...

Love it or hate it, the real world's ours, and it's our job to take care of it. ^_^

[reileen.livejournal.com]

if you don't support the war, you don't support the reason the troops are fighting and dying in the first place, and thus their deaths are meaningless

I don't support the war in Iraq. But I also would hate to leave the troops without sufficient weaponry so that they could actually come back alive after we finally stopped the majority of the fighting. (This link (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16076312/the_great_iraq_swindle) talks about the drastic failure of U.S. contractors to properly provide weaponry or shelter to both U.S. and Iraqis.) Basically, I support keeping the troops alive and under humane conditions while they happen to be over there. But I don't want them to be there any longer than we have to be. What are you going to do, call them mass-murderers and baby-killers to their face like people did back around the times of the Vietnam War, knowing that not only did Bush's lie send them into Iraq in the first place, but they weren't even getting proper support for this grievous job, and that veterans from this war aren't getting the medical and emotional support that they need, either? We can be there for them and support them as individuals with lives prior to and after the war without supporting the reason they went to war in the first place. That's what I think most people mean when they say "I support the troops but not the war."

And on the aggression thing - if you have an enemy or opposition who is wronging his people, as long as they leave you alone, do you sit back and do nothing? That's simply selfish.

It's also a question of whether we even have the resources to do anything ("we" referring to America in this case, obviously). Maybe once we did, and we had the prestige and leadership to do so. Not so much anymore. The problem I also have with this line of thinking has to do with its jingoistic undertones - that we always know what is best, etc., etc. Now, admittedly, that's not a given, but it could easily feed into unhealthy, insulting paternalistic tendencies. Of course, there is the issue of whether the people asked for outside help or not.

I'm not ruling out your stance, by the way. I'm just being skeptical and cynical about the idealism in the vaguest and most disjointed way possible because hello information overload.

[dantaron.livejournal.com]

lol, Rolling Stone. XD I'm not sure how reliable they are in terms of serious news articles like that (literally, I'm not that familiar with the magazine beyond that they were primarily a music magazine and dabble in some tabloid magazine). But... I'm guessing that's true. >_< In which case, holy shit. Some people need to clean up their mess.
But, you're right, for the most part. ^_^ Like the ex-marine said, for one you need to pay for the injured war veterans who are coming home - for example, say you got both your legs blasted off in an explosion - you get some disability for being a soldier, sure, but nowhere near enough to actually -support- anything, nor do you get the proper care. You basically'd just langour...
But, being Canadian, I know all about troops not being properly supplied. >_< Under Jean Chretian the military's budget was slashed to -nothing-... and as a result, or twenty-year old Sea King helicopters were literally falling out of the sky or crashing back down after lifting maybe, 15 feet? And then there was the electrical fire on a really old submarine which claimed the lives of some more Canadian soldiers, as well as us not having enough ships to patrol our own waters, and basically all around having shit-all to work with. =/
... well, depends on the soldier, in regards to baby-killers. I know there's a video on youtube of an Iraqi soldier throwing a puppy off a cliff, or so I hear. o_o
But essentially, you're right in most respects. ^_^; The Iraq war may be an exception to that rule, but still, keep in mind... Saddam Hussein carried a pistol for the express purpose of shooting any who opposed him, gassed Kurds and other people, his -own- people, by the tens and tens of thousands - remember all the mass graves? The very fact he was still in power at all was a slap in the face to the 'free world', so to speak, and only made dictators like Kim Jong Il even more audacious (on the flip side... they may still be so, 'cause America's busy with Iraq). America, methinks, may have done the right thing in going to Iraq - even if it was for the wrong reasons, and it's destroying the economy, oy. =/

If there truly was an enemy or tyrant like that, and he crossed whatever line the UN has set today... America wouldn't be acting alone in taking them out (or so one would hope). That's why we have the United Nations.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of jingo undertones, there, and in a lot of policies these days - personally, I'm all for world diversity. ^_^ But, how do you know where to draw the line between 'doing the right thing' and 'infringing on another country's sovereignity'?
As for the people part, that's very true - but there's always disgruntled refugees, and one can't always except the -government- to ask for help - in many cases, they're the problem.
However, as you pointed out, that's an idealist point of view - the real world doesn't always work like that (look at Sudan - they've had to pull out aid workers because the fighting's too intense, and Kenya, which up until recently was the second most stable African country, is dissolving into civil war - my friend in class just told a story about how her friend had to go to Kenya to rescue a relative, because militants had stormed a school, shot all the teachers, locked the doors and then burnt it with 300 children inside. o_o).
But... I honestly believe that by thinking of the idealist way, and striving for it... even if you don't succeed, you'll make the world that much better of a place. ^_^; Ideally, anyway. =D

XD Nah, don't worry about it! ^_^ It's good to have a skeptical/cynical point of view around - keeps us idealists in check, and 'sides, it's a good counterpoint. =)

[reileen.livejournal.com]

But... I honestly believe that by thinking of the idealist way, and striving for it... even if you don't succeed, you'll make the world that much better of a place. ^_^; Ideally, anyway. =D

Road to hell, bitch. XD

You idealists can be, like, the inspirational speakers and such to brainwash lead people to a worthy cause. Us skeptics and cynics bring the facts so that we all understand what we're getting into. It all works out!

[reileen.livejournal.com]

Aaaand my HTML fails.

[dantaron.livejournal.com]

Exactly. ^_^ It's a win-win relationship between us idealists and cynics.

Oh, when are you going to be on msn next? =( There's a few things I wanted to bug you/tell you, as well as sending you what's totally Sigma's fight song (the song "Dancing Mad" by the Black Mages, that prog-rock FF band).
Oh, well, I can tell you one right here. XD I haven't actually tried it yet, but I'm almost certain that BMJ DVD you sent me will work on my laptop - so all your hard work won't have been wasted, after all! XD