The former causes the latter: Edited excerpt, brief comment by Carolyn Bennett
“Don’t send your sons to serve in the Army ─ not for anything”
(A mother of a dead soldier is speaking)
Soldiers are returning invalids, insurance not paid, parents
forced to pay delivery of their bodies, compensation to relatives of the dead unpaid.
Though her words reflect a Russian experience, they ring
true in the American experience of the State’s use, abuse and discard of its
own dead soldiers; homeless, broken, ill, unemployable veterans; friends
and families (home and abroad) in despair; society undone.
Olesya Oyun is speaking
“It looks like the Ministry of Defense made it their goal to
keep the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia busy.
“Each
mistake
|
it makes results in perishing, killing, maiming, or
disappearance of soldiers.
“The Committee keeps thick file folders stuffed with
documents and correspondence, each helping in efforts of a mother to find if
not justice then at least the remains of her son to (be buried) properly. …
“The soldiers are returning home invalids but
…are not paid insurance;
…parents are forced to pay for
delivery of bodies of their sons,
…compensation to the relatives for
those killed is not paid.…
“…As the politicians see it, the sacred duty of mothers is
to supply ─ without interruption ─ the raw material for the State.
“Nobody gives a thought to the notion that parents may have
plans for their children that are different from the plans of the General
Staff.…
Summons to sundown: Parents receive “a State-issue casket
with the body for which the State has no further use.”
B
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ut we in America are different. We are the world’s model democracy, principal lecturer and indeed
the envy of the world in democracy ─ except
in endless war when violence and fear suspend all pretense and new laws and precedent
destroy it entirely.
Last year Anup Shah reflected on “Democracy” from the Greek rule by the people, viewed “as one of
the ultimate ideals that modern civilizations strive to create or preserve,” he
wrote, “a system of governance that is supposed to allow extensive
representation and inclusiveness of as many people and views as possible to
feed into the functioning of a fair and just society.” These ideals, he says, “are
so appealing to citizens around the world that many people have sacrificed
their livelihoods, even their lives, to fight for it.” 
The problem, he suggests, is that “our era of ‘civilization’ is
characterized as much by war and conflict as it is by peace and democracy (I’d
say the former far exceeds the latter): the twentieth century alone has often
been called ‘the century of war.’”
In
the 21st century
|
the state of affairs is worsening.
“Even in established democracies,” Shah
writes, “there are pressures that threaten various democratic foundations.
“A democratic system’s openness allows it to attract those
with vested interests to use the democratic process as a means to attain power
and influence ─ even if they do not cherish democratic principles.” And once those
who are not genuinely supportive of democracy attain power, they rarely or not
easily relinquish it.
Power’s endless war silences, punishes dissent
Abuses human rights, imperils democracy
Through policies and practices of its public officials, America
has made mistakes in the past, the 39th U.S. President James (Jimmy) Carter
(1977-1981) wrote in an opinion piece last year. But “the
widespread abuse of human rights over the last decade” constitutes “a dramatic
change from the past.” A couple of weeks ago, Carter told the German
publication Spiegel:
‘America no longer has a
functioning democracy.’
A
|
much earlier warning was issued by America’s fourth
president, James Madison: “No nation (can) preserve its freedom in the midst of
continual warfare.”
Sources and notes
“Don’t Send Your Sons to Serve in the Army, not for Anything”
─ Sayana Mongush (Kyzyl, Tuva) quote from the last letter of a Russian Army
private, The “Plus Inform” newspaper, February 16, 2005 Olesya Oyun lost her
son to the army.
The author is from Kyzyl, the capital of Tuva (Tyva), a
republic of the Russian Federation, located in extreme southern Siberia, on the
border with Mongolia. The story centers on two soldiers from Tuva who, having
deserted, had been hiding in the basement of an apartment building, and were
killed there by the police SWAT team. The circumstances of their death remain
unclear, but, as Sayana Mongush writes in another article, when relatives of
one of the soldiers, disobeying instructions, opened his coffin, they found a
bullet wound in the back of his head. http://www.englishwriting.ru/statji/Don_t%20Send%20Your%20Sons%20to%20Serve%20in%20the%20Army,%20Not%20for%20Anything.pdf
Theater of Music and Drama, a charitable marathon event held
by the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia to create the “Fund to Aid
Soldiers’ Mothers and the Servicemen in Distress”
English translation © Efrem Yankelevich,
efrem@englishwriting.ru
“Democracy” by Anup Shah, January 28, 2012, http://www.globalissues.org/article/761/democracy
“Jimmy Carter: NSA Intelligence Gathering Ruining Democracy”
(by Sandy Fitzgerald), July 18, 2013, http://www.newsmax.com/US/carter-nsa-spying-democracy/2013/07/18/id/515811
“NSA-Affäre: Ex-Präsident Carter verdammt US-Schnüffelei” German
language (Von Gregor Peter Schmitz, Atlanta), http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/nsa-affaere-jimmy-carter-kritisiert-usa-a-911589.html
“NSA affair: Ex-President Carter condemned U.S. snooping” Google
English translation (Gregor Peter Schmitz in Atlanta), July 17, 2013, http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/nsa-affaere-jimmy-carter-kritisiert-usa-a-911589.html
In the wake of the NSA spy scandals,
former U.S. President Jimmy Carter criticized the American political system. ‘America
has no functioning democracy,’ Carter said Tuesday at a meeting of the Atlantic
Bridge in Atlanta.
Previously, the Democrat had been
very critical of the practices of U.S. intelligence. ‘I think the invasion of
privacy has gone too far,’ Carter told CNN. ‘And I think that is why the
secrecy was excessive.’ Overlooking the NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, said
Carter, whose revelations were long ‘likely to be useful because they inform
the public.’
Carter has repeatedly warned that
the United States’ moral authority has sharply declined due to excessive
restriction of civil rights.
Last year he wrote in an article in
the New York Times (that) new U.S. laws allowed the ‘never-before-seen breach our
privacy by the government.’
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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
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