Was reading Jim Whites post & felt like it alligned with a tune I wrote recently... Over the last ten years I toured quite a bit with the BBC film I was in, doing short performances and participating in Q & A after screenings. The most provocative question I was ever asked came completely out of left field. At a screening at the Tribecca Film Festival in New York City a guy raised his hand and inexplicably asked, What percentage of the US military do you think is from the South? Huh? I asked him to repeat the question---thought Id heard it wrong, but no, that was his question. I said I didnt really know and asked why. He replied that he suspected the US military was disproportionately Southern, and disproportionally Christian, as its a common strategy in impoverished communities to join to military to escape the treadmill of poverty. He added that as he watched the movie, which portrays the Christ haunted South (vis-a-vis Flannery OConnors poignant observation), he began to think about those Southern born again soldiers sent to foreign lands, essentially as emissaries of the US, and what tacit messages they carried with them. We both agreed that the US military was likely largely Southern and that the message they carried first and foremost was the notion of Christianity. Interesting. It was a short extrapolative leap to conclude that sending a horde of naive young Christians to predominantly Muslim lands smacked of The Crusades. It raised a startling question: have we been engaged in a holy war for what, almost a thousand years? I f so it makes the Hundred Years War pale in comparison. A few weeks later back in Georgia I was in a pizza restaurant in a small town north of Athens. I struck up and conversation with the pimply faced teenager who took my order. I asked him how he liked his job and he replied that it didnt much matter, as he had enlisted in the Army, was headed to boot camp in a few days then shipping off to Iraq in a few months. That was when the war was raging, so I asked him why in Gods name hed joined the military. He shrugged, Well it was that or prison. He then explained that he had been arrested for stealing a car and the judge gave him two options: go to prison for two years, or join the Army for two years. He took the latter. He added it was a common practice for low level criminals to be given the option to join the military. It kept the prison populations down and the military fully manned . Wow. So the picture of our occupying army came a little more into focus. Threaded among the good souls and patriots there is a significant theme of Christians and criminals. Considering the Western worlds long history of Manifest Destiny, its no small wonder the Muslim countries despise America so much. Imagine if a Muslim army of fundamentalist criminals invaded the US and occupied it. Then a hundred years later it happened again. And again. And again. Not just an isolated incident like 9/11 or the Charlie Hebdo horror, but over and over and over again on an exponentially larger scale. Im not justifying the horrific acts that have been committed at the hands of radical Islamic fringe groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda, Murder is murder, and barbarism is barbarism, but to bring into focus the genesis of such hatred is clearly important and painfully relevant to any discussion about how to move forward. As George Santayna said, Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Jim At Sea by Dylan Walshe © FATHER: Its not the being at sea Its the shore wed want to watch out for Through every frontier Crusaders pour SON: But what if we drift too far & what if were too late? FATHER: Thats going to depend on What youre hoping to save As the sea it rises & the sun it sets There are no compromises Let us not forget SON: Have you figured out What were out here for? Cause were not helping anymore FATHER: What can you free when nobody believes in that shit anymore? SON: Guess Ive got it in my gut That we can still do more... FATHER: You know what the wars are for You know the money they make?! SON: Lets give them something to think about Before we let them take! FATHER: As the sea it rises & the sun it sets There are no compromises Let us not forget SON: But theres no use in saying thats the way it is & the way it will always be Have you figured out What were out here for? Cause were not helping anymore...
Posted on: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 11:14:45 +0000