She Fought a Caterpillar and the Caterpillar Won

I can’t imagine being run over by a 60-ton, armor-plated Caterpillar D9 bulldozer while trying to do what’s right.

Olympia, Washington native Rachel Corrie was just 23 when she died this most gruesome death on March 16, 2003, in the Gaza Strip. A member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) – a controversial, pro-Palestinian group whose members protest nonviolently against the Israeli military – she was crushed while acting as a human shield to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian’s home by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Almost eight years later, the questions are still being asked: did the bulldozer operator intentionally kill Rachel? Did she deserve to die for being a radical, ill-informed liberal? Does the ISM knowingly put its activists at risk? Why did an American’s death garner so much international publicity when Palestinians die daily as a result of IDF actions? (On the night of Rachel’s death, nine Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip, among them a four-year-old girl and a 90-year-old man.) Was the home she was protecting a guerilla hideout and entrance to a smuggling tunnel? Was US District Court Judge Franklin Burgess correct in throwing out a lawsuit filed against the IDF and Caterpillar by Rachel’s parents? Will definitively answering any of these questions bring Rachel Corrie back? I know the answer to that last one.

Regardless of your views on the Israel-Palestine conflict or on young, idealistic Americans traveling to the Middle East to stand up for threatened, oppressed people, you’ve got to admit Rachel died a noble death. Many individuals and organizations, including the United Nations, deemed the IDF demolitions violations of international humanitarian law. (They were stopped in 2005.) In an interview two days before she died, Rachel explained, “I feel like I'm witnessing the systematic destruction of a people's ability to survive. Sometimes I sit down to dinner with people and I realize there is a massive military machine surrounding us, trying to kill the people I'm having dinner with."

When my kids ask me who my heroes are, Rachel is always one of those I mention. Such a principled life she led. Such a needless death she suffered.



Visit the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace & Justice.


The Peace Education Center of Greater Lansing will present the Midwest premier of the documentary, “Rachel,” about the life and death of American activist Rachel Corrie, on Wednesday, March 16 at 7:00 pm. The documentary by award-winning French director Simone Bitton will be shown in Room 107 of South Kedzie Hall on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing. It’s free and open to the public. For more information, call (517) 515-5634.

U2 - One

Prayer Isn't Enough

I kind of like Japan. I know they attacked Pearl Harbor back in December of ‘41, killing 2,400 Americans and bringing us into World War II. But we dropped “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 – killing between 90,000 and 166,000 Japanese in Hiroshima and between 60,000 and 80,000 in Nagasaki – and they ended up surrendering.

Let’s not forget the forced internment in 1942 of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans to “War Relocation Camps” right here in the USA, authorized by FDR himself. (In 1988, St. Ronnie of Reagan apologized for our "race prejudice, war hysteria, and failure of political leadership," and the feds eventually disbursed more than $1.6 billion in reparations.) The war cost Japan millions of lives and left much of the nation's industry and infrastructure destroyed. If that’s not sleeping in the bed that you made, I don’t know what is.

Fast forward to yesterday, when Japan was struck by one of the most powerful earthquakes to hit the island nation in recorded history. More than 50 aftershocks and a second earthquake that measured 6.7 were reported. According to CNN, “the 8.9-magnitude earthquake, which was centered near the east coast of Japan, killed hundreds of people, caused the formation of 30-foot walls of water that swept across rice fields, engulfed entire towns, dragged houses onto highways, and tossed cars and boats like toys. Some waves reached six miles inland in Miyagi Prefecture on Japan's east coast.”

Six million households, more than 10 percent of the total in Japan, are without electricity. And the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, located 160 miles north of Tokyo, is experiencing explosions and funny noises that are not normal. Tokyo, the capital city, is home to 36.5 million people.

This is real suffering. Not Charlie Sheen suffering. Not “My-favorite-Starbucks-is-closing” suffering. Japan has made immense contributions to art, music, literature, cuisine and sports. But even if it hadn’t, these are human beings. And we’re all neighbors on Planet Earth. Here’s how you can help your neighbor:

• The American Red Cross has sent help to the most heavily damaged areas of Japan. Cell phone users can donate $10 per message by texting REDCROSS to 90999.

• Doctors Without Borders, or Medecins Sans Frontieres, is sending trained medical personnel into the worst-hit areas. Online donations are encouraged.

• The International Medical Corps offers health care and supplies for earthquake relief. Text MED to 80888.

Sources: CIA World Factbook, CNN, Yahoo.com

Peggy Lee -- Is That All There Is? 1969

Time for a Pissy Essay on Life and Stuff

A Facebook friend posed an interesting question yesterday. He asked, “Is there any compelling reason for going on with all this?”

I’m not sure if he was referring to life, or social media, or some unknown personal challenge or work assignment that was proving draining. But he was met with a chorus of Up with People-type responses; everything from “Great things are in store” and “Don’t you want to see what happens next?” to “All you need is hope” and “Believe.”

Believe in what? What is he supposed to hope for, specifically? That earthquakes and floods and climate change don’t happen anymore? That politicians will stop lying and being greedy and corrupt, and schools will start receiving all the money they need because there’s no more war? That people will stop caring only about themselves and their immediate families, an ignorant electorate will become a thing of the past, Palestine and Israel will find common ground and the Promised Land to which Dr. King referred will finally be discovered here in North America?

Anita and I sometimes discuss the “Is the glass half full or half empty?” conundrum. Depending on our moods and what kind of day we’ve had, we’ll either emerge from these conversations feeling optimistic and thankful or distressed and depressed. It seems like lately I’ve been ending up more and more on the “Woe is Me” spot. Things just seem to be getting worse and worse. I’m becoming cranky and pissy just like my late, beloved grandmother, who insisted that all politicians were crooks and the world was going to hell in a handbasket and we might as well just turn the television on and watch Lawrence Welk because those people look happy.

I used to argue with her. I’d point to flowers and laughing children and love and blue skies and sunshine and bubbling brooks and puppies and monarch butterflies and how humans help other humans, sometimes without even knowing their names, as proof that there’s beauty in life and sometimes it’s just harder to see. But now I find myself asking my grumpy, middle-aged, slightly overweight, gray-haired reflection in the mirror, “What’s the damn use?”

I’ve considered the plight of the late Dr. Victor Frankl, a psychiatrist and author of Man’s Search for Meaning. This famous book chronicles his experiences as a Holocaust survivor and presents his method of finding meaning in all forms of existence and therefore a reason to continue living. I try to tell myself that things may be tough but I’m not suffering in a concentration camp. I haven’t lost everything in a devastating tsunami or plane crash or the stock market. I don’t have cancer – knock on Formica – and I have clothes and books and music and food and shelter and beautiful children and a fantastic, compelling partner and I am loved. But what is the meaning of all of this, the good and the bad? Why do some people die, and others lie, and some people get obscene rewards that they don’t deserve while others struggle just to eat and breathe?

We can read all the books we can find and listen to all the good, hopeful, upbeat songs we want to. We can compare our lots to those of others and come out ahead of those sleeping in boxes under bridges every time. We can do drugs, prescribed or not, until the cows come home. We can force ourselves to smile and look on the bright side and express gratitude for all our gifts every morning and every night. But does anything change, really?

What are we supposed to hope for and believe? How do we make things better?

Is that all there is, is that all there is?
If that's all there is, my friends, then let's keep dancing.
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is.

~ Peggy Lee

Blood, Sweat & Tears - You've Made Me So Very Happy

Abolishing Representative Democracy in Michigan

"Sadly, most Michigan residents don't even know what this could mean.  Wait until these communities see their locally elected officials replaced by someone who could care less about them or their local issues.  This is an assault on democracy."

~ Longtime Midland resident and award winning activist Diane Hebert

Sometimes blog posts write themselves.

I was going to write about underwater mortgages or Michigan's item pricing law or Congressman Peter King's (R-Jerk) anti-Muslim witch hunt but after finding out what's going on in Lansing right now with emergency financial managers (EFMs), I'd be remiss if I chose another topic.

Politicians aren't just giving people the shaft in DC and Madison.  It's happening right here in our Great Lake State.  The culprits are a little more covert than that bumbling idiot governor of Wisconsin but the end result is the same.  A person's ability to join with others to fight for safe conditions, a fair wage and other basic workplace rights is being threatened.  Some say democracy itself is under siege.

The Michigan State Senate yesterday approved legislation giving more power to EFMs.  The House of Representatives is expected to concur next week, and Rick Snyder has promised to sign the legislation into law.  (Both legislative chambers are controlled by the Republicans, as are the Governor's Office and the state Supreme Court.)

The reason this is bad news is because the state could then install an EFM in a local community experiencing financial troubles who would have the authority to modify or cancel employee contracts, fire administrators or declare bankruptcy.  The gubernatorial appointee's decisions would trump those of any local elected officials, city councils or school boards.

Why should you care?  Well, didn't a certain German chancellor with a funny moustache abolish all German labor unions back in 1933 in an effort to ban political opposition?  Think about it.

First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

                                         ~ Pastor Martin Niemoller (1892 - 1984)

Sources: Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, The Michigan Citizen