Tag Archives: war

President Biden’s Inflection Point

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Pay attention to what the American President … and the Chair of the Fed declared

Inflection Point with what’s next. On a rare, hand drawn graph…

“Good evening, my fellow Americans.  We’re facing an inflection point in history — one of those moments where the decisions we make today are going to determine the future for decades to come.” ~ from President Joe Biden’s Address to the Nation Thursday night on the 19th of October 2023.

“We’re facing an inflection point in history…”

Those words are significant. He’s preparing the world for war.

“That’s what I’d like to talk with you about tonight. “ Except he really did not further address the inflection point. Continue reading →

HAS THE WORLD CHANGED?

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A Homeless Man asks a question with his pants down, but can anyone really answer?

Gawd, now I know I’m back in my beloved but gone-to-hell Seattle. While changing buses at Northgate Way & Aurora Avenue on my way home from a long trip to North Carolina, I came upon a homeless man of about 40 years old who also happened to be Black and bearded. He stood on the edge of the curb on the west side of Aurora next to the crosswalk, cupped his hands up to both sides of his face, and bellowed out into traffic:

“HAS THE WORLD CHANGED? HAS THE WORLD CHANGED?”

“WELL, HAS IT?” was my automatic response tho only in my mind.

My second response was the temptation to shout at him to pull his damn pants up, but that was before I listened to him.

Then he rhythmically pulls down his dirty gray sweat pants and shows his naked ass to the whole wide world and then swings his cock up and out across the way like the neck and head of a goose jerking forth from a lake. It looked large and waxy in the harsh, September sunshine. Pulls his pants back up with this tip of his penis perched upon his waistband like a damn peacock peeking out. Damn, I looked away, away, AWAY!, but, OH GAWD was too late as it all happened in a flurry of seconds as the crossing lights hadn’t changed yet. Couldn’t unsee this mess. Felt transfixed, no, crucified, crucified! Felt crucified by the clarity of his call and response during the middle of our long, apocalyptic slide into Armageddon. Continue reading →

Afghanistan, August 2021: Ramifications

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Joe Biden has severely damaged his American presidency. We can argue the history and legacy of 43 years of constant warfare between multiple sides in and over Afghanistan since 1978, but the cameras are on what’s happening now. We can repeatedly declare no one was prepared for the rapid collapse of the Afghan state with bloody chaos in the wake of Biden’s acceleration of American withdrawal despite intelligence reports to the contrary. The perception rings true, however, the events of August 2021 overshadow Biden’s progressive agenda. Who’s thinking about his trillion-dollar FDR-style bipartisan infrastructure package now?

Biden is correct most Americans want to get out of Afghanistan and indeed out of all the “forever wars.” A withdrawal wasn’t supposed to be defeat, however, and now the United States has fallen face down into the Graveyard of Empires. Biden failed to remember Americans hate losing wars more than they hate being stuck in them. Even neverending wars draining the US and its NATO Allies of blood and treasure “should” or “could” have been won despite what Clausewitz wrote of war and politics. Yes, Americans don’t like wasting time, lives, and money in endless wars in faraway, remote places distracting them from more immediate concerns back at home, but they hate losing even more. Continue reading →

Wounds of War

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Visible & Silent

Reading of the current horrible war in Tigray with massacres and atrocities on all sides, especially by Ethiopian Federals and Eritreans, and watching the videos of massacres reminded me of an earlier time in my life. I was a licensed massage therapist and master bodyworker with a clinical practice in the Green Lake area of Seattle. My clients included people from all walks of life. They came in for reasons as varied as relief from pain from auto accidents, sports injuries, chronic pain, general health and well being, pregnancy, depression and anxiety, and a host of other reasons. The bulk of the people seeking bodywork were White with a smattering of Black and people of South and East Asian ethnicity. I myself am White, originally from Virginia.

Once state laws changed and insurance began to cover a greater range of treatments with what was formally called Complementarty and Alternative Medicine, or CAM, we began to see a greater cross-section of humanity upon our massage tables. I began to get a number of men, mostly slender Black men who spoke minimal English, as clients. Nearly all of them had scars from bullet wounds and sharp blades. As one of my backgrounds was world history and current affairs, I realized I was working with people seeking relief from old war wounds from the Horn of Africa. Being with these men and their injuries felt humbling, tragic, and even awe. 

As time progressed and more of these African immigrants began to open up, I felt startled to discover they were from different formerly warring groups. I worked on men who identified as Ethiopian, Amharic, Eritrean, Tigrayan, and Somali. A few were impressed I was aware of the complexities of the Ethiopian and Somali Civil Wars including the Ethio-Somali Ogaden War. I don’t know if they were combatants or refugees or both other than they were all former hostiles living peacefully as immigrants in the same city in the United States.

The horror and tragedy of multigenerational wars perpetuated back and forth across time and space hit me. Had to fight down tears. These men were all silent. They had endured bloodshed and terror and agony.

William Dudley Bass
Wednesday 30 June 2021
Seattle, Washington
USA
Cascadia
Earth
Sol

 

Copyright © 2021 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.