Dear America: I am longing to reach you.

[shance]

Dear America: I am longing to reach you -- crossing this river of indifference and consumption and denial. I am trying to find you, reaching out through the desperate limitations of words and descriptions, swimming through the rhetoric of terror and God.

I need you to wake up. The house is on fire and you are still sleeping, lulled by the intoxication of smoke and mirrors.

I need you to wake up and I know that shaking you, scaring you will only make you cling to your sleep and sleep more.

How then do I tell you what's going on?

How do I tell you about the one hundred thousand dead Iraqi people that you and I are responsible for murdering?

Each one of them valued their life, longed for their morning, cherished their first cup of milk or coffee or tea. In what way shall I deliver what I learned? The substance identical to illegal napalm that melted tender five year old skin; the cluster bombs that have left their murderous and disguised offspring, throngs of bomblets set to explode, scattered on the Iraqi earth; the depleted uraninum from the Bunker Busters we dropped that now lives in lungs and livers and soil.

How do I tell you about the strategic planning of such atrocities in the boardrooms, the backrooms, the back seats of limos, the organized take over and looting of Iraq right out from under the terrorized, hungry, thirsty Iraqi people. How do I get you to listen to the stories of our soldiers who are trying to kill themselves now, longing to escape the madness of murdering and maiming for no reason.

Please don't go back to sleep.

I know how hard it is to hear of the massive black holes, called prisons we have dug to hold thousands without charging them, without trials or the torture, the meanness, the cruelty we are inflicting upon them.

America, those who now control our country have changed and ended law.

I do not believe you are so calloused or selfish that you do not care. Your sleep is induced. You are distracted and derailed. The corporations have concocted and perfected these sleeping potions for years, developing ingredients to make you despise every bit of yourself, to feel ugly and fat and stupid and poor and not enough. And so you spend your time and every bit of the money you do not have buying products that will make you better, skinnier, lighter, whiter, tighter. And as you consume and consume, the corporations consume you. They take your money and your time and your voice and your instincts and your outrage and your sorrow and your anger and your grief. They consume your courage and leave fear in its place. They devour your conscience and your memory and your compassion.

And how do I speak when they are sure to tie my tongue?

When they will say I do not love my country or support the troops or honor the dead or believe in their God? How do I break through your sealed wrapping, your self-obsession, your TVheadphonedDVDcell pod?

America I am getting desperate and I know this will not get me published or heard. Those who control the information will say I'm extreme, that I've gone mad. But I have heard the cries of children in the exploding houses of Falluja. I have seen the agonized faces of the sleepless Iraqi women who still clutch the outline of their charred dead babies in their arms. I have watched as we as a nation grow more isolated, despised and alone.

America, there is not much time left. The fire is spreading, consuming the world. We are the arsonists. We will need each other to find our way out through the lies and haze. It will take our greatest imagination, courage and skill to subdue these flames.

Eve Ensler - This letter was written immediately after The World Tribunal on Iraq in Istanbul where I served with thirteen others from around the world on a jury chaired by Arundhati Roy. The Tribunal consisted of three days of hearings investigating various issues related to the war on Iraq, such as the legality of the war, the role of the United Nations, war crimes and the role of the media, as well as the destruction of the cultural sites and the environment. The session in Istanbul was the culminating session of commissions of inquiry and hearings held around the world over the past two years.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-ensler/please-dont-go-back-to-s_b_3865.html

[stellanoir]

1. truly profound

and eloquent.

Why am I reminded of Sarah McGlaughlin's "World on Fire" when I read this?

I remember empathing the suffering in Falluja under a barrage of white phosphorus three weeks after the last election was stolen right under our noses while the administration pointed fingers at malfeasance in the Ukraine.

This is really poignant. Thanks for posting.

[shance]

4. You bet Stellanoir.

Eve Ensler certainly spoke so much of what my heart feels these days.

[Extend a Hand]

11. here's the link in case some haven't seen it

a very moving video

http://www.worldonfire.ca/

[shance]

13. Thank you Sad-one*

I haven't seen the video.

Thank you for posting.

[Patchuli]

2. Some of U.S. sleep still

and some of us have been awake throughout the nightmare. I pray that those responsible will be held accountable. This was no war for me...

[Mnemosyne]

3. Profound. n/t

[shance]

5. Isn't it? Ensler realizes the key to freedom is activism.

And to turn off of those longstanding magazines and what many call the "idiot box", being the television, which perpetually brainwashes all of us into limiting and defining us as consistently inadequate and inferior, so
'they' can profit by and through our inadequacies, or illusions of inadequacy.

[Mnemosyne]

19. "illusions of inadequacy"

That says it all. Convince people that they never measure up and you create a slave to the corporations. For life, barring some seriously life-changing event. Keep the masses always striving for "more" and "better" and they barely notice the world around them, much less that they are imprisoned.

[OneBlueSky]

6. EVERYONE should read this . . .

and make copies to pass on to friends and relations . . . especially those who see ANYTHING positive in the BushCo coup . . .

strongly recommended . . .

[shance]

14. I agree OneBlueSky. I've sent it to my friends

and some family members.

It speaks to the core of what we, or the Bush Administration is doing, and it reveals the heartbreaking seriousness of what is taking place in our name.

[stellanoir]

7. morning kick

This is one of the most thoughtful and insightful posts I've yet read on this site. Thought it's been highly rec-d. I'm struck by how relatively few responses it's received. Maybe it just renders most stunningly and startlingly speechless.

This line absolutely and succinctly nails what we post volumes of threads about here:

"America, those who now control our country have changed and ended law."

Or as I said in a mocking repsonse to Hayden's and Gonzales's recent defense of *'s seemingly endless violations. "It's legal 'cause we say so."

As to the slumbering masses I'm often reminded of Chief Seattle's line,
"when the talking wires come that's when life ends and survival begins." So I often thought that many were over medicated and in survival mode. But the author looks deeper into the machiavellian media's motivation to make and program us with self-loathing and suggests that it is by design. I'd never looked at it that way.

Thanks again for shaaring.

[shance]

10. Thanks for the morning kick and insight*

I saw Eve Ensler in her play "The Good Body" and have been a supporter and fan of hers ever since. After the play (I saw it here in Los Angeles) Ms. Ensler opened up the auditorium for discussion on how we as a nation, are going to heal and regroup. It was great and it is evident how so many people need and want to be heard.

I think we would so greatly benefit from having more open forums and communication like that. I believe that is where our power is and that is where we can take our lives and our communities back from those in Washington who are doing us more harm than any good.

We've gotten away from face to face communicado I think due to the "talking wire" and computer, which I certainly love, but I think it tends to isolate us instead of bringing us together, which we really need right now. As Mike Malloy said the other night, there are more of us than there are of "them".

[KoKo]

20. Many DU'ers avidly protested to stop Iraq Invasion. Signed petition to

the UN which was delivered by Move On.org. members...sent e-mails to the UN Ambassadors from Germany and France begging them to stop the Invasion. We went to the major demonstrations and we stood out on street corners of our cities and towns with signs to alert fellow citizens about the coming illegal invasion and when the invasion began we attended candle light vigils. For those of us who tried to stop it there's not much more pain we can feel. It's a wonderful post...but what else can one say. And, that's probably why there aren't so many replies. We've lived with this for so long and knew what was coming that it's hard to say anything more.

:-(

[CrispyQ]

8. Powerful.

"And as you consume and consume, the corporations consume you. They take your money and your time and your voice and your instincts and your outrage and your sorrow and your anger and your grief. They consume your courage and leave fear in its place. They devour your conscience and your memory and your compassion."

Such a tragic yet true statement.


Kicked & nominated.

[shance]

12. Absolutely* I read an interview of Eve Ensler (Vagina Monologues)

She said she felt the cure for the consumer driven insanity is activism along with connecting with others from different cultures and backgrounds.

I believe she's right when she says in order for us to essentially become sane again, we need to get out of self consumed selves and more into connecting with others and engaging in what is real.

I agree.

[yellerpup]

9. K&R

conscience, memory, compassion. never forget

[earth mom]

15. Tears in my eyes...I am blown away...

what a profound and eloquent letter!

:cry:

[shance]

16. It's heartrendering. I'm hoping DUers will share this with family

and friends.

I think this letter cuts through the smokescreens and gets to the core of it all.

Eve Ensler so brilliantly expresses what so many of us feel.

[shance]

17. kick

n/t

[DemExpat]

18. This is incredible.

Thanks for posting this here, and the video of Sarah's song posted above is fantastic as well.

:hi:

DemEx