Monday, October 21, 2013

Have You Read the YouTube Comments Lately?

Half of my lecture course on the 60s is about the arts and activism of the time so we listen to a lot of songs as homework. Recently we were assigned "Feel Like I'm Fixing to Die" by Country Joe McDonald. Out of curiosity I looked at some of the comments. A lot of people replaced the times McDonald says Viet Nam with Syria or Afghanistan which didn't half surprise me but then I stumbled across an interesting one.
In a nutshell, this person was suggesting that we all start gardens and move off the grid but keep our guns because our second amendment rights protect us so we can shoot members of the KKK if we feel threatened by them.
An elegant solution, sir.
Although I don't agree with this man, at least he is proposing a solution other than war. The issue in Syria continues to escalate and it is unclear if the US will physically engage with them. There has to be a way other than war to resolve our issues in the Middle East. Negotiation can be difficult but it's worth a shot. If it doesn't work though, I think we ought to let whatever happens, happen. It's not our place to be there.
To that, most people argue: but what about WWII? There was a mass genocide going on. It was our moral obligation to stop it. I agree that anything that can be done to stop unnecessary killing should be done but WWII was a different situation entirely. Back then we were fighting against the cancer that was fascism so that those infected nations could have the opportunity for freedom and self determination; now we're fighting to protect our oil interests.
A positive thing we have now that we didn't have during WWII is the United Nations. If we remove our military from the Middle East, we can keep UN representatives there to monitor diplomacy and look out for any type of genocide or killing of civilians. These representatives can then alert the Security Council and they can make a decision about how to stop whatever injustice is being performed. Other than that, I think our involvement should be very minimal.
If my plan doesn't work, we can always move off the grid and kill the Klan.

Sincerely,
Mare

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