Journal 8 10-21-08
by Russell Weeks
This week’s journal I had no idea what to write about so in finding what to say I wanted to mention some stuff about Men in the Sun. The main topic we talked about after hearing a class long synopsis of, Men in the Sun was the ideal of leaving your country for something better. Is it right to risk everything to have a chance at a life for you and your family? Do we take our civil rights for granted?
I along with most of the kids in my class after trying to put ourselves into the position of the men in the story came to the conclusion that we would also leave in order to find something better. Most of the kids in my class have an idea of how hard it is to become a United States citizen. I think a good five people out of my classroom actually went through the process of taking the test and presenting the legal documents necessary to become a United States citizen. We compared the relationship of the people running from Palestine to Kuwait in search of a job and money to the immigrants from Mexico who come such a long way just in search of a job to send money back to their families.
Everything is at risk when you leave in search of a better life especially your family because it will probably be forever until you see them again. Honestly, If you have nothing and you are only in the pursuit to better your family and your name then I believe you should flee to another country because I definitely would. I know I am an American but if I were displaced on some other continent I would sure kill to be back in the states. Some would say our rights our melting away others would say we are protecting our security and I say I am glad to have some kind of barrier. We are so lucky to have the freedoms we have where the press can choose sides and talk bad about Politian’s without someone finding them dead the next day. I am truly glad that I do not have a life like the characters from Men and the Sun do. They are hated by neighboring countries and have to be smuggled across the land to Kuwait. Lawrence of Arabia seems so terrible to call upon but if these people really are fighting tribe against tribe from an age long grief and have never settled the dispute they can be considered barbaric.
I do believe that Americans take their freedoms and their lives for granted. Many people do not know what it is like to not trust anyone and live the life under the gun. Many people have no idea how hard it is to become a citizen. I am just going to use my girlfriends grandfather for example who has been trying to become a citizen for 6 years and the only reason he wanted to was to live with his son who is closer to the downtown medical center. Now her grandfather has no real interest in staying in the United States but the medical center is his top priority due to health issues. He has been trying for 6 years and still the paper work is slow and costly which from this experience of helping him I know why people want to come here illegally. I absolutely hate when someone does not understand about how bad some people’s lives are. I really hate it when I over hear conversation of “why are they here? They should go back to their own country” or they do just not understand why someone would want to live their stuck in a hole all their life. I am very understanding because I read these stories, I see some news articles, I browse the web and I know why people leave when they leave. I would not want to wait around until someone came around to kill me or place me in a prison for being a certain nationality.
What I would like to see in the future is especially in the next presidential Administration is a good foreign policy agenda. What is a relief in some ways and agony in others is Barack Obama being backed by Colin Powell on foreign administration. The decision by Powell made me weary of Obama’s ability to actively make decisions on his own. In my comparison it’s like taking a chemistry formula to a chemistry test and trying to decipher what is being said on the go. In other words it is not practical and it does not work the only way you become better at it is by practice and experience. I was not happy by hearing he was going to receive White House tutoring however everyone learns at certain times how to do different things so I cannot be hypocritical especially if the opposing party has a fresh governor. We need the United States to become the respected super power it once was and not a target of bad diplomacy and on that thought I will leave this topic and talk about the ideals in the beginning of my chapter of Good Muslim, Bad Muslim.
My chapter in Good Muslim Bad Muslim is the conclusion, which is titled Beyond Impunity and Collective punishment. The name is quite appropriate since the beginning of the chapter talked about the connection between the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Really what is the connection between Afghanistan and Iraq. Well it was believed to be at first terrorists were harbored there until the big topic of the tyrant Sadam Hussein came into play. I am glad that a tyrant has been brought from power but I honestly do not know the connection between September 11 and the war in Iraq. The argument in Good Muslim Bad Muslim was stating that we have lost our true sight in what is right and wrong basically. America and the Terrorists can both claim to be fighting for Justice, which is known as revenge. The main argument, which bothered me, was of America thinking it has impunity to all laws foreign and domestic.
The book went on into talking of how to make terrorism work, which is best known by political support of the people. I read a good quote from the book, which spoke of America distinguishing between their terrorism and our terrorism only to be more acclimated to ours not realizing theirs was born from ours. Back to making terrorism work I can think of JFK to CNN from picture theory, which describes how the media displays the war in Iraq as a bodiless and only airstrike war by which no one dies. To me it seems monitoring what the population views is a form of terrorism because you are controlling how they feel about something far away.
Now something that is the funny is the list of CIA trained terrorists. Osama Bin Laden, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, and Mahmud Abouhalima are the most wanted people by the CIA who were trained by the CIA; now in my opinion America had this coming if we trained these people to be terrorists. I believe they were trained as part of the effort to remove the soviets from Afghanistan, but instead years after the Cold War they turned on the United States. Personally we could have avoided the bullet of September 11 by not training these men. We let them know the core beliefs of America, our secrets, our tactics, and they made us pay. The United States hopefully will tread lightly in the next 4 to 8 years and not with impunity because our reputation depends on it.
