Artwala Road

Last night the great writer, James Carroll, spoke in Boston about how this country has become paralyzed in the face of the aggressive power of the behemoth Pentagon machine that makes wars that so many Americans don’t want. We’ve all been asking where are the protests? Where are the photos of Guantanamo? What has happened that this war in Iraq continues when so many Americans want peace? As he pointed out, it is not a war. The Americans are an occupation force in the center of a civil war. Iraq is not our enemy. No one was attacking us but Americans were traumatized by 9/11. It fueled the paranoia that already exists in this country.
He talked about how bit by bit the war machine has taken over the government, and not just this government, but going right back to the second world war. They have become entwined in a bad marriage that nobody wants to break up because the kids will suffer economic consequences. He said it’s not just about blaming George Bush. We are all at fault. We all need to look at what we’re doing, at our complacency, at our love of luxury and at our fear.

I wish I could tell you all the things he said but I don’t have that sharp a memory and am not as conversant with history as he is. That’s a good part of the problem. We don’t know our history and the long road that led us to the disastrous and dangerous place that we’re in.

But we all know this—it’s not other countries who have most of the world’s weapons of mass destruction, it’s us. And we’ve broken international law like thugs.

And we know this too—it’s not other countries who are coming after us; we are going after them.

The underlying question is—what is this fear that Americans feel? Why have we felt this paranoia for so long, way before 9/11? Why do we think we are going to be attacked, as individuals and as a country? Why do we believe we need to own guns? Why do we believe we need to invade other countries and kill people? One million people have died in Iraq already of which less than 5,000 are American soldiers.

It’s not right.

There were 250 concerned and rational peace-loving people in the room last night listening to James Carroll at a small college. Most were middle-aged. There were only 3 students. I don’t know the reason why.  Could be that the five-hundred-billion dollars spent on this war has left education underfunded.  Maybe our kids aren’t as curious and engaged as they might be if they were better educated.
House of War,The Pentagon and The Disastrous Rise of American Power is the book James Carroll wrote to address these questions. He has a brilliant column in The Boston Globe every week and those of us who have hungered for reason in these awful times have been sustained by it. He is a sharp historian with an eye for how change really happens.

Now the good news, which he took care to point out—the end of the cold war came peacefully forced upon Gorbachev and the idiotic Ronald Reagon by pressure from the people, first in Russia then in the States. And the Russian people sacrificed economically when the arms race ended. We can sacrifice. This is peace and real security that we’re talking about. This is our planet, our only place.
So, Carroll asks us to maintain the pressure and to put our feet to the pavement. The internet does not work as a means of protest. He thinks it has been a deterrent to peace because it keeps people at home safely in front of their monitors when politicians only respond to real people out on the streets en masse.

So, on Saturday, there is a march for peace in many cities across this country and this time Dear A and I will bind on our sandals and be there. I feel my life changed last night. I bought House of War and lined up for James Carroll to sign it. When I met him I ended up saying, ‘I’m an artist. Sometimes it feels so irrelevant.’ He came right back, ‘No! No, it isn’t. Read Kennedy’s speech about Robert Frost.’ Then he smiled and took my hand and shook it.

Here is a small part of Kennedy’s speech— ‘When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the arrears of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.

For art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstones of our judgment. The artist, however faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an officious state.’

The whole speech is worth reading. You can google it.

Art is always an exploration of what is possible. May we, as artists, not retreat but step forward out of ourselves and into the world with what we have.

Keeping the faith. That’s all for now from here.

James Carroll—www.jamescarroll.net

October 26th, 2007 | Category: Dear Reader | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL