Howard asks a question or two

[Elizabeth Boylston-Morris]

I've just returned from Easter vacation in Spain,  (San Sebastian), and the
most ubiquitous  tee shirts were imprinted with:  " George W Hitler, and, in
lower case, Benito Blair".   The tee shirts were also very visible in
Pamplona, and in Madrid as well.  They were selling briskly for 15 Euros.
Before I left, shortly after the news of the looting and destruction of
museums and libraries in Irak, new  tee shirts were appearing with a
Frankenstein figure, clod in the stars and stripes and donning a Visigoth
double horned helmet, stomping on cuneiform cultural indicia of human
culture, such as copies of the Code of Hammurabi-the first written law in
human history.
By the way, the U.S.Dollar in Spain, and  by financial definition in the
European countries that form the EU (European Union),  has dropped in value
from 1.10 Euros to the dollar one year ago to merely 80 cents of an Euro last
week.
I guess that sober minds will make their own conclusions.
I am profoundly sad, confused, and yes, not a little ashamed.
I am a WASP; loving my country, its history, its religious foundations and
the immense achievements brought about by the synergy of the vision, energy,
and Christian sense of morality and goodness that propelled those early
Puritans, in the Mayflower, to take their destiny in their hands and to sail
forth to give form to their ideals by, literally, scratching the earth with
their bare hands.
Some of my ancestors died in the Revolution of Independence; many, very many,
more died in the Civil War (I am from Savannah, Georgia). Even more died in
Europe in the first World War, and more yet in World War II.  My oldest
brother was a ranger in the first wave of American troops that landed in
Normandy.
Through my centuries of bloodshed ancestry I do have the right to feel that I
love my country.
And yet, as Senator Byrd, I am saddened and confused.  It does not seem like
me country anymore.  It is acting like Frankenstein: thoughtlessly abusing
its strength and mindlessly destroying whatever is in its way without a
thought of  damage to humanity, shared or not.
A tree does not survive without its roots.  The first human writings, in
cuneiform mode, were in those museums that the US powers that be did not deem
worthy of protection while great care was taken to secure the offices that
regulated distribution of Iraqi oil.
It pains me beyond belief that the blood of my ancestors, way back to the
American Revolution, was shed to create a country that can gloat about
destroying such a weak foe (like Mike Tyson beating up a skinny ten-year old)
so that multibillion dollar contracts  can be handed out to cronies to
"rebuild" what was knowingly destroyed for that purpose.
Where is the real American spirit?  Where is the ideal of truth and fairness?
Where is the huge outcry about the highjacking of a noble desire to make the
rich richer, at the cost of thousands of lives and the avalanche of human
pain and sorrow forced on those people whose country and lived have been
destroyed?
I grieve for my country..... and I have the right to do so, as attested by
the graves of my ancestors dating back to the 1770s.
And yet..... Abraham Lincoln wrote that 'You can fool all of the people some
of the time, you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot
fool all of the people all of the time"
And, to paraphrase Lincoln, I do believe that things in this country will
change, that the Constitution will be respected, that the lives and beliefs
of people everywhere will be valued, that the might of this country will
insure that it shall be so, and that, yes, my ancestors who have fought and
died for this country for more than the past two hundred years will not have
done so in vain.

I do not often contribute to this list.... nor  do I think that I shall do so
again.  Frankly, the fact that right here, in this Santiago list-serv,
presumably away from the regimented  hate-destroy mind set of soldiers,
there can appear  a message posted by someone referring to African-Americans,
the most used and abused of all people  in this country. as "Negroes", that
is just too much.... way too much for me.  (No,... I am not black,... I am as
blonde and blue-eyed  a Georgia peach as I can be). But I do not wish to put
up, in any way, with the crass Rush Limbaughs and their ilk.  Life is too
precious to allow such disagreeableness.
Regards to people of Good Will.
Elizabeth Boylston-Morris
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