Occupy Protesters Want Their Books Back

Indian ‘hactivists’ set to hold Occupy wall Street-style protests outside Supreme Court
First they meddled with IT rules.
Then they tried to pre-screen the social networks. But when the file sharing websites and torrent engines came under threat from court orders, India’s ‘netizens’ decided to hit back.
‘Hacktivist’ group Anonymous has called for pan-India ‘Occupy’ protests on June 9, a follow-up to their digital attacks on the BJP, the Supreme Court and several corporate websites.
‘Fifty years ago, freedom fighters laid down their lives for your freedom.
Today, your government has taken away that freedom,’ a post by ‘Anonymous Operation India’ stated, adding: ‘Censorship of expression is the death of a democracy.’
The protest call comes in response to action from a number of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), who blocked several file sharing websites that are popular sources of pirated movies.
The ISP replaced sites such as ‘thepiratebay’ and ‘torrentz.eu,’ with a plain banner, saying ‘access to this site has been blocked as per court orders’.
The Madras High Court had put out an open-ended ‘John Doe’ order, prompted by a petition from Chennaibased copyright labs seeking a ban on the piracy of two movies Dhammu and 3 – which, ironically, can attribute much of its popularity to the Internet success of the ‘Kolaveri Di’ music video. More…

How Occupy and the Indignados helped inspire Quebec, where ‘every street is Wall Street’
itting in the living room of a friend’s Mile End apartment just shy of 8:00pm of Thursday, I am called into the street by the deafening sound of clanging pots and pans.
On the residential street lined with Montreal’s classic triplex townhouses, people of all ages are gathering with their cookware. Children clang at the doorstep of their friends calling to them to come out.
The now nightly “casseroles” are the latest form of popular outrage to premier Jean Charest’s new special law that curbs freedom of assembly and association rights, in a bid to break three months of social unrest.
As I wander around the block, I hear parents, children, students and seniors chant in a sing song voice “we don’t give a damn *clang* *clang* *clang*, about the special law” and “if you’re against the hike …. *clang* *clang.*”
Then spontaneously, the crowd starts marching. What was dozens quickly turns to hundreds as neighbors come down from their balconies.
I unexpectedly bump into one of my old McGill profs – she taught me Philosophy of Existentialism. “I just live around the corner from here and didn’t expect this. It’s just amazing,” says the woman who taught me about the theorists behind Paris’ 1968 student revolt. More…

Greenpeace hangs banner from Lions Gate Bridge to protest tar sands
Straight.com
By Stephen Thomson, May 29, 2012 The three main high street banks in the UK (Barclays, HSBC and the Royal Bank of Scotland) are all involved in providing significant sums of project or corporate finance for oil extraction from Canadian tar sands.

Quebec student protesters, government continue talks over tuition increases …
Washington Post
Students also object to an emergency law put in place to limit protests. Returning to the talks in Quebec City, student leader Leo Bureau-Blouin said the parties were close to an agreement, saying the education minister would introduce a proposal on …

Folk musician Doc Watson dies at age 89
Grammy-winning U.S. guitarist and folk singer Arthel Lane “Doc” Watson died on Tuesday in a North Carolina hospital at age 89, his management company said.
Watson died at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, following abdominal surgery last week, Folklore Productions International said in a statement.
“Doc was a legendary performer who blended his traditional Appalachian musical roots with bluegrass, country, gospel and blues to create a unique style and an expansive repertoire,” the statement said. “He was a powerful singer and a tremendously influential picker who virtually invented the art of playing mountain fiddle tunes on the flattop guitar.”
Watson, who was blinded before his first birthday, won seven Grammy Awards, in addition to the Grammy for lifetime achievement he received in 2004. In 2006 he won in the category of best country instrumental performance for his playing on “Whiskey Before Breakfast.” More…

Judge orders Manson Family tapes turned over to police
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Taped conversations between Manson Family killer Charles “Tex” Watson and a Texas lawyer in 1969 must be given to Los Angeles police investigating the cult’s possible involvement in unsolved murders, a judge ruled on Tuesday.
Detectives are anxious to review some eight hours of discussions between lawyer Bill Boyd, now dead, and Watson recorded after the Charles Manson devotee’s arrest for the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders, Los Angeles Police Commander Andrew Smith said.
But the release of the tapes was placed on hold for two weeks following an 11th-hour challenge by Watson’s current attorney.
“We really don’t know what’s going to be on these tapes but we’re always hopeful to get new evidence and be able to solve any of the unsolved crimes we have from that long ago era here in Los Angeles,” Smith said.
“We’ve got dozens of unsolved murders around the Los Angeles area from that time period,” Smith said. “Nothing right now indicates there’s a link but these audio tapes could help solve some crimes.” More…

Chris Hedges

No one understands this better than the gay activist and pastor Mel White. White, along with his husband and partner of 30 years, Gary Nixon, founded Soulforce, an organization committed to using nonviolent resistance to end religion-based oppression. White and hundreds of Soulforce volunteers protest outside megachurches that preach hatred and bigotry in the name of religion. White travels to communities where young gays, lesbians, bisexuals or transgender people have committed suicide. He holds memorial services for them in front of the church doors. He accuses the pastors of these churches of murder. His books “Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America” and “Holy Terror: Lies the Christian Right Tell Us to Deny Gay Equality,” are two of the most important works that examine the innate cruelty and proto-fascism of the Christian right. White, more than perhaps any other preacher in the country, has pulled young men and women back from the brink of despair, from succumbing to the tragic fate of Tyler Clementi. And White is scared.

“What kind of environment creates a Dharun Ravi who would carry out that kind of bullying, as well as a kid like Tyler who would become a victim of that kind of bullying?” White asked when I reached him by phone at his home in Long Beach, Calif. “It is society. At its heart it is the church. The churches should be convicted, not just Ravi. He’s just an extension of the hatred that people feel about this threat, this gay threat. Pope Benedict XVI should be on trial. Richard Land from the Southern Baptists should be on trial. Religious leaders, Protestant and Catholic, should be on trial. They made this happen, but too few Americans make the connection.”

White applauds President Obama for taking a personal stand for marriage equality. But he also notes that the president’s statement was accompanied by a reiteration that states have the right to determine their own policies toward marriage.

Despite gains by gays in the wider culture, especially in the entertainment industry, and despite the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the civil rights of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people in most states are deteriorating, White said. Read more…

Just like the grocery store, we can have our choice of paper or plastic…as in applicators. Okay–so admit it, those plastic applicators pinch sometimes with that pretty, little pink claw on the end and they are bad for the environment.

Anyway-I am digressing. My point is–THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A HAPPY PERIOD!

Nothing like sitting on the couch in your sweatpants, bag of chips in one hand and a candy bar in the other, trying not to think about the huge zit on your chin, all while chugging a beer in hopes of calming your cramps.

Then comes those commercials for stretch mark cream, hair color, mascara that will give you thicker lashes–and Holy Shit, there is that big red ball and the chick in the white pants–I want to bitch slap that smile off her face–and why is she running the beach acting all happy and secure and pretending she doesn’t want to rip someone’s head off? Yeah, because she really isn’t on her period and we all know it!

Just as I am sucking the piece of lime out of my bottle of beer–Jamie Lee Curtis comes on and is basically telling middle aged women that if we don’t eat two or three containers of yogurt a day, then we can’t shit. Look–it’s the not the chocolate that is constipating me…I don’t have time to shit, okay? And quit putting my business out there.

And really Jamie, how come there is never a constipated guy sucking down that stuff? What are you trying to say, that only women are full of shit? How about barging into the marketing board room, where the real tight asses are?

Then comes the full figured women, complaining about not having a bra that can hold our boulders. And this particular bra can LIFT and SEPARATE! Yeah, it has these really thick straps that allows you to hoist those babies up under your chin.

And just in case you aren’t a bosom babe, Victoria’s Secret will appear with their push up, pop me out bra on a chick that has angel wings. I mean, seriously only 100lbs chicks with fake boobs are permitted the angel wings? Bosom babes don’t get those.

Now comes the women who is half crying and smiling because her man bought her a diamond. A huge diamond. Because he loved her more than your man loves you. It’s true. He proved it, by getting her that big diamond, that is going to take him six years to pay off. So, “my man” comes home from a long day at work and hands me a Kit-Kat bar and I’m pissed. I want to know where the hell my diamond is? He has no answer for me, so now I am upstairs in the bathroom slitting my wrists and mumbling something about how I must not be worth it!

Soooo..in the mean time–your man is at work, making way more money than you and you are left to do the cleaning, cooking and laundry.

Shit, the bathroom drain is clogged. What is a woman to do? Oh I know, stand in the grocery store and fantasize about the two men that work there…c’mon please tell me you have seen this commercial? One guy is in the produce section holding a cantaloupe..a cantaloupe for Pete sake…no subliminal message there–in his big strong hands, because of course, this produce guy is a body builder…and then…then, the other guy that works there is also a body builder…those muscle men, who are going to come to your house, unclog your drain and then throw you down and td you good–do your right—because that is what we want, right? Okay–I’m digressing again, I got carried away. So, this woman is in the store getting some drain cleaner and fantasizing about these two guys–in the end she is pouring the drain cleaner into the drain and there is a muscle man on each side of her, giving her that “atta girl” smile. She’s satisfied. After all, she has nothing better to do than go to the grocery store and fantasize about men..and the good part is that she unclogged that drain all by her little woman self.

And there I am sitting on my couch, screaming at the TV—”Shut the fuck up! Get over yourself! We aren’t in the store fantasizing…we are in there getting the shit we need and getting out!”

And really, two men? I’m too tired to handle one man. Get real. Gotta watch out for those under sexed women in the grocery store. The place is just crawling with women who are begging to get laid by cantaloupe yielding men.. Right? If Xanax doesn’t fix what ails us, just throw in a couple of burning pythons of love. That always works for me. When my drain is clogged, I just take a break and think about a couple of guys slamming me.

So, now we move onto the woman mopping her floor. I always get a kick of our how they color coordinate the scene. You know, the woman is wearing a green shirt, that matches the green accessories of HER kitchen, that match the handle of HER mop. Wait let me look–I think her earrings even match, but anyway–we get it, we aren’t stupid. Our mops are just part of accessorizing and you know women—we like to do that. Everything has to match. But, what really pisses me off is that the woman is always smiling or dancing…I mean, she is having a good time scrubbing that floor, that bathtub…the toilet and she is looking good while she does it. She’s even wearing make up.

In the end of the commercial, since the mop cuts her cleaning time in half, she decides she now has time to pamper herself and pulls a gift basket off of the shelf (it’s green too) and then she applies a green facial mask..yep, still accessorizing.

Of course, you just have to throw a couple of pain in the ass kids in there who have no regard for their Mommy who is trying to take a break and give herself a facial..and when mommy turns around those kids run away screaming.

They always throw the kids in there just to prove what we already know. Mommy can’t take a shit in peace.

I realized that this particular mop was a product of Proctor & Gamble. They own just about everything and most of those commercials are theirs…so anyway, I sat down and wrote them a letter. I begged them to be pioneers in advertising and to stop treating women as if they were stupid. Told them they are way behind the times and are still acting as if women were chained to the family home–.like.helpless, little cleaning and cooking robots that do it happily and look good while they do it.

Well, Rita wrote me back:

Diana.

We rely heavily on consumer comments regarding our advertisements, and feedback like yours will help us decide how to approach future advertising efforts. Please be assured I’m letting our marketing team know how you feel.

Thanks again for writing.

Rita
P&G Team

————————
Okay, so Rita (with no last name) Let me put it out there for you. While you are sitting there writing me back and making a memo, those ass-wipes in the board room, are mostly men making way more than you. I appreciate that you got back to me so quickly, but it was the last line of your response that got me.

“Please be assured I’m letting our marketing team know how you feel.”

A couple of things here, Rita…They really don’t care how I feel, because I’ve been watching the same shit for decades and nothing ever changes except the woman’s style of clothing. She mops in pants instead of a dress. And just how is it that you plan to let them know how I feel? Are you going to bust into the marketing department and smack down a couple of misogynist pigs and tell them that we are fed up with their bullshit? I doubt it.

Let me know how it turns out, Rita..I gotta go color my hair, apply my mascara, put on my big fat diamond, rub out my stretch marks, eat a couple of containers of yogurt, shave my legs with the three blade thingy and put my extra strength deodorant on so I can mop the floor and make a meal that will have my family mow me over to get to the table and appreciate me more–because outside of that, I have no value.Right?

WRONG.

It’s what advertising wants us to think.

WWH – Please check out Unapologetic Women on FaceBook.

Diana May-Waldman- Managing Editor for Worldwide Hippies in Rochester NY. Diana is the author of A Woman’s Song. Her poetry in this book deals with the struggles facing all women and the many facets of being a woman in the world today. She is a strong women’s and children’s advocate. A true example of the Hippie movements continuing growth and sprit. Diana’s activism is an inspiration to many. http://www.facebook.com/profile

Yes!  I support Citizen Journalism and Independent Media  ( Get T-shirt )

No!  I don’t support Citizen Journalism and Independent Media  ( Fox News )

By Alasdair

It is easy to think that students exist within a bubble and that this leads to the problems Kate describes, and that when they get into the “real world” things will improve, but while people perhaps gain more space from the sometimes rather insular world of student life, fundamental problems remain. Moreover, I believe students should organise as students. Students should see themselves as workers, if perhaps in some ways a privilged sector of workers. Indeed, increasingly many students are also workers due to financial pressures, but even where they are not, we should recognise the university and college as a site of production, and one in which students play an important role. In fact, even the privilged nature of students’ position in the workers’ movement is being undermined as more people go to university, fees and debt increase dramtically and job prospects diminish. So as teachers organise as teachers and construction workers as construction workers, so students need also to organise sectorally. That must, however, go hand-in-hand with a recognition of their place in a wider movement and, in the first place, much closer links with other university workers – from lecturers, with whom there has been some collaboration so far, to cleaners and technitions, with whom there has been very little joint industrial organisation – and more generally with other workers, the unemployed and so on.

If the organisation as students is not the problem then, I would like to address the issue of activism. Much of what I say below is not new, and reflects a perhaps fairly standard libertarian communist type position, but not everyone will have heard it before, and it expresses, and in writing has allowed me to examine, my own position. In addressing the problems of activism I went back to re-read the excellent Give Up Activism, written in 1999 in the aftermath of one of the anti-capitalism movement’s days of action. In structure I will quote fairly extensively from that acticle and comment on its conclusions, at times reproducing the arugment therein and in places developing or critiquing it.

Before we develop the critique then, we should begin by clarifying what we mean by ‘activism’, from the pamplet: Read more…

Dr. Woody; Cookie Crumbs,Windy Star,Hippy Woman “Slightly Relevant”

Today; Sticks and stones may bring the drones, but words will get you renditioned,

Heretic butler loose in the vatican, The Doc is in, Instant Karma files, Asshole of the week and more…

WWH- Worldwide Hippies brings you  Citizen Journalism - news and commentary, to inform you and move you to action. Worldwide Hippies News and Stuff is a weekly video, produced  by,WWH.

Connect with us on Utube. The Worldwide Hippies Channel

List of just some words the Department of Homeland Security monitors and tracks.

If you are online and use any of these… Your internet use is being monitored. (Guess I’m really fucked now!)

By Sherry Pasquarello,Worldwidehippies - 

So, I won’t bore you with rehashing a thing that you know about. Instead I’m going on a little mini-rant about my own freedom of religion. That freedom fought for by so many includes, not to be hassled and hounded by others that feel it is their holy duty and a rule of THEIR faith to insult me and piss me off!

I got a letter in the mail last week. All neatly hand written too, a pamphlet with the letter. Now, I don’t recognize the sender’s name but I do know the area. It’s a little place close to where I live. So , I’m just going to answer E.W. here.

NO, I do NOT need to know what the bible says and NO, I have no desire to get to know you OR the Jehovah’s witnesses! I don’t need them or anyone else sending me stuff in the mail or showing up on my doorstep. Frankly a religion that instructs its followers to go out and convert seems a bit shady to me and that includes any of them. Not just the Jehovahs.

So, I look into my township’s ordinances on solicitation because I figured if I am getting things in the mail can visits be far behind (yet again)? Guess what? Seems religious organizations are exempt! WTF? Think about it. Anyone, ANYONE that has some paperwork saying they belong to some sort of a faith can just show up on my doorstep. They could be axe murderers for all I know. Most likely they are just fanatics that will not take no for an answer. I had one certain group show up 3 times at my door just insistent about my NEED to be SAVED . Even if it meant leaving my husband. I am NOT kidding! That’s what I got for trying to be polite and respectful. Not anymore. I’ve learned.

So, where does my freedom as a citizen come into play? How does any religion trump an individual’s freedom. I’m not saying that any religion should be regulated by the government. But damn, they shouldn’t be granted special rights based on a need to spread the good word (RECRUIT).

They can show up at my door but yet it took years and court fights to get a Pentacle on a fallen soldier’s stone in a government cemetery. Go figure. Buddhists as well get little respect. These people fought and died for us and for freedom of religion but theirs came through years of denial of those rights and yet anyone can come into an area and insult my belief as they stand on my property that I pay TAXES on!

Anyway, that’s my little rant. I’ll be going up to the cemetery to make sure there’s a little flag on my father’s and my father in law’s grave. I would have loved to have seen strangers show up on their doorsteps. Now, THAT might have been a REAL picnic!

a big , “thank you!” to all the vets, past and present.

Especially, to the Vietnam vets. Blessing to you all. Peace!

Sherry Pasquarello is an eclectic little woman who has been published in the Individualist Newsletter, Black Roses, online at the Amateur Poetry Journal and the Alchemy lit. mag, and elsewhere. Sherry is a member of the international PK poetry kit list workshop and has been included in many of their projects. For more about Sherry check out her blog After the Bridge.

Protesters swarm Cairo’s Tahrir Square over presidential election results
CAIRO — Protesters flocked to Tahrir Square in Cairo on Monday, as young activists took to the streets to demonstrate against a run-off election to choose Egypt’s first freely elected president, FOX News Channel reported.
Egypt’s Electoral Commission announced Monday the country’s landmark presidential election was poised for a run-off next month between a Muslim Brotherhood candidate and a Mubarak-era prime minister.
Electoral commission chief Faruq Sultan announced that “No candidate won an outright majority, so according to Article 40 of the presidential election law, there will be a runoff between Mohammed Morsi and Ahmed Shafiq,” AFP reported.
The runoff, to be held June 16-17, will offer Egyptians a stark choice between Morsi, a conservative Islamist, and Shafiq, a symbol of ousted president Hosni Mubarak’s regime. More…

Greek media workers go on strike over austerity measures
Media workers in debt-ridden Greece have launched a 24-hour strike to protest the government’s unpopular austerity measures.
The employees walked off their jobs for 24 hours on Sunday to oppose Athens’ economic policies and the reforms introduced to tackle Greece’s financial crisis.
Television and radio stations have suspended broadcasting and there will be no newspapers on Tuesday.
The journalists demand collective contracts from the media managements which are significantly more beneficial to the workers than the individual ones.
Greeks have been protesting against the state’s austerity cuts since early 2011, when the government first implemented the measures. More…

Cleveland Occupy arrests are the latest in FBI’s pattern of manipulation
The FBI says the five arrested before May Day are terrorists, but friends in Cleveland say they were goaded on by informant
Like real-life Avengers, the FBI and 23 separate police agencies joined forces and pounced on a band of villains hell-bent on sowing chaos in a sleepy Midwest suburb earlier this month. The FBI reassured the world that thanks to the “swift collaborative action” of law enforcement, it had rounded up five “self-proclaimed anarchists … intent on using violence to express their ideological views” by attempting to blow up a bridge near Cleveland on May Day.
Now, the Cleveland Five look more like bedraggled punks than diabolical geniuses, but surely doom was averted in the nick of time. In fact, the G-Men admit the exact opposite: “At no time during the course of the investigation was the public ever in danger.”
So if there was no threat, what really happened? This case was a familiar set-up in which the FBI fishes for dupes it can manipulate with informants and agents who stroke their marks, plant ideas, suggest the plans, provide money, weapons, vehicles and then heroically foil a terrorist act of the FBI’s own design. Since September 11, scores of these entrapment cases have been sprung on Muslims in America. It appears the Occupy Wall Street movement is now worthy of the same treatment.
And why not? The FBI’s top priority is counter-terrorism, and it has an $8bn budget to justify, which is close to Taiwan’s annual military expenditures. Springing terrorism traps makes it appear that if not for the FBI, America would descend into Middle East-style mayhem. For informants, there is the lure of cash and leniency for felonies. For agents, it means career advancement. More…
Quebec student protest leaders to meet with government for tuition-fee talks
The Guardian
Students in Quebec are to meet with the province’s education minister to resume talks over a proposed tuition fee hike that have sparked widespread protest. Representatives from the three student groups involved in the conflict will travel to Quebec …

Anonymous India Calls for Non-violent Protests Against Censorship
PCWorld
By John Ribeiro, IDG News The Indian arm of Anonymous is planning what it describes as non-violent protests against Internet censorship in various Indian cities, after some Internet service providers blocked file-sharing sites in the country.

U.S. winds down longer unemployment benefits
Congress renewed extended aid, but phased in a reduction in the length
Hundreds of thousands of out-of-work Americans are receiving their final unemployment checks sooner than they expected, even though Congress renewed extended benefits until the end of the year.
The checks are stopping for the people who have the most difficulty finding work: the long-term unemployed. More than five million people have been out of work for longer than half a year. Federal benefit extensions, which supplemented state funds for payments up to 99 weeks, were intended to tide over the unemployed until the job market improved.
In February, when the program was set to expire, Congress renewed it, but also phased in a reduction of the number of weeks of extended aid and effectively made it more difficult for states to qualify for the maximum aid. Since then, the jobless in 23 states have lost up to five months’ worth of benefits.
Out of benefits even as job picture improves
Next month, an additional 70,000 people will lose benefits earlier than they presumed, bringing the number of people cut off prematurely this year to close to half a million, according to the National Employment Law Project. That estimate does not include people who simply exhausted the weeks of benefits they were entitled to.
Separate from the Congressional action, some states are making it harder to qualify for the first few months of benefits, which are covered by taxes on employers. Florida, where the jobless rate is 8.7 percent, has cut the number of weeks it will pay and changed its application procedures, with more than half of all applicants now being denied. More…

Tuna carry Fukushima Japan quake radiation across Pacific to California
Levels of cesium are still within limits considered safe to eat
LOS ANGELES — Across the vast Pacific, the mighty bluefin tuna carried radioactive contamination that leaked from Japan’s crippled nuclear plant to the shores of the United States 6,000 miles away — the first time a huge migrating fish has been shown to carry radioactivity such a distance.
“We were frankly kind of startled,” said Nicholas Fisher, one of the researchers reporting the findings online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The levels of radioactive cesium were 10 times higher than the amount measured in tuna off the California coast in previous years. But even so, that’s still far below safe-to-eat limits set by the U.S. and Japanese governments.
Previously, smaller fish and plankton were found with elevated levels of radiation in Japanese waters after a magnitude-9 earthquake in March 2011 triggered a tsunami that badly damaged the Fukushima Dai-ichi reactors. More…

There is nothing happy about it. I tuned in to hear Obama pay homage to the fallen in
the most solemn way. I am sure around the country, there were similar events to honor
the fallen in war. But like a fidgety kid in church who can’t wait until the service is over,
I imagined many people were anxious for the formal remembrances to be finished, so
they could begin their playtime. Isn’t that what Memorial Day Weekend is all about?
Partying, drinking, picnicking, barbequing?

Originally, the day was known as Decoration Day, designated in 1868 by General John
Logan as a day to commemorate the deaths caused by that horrific war called “civil,” and
to decorate the graves of those Civil War veterans. It was one day and one day only. It
didn’t matter what day of the week it was. It only established that May 30th would be the
day of remembrance.

Probably few people of that time realized there would be so many more wars and many
more dead that would deserve to be honored. Decoration Day or Memorial Day, as it
came to be known, was a day to remember the fallen of all wars in which US servicemen
and women gave their lives in battle. Still, it was one day and one day only. It was a
solemn day. It was a day to meditate on all war dead, and perhaps to ponder the reasons
why they gave their lives, to what end, and was the end worth the means?

Then in 1971, President Nixon declared that Memorial Day would be a federal holiday to
be held the last Monday in May, thereby giving most Americans a three-day weekend.
The hotels, motels, restaurants, and resorts came to count on Memorial Day Weekend to
be the first big weekend of the summer and couldn’t wait to greet their guests so anxious
for a good time and to relieve them of a chunk of their disposable income. The malls and
department stores were ecstatic and offered Memorial Day sales. I can’t remember a
time when all stores were ever closed on Memorial Day.

In exchange for the three-day weekend, all you had to do was spend a few moments
on that Monday morning and honor the fallen in war. Then you could continue the
partying, shopping, and vacating that had probably begun the previous Friday night. It
was like the obligation to sing the National Anthem before a baseball game. We all sang
and put our hands over our hearts and tried to be serious for as long as the song lasted,
but upon the final note, the crowd could burst into happy hoopla as the pitcher took to
the mound. The solemnity of the song which had just finished would disappear as fast as
the first beer and hot dog did, and for the rest of the day it would be happy, happy, and
happy!

Perhaps that is why the Veterans of Foreign Wars were opposed to changing the date
for this occasion. They knew the result would be an excuse to socialize and celebrate,
rather than mourn, thereby diluting the solemnity of the day. But Americans love their
holidays, including myself. But I knew this was not a day to be happy. And it is not a day
to remember only US troops killed in battle, as if an American life is more valuable than
one from another country. It is not a day to commemorate only the soldiers who died,
but also the “collateral damage” caused by war. How brilliant of the person who came up
with that phrase! “Collateral damage” sanitizes the innocent civilians who also died as
a result of war. “Collateral damage” doesn’t even begin to describe the gore, the horror,
and the thoughts that must have passed through the minds of those taking their final
breaths or who lived out their lives traumatized, dismembered, disabled or displaced.

When I returned from the store, I decided to think about all those people, in uniform or
in civilian clothes, who lost their lives because of a war. I thought about them intently.
I tried to imagine myself the dying victim or a close friend or relative of a deceased
loved one. I tried to think if there were any one day set aside by all people of the Earth
to honor all soldiers and civilians killed in all wars since the beginning of history. There
is none. But it made me wonder exactly how many men, women, and children, in or
out of uniform, have been killed in wars since the beginning of recorded time. If I could
discover that number, I vowed to remember them all and remember the cruel and often
unnecessarily sacrificed lives in the name of some patriotic, chauvinistic, religious, or
economic objective.

It was easy. There are many sources available. I could not find a total number, but rather
estimates for each and every war that has ever occurred on this planet. All I would
have to do is add up the numbers for each. I started inputting the numbers on my little
calculator, but there were not enough places before the decimal point to accommodate
the total. I borrowed a scientific calculator from a friend who promised me his device
would do the trick. I used only the lowest estimates for each war… and though a student
of history, I was shocked, appalled, and very saddened by how many wars there have
been in the history of our planet. And none of them was a “war to end all wars!”

The list was long. The numbers were staggering! You may as well have asked me to try
to count the stars visible to the naked eye late at night. I had to check off each number
as I put it into the calculator so I wouldn’t get confused. I finally came up with a total of
the lowest estimates of “casualties” (another sanitizing word) from war. Are you ready?
Once again, I remind you these are the lowest estimates available.

219,295,000 soldiers and civilians were killed in wars. In addition, 16,491,518 people
were victims of genocide. I found myself hoping that most of these poor souls were
killed instantly. I have not bothered to include those people who lived through these
wars but with missing limbs, brain damage, or other injuries. Unfortunately, too many
comprise the traumatized “walking” dead of our planet. They number more than the
really dead.

I had to do the arithmetic a few times. While compiling the numbers, I was interrupted
by a neighbor walking by my screen door. He yelled, “Phil, Happy Memorial Day!” I
replied, “There’s nothing happy about it!” He answered gruffly, “Well if you’re going
to be a downer about it, then please don’t come to the barbeque tonight! Should I have
greeted you with ‘Phil, Sorrowful Memorial Day?’ ” And then he turned his head and
walked away.

I enjoy a three-day weekend as much as the next person, but I just can’t seem to rise
to the occasion, if indeed, rising to this occasion was appropriate. Was I being too
negative? Was I ruining everyone’s holiday? Was I indeed the party pooper?

I contacted a friend of mine who is a veteran of a recent foreign war to ask what he
thought of this day. I quote him verbatim:

“I’m a veteran and we cringe at the ‘happy’ wishes too. Just smile and nod. They’re
products of their schooling. These are the same folks thanking us for fighting for their
right for free speech. They always look dumbfounded when I explain we’ve had that
right for years… not that they use it! Questioning the government has been replaced
with questioning the other political party. We act like the hippies drank the last of the
civil-disobedience and all that’s left is the kool-aid.”

I hadn’t expected that small rant about civil disobedience. But it did make me think
that if there were one day set aside by all nations to remember the consequences of
war, perhaps the world would have an “aha” moment. Perhaps they could go beyond
the numbers and visualize an individual soldier lying on the ground and looking down
to see a leg missing. Perhaps they could visualize a child slowly dying while the last of
his blood left the open wound. Perhaps they could feel the pain of a parent, a child, or a
friend at the loss of a loved one, and the insufferable grief which seems to linger forever.

Perhaps they would realize that cooperation and not competition is our natural state.
Perhaps they would realize that war is truly obsolete! Perhaps they would forgive
me for not being happy on this Memorial Day, but join with me by shedding tears
for such a waste of human life. Perhaps they would devote the entire day to asking
themselves, “What is wrong with us and how can we fix it!”

I warn you. It’s getting very close to midnight. It’s getting very late!

To contact Phil or find out more: check out his website and blog For a copy of HUNGA DUNGA
Phil Polizatto – Worldwide Hippies Bureau Chief – West Coast USA, is a graduate of The School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. He was a feature writer for the overseas division of UPI, a copywriter for CBS, and an award-winning corporate film producer. Mr. Polizatto is a published poet and a regular contributor to Worldwide Hippies as well as a variety of other arts and literary journals. Hunga Dunga is his first published novel. He resides in the Pacific Northwest.