Circuitous Noodle: Oppressed people deserve compassion

Super Duper Spokane Snow Storm 12/18/08 (day 1 from a local person)
My wife and I live way up on the South Hill where we got more snow and no plows - for days

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I've grown used to the particular restraints that MS has placed on my life over the years. My wife and I have both struggled to adjusted to the world we have found ourselves. The great snowstorm of this holiday season put strains on many of my coping skills. Irritability sets in. that's commonly referred to as 'cabin fever'.

The whole town has it in one form or another. But, we all endure. There was a smattering of violence, like snow plow drivers being shot at,but, mostly just everyone trying to get along in as good a nature as possible, for a stressed-out situation.

Spokane under snow seige

01-05-2009 snow update for Spokane

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Somehow we all came through to the other side.No matter how bad, frustrating or down-right exhausting the barrage of storm after storm may have tired everyone, we all knew it would end. Not only did we know it would end, but we knew sunshine and warmer weather would eventually follow. In other words we were certain our situation would improve. Moments of individual and group frustration still managed to persist. In many cases only fleetingly.

I've observed, to varying degrees, the same thing happening in many natural disasters around the globe. There's the initial shock, the pulling together,
worry-fed frustration and the eventual coping with the challenges at hand. Situations such as Bush-agrivated Katrina, in the US, are a bad example to any type of responsible government-aided moving ahead.

I wrote this about Hamas...

The logic of firing missiles into Israel completely escapes me. I fail to understand what Hamas hoped to accomplish. Maybe there's some bravado driven slaps on the back that makes this all worth-while to them. Maybe it's their way of solidifying their base. The political, social, humanitarian and spiritual result of terrorism always seems to be negative outside of the few perpetrators who receive some form of self satisfaction in their horrible deeds.

I still believe, in reference to an educated leadership, that those words still ring true.

But, for the Palestinian people, feeling abandoned by the world, while lost in an oppressive field of perpetual injustice who, at the same time, are suffering from inadequate food and medical care, and are exhibiting signs of depression, frustration, anger and hostility, we must realize much understanding, patience and all forms of help are do them as a responsibility of humanity. Remember, their frustration, unlike our weather related ones, seem forever to them and so must their feelings of indignity. I really don't see how they could expect to feel differently.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
Desmond Tutu

There are far too many skilled politicians and businessmen at the art of the manipulation of public opinion for truth to be anything but muddied while they keep the pot stirred for their own benefit.

Fear is a great motivating force for violence. Fear of ideas, cultures, that others will change what those around you believe or leave you with less than you now have.

This leads to a kind of selfishness that seeks to justify the subjugation of others and causes a dehumanizing hate as its authority.

You can't lock people up in oppression an not expect hostility directed upon you.

You can't fight violence and hate with more of the same and not expect it returned to you.

I must admit that I feel a bit like what Stephanie Miller calls 'Captain Obvious' in reference to 'only seven days left Bush' for those last few sentences.

"In struggling for human dignity the oppressed people of the world must not allow themselves to become bitter or indulge in hate campaigns. To retaliate with hate and bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can be done only by projecting the ethics of love to the center of our lives."
Martin Luther King, Jr.