Monday, July 31, 2006 | Where am I? GLANCING at Sunday's cover of CNN.com -- 60 Lebanese refugees killed "by mistake" in an airstrike -- I was met with that sense of paralysis and powerlessness that seems to be going around in pandemic style. I don't just think we feel powerless to have any influence over the increasing number of wars supported by what's called the Coalition; I think it spreads right into our sense of what is possible here, now, in our brief lifetimes. There are plenty of people going on with life as if nothing at all is happening -- particularly in the US, the UK, much of Europe and probably a ton of Canada and Australia. Oh, the English speaking world. It's pretty much life as usual even though, speaking for my fellow Star and Stripers, there is a definite undertone of struggle in the United States these years. Economic, usually, but in truth psychic and emotional. It's like the meaning of existence is getting vacuumed off the planet. I am lucky. I am just thrilled to devote my life to a long political struggle. Not like it's anything new. But if you can't relate...if Civics was not your absolutely favorite class ever...if you didn't totally dig covering the Sewer Authority when you were a cub reporter... Okay. Fuck it, I'll say it. I have long envied and admired the generation of kids that stood up against the Vietnam War. I never wished for a war to oppose. I don't think it was entirely romantic. I appreciated the ability of that generation to stand up in the face of a crisis, and take a little leadership, and not let some old farts push them around. I was born in 1964, but over the next 25 or so years, I learned a lot from many people who participated in the antiwar struggles, and related social movement conquests, of the 1960s and 1970s. What I observed, was told, and am now seeing the obvious wisdom of was the awareness that ultimately spread, which said: that struggle, fueled by the war of the Dark Lords, pushed society ahead because so many people saw it as an opportunity to take leadership, and leadership of themselves. This process of seeing what's related and "linking the issues" came in innumerable forms. The waves of energy going through society took many forms, from rock music to students who stayed on to get their Ph.D., and thus learned, grew, and developed a peaceful skill they could give back to society; many became professors. Journalism broke free of its rigid little mold expanded to a new dimension. The therapy processes that emerged from the Human Potential movement that unfolded through this era were among the most astute ever developed. Many saw fit to make things better, to work from within or without, to have an awakening, to be present for others waking up, to admit that their lives were part of the whole picture. Many artists of that era broke free of it all and devoted themselves to their craft. The environmental movement we have today was born then and the direct result of people who decided that they had to take action. We need a lot better environmental movement but at least we have one. The crucial field of civil rights law was developed. The reason this could happen was simply that so many people cared, so many people observed they had a role in the process of society, other than passive victim. In the shadow of war, young boys, high school grads, college students, found themselves needing to make the decision to buck all of society and history and refuse military service because they knew the war was such a lie and so messed up and yeah, they didn't want to get shot up or toasted with Agent Orange. Can you blame them? The energy faded like an enchantment; though we have remnants of what we gained in that era, as individuals and as a community, it, too, is fading fast. Today we have this professional Army that gets sent on our behalf and there is no lottery that can, in theory, send anyone right to the battle front. So that's a BIG incentive for nobody to say a word, because the situation is abstract. Every young guy and/or his brother was easy meat and you were out there. Or, you grew up and took control of your life, went to Canada, burned your draft card, sued, hid, whatever. If I were a young guy with a war happening, that would have been a pretty important point of growth for me. You could reasonably call it claiming your life. I think that, from that point on, my life would have been my own. I did have such a moment, as a freshman at SUNY Buffalo. I decided, or it occurred to me, that if a war happened, I not only didn't have to go, I was not going. Whatever it took. I was 18 and there was not a draft, just a lot of memories. But in that moment, I basically chose sides. I chose not to kill. And in the same gesture, not to be subject to some politician's orders. Do we have any reason to make that kind of decision today? I would say so. I think that the poison of war, in part, is indifference to existence, including one's own. It's the feeling that your life is not your own and that your life does not matter. Why should you feel good about being alive when you're seeing images of a Lebanese mother grieving her whole family? Let's make it worse. Do you have any concerns that the situation we're witnessing and experiencing feels a bit world-warrish? Like, all at once, everyone could jump into the fray? Like it could spin out of control at any time? Just a little glint of fear? I mean, even if you like Dubya, you have to admit, the guy and his minions are not military geniuses. Now for the big question, my point of going on about this for the past hour: how does this make you feel about your life? Does it feel more or less motivating to make choices? Can you perceive your future any differently? Does the global ecological crisis make you think of your family line any differently? Like when you think of your kids and grandkids inheriting the crisis we face now, only so many years more developed? With much in the way of future resources consumed, currently, in debt? How personal can we make it all? It is so screwed up. Does that make you want to do something? Like, dust off your paints, or your tools, or your guitar, or your unfinished book...or does it just freak you out and make you want to get through the day and hope it's better tomorrow? This is the thing...this is the final space...this is the inner territory that can, indeed, be surrendered to nothingness -- or not. Nothingness is when it all means nothing. Something is when you realize that your brothers and sisters and cousins and neighbors and friends and all the dogs, cats and cows are in the same situation right now...it's so easy to see and feel...maybe when it gets dark, go out and look up and ask yourself: Where am I? When is it? What am I doing here?