This is just to say

[rivka]

I'm not doing very well.

I'm crying at work.

Thoughts of miscarriage keep crossing my mind. Not as in, wanting to have one, but as in, how could the baby possibly live through this?

I know that's crazy.

But when the majority of my fellow Americans have given their stamp of approval to the architects of Abu Ghraib, where can I find hope? How can I be a parent in this world?

Comments

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I'm crying at work, too.

I was nursing my firstborn when I saw the first bombs fall in the first Gulf War. She's a healthy 14-year-old now, asking me how people could possibly vote for Bush.

You can be a parent the same way my mother did, the same way I did, the same way Sojourner Truth did. Shine your light on your child. And organize. *g*

WOW

[samtosha.livejournal.com]

You too eh?

~I was nursing my firstborn when I saw the first bombs fall in the first Gulf War. She's a healthy 14-year-old now, asking me how people could possibly vote for Bush.~

I was actually nursing my third son at the same time. And I am trying to come to grips with how I am going to answer the same questions for my almost 14 year old son, he will be 14 in 16 days. Hang in and hang on.

My son is almost 14

[samtosha.livejournal.com]

and I wonder how I can continue to be a parent in this world. My son is raised in a multiparent household and his mother is bisexual. I am trying to continue to teach my son that this really is an amazing country, some days it is easier than others. Hang in and hang on.

[eeyorerin]

I don't know what to tell you, except to say that I hope you (and all of us) find that hope somewhere, and go on to raise a generation of people who can pick up where we leave off in the great struggle.

[shaktiqueen.livejournal.com]

My joy and my solace was found this morning in my child. As he, I and the puppy walked to his preschool, I just watched him as he played in leaves and asked me to tell him stories and I just soaked him in. I believe in times like this...you have to turn off the outside world and just love those who surround you. As bleak as I feel, I at least feel lucky to live in an overwhelmingly blue state where we also voted for stem cell research and to change a flaw in a dangerous law.

I know total insulation isn't the answer...but sometimes, you just have to close yourself off and regroup.

Best wishes for you and the sprout.

[king-tirian.livejournal.com]

There is still a lot of beauty and preciousness in the world. I've turned off the TV and put on some classical music CDs, and thinking of walking up the block to my local conservatory to stare at flowers for a while.

I don't even want to bother thinking about how our nation and the world has survived worse. At the moment, I'm needing to focus on the panoply of things that can't be taken away from us no matter what.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I think the baby will get through this, as will you.

Find hope in your faith, find hope in the hearts of your friends, find hope in the support of those who have not given their stamp.

Parents like you are the light that leads us through this. If we leave the parenting to the others, where will we end up?

I'm lucky today. I had a plan for what to do if, heaven forfend, things went in a direction that was heartbreaking. If things hadn't gone the way they did this morning, I would have been set free, been able to set my course with a lighter heart. But because I planned, I know what I'm doing to deal with this. I don't know what to offer you, except my hope, and my pledge to help return the course as far away from the Abu Ghraib apologists as possible.

[journeywoman.livejournal.com]

For years I've debated whether to have a child because of the state of the world. But I think it's exactly people like us, who think about these things and who question what sort of future we could give a child, who should be breeding. We can model the kind of lives that we wish everyone would lead, and hope that our children follow in our footsteps.

That said, I do live 20 minutes from Canada, and I'm always prepared to bolt for the border. Especially now that the majority of my fellow Americans have proven what I've long suspected: they're idiots.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

On the train home to Canada yesterday, ten minutes before the Canadian border, the train was stopped by US border guards doing an "exit check". They didn't do more than look at my passport, but they were asking Americans where they came from, where they worked, how long they were going to be in Canada, and looking at their quantities of luggage and return tickets.

If you know they're doing this, you can get around it, if you're trying to escape... I can't believe I just wrote "trying to escape". I don't want to be thinking this way. Tinfoil hats... but... while Canadian law won't protect you, Canada has yet to actually agree to extradite anyone who has applied for asylum, whether they qualify or not. Public feeling would be with you. There isn't room for 49% of the US here, and I only have one spare bed, but...

[journeywoman.livejournal.com]

On the train home to Canada yesterday, ten minutes before the Canadian border, the train was stopped by US border guards doing an "exit check".

Wow. That is very creepy. But perhaps they were looking for someone specific? I cross the border a fair amount to attend dog trials, and have never been stopped by US customs when leaving the country.

I hope the situation never gets so bad that Americans must escape from their own country. I joke about our proximity to the border with my friends in town, and that Bush will trump up some emergency at the end of his 2nd term, impose martial law, and proclaim himself dictator ... but I don't seriously believe it. Most of the time.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

My first child was born when Richard Nixon was President. My second just before Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter.

They both supported John Kerry this year.

You come from a family of progressive people who've been making this country a better place for a long time. Your child will grow up in that tradition, and will carry it on.

[writingortyping.livejournal.com]

What you said.

I was born during the Nixon administration as well, and my father is oppressively conservative in many ways. I passed out literature for the Democrats at the polls on Tuesday. Living in Montgomery County, MD (heavily Democrat) gave me some false hope - I saw so many thumbs-ups and smiles.

I'm teaching two Yoga classes this evening. I'm hoping that the concentrated power of my students' energy will help me to heal, just as I am hoping that my teaching helps them.

I know I'm Canadian, but

[msagara.livejournal.com]

I'm not doing very well.

I'm crying at work.

Me too. And I'm not American. And I'd go into it at length -- I'm just shy of doing so on my LJ -- but I'd be preaching to the choir, or telling them something they already knew and don't need more of right now.

Thoughts of miscarriage keep crossing my mind. Not as in, wanting to have one, but as in, how could the baby possibly live through this?

I know that's crazy.

But when the majority of my fellow Americans have given their stamp of approval to the architects of Abu Ghraib, where can I find hope? How can I be a parent in this world?

It's precisely because you can be a sane and rational person in this world, that you care enough -- have continued to care enough -- to be active, to try to effect change, to try to make things better for people that you can be a parent in this world.

Because it's the future generation in which, well, the future lies. And if the sane, reasonable and responsible people aren't having children, aren't raising them -- then who is? You aren't passing on just genetic material; you're passing on your way of thought and life, the things that occur day to day beneath the surface of words, the sum total of everything that was passed on to you by your family, friends and experiences.

No, that's not all your child will be - but it's the foundation on which they'll build the rest.

How can you not be a parent? Without parents like you, what's left?

Ummm. imho.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

Rivka, when I was thinking about getting pregnant, I had fears for the world and its ways. One of the wisest women I know answered me, "The hordes have always been coming over the hill."

Now, the hordes are coming over the hill again, larger and scarier than before. And, from where I sit, your baby is one of the best responses we have.

You find hope where you find it. You can be a parent in this world as parents have been parents for millennia in horrible circumstances. And you feel as you feel, and I honor that.

[puppytown.livejournal.com]

You need to have more, lots more, brilliant, wonderful, thoughtful and caring children who will grow up and vote and outnumber the insane and irrational.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

Oh, rivka. Wish I was there, wish I was closer, even though you don't know me from Eve.

I know this is going to sound trite, but: I have seen love, unnecesary, unasked for generosity, from people I have shared mostly no more than words with, twice in less than three months. No, they aren't the same people that gave the stamp of approval of which you speak. But they exist just as those approvers do.

There is still hope, there has to be, when you are going to become a mother. And your child will be a light. There is always hope.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

i know, sweetie, i know. *hug*

[saoba.livejournal.com]

But when the majority of my fellow Americans have given their stamp of approval to the architects of Abu Ghraib, where can I find hope? How can I be a parent in this world?

You find hope in the fact it wasn't a landslide, that millions of your fellow citizens did not give that stamp of approval, and that means you are not alone.

You find hope in your circle of friends and family, who will fight like hell to make the world a better place for you and your child, and that means you are not alone.

And come spring you will look down on a beautiful little girl lying in your arms and you will find hope there too.

Love you, sweetie.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

They didn't vote for the architects of Abu Ghraib, darlin'. The voted for the man they think is keeping them safe, who they think is shattering the terrorists' plans at every turn, whose economic plans are going to bear fruit.

I asked myself, while watching Copenhagen, where are the screams of the human spirit, as thousands of people die? Why is it not heard?

And the only answer I have is this: that those who hear it, must teach others to open their ears. It's now our job to awaken the spirit's voice, here in America.

To learn to speak so others will listen; to learn to love, so others will feel; to learn to reach out, so others take our hands; to make them desperate to hear the voice of the spirit, so that they may someday hear it's quiet purr of content.

Mourn now, but don't let it harden your heart... because it is your heart that will help open the heart of our home.

[kate_nepveu]

Exactly. Thank you. I don't believe that half the voters are evil; I believe they're blind, foolish, scared, confused, focused on single issues to the exclusion all else, distrustful of the media . . .

Rivka, I hope you are doing better, or will be doing so. I've been distracted most of the day--papersky and zorinth are here--and I feel considerably more stable for the time away from thinking about it. I hope you find the path out of the grief and despair and back to your life.

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

It's nice to hear that you don't think my husband, my mother, my father, and the rest of my extended family are evil. I guess it's better that they're just stupid?

Do you understand that this attitude is what pushes people away from the left? The assumption that people who voted for Bush didn't *think* about their choice, and that they didn't have as legitamate a reason to vote for him.

My family voted their conscience, and although I don't necessarily agree with all their points it was a close enough call for me in the voting booth that I left it crying.

As for Abu Graib, believe it or not, most of us in the military are as angry as you are. That's not what I signed up to support, and no, that type of torture is *never* justified. If you're interested in a professional's perspective, look up pecunium around the time the story broke.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

As for Abu Graib, believe it or not, most of us in the military are as angry as you are. That's not what I signed up to support, and no, that type of torture is *never* justified.

Tell that to the Bush Administration, who have had their lawyers draft justifications for the use of torture at Guantanamo and elsewhere.

Tell that to the Republicans in Congress who attempted to push through an "extraordinary rendition" bill that would have legalized deportation of suspects - not convicted terrorists, but suspects - to countries like Syria, explicitly for the purpose of having them tortured.

I consider pecunium to be a friend, and I think I've read everything he's written on Abu Ghraib and torture. Much of my thinking on military issues is shaped by discussion with wcg, a retired Marine Corps Master Sargeant and military analyst. And I know who both of them voted for.

If you're going to come in here and lecture my friends about making assumptions, I'll thank you not to assume that you're dealing with people who are reflexively anti-military.

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

**If you're going to come in here and lecture my friends about making assumptions, I'll thank you not to assume that you're dealing with people who are reflexively anti-military.**

I'll apologize for the assumption.

Sadly, I do feel that 90% of the left *is* anti-military, and makes no bones about it. It's not a new phenomenon.

Rudyard Kipling summed it up better than I ever will..."Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool, you bet that Tommy sees."

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I oppose this continuing administration because of my concern and fondness for my friends who are engaged in military service.

That's right, I said my friends. My thoughtful friends who signed up to protect their country and the constitution it stands for. They didn't sign up with the intent of going to fight a pre-emptive war or to torture people. It shows them no honor and no friendship to insist that this thing they are being asked to do is the right thing.

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

**It shows them no honor and no friendship to insist that this thing they are being asked to do is the right thing.**

And it does them no honor and no friendship to either tell them that the war they're being asked to fight is the "wrong thing", usually followed by "illegal and immoral", as I've been told while waiting in the grocery store line, either.

I've been told by my pagan, more liberal friends that they support me, but gee they wish that I wasn't deploying to support the war started by this evil administration. By those lights, *I'm* evil, if I deploy, because I'm perpetuating evil by doing the works of an evil entity. How's that supporting me? I'm leaving my family, my husband, my schooling, my *life* for an evil cause? I'm not sure that I can agree with that.

Granted, YMMV.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Does it do more honor to pretend that I believe that the thing they are asked to do is the right thing?

Why?

Are your friends telling you you're evil, or are you jumping to that conclusion?

I believe that you are going because you promised to go where you were asked to go. I don't believe that you should have been asked to go there.

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

**Are your friends telling you you're evil, or are you jumping to that conclusion?**

There's no jumping. From my limited understanding, Orthodoxy is very clear on evil, and the actions of the Evil One.

If I agree that this administration is evil, then following the orders dictated by the administration is evil. Doing actions in the service of an evil entity makes those actions evil. No matter the motivation behind them, those actions are still evil.

And being told that I'm perpetuating evil is something I take very seriously. I will not have the chance to take Communion for the better part of 18 months. If my actions are evil, then if something happens to me, I will be judged as a unreedeemed sinner. (I'd really rather not get into Christianity being a horrible religion, if no one minds. I'm incredibly happy as an Orthodox Christian, and will be talking to my priest before deploying.)

**I believe that you are going because you promised to go where you were asked to go. I don't believe that you should have been asked to go there.**

As of right now, to me, it's a moot point. We need to quit hashing over what's done, and figure out how to accomplish what we promised the Iraqis. That's all.

I didn't agree with this war, but I refuse to slap my husband's face by telling him that he was wrong to do what he did. At this point, I know too many people who've deployed, and too many that have died to blanket the whole war with "wrong".

I doubt that I'm making sense with what I'm trying to say.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry. I'm reading what you're saying as, "because I have to do what I have to do, I cannot examine too closely, despite the fact that it's important to me because I believe truly in the peril to my immortal soul".

Are your individual actions evil? Not so far as I know. Do I believe some measure of the things this current administration is doing are evil? Yes, I do. They may not be evil in your worldview. I don't know.

I believe Vietnam was wrong. John Kerry has testified that he saw things there that were wrong. That does not lead me to believe that the military or soldiers individually are evil.

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

**I'm sorry. I'm reading what you're saying as, "because I have to do what I have to do, I cannot examine too closely, despite the fact that it's important to me because I believe truly in the peril to my immortal soul".**

Don't be sorry. I'm relatively ignorant, and don't communicate terribly well, despite being frighteningly intelligent.

I have to do what I've agreed to. If I don't, then I break the oaths I made, and integrity is something I've become an absolute fanatic about recently.

I will look at what I'm being asked to do, but if my word, my integrity, is to mean *anything*, then I have to honor the oaths I've sworn, to include supporting my CinC, as well as the officers appointed over me, unless and until I am given an order that directly contradicts the Laws of Land Warfare, and the UCMJ.

One of the things that came up during the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal was that we, in uniform, are not allowed to voice criticism of the CinC, so I'm also in a bit of a bind there. There is one soldier who is being brought up on charges, so I'm wary of blabbing too much. (Geez, that sounds like such a supah-seekrit squirrel copout, but it's not. I think ginmar's mentioned it.)

Again, I will not agree that this administration is evil. Wrong, yes, and since they're all human, sinners and lowly ones, but I don't think that they're truly evil. Their worldview is so radically different from mine that I don't understand it, but I would hesitate to call it evil. Is the Evil One rejoicing over the dissent and discord the current administration is sowing? Oh you bet!

Ah! I'm so not quailified to answer these questions, and I won't have time to bring them up to my spiritual father or my Godmama before I have to leave for drill. Please, don't take *anything* that I'm saying as the Orthodox interpretation, please?

**I believe Vietnam was wrong. John Kerry has testified that he saw things there that were wrong. That does not lead me to believe that the military or soldiers individually are evil.**

No, they're not.

However, if this war *is* evil, then, they're evildoers. Nothing says that you have to be evil through and through to do evil acts. One of the most evil acts is to do *nothing* in the face of what you perceive as evil. So, it's kind of an odd place to stand, where I am.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Again, I will not agree that this administration is evil. Wrong, yes, and since they're all human, sinners and lowly ones, but I don't think that they're truly evil. Their worldview is so radically different from mine that I don't understand it, but I would hesitate to call it evil. Is the Evil One rejoicing over the dissent and discord the current administration is sowing? Oh you bet!

Ah! I'm so not quailified to answer these questions, and I won't have time to bring them up to my spiritual father or my Godmama before I have to leave for drill. Please, don't take *anything* that I'm saying as the Orthodox interpretation, please?

I have been assuming that you are speaking only for yourself. Maybe now is a good time to ask you what your definition of evil is. Or maybe I should first ask rivka if she minds our continuing this discussion here.

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

**I have been assuming that you are speaking only for yourself. Maybe now is a good time to ask you what your definition of evil is. Or maybe I should first ask rivka if she minds our continuing this discussion here.**

Part of what shapes my veiw of evil is my religion.

Let me know if we need to move this. I may muse on this in my journal.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Since this has become exclusively a dialogue, why don't y'all take it elsewhere.

Sure.

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

Sorry to have barged into your LJ. Followed you here from another journal.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

*I'm* evil, if I deploy, because I'm perpetuating evil by doing the works of an evil entity.

No. Really, it just does not work that way. As long as you obey the lawful orders of those appointed over you, and look out for your own troops, and do the best job you can, then irrespective of the motivations of those who sent you into harm's way, you are not doing evil.

The civilians have a civic duty to maintain discourse about any protracted military actions. They're doing a very good job of it this time around. Much better than they did in Vietnam.

If you want to talk more about this, drop me a note. wcg AT livejournal DOT com

[ckd]

Oh, rivka, hold to the strength in your heart.

First, what msagara said about parenting. "All true wealth is biological." We need the likes of you.

But even more so, recognize the fear, without letting it stop you from being who you are.

My mother was born in 1942, when there was incredible darkness and struggle in the world; her father was training pilots to fly, and many of his students didn't live to see her third birthday. My father and his brother have a group photo of their Army helicopter flight school class, in 1968; most of the names at the bottom of that photo are also carved in black stone in Washington, DC. I was born in 1970, and on the day I was born a young man from Dorchester was killed in action in Viet Nam, along with 17 other American servicemen. My niece was born in 2003 while her father listened over a mobile phone from Iraq.

Hard times, but we came through them all. At least unlike 1972, it's more than just Massachusetts that's said no to the incumbent. Don't give up hope.

[dlacey.livejournal.com]

I'm not doing to well today either. I'm so sorry you're feeling like this.

You can find hope because there are people like you in the world. Wonderful caring people who are a force for good.

It's what keeps me going anyway. Thank you.

[aloha-moira.livejournal.com]

let's face it, at times like these our only hope is to invent a time machine, go back to the mid-1800s and insist that Lincoln let the South go.

OR, just keep on keeping on, and be comforted by the knowledge that in the end, though it is difficult and at times hard to believe, progressivism always wins. If all of us do our best to do what is right, there is no doubt that the world your baby passes on to her children will be better than the one she inherited from us. Thank God.

[wiredferret.livejournal.com]

I thought that on 9/11, when we were just starting to try for a baby.
I think about it all the time, what kind of world my children will have to deal with.

And then I think about what my mother said: "We can only do what we can do. One of the things I do is raise children to consider long-term problems."

In the end, I think it will work out. The next few years will be grim, but hopefully there is enough discontent to make the senate elections interesting. We've been through grim before, as a country. This is not Reconstruction. This is not the great depression. This is some venial people and a lot of earnest people who are doing what they think is best.

[edschweppe.livejournal.com]

Where can you find hope, you ask? Eleven years ago, I saw a United Way poster that really struck a chord for me:

where do we go from here?
humanity is being ravaged by a disease
doctors are powerless against it
pollution is everywhere
men and women die everywhere in senseless ethnic conflicts
homelessness is rampant
people can't read
children are being killed in the streets
the year is 1350
it was the beginning of the Renaissance
they made it
so will we

It won't be easy, and it won't always be fun. But you are a wonderful person, with a wonderful husband and wonderful friends, and you are going to be a wonderful parent, and hope is growing inside you even as I type this. Do not give up on hope.

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

As others have said, this is exactly why we are having children. We both work at our jobs to make the world a better place, in its own small ways, in our own corner. And we will raise our children to do the same, whether in their professional lives, their personal lives, or some other aspect.

This is why.

And this is why we will continue to fight. As will our children - we will raise little spitfires who will be outraged by the politico-messes of their day, and call home to blame us for screwing up the world. :) And we've got to look forward to that day.

[kiya]

The recent writings of my friend ibnfirnas may be a comfort to you; I asked for a pep talk last night.

And I say to you what I said to Ibn:

Because all men are brothers, where ever men may be,
One union shall unite us, forever proud and free.
No tyrant shall defeat us, no nation strike us down
All men who toil shall greet us, the whole wide world around.

My brothers are all others, forever hand in hand
Where chimes the bell of freedom, there is my native land.
My brothers' fears are my fears, yellow, white or brown.
My brothers' tears are my tears, the whole wide world around.

You wanna end the war and stuff, you gotta sing loud.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Union songs are good about now, huh?

There's one we sing at church:

Step by step, the longest march can be won, can be won
Many stones can make an arch, singly none, singly none
And with union, what we will
Can be accomplished still
Many drops can turn a mill, singly none, singly none.

[ailbhe]

I was born in Ireland in 1978. It wasn't a good place to be. But as I grew up, I watched them release Mandela, knock down the Berlin wall - I still remember seeing a punk heave a grannie over the top of it, I don't know which direction she was going but she kissed him - and I was listening to the news when they violated the 1996 IRA ceasefire agreement. I voted Yes to the Good Friday Agreement - the first referendum in which I was eligible to vote. I approved of what Clinton did for Ireland; I had no idea what he was doing for or to America. I cried when I read of the Omagh bombing in August 1998 - a bombing that targeted children. When I was 14, male homosexuality was decriminalised and female homosexuality was protected by the same laws of consent that covered heterosexuality and male homosexuality (this is clumsy; the laws are about acts, not people). Not long ago, I held my baby and cried and cried as I watched children fleeing from the school in Beslan.

Today I took my baby swimming. She had a bad morning - she's teething, and when I went in to her she was standing holding onto the sides of her cot and screaming. I gaveher pain relief and breastmilk and cuddles and she had an hour nap before we went out. While we were swimming, she learned to sit on the side and jump off into my arms; she tried to swim towards a boy who had a lovely red and yellow ball; she splished and splashed and afterwards we had a shower.

She will live through terrible, terrible world events - she already has. But someday, maybe she'll take a baby swimming, too.

A.
Now crying myself. Perhaps it's the chlorine.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

Now crying myself. Perhaps it's the chlorine.

No. This made me cry, too.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Simple. Your child may help change that. Just as you, with your love and commitment, are slowly changing the world.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

*big big gentle hugs* offered