I bought these tennis shoes a few years ago to play with a friend. They were the cheapest that felt halfway decent. I figured the low price was because they were so plain, white, and uncool. Plain white tennis shoes have gone the way of the wooden racket. I don’t have a 20th century, colonial-cotton, hip, tennis ensemble but I got them anyway.
I started using them regularly when I joined the Pleasant Hill Tennis Club about eight months ago. It sounds fancy but it’s actually just six outdoor tennis courts at the Pleasant Hill Middle School that our club uses for mixers and adult league competition on Saturdays. For sixty bucks a year it’s a good deal and I can go play tennis every Saturday morning.
I’ve been pondering spiffing the shoes up for a while and decided to make peace signs on the tops. President Biden’s State of the Union speech helped to put a little fire under this project. I thought his speech was very good and I liked that he was directly confronting the Republican ideology of revenge and fear adopted by the former president. I particularly like that he spelled out a return to higher taxes for the very wealthy.
His powerful words that described Putin’s assault on freedom and democracy as a world threat had me rethinking my stance on the war in Ukraine. At the same time I kept thinking and keep thinking to myself there has to be another way. I know there is.
There is another way for Ukraine and Russia. There is another way for Israel and Palestine. There is another way for the countless wars and disputes on every continent of our planet.
Do I know the way? No.
We’ve all heard the slogan, “War is a lack of imagination” and I know with all my heart that this is true.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono said, “War is over if you want it,” and I imagine almost everyone, even the most optimistic heard this most-Christian-of-Christmas-songs created by non-Christians and at some point said to themselves yeah, that’s easy to say, John and Yoko, but doing it is another matter.
Here again, I have to agree…except, not firing a gun, not firing a mortar, not pushing a button to drop a bomb from a remote-controlled drone is a simple act. It only requires a difficult decision and I’m not going to act like I know how a person can make it.
Is it mere coincidence that two WW2 movies are up for best picture? I saw Oppenheimer. I’ve not seen The Zone of Interest.
Oppenheimer deals with the making of the atomic bombs that decimated two Japanese cities killing an estimated 200,000 people. The moral dilemma of making this weapon and then using it is addressed but not the focus of the movie. It does, however, succeed in making us all a bit more culpable by showing the thousands of individuals who were necessary to make this package to deliver mass death.
The Zone of Interest is about the family of a Nazi administer of Auschwitz. They lived privileged lives right next to the murder factory, only separated by a wall. The movie trailer makes is look like a true-life horror story. The personnel of Auschwitz killed 1.1 million people.
It seems impossible to rationalize what was being done at Auschwitz and any of the other slaughter assembly lines created by Germans. It seems like some sort of self-hypnosis would be required—something beyond what we think of as the rational mind. I imagine The Zone of Interest attempts to show that. I want to see it.
Is it a coincidence that “War is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko” is nominated for best Animated Short?
In the United States we managed to rationalize our decision to annihilate all those people in Japan— they were the aggressors, the bombs put a swift end to a war that would have taken more lives, remember Pearl Harbor, etc.
It’s easy to rationalize continuing to arm the Ukrainians. This is mostly between warriors and most of the civilians killed are Ukrainians. The belief that Putin won’t stop just with Ukraine is espoused by Biden. The number of animals killed, the decimation to wilderness, the poisoning of land and water, the loss of infrastructure and untold human labor hours laid to waste don’t get that much air time.
As for the soldiers, how often do we see their stories? Who are they? What forces made them choose to be there? Did they choose? Were there other options?
In the early sixties my parents lived in an apartment in New Orleans next to a very depressed man who later killed himself. He’d been an airman on one of the planes that dropped one of the atomic bombs.
When are we going to stop treating Peace like something cute to do when it’s convenient? When will we start treating it with the full force of our imaginations? When will our majority Christian nation start acting Christian and actually invite this Christian god to truly bless America and bless the whole wide world with it?
I’ll end up voting for Biden simply because: though the Trump camp is against funding the war in Ukraine (I don’t know their stance on Israel), I know that Trump’s leaders are not opposed to war. I know they will gladly ravage innocents.
Biden isn’t our savior. He is just a fire stop to put out the flames and give us time—which we could start today—to use our imagination.
I invite you to convince me to not vote for Biden or tell me how Biden can be persuaded to change his stance on war. How could these wars be ended?
Imagination idea #1—planeloads of leaflets offering relocation, free education/ trade school training, citizenship and an equal or greater salary for a year to any soldier who wants to stop fighting and cross “enemy lines”.
Spotty West Goes East 