Creating Beauty: My Travels Through Idaho And Utah -
Insider American
27 September 2010
By Jane StillwaterWhile traveling across South Dakota and Wyoming during
the past week, I've become really upset by the way
that ranchers and settlers in the 19th-century Old
West basically used genocide to steal Native-American
land. "Get out of our way, we're not going to share
and if you complain we will kill you," seemed to be
the new guys' approach to real estate acquisition --
and seeing the results of this genocidal land-grab up
close has pretty much pissed me off.
But when I went to the National Oregon/California
Trail Center in Montpelier, Idaho, the other side of
the picture was pointed out to me. Those early
pioneers were also heroes in their own way. All the
tremendous hardships that they stoically endured in
order to acquire a piece of land of their own in The
West were scary, brutal and impressive. How many
Americans today could or would be able to walk
approximately 2,000 miles through hostile mountains,
prairies and deserts in order to find a better life
for their children? Not many.
The Native-Americans of the Old West were noble. But
after seeing those real-to-life exhibits at
Montpelier, I realized that the Euro-American settlers
had been noble too, and that the immoral injustices
committed by settlers back then didn't lie solely upon
their shoulders, but rather were the result of a
larger system of human values that was operational at
that time (and still is in operation) -- a system that
seems to deliberately create misery and poverty and
then exploit it.
"But, Jane," you might say, "that sounds a bit like
you are advocating Socialism." Sure, why not? I've got
nothing against Socialism. It works really well in
Sweden.
Something else that has grabbed my attention out here
in Wyoming and Idaho is that there are a whole bunch
of public service announcements on television at
night, warning teenagers against the use of
methamphetamines. Warning teenagers against meth? Meth
is a big problem out here? "Yes".
One ad shows a middle-class couple huddled in fear
inside of their home while some miscreant violently
tries to break down their front door. Then the camera
pans to the outside of the home and shows us that the
dangerous home-invader is none other than their own
freaking SON, now a meth-head, slamming into their
door with his shoulder and screaming, "Let me in! I'm
going to kill you!"
That ad made me VERY glad that I live in California --
where they only use relatively harmless drugs like
Prozac, bourbon and pot.
Next I went to Salt Lake City and attended a rehearsal
of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. The beauty of the
sound of its 350 voices was so overwhelming that I was
almost in tears.
I left the tabernacle last night completely convinced
that the very most important thing that a person can
do while alive in this world is to create beauty too.
When I get back home, that's just what I'm going to do
-- create beauty. I'm not sure how I'm going to do it,
being almost tone-deaf -- but I'm surely going to try,
even if it just means that me and my granddaughter
Mena get out some blank paper and a big box of
crayons.
PS: And speaking of settlers, here's journalist David
Pratt's latest column from the Glasgow Sunday Herald
-- entitled "Diplomacy must keep the Gates of Hell
firmly closed".
Remember back in the day, when we were told that the
USSR was a huge scary nuclear threat? Well, we've got
some new scary nuclear bogymen now -- and now they are
all in the Middle East. How did that change happen so
fast?
Here's Pratt's article, FYI:
One of the most chilling remarks I ever heard came
from an Israeli Defence Force spokesman during the
Gulf War of 1991. It took place at a press conference
in the Tel Aviv Hilton Hotel following a few nights of
Iraqi Scud missile attacks on Israeli cities.
A reporter posed the question as to what Israel’s
response might be if one of Saddam’s missiles
contained, say, sarin or some other chemical or
biological agent.
“We would turn Baghdad into a sheet of glass,” came
the spokesman’s immediate reply. It was a scary
moment. No conferring, no hesitation, just an implied
nuclear strike. At the time, he left no-one in any
doubt that he meant what he said. But, then, when it
comes to its own security, Israel usually means what
is says. Whatever your take on the rights and wrongs
of the Israelis’ policy in the Middle East, it’s worth
remembering that had they not bombed Iraq’s nuclear
reactor in Osirak in 1981, the chances are Saddam
Hussein’s regime would, indeed, have had weapons of
mass destruction by the time the US and Britain went
to war there in 2003.
Three years ago, Israel once again made it clear that
it was not prepared to live with the chance that a
neighbouring country would acquire a nuclear weapons
capability to match the one the Jewish state itself
has always strenuously denied possessing. On that
occasion, it wiped out a North Korean-built reactor in
Syria. The military operation, many said, had all the
hallmarks of a dress rehearsal for the one it would
inflict on Iran, should its patience run out with
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s current determination
to face down international efforts aimed at having him
rein in his country’s nuclear ambitions.
Now, I accept there are those who would bitterly
contest Israel’s right to decide which countries
should or shouldn’t be allowed to have a nuclear
arsenal of their own. It’s a fair enough point. But,
invariably, it’s one usually made by those who don’t
have to live in Israel, or have little grasp of the
stark security threat posed by certain extremist
states that sit cheek-by-jowl with their Jewish
counterpart.
Already, I can hear howls of disapproval from certain
quarters over that last observation. And I take the
point that when it comes to extremist states, Israel
itself at times doesn’t do a bad job of fitting the
bill. There is no question that Israel has its own
extremist tendencies. As regular readers of this
column will know, I have never been an apologist for
the military excesses of the Israeli government or the
resulting human rights abuses suffered by ordinary
Palestinians, Lebanese and others because of its
policies. But before resorting to political type, as
so many of us do when faced with the question of
Israel’s behaviour in the region, let’s just pause for
a moment and ask ourselves this question. How would
you react to the possibility that a sworn enemy next
door, such as Iran, hell-bent on the destruction of
your country, was acquiring the means to do just that?
Indeed, how many of us can honestly say that even
here, far from Israel, we feel comfortable with the
idea of Mr Ahmadinejad – or, indeed, anyone else –
having his finger on the nuclear button? I’m no more
an apologist for Israel than I am for Tony Blair, but
the former PM was right to flag up the dangers of a
nuclear Iran when interviewed recently on television
during the launch of his political memoirs.
Where, of course, I would differ with Mr Blair’s take
is on how the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran should be
dealt with. The time has not yet come for the sort of
sabre-rattling or all-out military intervention Mr
Blair advocated should Iran refuse to kowtow.
Realising though that perhaps they’re living on
borrowed time as patience rapidly runs out in Israel,
the international community of late has dramatically
increased its diplomatic pressure on Tehran.
On Wednesday, the five permanent members of the UN
Security Council and Germany offered the Iranians
another chance to enter negotiations, while
reiterating that it remained essential for the Islamic
state to prove its programme is peaceful. The same
day, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev issued a decree
banning all sales of S-300 anti-aircraft missile
systems to Iran. Under US and Israeli pressure, it was
something of a U-turn for Moscow, having signed a 2007
contract to sell the sophisticated systems that could
boost Iran’s ability to defend against air strikes.
Then, yesterday, it was the turn of UK Foreign
Secretary William Hague to hold his first face-to-face
meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr
Mottaki, taking him to task about his country’s
nuclear intentions and human rights record. While Mr
Hague stressed the UK didn’t want to be an enemy of
Tehran, he emphasised the need for the regime to
engage with the international community. And all of
this, of course, is how it should be. The problem is
that, in Washington, and certainly in Jerusalem, there
are those less interested in diplomatic solutions than
they are in unleashing the dogs of war.
Only last month John Bolton – yes, the same neo-con
and former US ambassador to the United Nations who
pushed so hard for a war in Iraq – stressed that
Israel must launch a military attack against Iran
“within days.” Echoing Mr Bolton, Jeffrey Goldberg, a
reporter who often covers the Middle East, wrote in
The Atlantic magazine, that interviews he conducted
with 40 “Israeli decision-makers” and US officials
convinced him that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu was likely to order a military strike
against Iran next spring if international diplomatic
efforts failed and the US didn’t act first. Earlier
this week, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak warned
Barack Obama that history will judge his presidency
largely on whether or not Iran went nuclear on his
watch. A nuclear Iran, said Mr Barak, will start an
arms race among several members of the Middle Eastern
community and give a “tailwind to global jihad”.
With political hawks such as these circling and their
anger mounting over what they see as the international
community’s foot-dragging and Iran’s defiance, there
is the clear and present danger that voices of reason
and diplomacy might once again be drowned out.
Back in 2003, around the time when everyone knew that
the Bush administration had already decided to invade
Iraq, Arab League secretary-general Amr Moussa warned
that such a move would “open the gates of hell in the
Middle East”. Should Israel, the US or anyone else
choose military intervention as a means of bringing
Iran to heel, those gates will once gain be thrown
wide. And should such a doomsday scenario unfold, it’s
hard to imagine indeed how they could ever again be
closed.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/
guest-commentary/diplomacy-must-
keep-the-gates-of-hell-firmly-closed-1.1057159
PPS: Here's my latest FaceBook page posting from Utah:
?"Never travel to a foreign country without gel," says
my daughter Ashley. And that applies to domestic
travel too. I'm leaving Salt Lake City for Bryce
today. Travel is broadening -- but hard on one's
knees. And here's a photo from the main street of
Afton, Wyoming, where "The Last Air Bender" is the
only show in town.
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