memorial day - VIDEO

This is one of the earliest video pieces I put together.
I don't resurrect it very often but considering that this is the first Memorial Day since the end of that Iraq thing and the rest of us having another 4,000 or so brave American souls to think about while we enjoy a cold beverage at the barbeque this afternoon, I thought it might be appropriate
to run it once again.

War is wrong.

But apparently war is profitable, for at least 1% of the population. And no matter what our current collection of pigheaded politicians have to say about spreading freedom and democracy, we don't fight wars for mother and country anymore, we fight for profit.
That's the thing that makes modern war unforgivable.

On our side alone, 4,000 young people will never again feel the warm sun on their faces; will never again catch a ball game, read a good book, see their children grow up or grow old themselves beside the love of their lives. And they surely won't be with us at the barbeque this afternoon.
Killing someone takes away everything they have and everything they were ever going to have.

War is wrong. War for profit is unforgivable.

memorial day, 2010 - VIDEO

This video montage was the very first I produced. I've done several since but I've got a real soft-spot for this one. It's three years old today. I noticed as I was just mixing it down for posting that there are no titles or scrolling credits. That might be because, being the first, I hadn't yet learned how to get them from the software, but that wouldn't be entirely true. Three years ago, Mr. Bush's war wasn't going well and about that time, we were beginning to hear daily body counts from Iraq. For me and a lot of other Americans, it was starting to smell like VietNam all over again.

I chose not to include titles and credits because, as much as I learned and loved it while producing the piece, the energy I was investing wasn't about me. This piece was, and is, my quiet tribute to all those who have laid it down in the past and all those who are trying hard not to lay it down today, fighting wars for the lies they've been told by American governments, past and present.

I wondered, during or country's 234 years, how many brave American's "sacrifices" are we remembering. . .
According to the U.S. Military Institute: 1,315,998
Total battle deaths in all of America's wars.
(sounds like an awfully low number)


click arrow to start video. run time, 4:21

Below is a short list of the America's wars, dating back to the beginning of things. At the end of the list, I've included a link to an almost hour long documentary, "ReThink Afghanistan".
You may be interested to find out what's really happening on the ground there, right now.
1700s
Revolutionary War
Northwest Indian War
1800s
First Barbary War
War of 1812
Second Barbary War
Black Hawk War
Mexican-American War
American Civil War
Spanish-American War
Philippine-American War
1900s
World War I
World War II
- European Campaign
- African Campaign
- Pacific Campaign
Cold War
- Korean Conflict
- Vietnam Conflict
- Operation Power Pack
- Operation Urgent Fury
- Operation Just Cause
Gulf War
- Operation Desert Storm
- Operation Desert Shield
Yugoslav Wars
- Kosovo War
- Bosnian War
2000s
Global War on Terror
- Operation Enduring Freedom, Afghanistan
- Operation Enduring Freedom, Horn of Africa
- Operation Enduring Freedom, Philippines
- Operation Iraqi Freedom

Please click this link to watch,
RETHINK AFGHANISTAN
It is worth your time.

memorial day - VIDEO

General Order 11 (Sec. 1) - Grand Army of the Republic
"The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land. In this observance no form or ceremony is prescribed, but Posts and comrades will, in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit."

Formerly known as "Decoration Day", the day was originally set aside to honor fallen Union soldiers of the American Civil War. Shortly after the end of that war, freed slaves disinterred the remains of Union soldiers from a mass grave at the site of a Confederate prison camp in Charleston, South Carolina . They properly re-buried the soldiers in individual graves, built a fence around them and declared the site an official Union Graveyard. They returned to the site on May 30, 1868 together with surviving Union soldiers to decorate the graves with flowers and celebrate with patriotic singing and a picnic. After WWI, Decoration Day was expanded to honor the fallen of all American wars. Though the alternative name,"Memorial Day" was first floated in the late 1800s it didn't become common until after WWII and later, in 1967, it was made official by Federal Law.

Although there is no nationally prescribed ceremony to observe Memorial Day, as it states in the General Order above, ". . .Posts and comrades will, in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.", towns and cities across the country have developed their own ways of paying respect. Here again is a bit of Key West's Memorial Day observance at the U.S.S Maine site in our historic cemetery.

memorial day - VIDEO

"Memorial Day" started out, way back in 1866, as "Decoration Day", to honor Union soldiers who fought in the American Civil War. It seems that the more genteel Confederate states had been honoring their own deceased defenders for years and, not to ever be outdone, the Federal government in Washington set aside a day for their dutiful dead as well.
Now don't read me wrong, I would never and have never disrespected anyone's offering the ultimate sacrifice of their own life, whether or not I agree with the politics that forced them into that dificult position of offering it. As it turned out, it wasn't in my karmic cards to serve in the military, the lottery for Viet Nam expired a few days before they got to my number. But, for a handful of friends from high school who didn't live to have grandchildren and for the dozen friends I have now whose survival of that time is severely maimed by government indifference, I have nothing but respect.
Out of respect, I stopped by the "Historic" Key West Cemetery to catch a bit of the Memorial Day services there. The cemetery hosts a monument and sectioned off resting place for the crewmen of the USS Maine that exploded and sank off the coast of Cuba on Feb. 15, 1898. That event justified the American government's declaration of the Spanish-American War.
I got to thinking, it's the same model. . .
The sinking of the Maine was 1898's "9-11". It doesn't matter who did what or why, it was a great pretext for imperialist war. Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst were the Rupert Murdoch of the day and were beating the battle drums for all they were worth. Then the next thing you know, Cuba and the Philippines are American territories, William McKinley takes a bullet and Teddy Roosevelt is digging a canal though Panama and masturbating the "Great White Fleet" for all the world to see.
It's the same stuff on a different day, 110 years later. . .
We honor the sacrifice of our fallen brothers and sisters but never remind ourselves that each war, was supposed to have been the last war.