(no subject)

[zana16]

I just got back from the quirky little theatre by the Sorbonne, where I saw The Trials of Henry Kissinger.
Frankly, I'm tired of being ashamed of my country. I do my part, I vote, I put my name on petitions, I go to protests. I don't see anything change, but I still do it. I wish I could just give up, give in, and believe that some people are just evil and that it's not my problem.
But I can't. I believe that everyone has both good and evil in them. And of anybody, after what's happened in my life, I believe I have the right to say that I have known what other people would call evil men, and I still believe they have humanity in them. My family has been torn apart, my brother has committed crimes I don't like to think about, my stepmother has become the sort of crazy they don't lock you up for, and I broke a woman's heart trying not to hurt her.
It's hard to see the humanity in the people who haunt your nightmares, but my nightmares would be worse if I didn't.
So I still believe that every person is essentially good, deep down. I've stopped trying to convince other people that I'm right. It's like a religion, really. You can argue all day, bring up "proofs" and otherwise, but in the end it just comes down to something you believe or not. When I was younger I would read Dr. Billy Graham every day cause it was right there on the comics page along with Dear Abby and I was always curious as to how Christians would answer certain questions. And every day, he would say "it's so simple, all you have to do is give yourself to Jesus" and since not having anything to believe in except my ideals was frustrating, I thought "why not?" and I tried. Really, I tried. And I couldn't. So I am much more accepting of those who can't accept my own ideals. Perhaps they just can't.

I can remember, five years ago in a small hotelroom in Galicia in northern Spain with a bunch of other exchange students, talking politics and morality. Adam said he'd die for the President cause the President could do more with his life than Adam could. Alex asked me if I'd take a bullet for the President and I said sure, "Not because he's the President but because he's a human being, and to me, other peoples' lives come before mine."
I don't know if I would take a bullet for the current President. I don't happen to like this one as I did the previous. In fact, he's up there in my top three list of people I would hate if I let myself hate anyone: the man who murdered my sister so he could hock her jewelry for fifty bucks of crack; the man who raped me; and dear old cousin George W. I also am happier with my life and less willing to give it to anything less than a good cause. I'm no longer an adolescent, and I've learned that martyrdom is the easy way to be noble, but that it's much more difficult to go on living.

So. Yes. That is my reflection for the day. Men who play at war and diplomacy for their own interests should be left, naked and penniless, in the war zones, without papers and not allowed to come back.