{"id":25566,"date":"2010-05-31T15:33:35","date_gmt":"2010-05-31T20:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=25566"},"modified":"2010-05-31T15:39:10","modified_gmt":"2010-05-31T20:39:10","slug":"the-spoils-of-war-and-the-spoiled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/the-spoils-of-war-and-the-spoiled\/","title":{"rendered":"The Spoils of War and the Spoiled"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"When<\/a>
Witnessing: when 2nd Lt. James Cathey's body arrived at the Reno Airport, Marines climbed into the cargo hold of the plane and draped the flag over his casket as passengers watched the family gather on the tarmac. Todd Heisler, The Rocky Mountain News<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“To the victors go the spoils,” is how the old saying goes. The winners get the “goods or property seized from a victim after a conflict, especially after a military victory.”<\/p>\n

Indeed.<\/p>\n

The spoils of America’s wars since the First Persian Gulf War began in 1990 have mainly been foreign oil; it’s the underlying thrust between our two current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The big oil corporations and government have tried to put a much more genteel face on all of it: chasing down terrorists and spreading democracy. Many people knew the real motive from the beginning; many more have finally come to the understanding.<\/p>\n

For a number of years we were banned from seeing the signs of something really “spoiled” in these wars: the lives of men and women who died fighting in them. To spoil also means “to damage irreparably; ruin.” You can’t get much more “irreparable” than dead, and to stem potential outrage of this ruin, the American government banned the press (and therefore all of us) from witnessing the return of flag-draped caskets holding fallen soldiers, flown in under cover of darkness. That ban was finally lifted a while ago. We finally have a chance to see images of one cost of these wars. We have a chance to see, and we have a chance to act.<\/p>\n

This Memorial Day, the holiday holds even more poignancy as we watch the Gulf of Mexico become a giant marine grave for countless forms of sea life. The sticky red crude is washing up on our shores, spoiling them to be sure. Too much oil is spilling; too much blood has been shed by too many people due to the pursuit of that oil. Too much red is mixing in the blue; we could all stand to bring a little more white (light) into the equation.<\/p>\n

We’ve been a little spoiled in our lifestyles, to be sure, and I am no exception. The oil company executives have been spoiled beyond belief, though their run of childish tyranny may be starting to wane. The shift will not come easily, and it won’t happen all at once; it won’t happen today. We can take today to stand witness to the image of the Gulf, the image of the flag-draped casket, the images of lives that have been, including our own. Today we allow for a little stillness to honor memory, for tomorrow we must be fully in the present so that we may have a future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“To the victors go the spoils,” is how the old saying goes. The winners get the “goods or property seized from a victim after a conflict, especially after a military victory.” Indeed. The spoils of America’s wars since the First Persian Gulf War began in 1990 have mainly been foreign oil; it’s the underlying thrust … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":191,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25566"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/191"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25566\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}