Sadly, women have been pretty much second class citizens until just the past couple of decades and even now, it’s more like the 1800s for them–sometimes they get hazed (of course, so do men) and sometimes, they get raped (almost as frighteningly, so do men). And like the civilian world, in the military, rape often goes unreported–of course, as I said, it’s more like the 1800s for rape victims.

It’s MUCH harder to report a rape if you actually like the military. Just Google "Suzanne Swift" if you don’t believe me. She reported being raped by a superior and eventually ended up with him in charge of her. Check out SuzanneSwift.org to read her story.

You can also check out the DemocracyNow.org story that first informed me of the website http://StopMilitaryRape.org/ by going here: http://www.democracynow.org/…n_soldiers

That DN article talks about a conference that took place on International Women’s Day, back in March of this year, that featured military women talking about rape and sexual abuse they’ve experienced or witnessed. Listening to their stories in the audio version of the article was pretty much gut-wrenching (here’s the MP3 of the episode if you’ve got a strong stomach: http://www.archive.org/…1_64kb.mp3 ).

So, if you know anyone who is dealing with rape, please help them get help. If you know anyone who is in the military dealing with rape, point them to http://stopmilitaryrape.org/

Rape, in the military or out, isn’t about sex, or even lust. It’s about power and control. The people who commit such acts should not get away with it and the people who fall victim need all the help they can get to move on with their lives.
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I definitely feel like we’re all suffering from that curse–you know the one I mean. The one that says "may you live in interesting times."

I feel like we’re living in an important part of history. Bigger than Vietnam, bigger than Korea and approaching the level of importance of WWII. In fact, I’d almost say it’s identical to the time before WWII.

Labor is cheap and our economy is weak (though I suppose it was back on track after the depression in the immediate years before WWII) and we’re looking at war in "multiple theaters." "Multiple theater war" is just a Web 2.0-style phrase that describes a World War.

America, the Earth’s last super-power has combat operations in Afhganistan and Iraq. We seem to have our sights set on Iran. Turkey has invaded northern Iraq as you can see from the above screencap from Google News (get updates here: http://news.google.com/ ). There are all sorts of military messes in Africa, Pakistan is unstable (to say the least), Kosovo has declared its independence and Israel and Palestine, well, let’s just say they’re still not getting along.

So, with all of these skirmishes, is it time we start calling this World War III?

I feel that if we start calling it what it is, we’ll take it that much more seriously and work to end it. Since we’re still thinking of it as "The War Against Terror" it seems a bit too close to "The War on Drugs." I don’t think any of us took T.W.O.D. too seriously. Likewise, T.W.A.T. doesn’t seem that much more like a "real" world than T.W.O.D. did. As a result, we’re all very disconnected from the atrocities being committed in our name.

I feel like we Americans are not very good at facing the depressing realities of our world. And I say "we" as in me, too. Calling this a World at War just might hammer home the seriousness of what’s going on.

Then again, American Idol might be on.

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Sorry if anyone is offended by the above photo–I think as pictures of dead people go, this one’s pretty tame. Plus many view him as an American hero, so I think it’s important that we all see this picture.

See, I always thought that embedded reporting started with Iraq in 2003–but apparently, it goes way back, but wasn’t called the same thing. Ernie Pyle was probably the most famous American embedded reporter of World War II. He was shot in the temple by Japanese soldiers and died immediately. It was 1945 and he was 44.

His intensely personal columns covering the frontlines of the war won a Pulitzer and the hearts of America. When he was killed, it made the headlines. Late last year I was visiting a friend of mine up in Burbank –we wandered into a used bookshop where they had an original newspaper reporting the death of Ernie Pyle.

Sadly, that was the first time I’d heard of the man. It sounds like he was an amazing individual. Sadly, the above picture has barely ever been seen and no negatives are known to exist, so I’m trying to put it in front of as many people as possible.

I feel like most Americans don’t understand how important and how dangerous it is to be a reporter. Well, a *real* reporter. Not someone like Anderson Cooper or one of the idiots on Fox News, who have make-up and hair people standing by. Pyle was the real thing.
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