So I was reading the news today (I know, I know) and I came across this article on how Rachel Ray is a terrorist sympathizer because she was wearing a black and white paisley scarf in one of the ads that she was doing for Dunkin Donuts! (http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=4949437&page=1)
Jeez-o-peetz people! It’s a silly scarf for crying out loud! I happen to agree with her publicist that this is a non-story, but this ridiculousness is being perpetuated across the world because no one seems to have any perspective anymore about what’s important.
For crying out loud, even if the scarf is a rip-off of Arabic culture, are all Arabs now terrorists? Because I thought that was fairly confined to an insane few. This seems to be another case of a few bad apples ruining it for the whole bunch.
I personally feel a lot of sympathy for the Middle East. The region seems perpetually torn by war, generally over religion or oil … they have all these foreign occupiers messing up their lives … and there are more victims over there than perpetrators, but we always seem to lose sight of that fact in our fear. In fact, I would be willing to bet that the majority of people over there just want the same things we want … to love and be loved, to have a safe home in which to raise their families, to have access to food, water, electricity and medicine, to build a better life for themselves and their children.
Actually, as long as we stay afraid of them, the easier it is to continue to justify the Iraq war which is ruining our economy and seriously damaging our reputation around the world. I personally think we never should have gone over there in the first place, because Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11 and Saddam never had WMDs. It was all lies and misdirection with an enormous cost in terms of innocent lives (both those of Iraqi civilians and the troops who were sent over to “defend our freedom”) and economically (with a several trillion dollar price tag and rising – we could have fixed education and health care, but we would apparently rather bomb people). I also seriously doubt that the mass murderers responsible for the whole mess :::coughcoughGWcoughcheneyhacksneeze::: will ever be held responsible, and it really makes me wonder about justice in this wild old world.
I guess this post makes me a “terrorist sympathizer” to some people, but I would rather think that I am a general people sympathizer and I would put forth that the situation has a lot to do with making people what they are. I generally believe people are good and will do the right thing when given the chance. Perhaps that makes me naive, too … I prefer to think of it as hopeful. I’d kind of like to think that if we stopped stealing from them, bombing them and generally trying to dictate what they do with their government that they would lose their passion for blowing us up. But that’s just me.
I wish you peace and understanding for your fellow man, no matter his race, color or creed.
Namaste,
Lina
AlinaPhoenix's Weblog - Only Occasionally Obscene 