Mother's Day

By: Renee Roman Nose

Posted: 5/12/08

Yesterday many people celebrated with their mothers, a day recognized by our nation to respect those who have brought us into the world, those who raised us, those who have nurtured us along our path and pushed us to reach for our dreams.

There are many people who weren't able to celebrate with their mothers, for whatever reason, personal choice, family conflict, mothers who have passed on.

Many of those who weren't able to be with their mothers are soldiers.

They are serving in an unpopular war. Serving for an unpopular president at a time when the majority of our citizens do not seem to really care about what is happening in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

We don't have to sacrifice anything like our parents and grandparents had to do for previous wars. The only thing that we are worried about is gas prices rising even more.

Every time I see magazines at the checkout stands focusing on fashion, celebrities such as Britney, Lindsay, etc. Where are the magazines promoting those who are protecting our freedoms?

Where are the news stories that tell us about the hopes and dreams of the thousands of men and women who have died in our current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan?

The display in the library quad is both poignant and disturbing. Flags are placed in the grass, each white flag representing at least 5 dead Iraqis, each red flag representing the more than four thousand American soldiers who have paid the ultimate price for our voting folly.

There was a virtual sea of white flags, bordered by the scarlet of those whose courage led them to serve our country, making the ultimate sacrifice for each one of us.

We elected a man who ran against peace and prosperity and that is what we are now reaping. We allowed him to convince us that Sadaam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, in spite of the fact that he had intelligence that proved otherwise. We believed the big lie.

We believed in the emperor's new clothes.

We cannot undo what has already been sown; we can only try to clean up our mess. We can only look at those thousands of white flags and wonder when the tragedy that has been wreaked upon both our nations by a man who was busy dancing with his daughter at her wedding this weekend while our soldiers continue fighting for their lives, when might both nations begin to recover from this?

How much more will this cost our nation? How many billions more that we do not have and will have to borrow yet again from other nations to keep going ourselves? I do not profess to be a political science major, an accountant or a politician.

I am a mother. I have children who are eligible for a draft that seems inevitable to me if we continue on the path that we are on.

I don't have answers. I have questions that I would like answers to, though. As a mother, as the daughter of a veteran, the niece of a veteran, the sister of a veteran, the granddaughter of a veteran - I have a lot of questions.

How can we find a solution to the conflicts that we are in? How can we bring our soldiers home so that they can celebrate the next Mother's Day with their own mothers, or with their own children? How can we care for the tens of thousands of soldiers who have been injured, physically and mentally, in these two wars? How can we resolve the conflict in Iraq? How can we help them to create their own, stable, government without imposing our own cultural values and methods of self-governance upon them?

What can you and I do? Really? Well, first of all we can make our opinions known at the ballot box. We can vote for someone who has solutions for our world, our country, our states and our neighborhood. Vote, be vocal, write letters make phone calls and be active. The alternative is not one that we want to consider.

If you are concerned about racism in our community then join your local chapter of the NAACP and be an active member, voting for leadership that will make a difference in our lives and those of future generations.

If you're worried about the wetland abuses being approved in our community as we speak, where proposals are being made to cover up wetlands for yet more housing construction, then vote new people into the city council.

Those wetlands naturally filter our drinking water and are vital to many species in our community. To suggest that we don't live in the country is asinine, we all live in the country, we just don't all take care of the country that we live in.

If you are worried about the salmon season that has been cancelled in our state and the proliferation of prescription drugs in our community water system then choose your local and state candidates with care.

If you are worried about the wars that we are in, and have been for more than five years, then choose someone with a plan of action, someone who has shown that they have the strength, stamina and determination to effect change, and use your vote.

If you think that your vote isn't important, then you're wrong. Don't waste your vote, don't waste your voice. Both of them are vital to the future of our country and the world. Whoever we choose for President will affect the entire globe, not just our wee little country.

One vote, one voice. You can make a difference. You can help soldiers come home, you can help them celebrate the next Mother's Day in the peace and comfort of their own families.

You can help save the salmon, promote water quality, protect vital wetlands, the list goes on and on. You can make the world a better, brighter place.

Vote.

Renée Roman Nose is a graduate student in applied anthropology. The opinions expressed in her columns do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Barometer staff. Roman Nose can be reached at forum@dailybarometer.com.