Do you ever wonder “How dare life go on” after some terrible tragedy?  I do.

Do you ever remind yourself to tell someone about an amazing news story and then remember that they aren’t around anymore to tell?  I do that, too.  A lot lately.

Wars will go on.  Soldiers will continue to die; soldiers will object; soldiers will be conscripted even if it isn’t called a draft; and mercenaries will be recruited when there aren’t enough homegrown soldiers left to die.

Leaders will rise to power, fall from power, then die or be killed.  Some will praise them as gentle men and women, while others will say they planted the seeds of domination–or not.  They will be replaced by a seemingly endless parade of new and surely worthy leaders–worthy until it is proven that they aren’t, of course.

People will kill themselves slowly in ways seemingly insignificant and in ways so significant that it’s difficult to back up and see the impact.

If you wake up and find you are still alive, I guess you just go on.  Sometimes, you just say “Oh!” 

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I’ve had a terrible, devastating loss.  I am going to be on a short break for a week or so to attend the funeral of a dear friend, Dr. John C. Mohawk.  I will write more about him in the near future.

Please, in the meantime, read one of his recent articles.

John C. Mohawk, “Surviving Hard Times: It’s Not for Sissies,” Yes! Magazine, Summer 2006. 

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Can they see our hand in this? That’s what Richard Nixon asked Henry Kissinger immediately following the September 11, 1973, coup in which Augusto Pinochet lead a military overthrown of the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile.

Which question was Nixon really asking Kissinger?

• Can THEY see our hand in this?
• Can they SEE our hand in this?
• Can they see OUR hand in this?
• Can they see our HAND in this?
• Can they see our hand in THIS?

I want to answer all of the above. Despite their decades of protestations, it has certainly been clear for a long time that WE SEE THEIR HAND IN THIS.

Like many young Americans and others, I first learned a few details about the Chilean junta nearly 10 years later when Costa-Gavras’ film Missing was released. In the film, an American journalist, Charles Horman, finds out more than he is meant to about U.S. involvement, then he comes up missing. Most of the film follows his wife and skeptical father as they work their way through the Chilean and U.S. bureaucracies to find out what happened to him. The film implied that the hand of the U.S. was at work, and subsequently declassified documents have confirmed this.

There was plenty more to learn than even an Oscar-winning film can tell. I have learned some of that history and politics since. I have sent students into libraries to find their own answers. I live with the illusion that I know something about the hand of the U.S. in Chile.

Even now, though, after Pinochet’s death yesterday on International Human Rights Day, I think of the people with whom I first saw Missing. I was a student at la Universidad de Puerto Rico at the time, and I saw the film with members of the Puerto Rican Independence Party. (If you don’t know who they are, think of them as one of the three big targets of the FBI’s CoIntelPro program, along with the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement.) My companeros took it upon themselves to give me the education in U.S. foreign policy that my high school hadn’t managed to. I was skeptical of their claims, but I was also more skeptical of the U.S. government from that point on. I count this as an important moment in my seeing their hand in so much of the world.

So, if you consider Augusto Pinochet this week of his death, maybe you could consider the ways in which YOU SEE THEIR HAND IN THIS. This what? The possibilities are broad. Fill in the blank with any foreign relations incident of the 20th or 21st century and see what hands you can see.

Where to start? Some of the most interesting documents on the hand of the U.S. in Chile and elsewhere can be found at the National Security Archives, housed at my alma mater George Washington University. Nixon’s comment from a telephone conversation with Kissinger was part of an interview today with Peter Kornbluh on Democracy Now. Kornbluh is the author of “The Pinochet File.” You can read that at the NSA, too.

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I heard the announcement on KCPW (local NPR) about the Alternative Gift Fair today.  What a great idea.

Utah Red Cross, Intermountain Therapy Animals, Salt Lake City Film Center, One H.E.A.R.T. and other charities will be participating in the first Alternative Gift Fair for the Holidays.  The fair will offer sustainable and environmentally friendly gifts to match family and friends’ personalities.  Saturday, December 9th from 11 to 4 on the 11th floor of the Wells Fargo Building.  For more information, please contact One H.E.A.R.T. at 596-3317.

That’s TODAY, Saturday December 9, 11 - 4 pm at the Wells Fargo Building downtown Salt Lake City. 

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Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) wrote to me today to let me know that she intends to do something about global warming. Me and tens of thousands of her closest friends, probably. Still, I was glad to hear from her. She’s been bringing up the subject of climate change often since the election–and before, though now she has a chance to be heard.

An Earth Day Network poll conducted in October showed that

Americans are worried about global warming - 58 percent say it will have a “great to extreme” impact on their children’s future and two out of three agree it will adversely impact the U.S. economy over the next ten years.

My worry is surely strong enough to count double in any nationwide poll. And what are the other 42% thinking? They’re probably still believing the Inhofe vacuity (R-OK). A few years ago in a speech on the Senate floor, he perpetuated conservatives’ war on science. He wrote of his speech,

I called the threat of catastrophic global warming the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” a statement that, to put it mildly, was not viewed kindly by environmental extremists and their elitist organizations.

I wonder if he has changed his mind, whether he thinks Al Gore made it all up, or what. I know. He’s still calling it a hoax. Get that man out of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and get Boxer in! What a relief.

Now that climate change is going to be a serious issue, it will help to understand the what and how of it. There are so many important stories on climate change that I don’t know where to start.

• Truth Out has a long list of climate change stories.

• John Mohawk on Prophecy and Survival has several years of climate change news excerpts with an emphasis on what peoples have learned in the past that might help us to navigate the future.

• Of course, you could see An Inconvenient Truth. I’ve heard of frequent community showings and house parties presenting the movie in Salt Lake City lately.

• The recent review of 866 scientific studies on climate change makes compelling reading.

• If you doubt that warmer temperatures are causing harm, look at the images from Tuvalu, an island nation in the Pacific (several small islands and atolls). The highest point is 16ft above sea level. Actually, it may not be that high any longer. The people will need to be evacuated soon (those not yet gone) because the sea level is rising. Warmer temperatures = melting ice = rising seas.

• For general coverage and an overview of climate change, should you need it, I find the BBC more helpful than US news sites. The British have acknowledged the problem, being an island nation themselves, and they are addressing it more directly.

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