Master of My Own Domain
This entry was posted on 3/16/2007 3:51 PM and is filed under uncategorized.
Welcome to Deanie's Blue Inkblots, which is an offshoot of my old Blue Inkblots blog over on Blogger.com. As you can see, I have gotten my own domain name, finally. A friend suggested that it would be a good idea for fans of my books, who might not otherwise discover Blue Inkblots when they Googled me.
In a few months, I'll be setting up a website at this address, and may modify the address of the blog at that time, but for now, you can find me here at http//deaniemills.com.
This is all new to me, and since I am borderline computer-impaired, I may be fiddling with the settings from time to time until I get it looking the way I want. This will do for now.
As those of you on my mailing list know, I started Blue Inkblots a little more than a year ago, to comment on politics, the war, and current events. My slant is to the left of center, but I do not consider myself a liberal, and think their all-or-nothing stance has hurt the Democrats, particularly during the election in which many of them voted for Ralph Nader rather than Al Gore, and the rest is miserable, bloody history. Those who did so at the time were very idealistic, believing that it would be better to cast their vote for someone who relfected their views more purely, but in so doing, they split desperately-needed votes away from Gore and handed Bush the presidency. To this day, they argue with me about that, but I believe that such bull-headed blindsidedness does neither party any good; witness the damage done to the Republicans by its right wing.
I believe that the vast majority of the American people reside somewhere fairly close to the center; maybe to the left on some issues and to the right on others. I also believe that 9/11 traumatized this nation as surely as any victim of violent crime or war, and that consequently, those in power took advantage of that trauma to whip up frenzies of fear and paranoia for political purposes, including starting an unneccessary war that has done almost irreperable damage to this country in every way imaginable.
I was opposed to the war in Iraq from the beginning, and as many of you know, I come from a proud military family with five members in active-duty military, from Marine grunts to high-ranking officers, and just about every male family member related to me is a combat veteran of one war or another. So I am not opposed to war per se--I thought the war in Afghanistan was justified and necessary. But I was vehemently opposed to this war, long before my own son and nephew enlisted in the Marine Corps--my nephew did three combat tours to Iraq and my son did two, both in some of the most miserable and dangerous areas of the country.
Recently, I read a statistic that said that the stress on family members of those who are deployed is actually hardest on mothers, particularly those who oppose the war. As the article said, "Mothers can't cry." That meant that, when our sons or daughters call, they need us to be strong, to be at least as brave as they are. (And of course, I am including fathers here, too.) When I first started Blue Inkblots, my son Dustin was in his second deployment and I was desperate with fear for him and rage for the situation. To my surprise and, I must say, delight, I found that many of my readers found a home with me, because they, too, though proud of their sons for their service, had felt that they had no place to go with their doubts and fears about the war in general, because to do so, they had been told, was to be "unpatriotic" and was to undermine the morale and possible safety of their children.
This is a cruel lie.
What hurts the troops' morale is being sent back into combat to fight the same war over and over and over again with no end in sight, coming home traumatized with no chance to recuperate before being sent back in, watching their marriages fall apart from six thousand miles away, and going out every single day, wondering if that's the day they will get blown up or shot.
Then coming home, knowing that in a few months, they'd get to do it all over again.
Anyway. I concentrated on war news, because as I said many times, I wanted to be proven wrong, but as the months and the casualties dragged on, unfortunately, I found myself being proven right over and over again.
In future posts, I hope to change my approach a bit--particularly in length--though I haven't decided yet quite how. I will continue to write about the war but I will also talk more about politics as this white-hot primary season gets even hotter. I haven't had a chance yet to do a post on my analysis of the so-called "surge" of troops to Iraq--which, by the way, has now swollen to 7,500 more troops than Bush said he was going to send, and their commitment, according the General Petraeus, is now even more open-ended than it was before. I'm hearing 18 months to two years getting thrown around, when in the beginning, when they were doing PR to sell the plan to the country, we were hearing more like, oh, maybe six months.
They lie, you know.
I'm going to look into all that in future posts, as well as examine the Democratic strategies put forth to change war policy, and examine some ways in which people much smarter and more experienced than I am, think we can end this war and get our boys and girls home.
I welcome any and all comments. I'll add spam protection when I get the hang of this new format. And I think when it talks about "subscribing," that just means that you get an e-mail notice when I've made a new post. I try to put one up a couple times a week. This past week, my daughter was on her way through for a visit before moving far away from home, so I didn't post anything then. And then I decided to get my own domain name and start all over again.
If there is anything you would like to see me address here on this page, please don't hesitate to speak up. As you know, I read the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe every day as well as the L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune and some international papers, and I check out a number of blogs; every day, for sure, I read Talking Points Memo. Most of you don't have time for all that, but if you're curious as to what the papers are saying about an important issue of the day and would like me to do a summary, let me know. We'll kick off a discussion.
Like comedian Lous Black said, "Back when Clinton was president, I'd read the papers, and a couple times a week I'd think, Well, that's good. That's something I can use in my act...NOW, I'll read the papers, and I'll go to bed thinking, That's good. I can use that....AND THEN I'LL WAKE UP THE NEXT MORNING AND THERE'S THIRTY F****ING MORE THINGS!"
It's true that there is soooo much to talk about these days that it's hard to pick a topic before it gets thrown over by something even more egregious. So you guys let me know what you'd like to talk about and we'll go at it.
As a reminder, keep in mind that I prefer civil discourse and reasoned arguments. I don't mind passion--I can get pretty hot under the collar--but I think profanity dumbs down the conversation, and I won't tolerate personal attacks on anyone leaving a comment. Stick to the issue at hand and show respect for those who disagree. It's what democracy is all about.
See you soon.
Deanie Francis Mills
