NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

I am truly terrified about Donald Trump being elected President of the United States. As they say in English, all bets are off, if he wins, because he is so thin-skinned and ideologically inconsistent, anything could happen, and the worst probably will.  One thing that I can definitely give Trump credit for, is that he has created, on a regular basis, the most random stories about a presidential candidate I've ever seen. Most often, these stories are horrifying to varying degrees, they deal with him ripping people off, stoking racial hatred or just being stubborn in the face of clear facts. Alot of them have to do with the gap between who Trump presents himself to be, a super rich, generous, intelligent and good tempered person, and who he actually is on a daily basis. Here's one such article that caught my eye. *************************** No, Donald Trump Did Not Win a Medal from the NAACP Christine Wilkie Huffington Post 10/23/16 WASHINGTON — A photograph of

Hawks, Clowns and Leaders by Michael Lujan Bevacqua The Guam Daily Post August 10, 2016 I have to echo so many writers, pundits and voters this past year, who cannot help but marvel at the strange world we live in today, as a result of the Republican nomination of Donald Trump for the presidency of the United States. Donald Trump, has in so many ways pushed this election to the limits of imagination and at times common decency. His determination to attack and hit back against anyone who he perceives as wronging him has led him down the path of childishness and bullying. Trump’s behavior and his ideological inconsistency has come to the point where the terrain of ideas and allies, has shifted so drastically that those I might normally consider my foes are suddenly unexpected friends. I say this because in the current national election cycle, I myself who is a long time anti-war, demilitarization and decolonial activist find myself regularly agreeing wi

Anai humålom si Trump gi botasion para President gi ma'pos na sakkan, i meggai ma po'lo na eskareng gui'. Tåya' chanså-ña. Ti "serious" na gåyu gui'. Anggen un ekungok gui', kalang kaduku gui' nigap, taklalalo' gui' på'go yan agupa' taitiningo'. Achokka' mitbotleha yan masumai ni' tinaimamahlao i sinangan-ña, i otro na gayun Republican ti ma gof fåna' pat kontra gui', sa' pine'lo-ñiha na ti magåhet na kadidåtu gui'. Sen ma'lak i danges-ña på'go, lao para u malachai chaddek siempre. Mansen lachi siha nu ayu. Gi ma'pos na simåna, tumunnok si Ted Cruz yan si John Kasitch. Si Trump i uttimo na gåyu tumotohge gi Republican påtida na bånda. Guiya humahatsa på'go i babaon Republican. Lao kao anggokuyon este na guerrero? Taitai este na halacha' na tinige' siha ni' hu hokkayi guini. ********************** The GOP's 24-hour meltdown by Nolan McCaskill May 6, 2016 Polit

When teaching about militarism I like to use two poems in order to demonstrate the ways that war, military service and sacrifice become naturalized in societies and also the way they come to be challenged. The first is from Roman poet Horace and one of his Odes, in which he coined the line "Dulce Et Decorum Est, Pro Patria Mori" or "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country." In it, the poet calls upon Romans to develop greater fighter skills in order to frighten off the always growing list of enemies of the empire. The second is written in response to Horace and also to the patriotism and militaristic sentiment that it is meant to evoke. Written by British poet Wilfred Owen, who fought in World War I and died during the war, it illustrates a brutish and ugly face to war, ignoring the glorious odes which people may devise to get young people excited and invested in military service. The famous line from Horace, Owens refers to as "th

Chris Hedges stitches together so much troubling truth about both the film American Sniper and the book it is based on. It is a sobering reflection on the film, the mythology of Chris Kyle and how those things relate to the soul of a nation. After reading this is does make you wonder, for all those people who feel patriotic or a swell of national pride after watching the film, what type of nation do you imagine you are a part of? The film is incredibly effective at focusing the viewer on the sentimentality and sacrifice of one character, much to the detriment of rest of the ideological universe of the film ultimately being unquestioned or unexamined. One is too busy tearing up or saluting the heroism of Chris Kyle, that few seem able to question the rest of the film and what it is hiding or proposing. People crave someone like Kyle as being the tip of their national spear, but don't think about what kind of nation would want that type of person there. That type of person represen

The film American Sniper has been gaining so much attention lately, because of its new blockbuster status, the ethnic and racial hatred that it is stimulating and also the way it is leading to both a challenging and also a lionizing of the American soldier through the figure of sniper Chris Kyle. Bradley Cooper, who plays Kyle in the film recently came out in defense of the film, noting that if you have problems with the political aspects of war, blame the politicians, the ones who make the decisions to send troops into war. Don't blame the troops who suffer because of those fights. This of course makes sense to most people. The politicians are corrupt, they are the ones you can blame, but the soldier, the self-sacrificing warrior should remain untouchable. They didn't choose to go to war, they just obeyed orders and did what their country told them to do. But this defense of the film leads to the natural problem of dealing with the morality of conduct if a war is not justi