Dear People of the World (formerly Dear Americans)

Please read Introduction and Chapter 1 first.

   

“When I was in high school, a few months after my dad was laid off, I received a call from the military recruiter. At first I ignored but he called me a hundred times. Every time he phoned me, he said that he had a good thing to tell me, the army needs a quality man like me and I can get a great benefit from the army. Finally I gave in. He picked me up and took me to the military recruitment center. He was tall, muscular nice guy and described how wonderful my future would be if I join the army. I said to him that I wanted to go to the college. Then he told me I can go to the college if I join the army. The military can help me pay the tuition. I knew my parents cannot afford the tuition for college. So I decided to join the army.”

“But you were deceived?” said Kevin.

“Yeah, I was. Actually the military had scholarship for young soldiers. After 4 months of training I applied for the scholarship and found out that I was deceived. In order to get the scholarship, you have to pay 1,300 bucks as deposit. That was impossible. My monthly salary was only 700 bucks, how come I can save such amount of money. Then I was dispatched to Iraq .” John said sadly.

“You never wanted to come to Iraq , did you” said Kevin.

“Never, I did not even know where Iraq was. I’ve seen some news reports about soldiers in Iraq , who receive high praise for fighting to liberate Iraqi from tyranny like Saddam Hussein. But I realized Americans were not welcomed here. Recently I learned a recruiter found me in the list my high school gave to the military. The list of kids from impoverished family like mine. They knew students like me cannot afford college tuition and took mean advantage of our necessity.”

“Well, John, your case is better” said Fernando. John, Kevin and Loretta looked at him.

Fernando started to talk in Spanish accent.

“I absolutely had no choice but to join the army. I came from Mexico with my family. As you imagine, we were illegal immigrants who crossed the border. At first we were dependent on my father’s salary from the farms. 3 bucks an hour. But he was killed by an accident. Then my mom, little sister and I were left behind. We became homeless. We moved to homeless facility where rats were running around. I cannot go to school and worked for restaurant as dish washer at low wages. We were hungry for days without anything to eat. One day a military recruiter called my cell. I was terrified if immigration officer asked military to pick me and my family up and deport us to Mexico . In Mexico , the situation was much worse. My family had no job and lived in rubble without clean water and electricity. That is why we crossed the border illegally. But the call was a very good news for me. He told me if I could join the army, I can get a U.S. citizenship. I was really glad.”

“Weren’t you afraid to go to the battlefield?” said Loretta.

“As I told you, I had no choice. This is like conscription for the poor. Poverty draft. You, two had nothing to worry about for your future. We have no future unless we join the army.” Fernando replied.

The silence deafened for a while.   

 

An Iraqi man came up to the 4 Americans and said “have you made up? Who speaks to your government?” The silence still remained.  

 

“Well, then I have to kill you one by one and show the scene on TV” said an Iraqi man.

“Wait, I will. I can do that” Loretta shouted. Three guys looked at her being surprised.

“Hey, are you sure? Your dad would be angry if you do that” said Kevin.

“But if I would, they can never leave us. I am a daughter of the most important person in America. My father can let our government do whatever they can to save us.”

Loretta made up her mind. She thought she could prove herself that she was not just spoiled child by speaking to the U.S. government on TV.

 

   

Go on to Chapter 3.

 

Sea Shepherds came back again and attacked Japanese whaling fleets in Antartic Sea. This time Japanese marine patrol personnel shot at them.

I sent Sea Shepherds the following message by email. This is not only for marine hypocrit group but for animal loving Americans.

 

 

Did you know grazing cattles is deforesting Amazon forest?

Stop eating hambergers! Eat fish and whales and dophins. They don' t need glazed fields.

Be more smart and scientific rather than being hypocratic!

 P.S. If you are really animal rights activisits, stop Rodeo shows, it is hurting cute cows. Don' t say it is your culture! Some culture is not worth going on.

Dear Paikea,

Taking half an hour or 1 minute to kill doesn't make any difference. After all, we are all barbaric in order to survive. Even if you are vegetarian, even plants are living creatures and have emotions, and we are taking lives away from them. But they just stay still. What is arrogant is determine which creature is worth living based on cuteness, or how familiar they are to you. 

I don't care how we kill and eat animals because they are just resources to us. All we have to do is keep them sustainable. I don't criticize rodeo in Texas, chicken fighting in Southeast Asia or bullfighting in Spain. It is their cultures and their animals.

 Well, Asians should taste better than Caucasions because we are more like herbivorous mammals.

There have been some rape cases reported in Okinawa island, Japan's southernmost island and prefecutre this month. Actually rape incidents have occurred many times in Okinawa. In 1995 3 marine soldiers raped 12 year-old girl. The Okinawa islanders gathered in the park to protest the U.S. bases. This time they will do that, too. They have done the same things many times in the past.

There are more than 100 of U.S. base facilities in Japan. The biggest ones are in Okinawa. 3 quarters of total of U.S. military facility square footage in Japan is located in Okinawa island. Okinawa is a strategic point for the U.S. so they want to stay as long as they want. Great point for the U.S. invasion of other parts of the world such as Iraq.

The below is the photo I took from the plane over the island. Two big spots are Okinawa's U.S. bases. A runway on the left side is Futenma for marines, and the other one just under the clouds is Kadena for the air force.

Futenma's marine base is planned to be moved to the other place in Okinawa, Nago-shi, the famous place for Dugong's habitat. San Francisco court ordered the U.S. military not to review the development of that area because Dugongs are endangered species.  

Okinawa had been U.S. territory between 1945 and 1972. Japanese government pays half of the military expense for the U.S. military resided in Japan. Because Okinawa has tens of thousands of marines who are kind of uneducated type of people and Okinawa had been occupied place for a long time after Japan was defeated by the U.S. Okinawas, especially women have become easy target for the American criminals.  

 

Why does Japan need such bases? Simple. Japan is not allowed to have full-fledged military by its constitution. 

 

The U.S. military is just wasting so much of our tax. They do not defend us, rather they are hurting our people, which they should protect. We have to know we should defend our nation by ourselves. We actually have our own military already. So we should amend the constitution to have a full-fledged military force so we do not have to rely on such violent and dangerous soldiers.

Of course, the U.S would continue to be our greatest ally but we have to make our foreign policy including militaristic strategy by ourselves. We should not help the U.S. invade the world and kill innocent people.

For Okinawa, not having military bases make this island safer and more attractive to tourists. Tourism is a major industry for Okinawa. See this photo. It is called Moon Beach. You can't find a beach as beautiful as this even in Hawaii or Florida.

 

President Bush was assacinated in Chicago. Who killed him?

Of course, this is the fiction. Janre of mockdocumentary, but it looked very real.

After the assacination, the U.S. government used this fear to justify amendment of Patriot Act, tightening the freedom of citizens. Muslim man was arrested but there was not enough supporting evidence to convict him but he was convicted by the jurors.  

Why? This is the same old fashioned rhetoric. Once awful thing happened, no one can have objective view.

It was well-made documentary although it was a fiction.

But I wasn't very impressed. I am kind of tired of such anti-Bush propaganda films such as Micheal Moore's "Fahrenheit 911."

 

Yes, Bush was wrong. He did the wrong things. So did other politicians in the world. It is just easy to criticize the politicians but what are behind the actions they make? Think about it.

Even Gore was elected as President of the U.S., he might have dispatched troops to Iraq. Accusing just one politician for all the wrong things in the world doesn't actually change the world better.