By Cindy McQuade Santa Monica
Parade was a hypocritical march Editor: Wow, 2007 is here! Time moves so fast and full. Now it is the new year. The Rose Parade played repeatedly on TV.
So, now, I sit quietly, for the moment in my too cluttered home, cluttered with books, papers and things. My mind cluttered with bills and financial concerns, trying not to think about where the money will come from. Trying to trust God as wars rage through the world. Even the Rose Parade stinks of false patriotism, with Stealth bombers flying overhead and white girls clad in red, white and blue doing high-kicks to the beat of the military marching bands.
Calvary and false pretense. “Our Good Nature” — the theme of the parade, while raping the Earth, consuming too much, shopping and partying while soldiers die and innocent civilians have their lives torn apart.
Happy New Year. Three thousand American soldiers dead and counting, hundreds of thousands of wounded lives, not to mention the causalities in Iraq and Afghanistan... and those forgotten around this country and around the world because we fight the wrong battles.
Fight poverty. Fight disease. Fight bigotry, intolerance, racism, anti-Semitism. Fight with our minds and hearts. Be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” Turn the other cheek. Forgive more. “You who have not sinned shall cast the first stone.” Not a stone should be lifted!
It is all happening too fast. Now Christmas has come and gone. How can we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace and remain so bloodthirsty? The death penalty continues. My Christmas hopes and joys interrupted by breaking news of the execution of Saddam Hussein.
The 12 days of Christmas bringing with them news of the 3,000th U.S. soldier dead in this preemptive, wrong, illegal, sinful lie of a war in Iraq. A people of power, wealth, greed, over weight, over consumption — a gluttonous people polluting the Earth and celebrating “Our Good Nature” as we parade through the streets of Pasadena.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 4, 2007. Read the original PDF.