one tin soldier rides away

[the_siobhan]

I've been dreaming about monsters a lot lately.

The one that really messed with my head was one I had on Saturday morning. A four-legged animal with over-articulated limbs and the head of a blond child. It spoke in a woman's voice and then darted out a long barbed tongue that tapped directly into it's victim's spine, drinking the spinal fluid while the man under it's feet screamed and writhed in agony. It left the paralyzed body to be set upon by gangs of men with identical faces of glowing red eyes and rictis grins. They drank the blood and packs of wild dogs with blue eyes and human hands finished off the rest.

I don't usually get spooked by dreams but this one had me jumping at every creak of my house as I got ready to leave for work. I just couldn't shake the image of that cherubic face.

The streets were still dark and wet with mist. There was an owl hooting as I walked towards the bus and a couple of bats darted above my head. Nothing feels right, it's just too damn warm for December. Maybe that's what has me so freaked out.

There is a house near me that has been sporting an American Indian Movement flag for the last year or so. It also had a "For Sale" sign on it. More than once I've passed by while the tenants were barring frustrated-looking real estate agents from entering with prospective buyers, and the sign had been torn up and throw into the street. I think they finally lost their battle though. The house looked dark and the front yard and sidewalk were covered with piles of discarded household items set out for the trash.

I don't mind working Saturdays except for the hours. For all my being there are ridiculous-o-clock, it was pretty slack-tastic. Then I hooked up with bcholmes. We ate things with tentacles and went and saw Blood Diamond.

It was a reasonably good movie - pretty standard Hollywood fare, complete with the Brave Native, Intrepid Reporter and the Loveable Ruffian Who Is Reformed By Friendship And The Love Of A Good Woman. But the backdrop can't help but be powerful simply because of what it portrays.

I ended up having a discussion with B.C. afterwards about the information in the movie and it still leaves me troubled. I mean, it's all old news - isn't it? Everybody knows about the child soldiers, about all the people with their hands chopped off, the millions upon millions of refugees. That's the most common of knowledge. Everybody knows that De Beers has vaults full of fucking diamonds so that the market stays falsely elevated, that if you don't build super-precise drills a diamond is about as valuable an investment as a hunk of aluminum.

Don't they?

How much do people know about what is done in their name or for their convenience? How much do people in the western world think about things like modern slave traffic, or the overthrow of Aristide in Haiti or what's happening in Dafur? About the conditions that bring you that cup of coffee. That cotton t-shirt. The gas for your car. That cheap... whatever.

The slaughter in Rawanda drove Roméo Dallaire mad. He couldn't stop it, even though everybody knew what was going on. Because nobody knew. Even though everybody knew.

Oddly enough it's the first night in weeks where I had untroubled sleep. I think my subconscious realized just how outclassed it really is - I can't dream up anything like close to what the real world has to offer.

And I just realized as I'm about to hit "post" - this is Xmas eve. Not very cheerful fare I've just given you to read, is it? Sorry about that.

This is my wish to you for Christmas.

Peace On Earth. Good will towards men

Comments

[mscissorhands.livejournal.com]

The world remains ignorant to continue it's life of convenience. It is amazing what people will aknowledge and what they will allow themselves to be blissfully ignorant about.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

That's the part that really bothers me. Are people actually ignorant? Or just willing themselves to be so?

[unagothae.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking most either don't know what to do about it or aren't willing to do what is necessary if they do. Most people are intent on the mundane, worrying only about what affects them personally. They care more about making their own lives comfortable than what it would take to fix things.

They are willing to compromise what is right for what is comfortable until it gets too uncomfortable for them to bear. Frogs in the stewpot. Things didn't go straight to boiling after 9/11. It's been years of steady change.

I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking about this kind of thing tonight, but so far, I haven't gotten off of my ass and done a damn thing about it. I don't know what to do and I'm too busy just trying to keep myself fed.

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

When look at this, one needs to compare not only the convenience to the common man, but also who got stinkin' rich in the process of providing that convenience, and which were closer to being in position to stop it.

150 year ago, a hunk of aliminum would have been an investment so great that few *governments* would have been able to afford it. Now we make it out of (basically) special mud and a lot of electricity, but comparatively, it's dirt cheap.

We can make diamonds now too. Stuff that's as pretty and and as hard as the "dug from the ground" ones. So why the blood? Not because people want pretty rings and drillbits, but because some bozos wanna be rich. That's where the anger should go. Be pissed at the people that make stuff valuable, not the ones that make it cheap.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I think that there is some complicity in all of this though. The bozos wouldn't be getting rich if the "people" weren't willing to give them thier hard-earned cash for the pretties.

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

True, and ignore this issue. I mean, this movie isn't the first attentionn I've seen about it in what could be called "mass media". The one I remember encountering early was in the James Bond book "Diamond Are Forever", which opened with a scene at a diamond mine, and what happened to a guy who tried to steal.

The trouble is that there's SUCH a lie happening out there that the public never really gets a chance to learn those lessons. They see it, worry about it, and then they're subtlely brainwashed by thousands of other sources telling them all kinds of contridicotry messages: daimonds retain value, new ones are better than old ones. it would be unfaithful to ever sell them, and those that do are sordid people. It's not the prettiness of the pretties that really get to folks, it's the huge machinery around them that inflates the value. What happens in the film is that conpiracy honed to a fine, hard point.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

True, and ignore this issue. I mean, this movie isn't the first attentionn I've seen about it in what could be called "mass media". The one I remember encountering early was in the James Bond book "Diamond Are Forever", which opened with a scene at a diamond mine, and what happened to a guy who tried to steal.

Yeah, exactly. This was going on in the 80's, and I remember hearing all about it then.

it would be unfaithful to ever sell them, and those that do are sordid people.

Ha. Because if anybody actually tried they'd find out just how valuable they actually are.

Diamonds are semi-precious stones at best. I guess I'm befuddled that there's even a market at all.

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

Yup. The real value for diamonds is what you see them sell for on eBay...

[girfan.livejournal.com]

The child face in your dream brought to mind Mr Teatime from Hogfather (http://www.skyone.co.uk/hogfather/)

What you said about diamonds makes me so glad I don't own one and never want one.

[okoshun.livejournal.com]

You know it's out there, you know it exists, but it's such a huge problem that it's paralyzing

The slaughter in Rwanda drove Roméo Dallaire mad and he was a man, with a gun, with hundreds (thousands?) of people just like him trying to make a difference and he couldn't stop it. If he can't make a difference, how can I?

When I think about all of the suffering in the world, all of the hunger, poverty, war, abuse, children sold/people abducted into lives of sex (or other) slavery, preventable illnesses, HIV epidemic in Africa - it overwhelms me to the point where I can't think of where to start to try to help all these hundreds of millions of people.

There are small things that I can do - buy fair trade goods, try to avoid things made in sweatshops (I wish they were labelled clearly "made in a sweatshop in [country x]), use less gas, not buy diamonds, donate to organizations that try to provide assistance.

It seems like such a drop in the bucket and I feel helpless knowing that I can't stop it all.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

I've always been rather fond of this F. Scott Fitzgerald quotation:

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

It's a big bucket though, and there are millions of drops in it.

I think that's the key.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

Don't they?

Well, I have a bad habit of thinking they do, because the information is so easily available. But, as we all know, I have the misfortune of working with Joe Average and no, they don't, and I learned years ago that should I try to gently mention these things, I'll be lucky to come out alive, because they do not under any circumstances want their little happy first-world bubbles burst.

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

I think self-image also plays a big part of what people believe or know about. Though i can never put a finger on it, discussions about certain issue often leave me with the impression of an underyling theme of: "I don't know about conflict diamonds / think refugees are genuine / believe global warming is true because i see myself as a businessman/conservative/family guy, not a lefty/greenie/liberal".

Works both ways, i'm sure, but it's easier to see on the other bank.

[redcountess]

People are becoming more aware of conflict diamonds, and are asking their retailers more and more for ethically sourced gems, so diamonds mined from non-conflict regions are becoming more readily available especially here in the UK; it's why I've finally asked Diva for a sparkly ring.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberley_Process_Certification_Scheme

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

If the article is true, then if you live in a Kimberley-signatory state, you cannot buy conflict diamonds, because none have been imported for three years. Problem solved, and we can stop worrying about it save pressuring countries that haven't signed up to do so. Those in the UK, Canada, Japan, almost everyplace in Europe, New Zealand, etc. need not even worry about it anymore.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Let's just say that I am not entirely convinced that the process is flawless.

[grimjim.livejournal.com]

It's only as good as the weakest link in monitoring.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2775763.stm

Diamond dealers also say the legislation can do little to prevent conflict diamonds from reaching Europe given the continent's vast unmanned borders.

"Some companies are honest but other companies want to buy diamonds and where they come from is of little or no concern," said Christine Gordon, a diamond expert who was part of a United Nations monitoring programme in Angola.

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

Yes. However, once there is a process set up, as with the Kimberley cerification, then the right way to deal with a broken process is to examine how to fix the process. Else we're "fixing" a bad municipal water supply by setting up rainbarrels.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

But that's not the same thing as saying, "Oh, my country signed the agreement so I don't have to worry about it."

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

Nope. Is it the same as "diamonds are evil because of these terrible practices", though? Or is the story now "here's how some corrupt people are circumventing a mechanism that limits terrible practices"?

Granted, the second story doesn't make a heart-wrenching movie showing atrocities. It's more of a role for Tommy Lee Jones than Leonardo Di'Caprio, of international investigators and clever accountants.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I see it as a "system still not perfect yet, so make sure you are making educated choices."

Samuel L Jackson. Diamonds on a Motherfuckin' Plane.

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

Samuel L Jackson for teh win! I'm sold.

[redbird]

I suspect there are a lot of people who sort-of know things, but to whom those things are a lot more real if they've seen them, even if what they've seen is fiction (like that movie) than if they've read or heard about them.

[bellafiga.livejournal.com]

I don't know how much they know.. Really a lot of people still rely on "the nightly local news" for their information. And while there will be a thousand mentions of the War in Iraq there is usually never even word one about the atrocities playing out in the rest of the world.. I think for the most part people don't want their own bubble of ignorance messed with. It's how they sleep at night I would imagine.. It breaks my heart though. Especially what's happening in Dafur. Knowing that hundreds of thousands of children have to walk miles and miles, to be locked up like animals, just so they won't be kidnapped and made in to warriors in the middle of the night, or worse yet, tortured and killed, it seriously wounds me.. But when I try to think of what I could do to help with that I hit a brick wall.

I try my best to keep an even head about these things. I'm constantly watching documentaries about these things mainly cause it helps kick my own ass when I get stuck in the whole "my life sucks" mantra. Cause really no it doesn't. Not even a little bit.. I'm luckier than I'll ever truly understand to be here and have what I have. I just need to figure out a way to try, however small it is, to make a difference somewhere.. That's what I gotta figure!

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Write letters. Seriously. It's the one thing anybody can do, even if they can't afford to donate money. You don't eveb need stamps to send mail to Ottawa.

Politicians take letters seriously because so few people write them. They figure for each letter that somebody bothers to send there are hundreds to thousands of people who feel the same way but just kvetch without doing anything.

And paper is taken a lot more seriously than email because most of them are Old Fucks and people who send emails are just Those Kids who probably don't vote.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

Write letters. Seriously.

That's at the top of my "ways to keep busy while I'm out of work" list.

I figure it'll be about two weeks before my MP really starts to hate me.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Ask M to tell you about the value of diamonds. He can rant impressively about it.

Like okoshun, I feel enomously helpless when I think of all the corruption that exists in the world, but I try to beleive that I'm making a difference through the choices I make.

I buy organic produce boxes twice a month and try to buy organic or farm-raised meat. I'm replacing all my household cleaners with environmentally friendly products, and I try to buy those at my local health-food store. I buy fair trade coffee and sugar. It may not be much, and I'm only one person, but I hope it helps a little.

[grimjim.livejournal.com]

You're aware of India's role these days?
http://www.professionaljeweler.com/archives/news/2006/051506story.html

The Indian diamond community in Antwerp, Belgium has gained control over the trade's main governing body, the Diamond High Council.

Diamond traders from India won five out of the six seats on the board of the Hoge Raa Voor Diamant (HRD), the group that regulates and represents the diamond sector in the rough diamond capital of Antwerp, according to the "India News in Europe Programme"...

Today, Indians control 60 percent of Antwerp's rough and polished diamonds, worth an estimated $36 billion in 2006. This represents a significant shift in the control of the world diamond business from other ethnic groups.

And then there's the occasional note like this:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FB19Df04.html

The murder of an Indian diamond trader in Angola last week and the disappearance of the US$1 million worth of diamonds in his possession has rekindled a three-year-old debate on India's probable link with conflict, or "blood", diamonds.

... Sources say that it would be naive to rule out a possible Indian link to conflict diamonds, since the country is the largest importer of the gemstone, as well as a dominant force in the cutting and polishing of rough diamonds.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

That's really interesting. Thanks for the added info, I hadn't known about that.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

News to me. Thank you very much.

[kest]

Stephen Colbert did a bit on the diamond industry on his show a few weeks ago - playing of the 'surely we've cleaned that all up by now' line of thought and the industry's 'selfpolicing'.

I think that a lot of people honestly don't know, or think that it's just some crazy people making a big deal out of nothing, because how could things actually be that horrible?

I also think that it can be very difficult and time consuming and expensive to know where every item you buy comes from and how it is produced, if its even possible. And even if you do that and find you don't like the way is something is done, what if you have no other options? I think that the things that are successful are those where enough people in the right places care enough about something to create an alternative market: fair-trade coffee, rBST free milk, organic cotton, biodiesel, etc.

But with the diamond industry, they've put so much into creating their own reality that, like Walmart, it's that much harder to fight them. A diamond has been made not just a stone, but a symbol, and it's that symbol that has to be fought.

It's going to be a long time before I stop yelling at my tv or changing the radio station every time a diamond commercial comes on.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I do get that it's not possible to know the ramifications of every single action you do. However, I do think it's possible to try to be at least a little aware of some fo the major issues. At the very least the ones that take only a minimal amount of digging - and news about conflict diamonds has been around for 20 years.

Besides, it's not like diamonds are something that people need. It's a lot harder to make choices regarding food and clothing that are based solely on ethics when your resources are limited. I would think that with things that are purely ornamental it ought to be so much easier.

[kest]

I think most of what I was saying there was that its easy when you have an option: regular coffee OR fairtrade coffee. But what is your option for an enduring symbol of love and beauty, which is what diamonds are marketed as? The option at the moment is to just forgo it, and humans are bad at forgoing, especially if they have money.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

There are tons of other options. Pearls, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, gold, silver, platinum.

At least one of them has to be a) not soaked in blood and b) actually worth the money you pay for it.