Tainted Beauty

 Phnom Penh is a unique kind of beauty.  The city has character leaving San Francisco by comparison as dull and uninspiring.  Walking the streets alone today I was filled with a peace and serenity despite the tumult around me.  I ate at a french resturaunt and enjoyed a perfect meal.  One of those meals where nothing in the world could have possibly made it better, lack of company aside.  A perfect feta and tomato salad and iced coffee had me laughing aloud at the joy of it by the end, I kinda disturbed a family next to me.

After the meal, as I was reflecting on what made it so amazing, I found it was the entirety of the circumstances, being here, eating here, sweating here.  I then realized suddenly I had a greater appreciation for the city and its beauty because yesterday I saw the city and its latent pain.

Yesterday we went to the killing fields.  An overwhelming experience, I meditated and tried to drink it all in and I couldnt, I was brought to tears and had to excuse myself from the group to cry alone.  The sheer horror of the place was made even worse by the surreal beauty of it. 

 A tall stupa (pagoda looking thingy) dominates, and it is only upon approach one sees the mountain of skulls in the center.  The earth has grown green over the graves, there is a school next to this place, over the screaming anguish in my head I could still hear the children playing soccer.  

Within the stupa/pagoda, a mountain of skulls, each dug from the ground where that persons life was extinguished in a shallow grave.  I saw teeth embedded in the ground, cloth from shirts and pants, halfway decomposed, remaining fragments of skull yet to be gathered and accounted.  But none of the graves and bones could have possibly affected me like the trees.  They were wrongness, they had been perverted and I refused even to accept their shade after I read that these were the trees used to tie up and beat the children before their execution.  The trees, oh the trees, and the horror, oh the horror.  

"Jill suripticiously tossed them peanuts, despite the no feeding signs.

She tossed one to a medium sized monkey; before he could eat it a much larger male was on him and not only stole his peanut but gave him a beating, then left.  The little fellow made no attempt to pursue his tormentor; he squatted at the scene of the crime, pounded his knuckles on the concrete floor, and chattered his helpless rage.  Mike watched it solemnly.  

Suddenly, the mistreated monkey rushed to the side of the cage, picked up a monkey still smaller, bowled it over and gave it a drubbing worse than the one he had suffered--- after which he seemed quite relaxed.  The third monkey, still whimpering, crawled away and found shelter in the arm of a female who had a still smaller one, a baby, on her back.  The other monkeys paid no attention to any of it.  

Mike threw back his head and laughed."    

"Man is the creature who laughs." -The father of all. 

Oh the sweet sweet power.

The definition of genocide is loosely paraphrased as: acts with the intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national, racial, ethnical, or religious group by:

a) killing

b) infliction of serious bodily or mental harm

c) deliberate infliction of conditions calculated to bring about destruction

d) imposing measures to prevent birth

e) removing children and transferring them to another group.  

I have a long back ground in the environmental movement but I remain semi-distant as well, unable to take a stance on the human v. environment debate.  For example, in many "third world" tropical countries there are a great many wetlands.  These wetlands were, years ago, drained for development, a great injustice to mother earth.  Recently, "first world" neo-colonial environmentalist have lobbied and requested and demanded these wetlands be refilled and returned to their natural state.  So far I am sure you are with me, hell yes lets protect the wetlands. 

After many were indeed refilled and returned to their natural-ish state something terrible happened that was unexpected.  The standing water in the wetlands became prime breeding grounds for mosquitos that transfer malaria and disease rates, as well as premature death rates skyrocketed.  So then, we are left to balance the fact that we do need flora, and especially wetlands, to maintain the normal balance of ecosystems in addition to providing carbon sinks which help, albeit slowly, mitigate the effects of global warming, with the welfare of hundreds of thousands, or millions of people.  Is there a way for both goals to cease their struggle and work together?  I think I have been shown a way.

Getting back to the definition of genocide.  If you recall the first part has an intent element, the perpetrator must intend to do the genocidal act.  However, where I see hope is in the american concept that can double for intent in our own justice system, gross negligence, reckless endangerment, other ways to say that the perpetrator indeed had the requisite intent to be convicted of this crime.  If the intent prong of the genocide test could be broadened to include these equally culpable mental states, then there is hope for the Environment v. the People.

Assuming the intent prong is expanded, I turn to the third subprong.  "Deliberate infliction of conditions calculated to bring about the destruction of the racial, ethnic, religious or national group."  I immediately see the potential for the most massive lawsuit in the history of the world, with the first world as joint defendants.

In the same way withholding oxygen by strangulation is murder, withholding water or medication or food should also be considered.  By pricing the third world out of most medications, taking their water and making it undrinkable, and forcing the use of soil degrading genetically modified crops, we are essentially perpetually engaged in class warfare on a global level, it has indeed been escalated to the level of genocide, and it cannot stand.  

I see a chink in the armor, one worth putting my foot in.  The gun has sounded and we are off to the races, justice is catching up.   

2 quotes, tangentially related to this topic, Im not sure how, but they are there.  

"The problem with democracy is that its leaders reflect the population in every way."

"Democracy is a terrible form of government, its only salvation is that it is quantifiably eight to ten times better than any other form."

-Jubal Harshaw introducing the man from mars to the earth.  

-Disclaimer, this was written fairly heat of the moment, I refuse to edit anything I write and I sure as hell did not outline this blog.    Think of it as, "dictated but not read"  peace

Can I grok it?

I am Warren Klein.  I am between my first and second year at University of San Francisco School of Law.  I will that my career be in the environmental sector of the for profit economy.  Cool, bloggin about myself, check.  Now moving on to the country. 

We are in Cambodia.  Capital city of Phnom Penh.  This place is forshizzle tropical.  Its hot.  Thank god I came prepared with two frisco jackets and two pairs of pants, neither cotton nor breathable.  

Today was all about exploration, dont worry, nothing granola like a journey of self realization (that is for a later post), just an exploration of the surrounding supermarket and Foreign Corespondents Club.  I learned two things from these places today, one, the value of an open air venue, and two, that cambodian pant sizes do not account for american thunder thighs, I couldnt even pull the size 36 pants above my midthigh, super weak.  

With only two pair of pants, I trudge on, sweating every step of the humid way.