My eldest sister is in my apartment, screaming and yelling at me with a nonsensical fury. There is something about me not going to work. There is something about me going out late at night. Is this woman crazy? I shut down her every attack with calm but assertive responses, revealing the faults in her strange accusations. The exchange is escalating wildly but she is unable to faze me. Finally, in an angry, spiteful resignation, she says, “You’re just a faggot.”

The shit was about to hit the fan. And, seeing this, everyone who intruded into the apartment with her — her husband, my brother — pull her out of my path.

Growing up, I’ve always been the black sheep of my family. I was ripped away from my refugee parents when I began kindergarten, English gaining importance over the Khmer I spoke at home. My mother once threatened to disown me if I pursued the predominantly female art form of Cambodian classical dance. And, in line with the combination of my youthful independence and my family’s inability to guide me through American society, I defied my parents and left to study experimental filmmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute.

And now here I am — crying my eyes out in angry confusion — back with the family that my path has torn me from, back in my sleepy hometown of Long Beach that has been nothing but cycles of poverty, ignorance, and violence.

What the hell was I doing here? And how in the world did so much hatred come from my own family?

I grab my phone. I dial the number to my father’s house and he picks up with his voice of aged calm. It is a calm that comes from having lived for 82 years, from living at the mercy of the land, sun, and water in rural Cambodia. It is a voice that has lived through French colonialism, the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge genocide, and now, displacement and alienation in America. I begin in tears, speaking in Khmer, “Pa, guess what your daughter did? Who the fuck does she think she is?!”

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“Pa, I’m gay! I don’t care if you don’t approve. I don’t need your love if you don’t respect me! I don’t need it!” I am crying uncontrollably and there is no response on the other line.

“Prum … Prum,” my father says after what feels like an eternity of drowning in my emotions. “Calm down. You are my son. And you’ll always be.”

My heart lifted. Surprise began to mix in with the chaotic flowing of emotions. I think I just came out to my 80-something father and he was OK with it. And it wasn’t the last time. Things seemed to happen quickly after that. I was creating a visible place for myself as an artist in California through shows, fellowships, and public talks.

Looking back at the incident, I’m perplexed at how it happened that way. First off, in the context of Cambodian classical dance — the epitome of Cambodian culture — there is a space for those who don’t conform to heteronormative molds of man and woman. During the height of Cambodian dance ritual, a lone Brahmin who is half-male and half-female appears to act as a messenger between heaven and earth. This sacred, divine sanction of queer is echoed in contemporary Cambodia where “men can have wives and boyfriends” and female pop stars enact homosexual romances.

My sister’s attack came off as an erasure of cultural memory, perhaps by the hands of colonialism and the fear-driven puritanism of American society. As a result, my original dance works became increasingly political and I was preparing to present one of them at REDCAT, the premiere venue for experimental performance in Los Angeles.

At this time, a reporter from the LA Times was interviewing me (for a story that never ran). She wanted to speak with my father. We met at the dance studio where I was teaching. After questions about my father’s life, she asks me, “So what does your father think about your being gay?”

“Pa, she wants to know how you feel about me being gay.”

“You’re gay?”

Oh dear. “Yes Pa, I’m gay! Don’t you remember? I was crying on the phone and I was telling you.” The reporter is obviously wondering what is going on right now as both my father and I seem confused. “I’m sorry. He’s old. And he’s forgotten that I told him that I was gay,” I say to her in English.

I ask in Khmer, “Well, Pa?”

“What is there to say? You are my son. I love you no matter what. As long as you are a good person, nothing else matters.”

Author’s note: My father, Sem Ok, passed away two years later on Jan. 20, 2011. It was my 24th birthday. May he be remembered for his love. This article first appeared on NewAmericaMedia.org.

Prumsodun Ok is an artist, teacher, curator, writer, and organizer. His interdisciplinary performance works explore the tradition of Cambodian classical dance to address contemporary LGBT and social issues. He is a 2011 TED Fellow. He lives in Long Beach where he is executive editor of VoiceWaves, a youth-led journalism project of New America Media.

Well, that was months ago. Vision got gradually worse as we got back to the states. I can see things much better than before and can drive without glasses, but things far away have definitely gotten blurry. Watching our giant TV eight feet away is fine, but the words on the screen can be hard to make out. Worse, however, all the straining and squinting has changed my appearance. A friend stared at me a while, speechless. “Ah,” I thought. “She must be entranced by my big, beautiful eyes in all their naked glory. I better remind her that I’m married.”

“Yeah,” I said, “so Jameelah (you know, my wife) and I got Lasik in Vietnam. Cool, huh?”

“Oh,” she said, relieved. “I thought something was different. You have this kind of dazed look, kind of like you’re high.”

A couple of other people also said similar things: “You look high,” “You look really, really tired,” “You look like crap”— and that’s just my dad.

Anyway, today, I went to the optometrist, a jovial man who did not reprimand me for getting “much cheap” Lasik in Vietnam. “All the equipments are pretty much the same everywhere,” he said. I asked him if I should get more Lasik. He peered into my eyeballs. “Yup,” he said, “they definitely shaved away some layers of your corneas. Unfortunately, so much so that more Lasik might be risky. You could get 20/20 vision with a second round. Or, it could fail, and your corneas will be so weak that if someone punches you in the eye, it could rupture your corneas and you would need a transplant to see again.”

I left his office after placing an order for glasses. That’s right, I am back to glasses. “You don’t need to wear them all the time,” said the optometrist, “just when you drive, or watch a movie, or when it’s cloudy or rainy, or when you wake up.”

“But don’t worry,” he added. “In a few years, you’ll be old, and then you’ll be far-sighted, aha haha.”

My new glasses will arrive next week. They will be significantly lighter than my old ones, and you know what, I kind of miss wearing glasses. You know, glasses … people with them are perceived to be smarter, studies show. Glasses are cool. I’ll probably wear them all the time, because they’re so … cool. So if you see me this week, try to gaze into these sexy peepers one last time before they’re gone. And if you say I look high, or that I was foolish to get Lasik in a developing country, I will punch you in the neck. If I can see you.

Read more Jagged Noodles at:  www.jaggednoodles.com.

But then, there are others. And, yes, I’ll call them out. Not by name, but by action. Let me start by describing them. These are good people. They only want to share and spread news of something important to them. They pitch story ideas — mostly events such as fundraisiers, workshops, conferences, or launches. But, sometimes there’s a disconnect in the relationship. And that’s what I’m here to explain.

As any executive director of a nonprofit will tell you, their organization still operates as a business. They need funding to operate and provide vital services. It’s easy to forget that as a consumer or colleague. Same goes for community media. It costs several, several thousands of dollars a month to produce quality news and features. People are quick to promote an idea, expecting coverage, but slow to respond to advertising proposals in the same email string.

Trust me, we understand what it’s like to run a nonprofit or small business where there’s little to no ad dollars. But, we’ll spend tens of thousands on a fundraising event to do similar things an ad can do — promote a brand and increase visibility — essentially spending money to raise money. So, why not share the love with your community media that offers indispensable coverage of your work, industry, community and its people? Why shrink away when asked to support your own local paper? Consider developing a relationship that benefits one another.

Community media is not like other media. The IE is a community nonprofit agency, and is, in fact, the only nonprofit Asian American media of its kind in the country. Would you go to the Wing Luke Museum or ACRS as a guest or client without expecting to offer some kind of payment, insurance, or donation in return for their services?

We thank some of our long-time advertisers such as Christopher Togawa, Bonney-Watson, Uwajimaya, Mutual Fish, King County Library System, and City Produce for their support.

The IE stuck it out for nearly 40 years, longer than any other Asian American media in the NW — and relied soley on the support of the community, individuals, and its businesses. In the last few years, we endured the worst economic climate and in many ways, flourished. This is testament to a great team of people and a cause that resonates.

We don’t threaten or bully people into advertising with us — we’d rather earn your trust and support.

So the next time you plan to propose an idea, consider offering a trade. Offer something just as valuable as what you’re asking for. You might be surprised how far the support on both sides goes.

By the way, our media kit with ad rates is available on-line.

After Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, a wave of anti-Japanese hysteria swept over the western United States. On February 19, 1942, seventy years ago, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. The order authorized the Secretary of War and military commanders to declare areas of the United States as military areas, “from which any or all persons may be excluded.” Pursuant to the authority granted him under Executive Order 9066, General John DeWitt, Commanding General of the Western Command issued several orders and proclamations directed toward all German and Italian aliens and all persons of Japanese ancestry, citizen or not, which included a curfew order and a requirement to report to a civilian control station as a prerequisite to being excluded from the region.

At that time, Gordon Hirabayashi was a 24-year-old senior at the University of Washington. Born in Seattle, Hirabayashi had never been to Japan. He believed that as an American citizen, he had rights protected under the US Constitution. He felt that the military orders were based on racial prejudice and decided to challenge the constitutionality of the military orders by refusing to follow the curfew orders and refusing to report to a civilian control station to be excluded into internment camps. Similar challenges were made by Min Yasui in Portland, Oregon and by Fred Korematsu in San Francisco, California.

Hirabayashi was arrested, indicted, tried, and convicted by a jury in the federal district court. Yasui and Korematsu were also tried and convicted in federal district courts in Portland and San Francisco. All three men appealed their convictions to the United States Supreme Court. Hirabayashi’s attorneys argued that the military orders were unconstitutional because the government had failed to prove an emergency situation to justify a racially based classification. The orders had focused on the ancestry of Japanese, regardless of whether they were citizens or not. While the military orders had also applied to German and Italian aliens, they were not applied to German American and Italian American citizens.

The government argued that the military orders were constitutional because they were based on a reasonable judgment of “military necessity.” It took the position that given the urgency of the situation, it made individual hearings to determine loyalty impossible to hold, that with 100,000 Japanese living on the West Coast, the government had to act quickly to remove the threat of an unknown number of disloyal Japanese, that there wasn’t time to separate the loyal from the disloyal.

The US Supreme Court accepted the government’s argument and ruled that the curfew orders were justified by “military necessity.” Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 US 81 (1943). Yasui vs. United States, 320 US 115 (1943). The following year, the Court applied the same military emergency rationale to uphold explicitly the exclusion of all citizens of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. Korematsu v. United States, 323 US 214 (1944). The highest court in the land had spoken. The convictions for all three men were affirmed.

The Hirabayashi, Yasui, and Korematsu decisions were widely criticized by legal and history scholars through the years. Starting in the early seventies, the Japanese American community led the movement for wartime reparations. In 1980, Congress created the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians to study the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. It was in the course of doing historical archival research for the Commission that Aiko Yoshinaga-Herzig, in 1982, found a copy of General John DeWitt’s original report which explained his reasons for issuing the military orders. General DeWitt’s original report differed dramatically from the official version of the report. This report did not purport to place the basis for the military orders on the urgency of the situation but instead was based on traits peculiar to citizens of Japanese ancestry; that it would be impossible to separate the loyal from the disloyal, and that all would have to be evacuated for the duration of the wars. In other words, General DeWitt’s justification for his military orders was based on racial stereotyping against Japanese American. This report was suppressed from the defense attorneys representing Hirabayashi, Yasui, and Korematsu.

Coincidentally, at around the same time in 1982, legal historian Peter Irons decided to write a book about the Japanese American wartime cases. He conducted interviews with Gordon Hirabayashi, Min Yasui, and Fred Korematsu. During these interviews, Irons suggested to the men that they should go back to court to get their convictions reversed. He explained they could file a writ of coram nobis. A writ of coram nobis is a relatively seldom used legal procedure to correct a previous error “of the most fundamental character” to “achieve justice” where “no other remedy” is available. Korematsu, intrigued by the possibility, asked Irons to represent him.

Irons enlisted the aid of Dale Minami, one of the most prominent Asian American civil rights attorneys in the country, for Korematsu’s legal representation. Hirabayashi and Yasui had also agreed to sign on. Minami assembled a legal team in San Francisco. The original plan was to have one writ of coram nobis to cover all three men. However, based on the law, the writ of coram nobis had to be submitted to the trial court which had previously convicted them. Hirabayashi had to file his petition in Seattle, Yasui had to file his petition in Portland. Legal teams had to be assembled in Seattle and Portland. Lorraine Bannai was an attorney in Minami’s law firm. She had a sister, Kathryn Bannai, who was practicing law in Seattle. Kathryn’s then sister in law, Peggy Nagae, was a prominent civil rights attorney in Portland. Kathryn assembled a legal team in Seattle. Peggy assembled a legal team in Portland. Over 50 attorneys volunteered hundreds of hours and expertise to serve on the three legal teams.

In 1983, forty years after their convictions, Hirabayashi, Yasui, and Korematsu each filed petitions for write of error coram nobis in Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco. Each petition argued that the convictions should be overturned because the government had engaged in serious misconduct by suppressing and withholding evidence that would have supported their defense in their original trials and requested a full evidentiary hearing. In 1983, Korematsu’s petition was granted and his conviction was overturned without an evidentiary hearing. In 1986, Yasui’s petition was granted and his conviction was overturned without an evidentiary hearing. The Hirabayashi petition was the only one of the three petitions that went to hearing held in 1986 in the federal district court in Seattle.

The district court held a full evidentiary proceeding on Hirabayashi’s claims. The judge agreed with Hirabayashi’s factual contentions, overturned his conviction for violating the exclusion order, but did not overturn his conviction for violating the curfew order. Both the government and Hirabayashi appealed this decision to the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1987, the Ninth Circuit, in an opinion authored by Judge Mary Schroeder, vacated both Mr. Hirabayashi’s curfew and exclusion convictions on proof of the allegations of governmental misconduct. The effect of this decision was unprecedented because it had the effect of overturning the original Supreme Court decision made over forty years earlier.

The Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality at the Seattle University School of Law will host a major conference Feb. 11, 2012, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Ninth Circuit opinion in the Hirabayashi v. United States “coram nobis” case. The conference will celebrate Gordon Hirabayashi’s principled stand in challenging the military orders that led to his 1943 Supreme Court case that upheld his convictions. Members of his coram nobis legal team will provide reflections on their roles in his case nearly 40 years later. There will be panel discussions regarding the significance of this case. Judge Mary Schroeder who wrote the landmark Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision will be a featured speaker. Admission is free but pre-registration is required. Please go to: www.regonline.com.

These shows are extremely addictive, which is why there are dozens of them, some with several variations: CSI, NCIS, Law and Order, Numb3rs, Bones, Criminal Minds, etc. They are well-written and well-acted, with interesting stories and good pacing. Besides those factors, though, there are two elements of these shows that make them compelling. First is the fact that we are all wired to be problem-solvers. We like puzzles. Each show is a jig-saw puzzle, and we get to go along on the ride as the professionals find the pieces and put everything together. Secondly, we are attracted to the sense of justice that the shows impart. At the end of each episode, usually the killer is caught, his motives are explained, and there is some sort of justice delivered.

I spent a lot of 2011 watching these shows. On New Year’s Eve, I caught a glimpse of an episode of Criminal Minds where children’s bodies were discovered, and at the end, they realized the killer was a kid who just enjoyed going around killing other kids. It made me sick. It made me even sicker to realize that I had not gotten sick earlier. This is horrible stuff and yet it was just another hour of entertainment and everyone could just get back to having dinner or whatever.

It is alarming there are so many of these shows out there. If TV is a necessary form of escapism, then what exactly are we escaping into? We escape the real world, where horrible things happen and we read about them, to TV world, where similarly awful things happen and we get to see the gory details. In “Bones,” for example, the bodies are displayed in all their mutilated, decomposing glory. They spend a lot of time on these fake cadavers. The results are so gruesome that in the past, I had to look away. Now, they barely bother me.

That’s the thing, these shows desensitize us to violence and murders, even as they make us feel reassured that there is justice at the end. I’m not saying they cause people to be more violent. I haven’t been inclined to go around killing people in creative ways that the shows depict. Apologists for crime procedurals might even say they have a role in providing an outlet, a vicarious sort of catharsis. But I’m sure watching this much violence and depravity day after day doesn’t really help things.

At the least, it doesn’t help me. So for 2012, I’m going to try not to watch any more of these shows. Escapism, healthy escapism, should nourish the mind and soul, or at the very least, be neutral. It should not force us to see, in brutal details, the ugliness of the world that we’re trying to escape from.

Of course, this is not to say that I am against the depiction of violence and murders. These last few months, I’ve discovered some great and very violent shows. “The Walking Dead” portrays a post-apocalyptic world where a disease has wiped out most of mankind. Survivors have to make tough choices as they face zombies, including killing each other to stay alive. “The Game of Thrones” depicts a medieval-like fantasy land where warring clans do not hesitate to behead one another. And “Battlestar Galactica,” a sci-fi also set in a post-apocalyptic world where intelligent robots look and behave like humans even as they try to destroy us. Lots of violence everywhere. But at the least, the characters change and grow, and there are moments of humanity and lessons that we can learn in these characters’ choices and actions.

Not that we actually learn anything from shows in general. However, I think good shows deeply explore the worst and the best in humans and in humanity, not just the worst.

Read more Jagged Noodles at: www.jaggednoodles.com

I had to make one hundred basketball shots a day the summer after I turned 13. It was my mom’s idea. She’d sit on the weathered porch of our Mukilteo home, peeling an orange or seated on an exercise bike, pedaling away inside the house, perched near a window, while she avidly watched me. Earlier, my dad and brothers set up a brand new basketball hoop in our driveway. My mom thought it a perfect opportunity to improve her daughter. And, to clarify, that wasn’t to shoot a hundred baskets; it was to make a hundred baskets – in a row – otherwise, I had to start over. I saw many suns set behind the backboard and often shot through the night to make the quota. Sometimes, the court lit up only by the dim shine from a porch light. My mom had the notion that if I played basketball, I’d get taller. “You stretch! Shoot ball, stretch body!” she’d exclaim. I don’t think I got any taller, but I learned to stretch my dreams and shoot high.

A man shooting for the stars is Conrad Lee, the first Asian American mayor of Bellevue. In an interview with the IE, Lee shares his dreams for the booming city he inherits and what role the diverse community of Bellevue will have in the Northwest’s future.

This is a landmark season for the Japanese American community, which commemorates the 70th anniversary of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 – the racist order propelled from the attack on Pearl Harbor that forced thousands of Japanese Americans to evacuate immediately from their homes into internment camps.

This year also marks the 25th anniversary of a pivotal civil rights case where Seattle native Gordon Hirabayashi challenged the U.S. military orders for JA internment, believing the forced removal was unconstitutional. Gary Iwamoto served on the legal team to represent Hirabayashi. In this issue, Iwamoto reflects back on the unprecedented case.

Unprecedented today are the potential cuts to people’s healthcare access. In a partnership with local community leaders concerned about the Governor’s proposed budget, the IE is publishing part II of an analysis investigating the impact to real people if the cuts come to pass – and why it’s important to make a stand today.

Enjoy another special issue of the IE. And don’t forget – as I learned in my lesson of making a hundred basketball shots — it’s ok not to excel at an entire sport, as long as you spend your life shooting for something.

To kick off the New Year issue, we cover significant stories that loom like a shadow over the heart of the community. There’s the threat to the most vulnerable APIs in the state due to the governor’s proposed budget cuts. In part I of this two-part series, we uncover exactly who will be hit hard. The CenturyLink stadium’s north parking lot development is underway. Its design was unveiled in December. Since the massive commercial/residential development is located across the street from the Chinatown/International District, I wanted to know how it will affect the thousands of people who work, live and visit the C/ID.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. The Lunar New Year season is upon us! Your holidays are not over yet. In this issue, readers can enjoy our annual Northwest Guide to Lunar New Year 2012. We call it “Enter the Dragon.” The Guide features a history of the centuries-old celebration, a Q&A with children, asking: “Where do you think dragons come from?”, a dragon year astrological forecast, and famous dragons in history.

We also feature a piece on a young Filipino American man’s rare battle with gout and his use of medical marijuana to keep the pain at bay. And two special op-eds discuss where APIs will draw the line at derogatory roles in popular media, and what the legacy will be with the conclusion of the Iraq War.

We all wish you, our readers, a happy and blessed New Year. We hope we can all appreciate the journey we’re on – whether on a bumpy one or not. Actually, they’re all bumpy. But as I mentioned, in my opinion, there is no beginning of the year or end. So you have plenty of time to smooth things out.

When Americans came back from defeating the Germans after World War II, there were ticker-tape parades. When the last U.S. helicopter lifted off from Saigon, Vietnam on April 30, 1975, the image seared deep into the American psyche; it spelled an ignominious end.

For the first time in its history, America had been defeated. Its ally, South Vietnam, fell to communist hands. Several generations grappled with their nation’s foreign policies and the meaning of such “hell in a small place,” reexamining their role in the war, whether as participants and supporters, or dissenters and protesters. Vietnam changed the nation’s outlook on the world and its place in it. Since then we have been trying to kick the Vietnam syndrome. We have been searching for victory.

Fast forward to Dec 15, 2011.

The last of American troops made their way across the border to Kuwait from Iraq, a short trek and uneventful one. After nearly nine years, the United States declared the end of its military operations in Iraq. In a solemn note, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, in a low-key ceremony at Baghdad Airport, said, “The cost of war was high… blood and treasures of the Untied States and Iraqi people. But those lives have not been lost in vain — they gave birth to an independent, free and sovereign Iraq.” He then flew out to Turkey to attend a more important meeting on the other war where blood and treasures continue to be spent — the one in Afghanistan.

The war in Iraq started with Operation Shock and Awe but ended in a fizzle and, some would argue, in an epic exercise in human futility. Neither victory nor defeat was immediately clear. Instead, with the last of the American troops gone (even as thousands of mercenaries are left behind), the meaning of the war is muddled, leaving in its wake more questions than answers.

Is this the victory we had hoped for since Vietnam? Is this what we could muster nine years after we invaded, supposedly to find weapons of mass destruction? Is Iraq truly a free and sovereign nation, given the unending conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims? And even if it is, was it worth the squandering of American blood and treasures, not to mention the killing of Iraqi civilians in “collateral damage”? Why liberate Iraq and not, say, North Korea? Why freedom and sovereignty for Iraq, if that was truly our purpose, and not, say, Tibet or Cuba? And if our national interest was at stake, have we protected that interest now that we have spilled precious blood and depleted our national treasury? Why Iraq?

Historians will bicker over the answers. What is certain, however, is that the war in Iraq claimed 4,487 American lives, and left 32,226 Americans wounded, according to Pentagon statistics. According to Iraqbodycount.org, the number of Iraqis who died from violence ranges between 103,000 and 114,000. The United States spent nearly $3 trillion fighting it, and with another exorbitant war still waging in Afghanistan, the result is a bankrupt U.S. economy. After all, in 2000, the U.S. economy had a $230 billion surplus. In 2011, U.S. debt is at $15 trillion and growing. That’s $1.3 trillion a year going South.

We closed a chapter in Iraq but the book of the War in the Sand is still being written. One is left with an unsettling feeling, a bitterness in the mouth. We lost more than we hoped to gain. It’s not defeat exactly, but in an age of perpetual war, it’s clearly no victory.

Our troops are barely out of Iraq, and we can’t wait to move on. News of the war’s end competed with news of the typhoon in the Philippines and the death of North Korea’s Kim Jong Il, and the endless fights in Congress over whether to extend the payroll tax cut.

It’s as if there is a collective will to forget in this country. Let’s forget Abu Ghraib, where we tortured and sexually humiliated our captives. Let’s forget about the weapons of mass destruction, since we couldn’t find any. Let’s forget Haditha, where a My Lai-style massacre took place by our drunken soldiers. Let’s forget water torture being condoned and supported by politicians. Let’s forget extraordinary rendition where we kidnapped thousands of world citizens and flew them directly to secret prisons for interrogation. Let’s forget that there’s a Guantánamo where political prisoners are still being kept without due process. Let’s forget the 2 million displaced Iraqi refugees. Let’s forget all the lies and deceptions we’ve been spoon-fed.

Let’s just move on.

It is worth noting that as the war in Iraq drew to an end, Congress passed a defense budget at a whopping $662 billion with flying colors. There was no fighting to speak of in a Congress known for its bickering and quarrels. There was no controversy over spending that amount of money among elected officials otherwise known for their push to cut basic services. No doubt much of the funds will go to high-tech weaponry and better drones – a remote-control war that is increasingly replacing ground operations.

At last month’s Occupy Movement rally in San Francisco, before it too fizzled out, there was a lone placard that said “U.S. Out of Iraq and Afghanistan.” It stood out among a litany of grievances against the federal government over domestic issues: “Give Us Back our Dream!” “Give Our Homes Back!” “99% against 1%.” The outrage was against wealth inequalities in America, not what the empire is doing overseas.

The violent works and aggression of empires seem to depend proportionally on the complacency, and therefore tacit approval, of their citizenry. The war industrial complex needs to be fed. Victory may no longer be needed. As long as we can afford it, and even when we can’t, we seem destined to wage war.

For all of the horrors committed in the name of democracy, and all of the soul searching Americans did after the Vietnam War — remember that ‘70s mantra, “No More Vietnams!” — we failed to alter the bellicose direction of our nation.

Years ago, the poet Robert Bly argued that Americans have yet to experience ablution over past atrocities. “We’re engaged in a vast forgetting mechanism and from the point of view of psychology, we’re refusing to eat our grief, refusing to really eat our dark side,” Bly told Bill Moyers on national public television. “And therefore what Jung says is really terrifying — if you do not absorb the things you have done in your life … then you will have to repeat them.”

In this sense, individual karma is not so different from that of a nation. Perhaps it is our country’s fate to keep repeating acts of barbarism until we come to some profound reckoning with our own heart of darkness.