Start Loving is a peaces activist and humanitarian who finds the spread of empire through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq immoral. As such, he feels a duty to wake the conscience of the American people. And in an effort to draw more attention to his cause, Start Loving is now camping out 24/7 in front of the House Office Buildings across the street from the Capitol. When I interviewed him on October 22, 2007, Start Loving was three weeks into a hunger strike.
Part 1 (1:49)
Start Loving: “There needs to be a shift on Capitol Hill from a focus on stuff to a focus on people. We in these Houses [Congress] couldn't really care less about the 50,000 lives of our children of the United States that have been destroyed in Iraq so far. I mean some tiny sliver of each of the Congressmen cares but it is certainly not at the forefront of their minds and that's a crime of humanity. The two million people in Iraq that have been killed, before the war and after the war, should be central to our agenda -- figuring out how to ameliorate that, but it's sideline. So, I'm here to be a vote that our priorities need to shift from stuff, careers, corporate profits to a focus on what's priceless which is human life.”
Part 2 (4:54)
Start Loving: The third unmentioned party is the group that I think are the true patriots of this country, the men and women in uniform, that have been brainwashed into thinking that they're fighting for freedom and democracy in Iran and all they are fighting for are corporate profits for Cheney, Bush and their cronies. My proof of that is who would doubt that if people on Capitol Hill, to keep the war going, had to send their children to the war, it would stop in a nanosecond. Or, the other proof, I think, most people would agree if they thought about it, if the war corporations were told they could continue supplying armaments but there would be no profit - all their profit would be stopped - it would stop in a heartbeat. This is not a patriotic war, this is a war of profit and greed.“
Part 3 (3:09)
Why does Congress care so little about our troops in Iraq?
Start Loving: ”Whereas nobody understands the phenomenon exactly, it's fair to say the human being can become intoxicated on things other than substances. That the spirit of empire, the spirit of power, the sense of power, the sense of power over others, is tremendously intoxicating and like any intoxication it changes your mind. It disables certain parts of your nervous system and empowers other parts. It disables conscience, humanity, heart, compassion and it empowers self-engrandizement, and lust, and desire for more more more. It really dehumanizes us, the spirit that dehumanizes us. Our culture is optimized for that because that is how you get people to buy stuff, by ignoring people in need benignly, of course, thinking that we are great people. But, in fact, ignoring people in need and more and more looking out for me and hiding behind the rationale that I'm taking care of my biological children. But that's really just license to ignore everybody else.
And it took me a long time to understand this about people like Dr. King. He was always as pained about the agony of the oppressor as of the oppressed. And if they ever woke up, he seemed to think and realize, to their inhumanity, they would be horrified and they would never want to be that way. Well, that's how I think it is with Congress.“
Part 4 (1:58)
Why haven't the American people galvanized to put a stop to the Iraq war?
Start Loving: ”The analogy of how fire starts. It starts with a match but it can become a huge blaze. And to start that blaze you need dry wood. I think that the American populous may be going from being really wet wood, just totally in the grip of empire and selfishness, may be drying out a little bit. With the issues that are confronting them.“
Part 5 (3:05)
Would you label yourself an optimist or a pessimist?
Start Loving: ”Facing the truth of your current situation, and if it's a horrible truth facing that squarely, and at the same time developing a vision of how things should be and need to be. And if you can hold both of those within you, it is the ultimate release of energy, and power, courage, commitment.
I neither try to see things worse than they are or better. I want to see the truth of how they are so that I can mobilize myself appropriately. And it's a horrible phenomenon, I was just talking to my friend Rick about how I used to be a devotee of NPR, I can barely stand listening to them anymore. The poor guys have been destroyed by right wing elements I think. But all they want to talk about is pablum and they want to talk everything in cheery voices and how nice everything is... Well, it's not nice. Half the world is living on a dollar day. People in Palestine have been in basically concentration camp conditions for thirty-forty years. Four million people killed in Congo so that we can have cheap electronic parts. You know, Haiti, just a horror. And on and on and on and on. I don't suspect I come across as being depressive. I'm not, I'm very much alive. And that life comes from this needn't be, this shouldn't be. And I want to pay whatever price I can with my life to wake us up. Because none of us want it to be this way. None of us, if we could be awakened from our inhumanity.“
Part 6 (5:41)
What is the significance of the three crosses on your head?
Start Loving: ”The cross in the middle is the name I've adopted because nothing else I could call myself is relevant, which is 'Start Loving'. And the two on either side are 'stop starving' - and it's the active verb - it's starving others of AIDs drugs, of education, I mean, how do we have our military today? We starve these poor and middle class children of the opportunity to go to college, of decent education, so that there only option to climb is to go into the military. We've starved people around the world of AIDs drugs and other basic resources. And when that doesn't work we kill them. So the other one says 'stop killing.'“
Part 7 (1:47)
How long will you continue with the hunger strike?
Start Loving: ”Things will only change in this country when the populous stands up. If there is an honest history in the future, if we have a future, it will not blame congress and it will not blame Bush and Cheney for what's going on. It will blame the American people for being so apathetic at such a horrible time of need.“
Bob Fritakis writes at The Free Press:
“The slaves couldn't speak for themselves, nor can the more than one million Iraqis who have died as a direct result of Bush's war. The voices of 4,000 U.S. soldiers have been silenced as well...”
“On March 15, thousands of people in Los Angeles and across the world will mark the 5th anniversary of the criminal invasion of Iraq. Over 1 million Iraqis and nearly 4,000 U.S. soldiers have died for corporate profits and lies. The people of the world our voices heard.
