The Burden of Choice

I hope that next year brings changes

I hope next year you’re free of dangers

I hope next year you have only one burden

And that’s the burden of choice.

To choose to talk freely without fear of reprisals

To decide how to express yourself with no recrimination

To opt to travel by whatever means

To select your friends from the millions worldwide

To pick from a vast array of foods to feed your family

To have a desire that can be fulfilled

To want something small and be able to get it

To wish for peace and see the possibility

To favour freedom without facing hostility

To prefer to stay in your family home and not be in fear of eviction

To fancy all these choices as if they were a given

I make choices every day

I have that luxury

I elect to continue to be vocal

To determine outcomes I know to be right

I choose to do what I do

To have choices, you need freedom

That is my dream for you.

Julia Gillard....how dare you

I read this article and the anger rose up in me to the point where I had to respond to Ms Gillard directly and to the Jewish News. I'm venting, so I'm also posting it here on my blog...if for no other reason than to remind myself that you should take action while the reaction is still raw. Had I left this for a day to two I would have toned down my dialogue, been polite and maybe even apologised for my abrasiveness. I am proud of my response......
"I cannot tell you how infuriated I was to read that you attended this function. Why would you choose to ignore the criminal activities of Israel and align yourself with a government that is humiliating, denegrading and raping a country that it illegally continues to steal land from????? And then you make an ignorant statement like "the two countries had wide-ranging commonalities". Maybe in that we also stole land, persecuted our indigenous people and tragically interfere in their lives/livelihood and then take no responsibility for our wrong doings.You cannot begin to understand the anger and frustration I feel. How dare you, as a representative of our government participate in this forum and say "the start of what you would hope will grow into something like that, I thought that was a tremendous privilege and opportunity" & "To have a discussion about economic issues, security issues, world events generally, that was a great privilege,”. How self centred these comments are....you feel privileged to have been courted by the most ruthless, despotic, inhumane power on the planet????????Good for you..I hope it was worth losing any credibility you may have had previously."

I will more than likely read it tomorrow and think of something else I should have added, or said it differently or contemplated a bit longer before writing, but I was seething, and for good reason. It's truthful, emotive and to the point.....so I'll live with it and Julia can suck it up.