That's right, ladies and gentlemen. After many years off, I have decided to bring back the Fighting Sullivan Blog. I initially started this blog in 2011 when entering into one of the greatest fights of my life. I was beginning a long and arduous journey to struggle against the Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs for the poor healthcare and scant benefits these agencies provided to Veterans with environmental injuries. The fight was spurred on by the death of my brother, Tom, most likely from environmental injuries he sustained in his deployment to post-9/11 Iraq. But that story is for another day.
Fighting is an art form. That was the primary point of the original Fighting Sullivan Blog. Fighting is an art form to be celebrated, learned, implemented, used with precision and grace. It is a dance. Many shy away from the fight, seeking instead the establishment of a kind of peace that is the supposed preferred state of human affairs. But the truth of human affairs is much different. The truth is that we are always in struggle. There is always a fight. Peace is merely a punctuation mark, a break between fights. We are not truly happy, not truly engaged in life, unless we fully commit to the fight. It is the fight for our lives, the lives of others, for justice and equal treatment. It is the fight against discrimination, against the oppressive use of power.
Our nation, the United States of American, began with a fight. It was a fight for democracy and freedom against a tyrannical empire. We won this fight, and then, because we were born fighters, we fought and continue to fight amongst ourselves. Our entire system of government, our system of litigation to seek justice, is set up now so that we can fight without violence. But to take advantage of our freedoms, we indeed must fight. We must not seek peace at all costs; we must rebel against oppression at all costs and avail ourselves of the systems in our society that permit us to do so without bloodshed. The weapon we may hold in hand today is the pen, the typewriter, the word processor, the blog. Thomas Jefferson once said that the tree of liberty must occasionally be watered with blood, and this may have been true in the days of the American Revolution. It may have been true in the days of the Civil War, when many of our citizens were held in the violent and unjust captivity of slavery. But today we can accomplish much merely with words, simple words, if we just have the courage to write and to say them.
Life at its core is struggle. We must accept this. Life is struggle punctuated by moments of respite which we call peace. But it is not within our nature to stay in peace. To do so is mere cowardice. For there is always injustice. There is always oppression. There is always a system that must be changed. We are the dominant species of the planet. We have always fought and always will fight. To fight is our responsibility. If we choose not to fight, we are, in fact, choosing death. To live is to engage and to engage is to fight. We must simply find the fight most suited to us, our own particular quest or quests. Then we must take action. The world relies on us to do so.
I am currently working on a book that will be based on the original Fighting Sullivan Blog. It is called:Fighting SullivanThe Beginner’s Guide to Fighting the Good Fight. And the book begins with a simple principle. Rule number one. In order to fight the good fight, FIRST YOU'VE GOT TO GET MAD. Perhaps the video below, from the film Network, will help inspire you.
Fighting is an art form. That was the primary point of the original Fighting Sullivan Blog. Fighting is an art form to be celebrated, learned, implemented, used with precision and grace. It is a dance. Many shy away from the fight, seeking instead the establishment of a kind of peace that is the supposed preferred state of human affairs. But the truth of human affairs is much different. The truth is that we are always in struggle. There is always a fight. Peace is merely a punctuation mark, a break between fights. We are not truly happy, not truly engaged in life, unless we fully commit to the fight. It is the fight for our lives, the lives of others, for justice and equal treatment. It is the fight against discrimination, against the oppressive use of power.
Our nation, the United States of American, began with a fight. It was a fight for democracy and freedom against a tyrannical empire. We won this fight, and then, because we were born fighters, we fought and continue to fight amongst ourselves. Our entire system of government, our system of litigation to seek justice, is set up now so that we can fight without violence. But to take advantage of our freedoms, we indeed must fight. We must not seek peace at all costs; we must rebel against oppression at all costs and avail ourselves of the systems in our society that permit us to do so without bloodshed. The weapon we may hold in hand today is the pen, the typewriter, the word processor, the blog. Thomas Jefferson once said that the tree of liberty must occasionally be watered with blood, and this may have been true in the days of the American Revolution. It may have been true in the days of the Civil War, when many of our citizens were held in the violent and unjust captivity of slavery. But today we can accomplish much merely with words, simple words, if we just have the courage to write and to say them.
Life at its core is struggle. We must accept this. Life is struggle punctuated by moments of respite which we call peace. But it is not within our nature to stay in peace. To do so is mere cowardice. For there is always injustice. There is always oppression. There is always a system that must be changed. We are the dominant species of the planet. We have always fought and always will fight. To fight is our responsibility. If we choose not to fight, we are, in fact, choosing death. To live is to engage and to engage is to fight. We must simply find the fight most suited to us, our own particular quest or quests. Then we must take action. The world relies on us to do so.
I am currently working on a book that will be based on the original Fighting Sullivan Blog. It is called:Fighting SullivanThe Beginner’s Guide to Fighting the Good Fight. And the book begins with a simple principle. Rule number one. In order to fight the good fight, FIRST YOU'VE GOT TO GET MAD. Perhaps the video below, from the film Network, will help inspire you.
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