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TechnoratiWar Is a Hate Crime
It was a clever piece of marketing. It blunted debate about new funding for war. And behind the closed doors of the caucus rooms, the Democratic leadership told Blue Dog Democrats, who are squeamish about defending gays or lesbians from hate crimes, that they could justify the vote as support for the war. They told liberal Democrats, who are squeamish about unlimited funding for war, that they could defend the vote as a step forward in the battle for civil rights. Gender equality groups, by selfishly narrowing their concern to themselves, participated in the dirty game.
“Every thinking person wants to take a stand against hate crimes, but isn’t war the most offensive of hate crimes?” asked Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who did not vote for the bill, when I spoke to him by phone. “To have people have to make a choice, or contemplate the hierarchy of hate crimes, is cynical. I don’t vote to fund wars. If you are opposed to war, you don’t vote to authorize or appropriate money. Congress, historically and constitutionally, has the power to fund or defund a war. The more Congress participates in authorizing spending for war, the more likely it is that we will be there for a long, long time. This reflects an even larger question. All the attention is paid to what President Obama is going to do right now with respect to Iraq and Afghanistan. The truth is the Democratic Congress could have ended the war when it took control just after 2006. We were given control of the Congress by the American people in November 2006 specifically to end the war. It did not happen. The funding continues. And while the attention is on the president, Congress clearly has the authority at any time to stop the funding. And yet it doesn’t. Worse yet, it finds other ways to garner votes for bills that authorize funding for war. The spending juggernaut moves forward, a companion to the inconscient force of war itself.”
The brutality of Matthew Shepard’s killers, who beat him to death for being gay, is a product of a culture that glorifies violence and sadism. It is the product of a militarized culture. We have more police, prisons, inmates, spies, mercenaries, weapons and troops than any other nation on Earth. Our military, which swallows half of the federal budget, is enormously popular—as if it is not part of government. The military values of hyper-masculinity, blind obedience and violence are an electric current that run through reality television and trash-talk programs where contestants endure pain while they betray and manipulate those around them in a ruthless world of competition. Friendship and compassion are banished.
This hyper-masculinity is at the core of pornography with its fusion of violence and eroticism, as well as its physical and emotional degradation of women. It is an expression of the corporate state where human beings are reduced to commodities and companies have become proto-fascist enclaves devoted to maximziing profit. Militarism crushes the capacity for moral autonomy and difference. It isolates us from each other. It has its logical fruition in Abu Ghraib, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with our lack of compassion for our homeless, our poor, our mentally ill, our unemployed, our sick, and yes, our gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual citizens.
Klaus Theweleit in his two volumes entitled “Male Fantasies,” which draw on the bitter alienation of demobilized veterans in Germany following the end of World War I, argues that a militarized culture attacks all that is culturally defined as the feminine, including love, gentleness, compassion and acceptance of difference. It sees any sexual ambiguity as a threat to male “hardness” and the clearly defined roles required by the militarized state. The continued support for our permanent war economy, the continued elevation of military values as the highest good, sustains the perverted ethic, rigid social roles and emotional numbness that Theweleit explored. It is a moral cancer that ensures there will be more Matthew Shepards.
Fascism, Theweleit argued, is not so much a form of government or a particular structuring of the economy or a system, but the creation of potent slogans and symbols that form a kind of psychic economy which places sexuality in the service of destruction. The “core of all fascist propaganda is a battle against everything that constitutes enjoyment and pleasure,” Theweleit wrote. And our culture, while it disdains the name of fascism, embraces its dark ethic.
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, interviewed in 2003 by Charlie Rose, spoke in this sexualized language of violence to justify the war in Iraq, a moment preserved on YouTube (see video below):
“What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, and basically saying, ‘Which part of this sentence don’t you understand?’ ” Friedman said. “ ‘You don’t think, you know we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we’re just gonna let it grow? Well, suck on this.’ That, Charlie, is what this war is about. We could have hit Saudi Arabia, it was part of that bubble. Could have hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could.”
This is the kind of twisted logic the killers of Matthew Shepard would understand.
The philosopher Theodor Adorno wrote, in words gay activists should have heeded, that exclusive preoccupation with personal concerns and indifference to the suffering of others beyond the self-identified group made fascism and the Holocaust possible.
“The inability to identify with others was unquestionably the most important psychological condition for the fact that something like Auschwitz could have occurred in the midst of more or less civilized and innocent people,” Adorno wrote. “What is called fellow traveling was primarily business interest: one pursues one’s own advantage before all else, and simply not to endanger oneself, does not talk too much. That is a general law of the status quo. The silence under the terror was only its consequence. The coldness of the societal monad, the isolated competitor, was the precondition, as indifference to the fate of others, for the fact that only very few people reacted. The torturers know this, and they put it to test ever anew.”
191 Comments so far
Show AllDear posters,
I've posted this sentiment before w/little response, I'll give it another go. Without any countervailing POV other then what has so articulated by the dominate culture, we cannot expect something different. The thought experiment is this, 'what if, as is being strongly promoted/advocated/championed through the UN Mellenieum Project---teachers, ubiquitous the world over, but lets stick w/USA a democracy more so than less w/democratic institutions & a civil society-- & second only to families as a powerful 'change agent' force, front-line classroom teachers in the private & public sectors, beginning in pre-school, began teaching the cultural values of a Human Rights perspective, which is one that cuts across all single-issue agendas (& as an idea, has in theory, achieved hegemony over all other ideas & ideologies expounded upon the public stage--who will stand-up & pronounce themselves as against HR--right left dem rep independent militarist etc) & is the common ground we all walk.
If knowledge is the antidote for fear & fear results in cruelty & humaneness & acceptance cannot be imposed by force of law or arms--& we know there is no single sudden end to injustice, in all it's forms--& that there is only slow steady fitful progress toward a more decent & humane world, if the minds' imagination is not alive to another-way of perceiving, another lens added to the frame of the public imagination, there is little cause to expect them to champion, advocate or struggle for.
"Every educational system has a moral goal that it tries to attain & that informs its curriculum."
So, in your minds dear readers, would the world not be less ugly, if everyday of every week of every month of every year at least, but not limited, through 8th grade (3-4 yrs old through 12-13yrs of age) would the/your the world be better than present!
As Howard Zinn pointed out some time ago, political/cultural/societal change can occur quite suddenly, ie, Japan & Germany WWII, transforming from Militaristic Cultural societies, to what we have today, in a generation, w/Israel & its opposite transformation to a more militant society, arguably another example.
We know the methodology to create a 'habit of thinking'--teach it daily, we have the theory, materials & resources, which when applied, speak to & reinforces, a sensitivity, to the more noble aspects of our human nature, one that is more empathic & compassionately motivated. Otherwise we can continue to wring our hands & rightfully howl.
appreciate your considerations & comments
My problem is that Mr. Hedges addressed too many very important points, not giving either one of them justice. The connections are in the article, but not clearly established. I hope he would take the time to elaborate on and highlight the connections between gay rights and an independant hate crime bill, the unjust wars of choice, and the sadistic, jewish-zionist views on killing moslems.
Mr. Friedman has not seen a war killing Moslems he has not liked, and with all its war crimes and opression, Israel has never done anything he could condemn.
Ok port_lookout. :)
One important point has been overlooked in this discussion. That is the common practice in Congress of allowing unrelated amendments to bills that are voted on. The defense budget should be voted up or down without giving legislators these side issues to justify their votes and distract us from the central issues. This practice has to end.
I think Dennis Kucinich comment pretty much says it all. I first read about this on HuffPo last night and the one paragraph that was glaring to me was that this Act was part of the war-funding bill. It was, indeed, one paragraph. There was not one comment about this in the comments -- just a bunch of cheering. I can imagine opponents would attempt to use Kucinich's vote against him at a future time, because why he voted against this bill would never be explained -- one of those perfect sound-byte thingies that sway the sheeple American public so well. Coupling this worthy Act with the war-funding bill was just a dirty trick, used all too common in, again, this crappy two-party system we have.
Very good point!
And while i am at it. Chris Hedges, great writer that he is. Is also very dark in regards to human nature itself.
Nothing here was new to me. Conceptually. I didn't know the specifics he cites. And the merging of sex and violence is so obvious in the torture scenarios we have seen over the past several years.
Sexuality and hatred combined. The eroticism of evil. A morphing within consciousness. Of course it is obviously on reality shows galore. It has become endemic within mass consciousness.
Trying to make violence a turn on. And this goes along with shaming and degrading people.
Hedges is a fossil-fuel industry shill. Follow your original gut feeling. Afghanistan is about natural gas pipeline routes and control of the world economy thru energy control. As long as we have a car-dependent energy-wasting system, we will be slaves to the energy wars.
Here is a solution: http://freepublictransit.org
Here's the real unvarnished Friedman, now rebranded by the Times and the full MSM as Mr. Green Economy, talking about the importance of the US projecting naked power for its own sake, to show that nobody can tip that power, no matter how many innocent people need to be killed for the sake of that show -- and admitting that he favored attacking Iraq not because they were the most guilty of the arrogance of opposing American hegemony, but because they were available.
A really fascinating, tragicomic element of this is Charlie Rose's framing of the question with the phrase "now that the war is over..."
Friedman and all the neoliberals are nothing more than neoconservatives with Democrat voter registration cards. Both agree that the whole world is properly under both the economic and military domination of the United States, and that all US policy should launch from that assumption. Any differences are only over investment strategy. They're all mass murderers and war criminals. This is among the reasons why taking over your local Democratic Party committee will do absolutely nothing beyond the confines of your own community, Mr. Moore, and take up a tremendous amount of time we could be using to organize things that might be effective.
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America was built on war and hate. Since 1492. There was never peace, always war. And there has never racial harmony. Hate and war are the American way, it's in the American gene, they can't help it.
As for the current gay agenda, as a gay man I'm disgusted with our tunnel vision. We seem to be obsessed with two very conservative issues, marriage and the military. Marriage is a failed, reactionary and limiting institution, gays should be against it, period. And who wants to be an openly gay contract killer? Gays should boycott the military, not try to serve it openly.
Absolutely!!!
Although i am not a lesbian, i have always had similar sentiments.
I normally agree with Mr. Hedges on most things, but not on this. I am appalled that he would call the gay community self-centered for wanting the passage of a bill that protects them in some small measure from being beaten to death. It is unfair to saddle upon a maligned and persecuted minority responsibility for ending the wars overseas! If you wish to blame someone, then stick with blaming the spineless Democrats who engineered this victory in such a duplicitous fashion--don't malign a group of people who have worked hard for their own self-protection, a self-protection I would venture Mr. Hedges takes for granted. It is easy to downplay and marginalize what this bill means to gays if you aren't gay, because you have no idea what it means to live in a country where at any moment you could wind up the victim of an assault for simply being different. Adorno would have understood that, and he would not have called such people "fellow travelers" on the road to fascism. He would have acknowledged them as victims of fascism, and he would have been the first to defend them.
It is unfortunate we have a Congress in power which lacks the integrity to do things in a way which is honest and forthright. Well then, change that by voting them out! But leave gay people alone, they have earned the right to celebrate this victory.
There is something I find strange about this article:Is this one of those exercises where you write a stream of conscientiousness? Chris, wake up, your ramblings made it on truthdig. Someone wake him up.
http://freeflytyingdvd.com
"Any sensible Martian who happened upon this planet and observed the warfare and meanness going on here would certainly report to home base that many of the boss creatures here are uniformly, certifiably, probably incurably insane."
What's Mars named after? The Bringer of War.
I think if there are aliens, they've probably waged war on each other too. I'd worry about us coming across an alien race more warlike than we are.
Few people enjoy the spoils of war, and those few are very rich.
Who named Mars 'The Bringer of War', rocky?
They didn't, we did.
You project the twisted Earthian mentality on our celestial brethren unjustifiably. It could be that no other creature in the universe would even dream of the violence we see here.
I wouldn't worry about us coming across an alien race more warlike than we are. Why postulate cosmic insanity without a shred of proof? We may very well be the only shits in the universe. And as far as empirical evidence provides, we are.
"They didn't, we did."
Good point. But if there is truly intelligent life out there, we really don't know how they'd percieve us. I'd like to think that they're peaceful and out to help us too, but...
"You project the twisted Earthian mentality on our celestial brethren unjustifiably."
Oooooh, now I'm "twisted."
"It could be that no other creature in the universe would even dream of the violence we see here."
How do we know any of that? We don't know anything about them if they in fact exist.
"I wouldn't worry about us coming across an alien race more warlike than we are."
I'm not really. I'm more worried about what we Earthlings do to each other.
"Why postulate cosmic insanity without a shred of proof? We may very well be the only shits in the universe. And as far as empirical evidence provides, we are."
That was my point, sort of. We really don't know. They could be all like E.T. or they could be The Skrulls...or they could be The Coneheads. lol.
That's why I get a little annoyed with that "if an alien race arrived here they'd be horrified" cliche. Maybe they would, maybe not. Maybe they wouldn't care less either way. Maybe they don't exist at all.
I certainly didn't include you, or any other progressive, in "twisted Earthian mentality". You know who I mean.
If they're out there, lets hope they're all Coneheads.
Any sensible Martian who happened upon this planet and observed the warfare and meanness going on here would certainly report to home base that many of the boss creatures here are uniformly, certifiably, probably incurably insane.
I don't totally agree that pornography is essentially misogynistic nor does it have to be, but great article.
I'll never enlist. This is one more reason why. I can see the war machine churning out monsters already. I know them.
"Human beings love war, at least in the abstract. They love fighting and killing and the warped heroics in the legalized mass murder that is war."
I refuse to believe that most humans are that way. To believe such is fatalistic.
We're all going to have to be a little "hard" to survive this storm. But you can be hard and still retain your compassion.
Btw, homphobia and women's rights have been used as excuses to attack Iraq and Afghanistan. Wasn't Dan Savage all for both wars?
No one, gay or straight, male or female, should be serving. Leave that glass ceiling alone. You'll only get cut if you bust it and throw shards of glass at the rest of the world.
Any sensible Martian who happened upon this planet and observed the warfare and meanness going on here would certainly report to home base that many of the boss creatures here are uniformly, certifiably, probably incurably insane.
Dear Posters,
In all honesty, having read and scanned through much more of what is posted here, you are all looking up your rear orifices.
t is all so precious!
In general, you are America's inability.
The truth will not be found up that orifice. It is in those ripped, torn and brought to bloody death by American bullets at the very same time that you pump yourselves up here.
The 'great' American individualism I suppose.
I suppose you are correct, Americans have their heads up their own asses, but everyone else has their heads up each others ass; either way, humans are blind and smell like shit.
James Edwards, Thanks for sharing!
· Yr Obd't Servant
Honestly, your post is almost too offensive to respond to, but here goes. It takes a certain amount of "looking up one's own arsehole" as it were, as well as looking at the "dead bodies", to make sense of it all.
Dear Poster,
Everyone else knows there is no need to make sense of it. There is no sense in it at all. This is the point. Simply stop it!
Americans are the ones who can do it relatively peacefully. The alternative is the accelerating destruction of America amidst millions of deaths out here. You will all rightfully be held responsible, while the care free oligarchy at the core will grow in individual wealth until there is only one left and the wealth means nothing.
Looking up one's own rear orifice refers here to an intellectual closed circuit; a scatological reference to self obsession, which is similarly repulsive. You have misunderstood it as self-analysis, which in terms of know thyself is certainly not repulsive. But the present self obsession I see too much of on these pages is what makes America into the huge blood shitting lunatic we now see every day.
Nobody cares what you think any more. Nobody here is interested.
This article is a wonderful description of what a large part of America has become.
Wonderful but excruciatingly sad for it alone won't change America. America is dominated by a Godzilla that now has to be dismembered.
But violence begets violence. Mao employed re-education badly but there is no choice other than to do it well. This article is the first step in such a process for it identifies the enemy within. America is at war with a beast within itself. Accordingly, Americans have to turn against these brains and blood cells of Godzilla, control them (with Bushco in prison), re-educate them, re-employ them and restructure the entire political/military/industrial megalith. Americans should have done this decades ago when it could have been relatively bloodless. Go in your hundreds of thousands and get them. Many good Americans will be killed by dementedly aimed American bullets, but they will be heroes.
This may sound crazy but it has come to that. Just look. America is stark staring nuts right now.
The current joke is that 'overseas' in an American tourist's lexicon is spelled Israel.
James,
I agree with everything you have said. The obsessive, self-centered, hollow chatter does not get us out of this mess.
Looking forward, a Peace Department is in order. And end to war is possible. Health care for all is a reality in every other civilized country.
We Americans have become or maybe always were uncivilized or too immature to realize an attractive man selling "hope" and "change" is nothing but a salesman.
Let's face it, we are stuck with the government "system". What if we actually elect someone like the majority of us, like Dennis Kucinich, who has the proven integrity and best interests of the people to improve this world?
Maybe we are too immersed in our own self-pity to actually support and elect someone who will lift us out of our muck.
War Is a Hate Crime
____________________________
I think that in future editions, this headline should be substituted for the current title of Hedges' "War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning".
That title makes sense if one reads the book, but IMO it's probably the worst choice Hedges or his publisher could have made. This title comes off as superficially pro-war. I myself found the title off-putting, and only got around to reading it after I'd read some of Hedges' other writings and interviews.
My sense is that Hedges has been evolving and radicalizing since that book was published; I think that he was much more conflicted within himself when he wrote it, and was in the process of synthesizing his direct experience of the horrific, diabolical and unredeemed reality of ALL war with an intellectual belief in its necessity as a last resort.
Ironically, especially given the misleading title, it's as "anti-war" a book as one can read, despite Hedges' assertion at the time that he couldn't advocate its abolition.
· Yr Obd't Servant
OS, thanks for this observation. I read War is a Force several years ago, and I got what he was saying right away. I knew what he meant because I've worked in mental health, especially alcohol/drug addiction. Chris told how he came to realize that he was addicted to war, and he came to realize that we all are. So if we can call an addiction a habit of attempting over and over again to fulfill a craving, to fill an inward emptiness even long past the time that we can, or at least should, see that it is irrational because it is not working and yet we seem powerless to stop the activity, that is addiction. In addiction there are those few moments that one feels alive, on top of the world, filled with a sense of connectedness to all that is good, and such. But it quickly wears off and one is left feeling even worse than one did before the fix. And round and round.
Reading what I have just written it comes to mind that the stage of war that we are in right now corresponds to the point in addiction when it's not even fun anymore, but one is (almost) powerless to stop. No more flags and speeches, watching the new's reporters almost orgasmic "Stay safe!!!"s on the evening news, and no more saving Jessicas from the evil hospital people. Just more dead people. Small wonder that the American people are sick of it, or worse yet have actually even forgotten that we are at war.
But actually Hedges' book did something else for me as well. It helped me to come to realize that the war protesters were not so different from the war makers. I've been involved in peace groups, and protesting can also be an addiction. You see them here on this forum. They are JUST FURIOUS with BUSH or OBAMA or whoever their target may be. Though they may also be of the more gentle type, as well. Peace addicts is what they are.
is it a crime to hate war?
“Every thinking person wants to take a stand against hate crimes, but isn’t war the most offensive of hate crimes?”
You're G-damn right it is.
All people (including gays) need to focus on the murder and violence we're presently all complicit in. Once that's stopped and some sanity restored, we can focus on social injustices and crimes against the citizenry.
Somehow, some are more interested in the legalities of where one might stick their tongue or penis than the outright slaughter of men, woman and children, for which they are partly responsible. You might argue DIRECTLY responsible for, since many gays have this strange penchant for military service/violence.
from the article:
Fascism, Theweleit argued, is not so much a form of government or a particular structuring of the economy or a system, but the creation of potent slogans and symbols that form a kind of psychic economy which places sexuality in the service of destruction. The “core of all fascist propaganda is a battle against everything that constitutes enjoyment and pleasure,” Theweleit wrote. And our culture, while it disdains the name of fascism, embraces its dark ethic.
This is powerful...we are sexual creatures denied celebratory, consensual sexual activity...the rest of the perversion follows...banking, private property and 'the law' drive it home, and the police support...religion and education provide the framework...
Right ED key word is RAPACIOUS;
see my comment under michael klare
When will it be enough? How much killing will it take to end this madness? The American people don't want any more war. As is happening in Afghanistan, the more we stay in these countries, the more we are hated. So many people die, so much killing. Baghdad is desomated. Are we going to do this in Afghanistan?
WE NEED TO STOP THE KILLING.
And most of all, our so-called leaders need to take care of the American people instead of building HUGE military bases overseas. Stop the madness.
"The American people don't want any more war." Yes, Lynne they DO. You don't. Your friends don't. I don't. My friends don't. But we are now and always have been a miniscule minority in an Empire conceived in Genocide and built with forced human labor under daily threat of torture, mutilation, and death. IT'S WHO WE ARE. IT IS THE WHITE MAJORITY in this country. Without Constant War, along with Male Supremacy, Gender Slavery, and feral blood drinking Oligarchy as a binding agent - they would have no identity as humans at all.
This reality was tested here at a time when white males had the greatest distribution of wealth ever seen in 6000 yrs of human history. The END of poverty forever in this country was in sight. LIFETIME stable employment with fixed benefit pensions was on the horizon. The White Majority had only to do 3 things to make both of them a reality: They had to make an equal starting place for everyone at the table, they had to reject war and conquest as a way of life, and they had to let their (nearly moribund) feral Oligarchy die as a social caste, become a historical artifact like Royalty and barrow mounds. If you were there in the mid '60's you know the response of 87% of the population, the White Majority.
In 49 states they overwhelmingly elected RMN to, "Put those filthy f***ing n***gers, those filthy f****ing c**ts, and those long haired commie f***ing anti-war protesters in their f***ing place." Short version: Within a decade the were no leaders and no mass movements for economic and social justice and there have been none since. Nixon and Hoover made the bad people go away, permanently. Just like the White Majority wanted them to do...
And this is what they get for their choice. Squalor. Degradation. Destitution. And all of it is preferable to making an equal place for everyone at the table, rejecting war as a way of life, and terminating the Oligarchy...well, at least they've been able to maintain their identity...as feral bestial monsters. And they are now becoming a minority in THEIR country.
You haven't seen any hysteria yet. Not compared to what's coming. And it is coming. Soon....
I agree with most of the article and Chris might not be showing hate but seems to show resentment against Gays as being "selfish" for fighting for their rights and the rights of all minorities to be protected from hate crimes.
Does he expect one new law to end War?
It is gonna take millions of things to do that and this law is a good step.
Of course the fact that it had to be attached to war funding to get it passed is not right but that is reality.
Onward Christian soldiers
Sioux Rose
I never expected Chris Hedges to act as my intellectual (or literary) soulmate but a lot of what he has wisely espoused in this article is identifical to points I have made on:
1. The uber: masculine use of military force is the CHIEF expression of the mythological god Mars in our modern world.
2. To the degree a society identifies with this idol (or twisted ideal) it demonizes its counterbalance, which is Venus. And as taken from the Logos, Venus rules Libra the sign of: skillful negotiation, law, peace, balance, and respect for points of view others than those that demand force first.
3. To gain power, for Mars to act as central force in the life and blood of a nation, requires a complicit media, and lots of programming to exalt the "strong man in uniform."
4. Reciprocally, his Divine partner and EQUAL, she that represents sensuality, romantic love, peace, and UNITY must be demonized, and hence the disgusting sort of porn that now is "consumed" into the billions ($) across the web.
I've written about the fusion of these programming devices, and many in the forum couldn't countenance the analogy between porn and violence. Maybe now that Mr. Hedges who's been witness on the war front(s) relates the SAME EXACT points, some will take heed and if necessary, face the heart of darkness as their own personal inside job.
"This hyper masculinity is at the core of pornography, with its fusion of violence and eroticism, as well as its physical and emotional degradation of women." Chris Hedges
Elsewhere he offers the analogy between a society's investment in violence and its corresponding loss of virtues like caring, compassion, and consideration for other. The U.S. has crossed the threshold to any appearance of morality, intelligence, or decency in its ongoing policies of destruction and despair to far too many. Mars alone cannot make life! HE is enemy to all sentient beings... what really provides terror in our world is the LEARNED belief that the use of violence can solve any problems whatsoever.
Now that terrorism has been used to market more weapons worldwide, we are guaranteed a return on THAT investment. Now there are things to fear... as The Book of Job relates in the Bible, in an allegory directly about the power of darkness, a self-fulfilling prophecy emerges. Job said, "That which I feared hath come upon me." Some lessons are timeless, and the US has learned few of them in its allegiance to a martial hubris that like the guy lost and running out of gas, still can't ask for directions from his partner, and co-pilot... VENUS.
Hear, hear, Sioux Rose. And fond greetings. I might add that for love and harmony to prevail, Venus must indeed triumph over Mars, as, for example, in the great Renaissance fresco by Francesco del Cossa in Ferrara, Italy, The Triumph of Venus, the center of which features a shackled Mars kneeling before his victorious lady, as all around them love, beauty, and concord fill the ideal landscape.
And while this may be a utopian ideal, surely it is a perfection towards which we must strive.
Bravo, incidentally, to both Hedges and Kucinich for mincing no words as to the horrific hypocrisy of "our lawmakers."
And did anyone notice the inherent racism in Tom Friedman's words? So we strike Iraq, Syria, or Saudia Arabia to burst "their" bubble? Thus if Arab terrorists strike US targets at home (a very big IF, be it said), then all Arabs are fair game?
This, mind you, was the same logic used by the Nazis to unleash Kristallnacht against the Jews of Germany after German diplomat Ernst Vom Rath was assassinated by Jewish radical Herschel Grynszpan in Paris in 1938.
Obviously, collective punishment, racially defined, is okay by Tom Friedman.
Sioux Rose
CLOVIS: I don't recall if it was at the MET or the Royal Galleries of London that I came upon Boticelli's rendition of "Venus and Mars." He purposely painted the warrior as a virtual child absolutely dwarfed by HER presence.
I have traveled and bonded with many men and women, and due to my interest in things esoteric, drawn out intimate stories from their souls. Among the women I have shared my journey with, most of us agree that many men would rather go to war then learn about the mysteries of the heart, for there they are indeed made vulnerable to women. The great attorney love of my life one night held me tight and tried to show me with his greater muscular force that he could hurt my body... but he then explained that with just a word, a nod or gesture of displeasure, I could slice his very being in two. This is the story of Samson and Delilah in the Bible.
How much easier for men to use their greater physical force to control women, force them under codus of religious ideology to OBEY the "great father" (conveniently devised as themselves as HEADS of the home), then to have women free to make their own decisions, choose their own lovers, decide who they wish to father their children, etc. This is the GREAT threat to the male essence and/or ego.
I know there are men who establish genuine partnerships with women, but that is a rarity in this world. Most men are afraid of that high level mystical alchemy that would make them BECOME ONE WITH their partner. Just as in nature, some species of spider devour the mate (male) after coitus, I would not be surprised if the subliminal shadow of that very fear did not exist in some remote zone of male biology. Could someone please check the Y chromosome?
P.S thank you for the compliment (always appreciated)
".....Bottecelli's rendition of 'Venus and Mars'. He purposely painted the warrior as a virtual child absolutely dwarfed by HER presence."
Not so. Take another look. Mars is not as a child, he is a full grown man, a warrior, an equal to the beautiful Venus who watches over him with contentment as he sleeps, while the mischievous satyrs play with his weapons. The implication being that the love of (and love-making with) his partner has quieted his warring passions.
Sioux Rose
Maybe my memory fails me... I know it was a HUGE canvas and I thought it was Botticelli's... the warrior was done as a child in it. She was huge, in fact she has MY figure... kind'a warmed me up to Botticelli's artistic sensibilities, those that pre-dated all the gay men who succeeded in WOMEN'S fashion houses... thus reconstructing the feminine ideal as a tall basketball star with no hips and surgically perfect breasts... the image was FROZEN into my memory banks for MANY lifetimes to come. It's been 35 years since my sojourn in England... I apologize IF I got the artist incorrect. Then again, how do you know there wasn't more than one of these giant paintings done by Botticelli on THIS theme?
I don't know of another by Botticelli. A google search of "Bottecelli's, Venus and Mars" only shows that one I mentioned. Maybe you are thinking of "The Birth of Venus" which is also by Botticelli, but there is no Mars depicted in that painting.
I agree with you that the current "Mars Rules" situation is out of control. Mars needs a Venetian lover to calm him down. In Greek mythology the child of Venus and Mars is Harmonia (Harmony), representing the balance between their different natures.
Siouxrose--
Delilah was not some sly seductress who had to trap Samson with her feminine wiles (the wink, nod or glance of displeasure) lest the brut destroy her. Delilah was a victim of compelled by her own people to find out the source of Samson's strength or else her own people promised that they would kill her and all her family.
There was no subtlty to Delilah's trickery--she was a constant and unrelenting nag for whom failure was not an option if she wanted to save her own and her family's lives from the Philistine war lords who threatened them.
Poet
Sioux Rose
High, Poet: I got the "Hollywood version." Was it Heddy Lamarr who played Delilah?
Not raised as a Christian, the only Bible Scholarship I got was when I attended Unity church services in the Florida Keys, and also in Puerto Rico (it helped my Spanish, which is so-so at best). I do believe that the value of SOME Bible tales come from the metaphors they represent, and thus this idea of cutting the man's hair to steal his strength I find intriguing. You said nothing about my larger point that the fear of FULL intimacy--and I mean a merging of body, mind/thoughts, emotions, spirit/soul with a complete and true feminine PARTNER is something I think men fear more than warfare. And it's the inborn prejudice against things feminine, for men who DO feel, men who DO question war are often taunted as being sissies by all the men who, like the kids on their own in "Lord of the Flies" have been conditioned to conform to THE hierarchy, as per Mars rules... the fear of not fitting in with this male-based baboon hierarchy is consciously or otherwise, the thing they fight most against. I know men are cruel to each other, children are cruel to each other. There is so much shaming to get people to go along with behaviors that sicken our souls, lessen who we are as human beings learning to enlarge into our greater spiritual dimensions & proportions. The human role models that try to fly over the cuckoo's nest by inspiring higher ideals than the usual "man's inhumanity to man" chain of ghastly events & behaviors, too often end up dead, martyred, or disappeared. I'm glad I believe in the continuity of the soul, that a lifetime snuffed out is not the end of that being's evolution, nor where they get off scot-free if they made things miserable for lots of others.
The greatest power women have over men is their understanding that intimacy is far more than sexual intercourse. Their greatest vulnerability women have comes from their realization that their sexuality has an almost hypnotic power to capture the attention of the male.
This is the female version of "full spectrum dominance" but it is just as foolish as the neocon version and for the same reason--unless or until you win the hearts and minds of your "adversary" you have accomplished nothing that cannot be easily undone.
Any man who can get his mind off of the jiggly and curves of a woman long enough to just listen to her talking with other women could learn a few things about effective communication.
Women's talk seems to have no point or "logic" because they often babble on about seeming trivialities when their real agenda is something quite different. Women in such cases understand that before discussing the "important stuff" they need to be sure of the mood and mindset of the listener.
The less clear the indications, the more they talk and talk about seeming trivialities. Then, when they are convinced that their agenda will get a fair hearing or at least an undistracted one, they spill it out with a speed and clarity that can make the male head spin. Or in the alternative if they are either unsure or convinced that "now is not the time" they may drop the matter entirely and seek some future time when their agenda will get a more favorable hearing (it's called cultivating a relationship).
In the realm of war and peace or realtions between nations both the benefits (in terms of something that will last)and lower cost (in terms of treasure spent as well as lives and things destroyed)should be obvious.
Poet
Sioux
POET: Interesting analysis. I am the type of woman that goes right TO the point. And it has scared off some, I might add. However, your insights are valid and deeper than most on this topic. I spent 17 years writing MOON DANCE which is a far broader analysis of the sensibilities that define the inner lives of men and women than what was produced by John Gray (and I think his work has merit) on "Venus" and "Mars."
Women cycle with the moon on biological as well as inner psychic/psychological planes, and that makes us the equivalent of 12 partners (or personae) to our male partner/counterparts. This was the great Goddess's plan to offset the tendency towards polygamy, the use of prostitutes, comfort women, heterae, etc. In any event, can a man really know a woman if she is free enough to "become" each of the 12 characters of time (in due sequence)? Most women do what they can to suppress their natural range, the good girl (obedient, authoritarian) is given far more protections in our society than her polarity, the "bad" girl. I argue in my new book that to the degree the dominant male/patriarchal society cripples the wingspan and inner expression of the female, is the degree to which the male ends up crippling himself. We all pay for these artificial limitations.
I do believe a time will come when persons will recognize themselves as bits of the heavens, part of it all, and open their wingspan to levels of expression greater than those limited by fleshbound materialism. The moon is about to enter Pisces (later tonight), the sign I linked with Aphrodite, she, born from the great "swim" of things, and goddess of sensual, conjugal love in which the potential for two separate beings to fully merge into one and know a higher transcendence is ripest. Or as Rajneesh said, "And lovers have sometimes known, what saints have not." Perhaps this lunar phase will sweep you up in her tidal promise.
Touche'
Poet
The holy books of the genocidal blood god invented by pastoralist killer nomads in the ME were written after the males had enslaved their females, established authoritarian patriarchy, developed a social culture based on constant war and trade goods, and produced a feral blood drinking tribal oligarchy to rule them. The books came after the fact. They were justifications, not causes. They wrote the books after they fucked their daughters and did the genocide and explained it all as being directed by their blood god - so it was ok.
In fact to this day, strip male supremacy gender slavery and authoritarian patriarchy out of any of the religions of those books, they're dead in a week. That means that the religions as well as the societies are ruled by gross brutality and oppression, at their base.
And no, you don't need mythical made up astrological stories about planetary/stellar bodies to account for the dynamics of human oppression. Just start with feral bestiality as a consequence of core operating values in both culture and religion. The fact that they have been THE model for 6000 years is beside the point. Well, at least back then your Constellations bore at least some resemblance to shapes astrologers hallucinated - as long as they were in the northern hemisphere between a few degrees of latitude. Everybody else got a different hallucination with different stars and planets. The nice part is, everybody on both sides got to play dress up and pretend to "Secret Knowledge" which is always good for a free meal or even a donation....
We often talk about the same things using different vocabularies. I think Sioux Rose talks about compassion and connection, but using a different genre to frame it. It's not my language, but I try to understand and appreciate where it is coming from. Similarly with religions - people from the same religion come to different conclusions but may speak in terms of Jesus or Buddha. It helps to look past the framing and into the heart of what is being said.
Joe
Hey Lefty, go easy on Sioux, bro....you know her long enough (on this website) to know she means well. "Secret Knowledge?"
Six of the hardest words and practices any of us can ever apply in our own life and affairs, but will end all wars, starting with the war "within ourselves."
Good thoughts, Good words, Good deeds.
Sioux Rose
LEFTY: Maybe it's corny but if CD ever had an event and you attended I would give you a HUGE hug to try to melt through your anger and anguish. I understand the rage inside you at all the things inhuman, and the legacy of so much depravity.
You know, I never got the paid for session with the trance medium I hoped to utilize to bring some insights beyond my own into this forum. However, when I did have such a session years ago I was told that human beings were SEEDED by higher life forms and these higher forms do check in on our progress. There certainly is a barbarian bloodlust that maybe all of us have to fight. Some call it the "reptile brain" intrinsic to our physiology. How does the saying go? Phylogeny recapitulates ontology or the other way around? That during our pre-natal epoch the evolving fetus actually moves up through the biological forms that preceded our own on the wheel of biological destiny. That being said, what's to say some retainer of cold survival urges does not remain as viable?
And this is where I love the Tarot because through its pictures we see a very powerful explanation of the urges inside all of us, some are totally selfish and some are utterly altruistic. Every human being struggles between these poles. I write about what I do in this forum to suggest that larger forces shape us, and these go beyond the mundane categories of economics and politics, even psychology. We are tiny prisms of the entire cosmos, some of our inclinations holy and potentially Divine, and some not much better than a feral pig's. The Tarot explains that as we struggle, as we overcome these darker urges, we rise into our innate Divinity. Thus it behooves societies to encourage the greater potentials of its members, rather than reinforce the worst impulses, and then hold that society to the costs of managing the aberrations. I mean sell a lot of guns so you then require a reciprocal police force, a battery of persons for registration, permits, etc. And this is but ONE example. Taken on a larger level, the US arms the world and what inevitably must that lead to but the GUARANTEE of more conflicts.
Understanding the larger aspects of human nature, not being bound by history, neither negating its lessons, is key to creating that other world that IS possible, and by my cosmic count, ready to begin manifesting. Peace, my friend... no need to throw away the mystics' miraculous insights just because among them have lived relative savages who used their power to bend societies to their own dark wills, as now.
I think that may have been one of your best posts yet, SIOUX. And that's saying something.
Thank you.
And thank you too, CLOVIS.
Sioux Rose
SEVENTH SON: I appreciate the compliment. When I share my thoughts in the forum it's like a cerebral game of ping-pong or tennis, and it feels a lot better when someone tosses a "ball" back at me to make the exercise interesting. Of course a few have aimed to take me out of the game, altogether; but that's another matter... or story, perhaps.
He came and said to her “you are immortal and of the August Heaven and my life is of the dragon breed and even with the magic at my command there is naught that we may do to keep our hearts as one; ah that it could be otherwise”! She being an immortal understood but does understanding bring that elusive quality called and seen as happiness? “What of the boys”? She asked; “I will take them to my home and they will be as their mother and see to the wellbeing of all who would inhabit the land of the mountains that are closest to my true home; for we will be as the angels who nurture and protect”. He said “Nay; mother of these my sons for there is need of princes to minister and protect what is here in the dragons lair and all the creations on land also; we will be as one mind to them as you have the fifty to do what is asked of them and the fifty here will be as princes in this kingdom”. With that they all said their goodbyes and went their way.
How beautiful and tragic at the same time but the Vietnamese have been a fierce and independent peoples forever as is shown in their history but with a tolerance for differing clans or peoples that inhabit Vietnam it is a must and they will be as one in any dispute with outsiders.
Enjoy; Tony 10/24/2009
To ease my conscience for going there and not as a visitor.The Vietnamese Creation Story in 2 parts.Tony
DRAGON and FAIRY
Are there not legends, stories and what are called myths by many who know not the truth? Yea there are many from the American lands, the African lands, the European lands and, of course the vast and varied Asian lands and this is the true story of the creation of the Viet peoples . In the vastness of time where August Heaven had yet to create the lair of the Dragon, which is the sea and the land where the Fairy might reside. She preferred the height and majesty of the mountains for they were closer to her real home which was August Heaven.
The Fairy came down from her original home, which was to see what had been created on this place called the earth. She came down to the mountains of the north between the land of Viet and China. China would have us believe the Viet peoples are of the Chinese and I say nay, nay for the Fairy lady is from August Heaven and is come to see the creation with all the wonderful sights. How she did marvel at the land that was so beautiful and varied; was it as it is today? How much time in years did her walk through the Viet land happen? Yea, it would be in a time before this time; It would be difficult to say it was the same.
The Dragon had come from August Heaven but knew not of the Fairy lady because when he came to be in the water where he lived and ruled the water world and the land he gave up a good portion of his memory of his original home ; it is ever thus for all as we forget our original home! Why did he pick the water? Is not water the more true measure of life on this earth? Are not the Viet peoples 98% water, as are all others of the earth? He had powers of magic and so much more and yet why give up a heaven? Was it to rule; even if the rule was fair and always with justice and compassion? Was it to experience the living, the interacting with all the other creations around in the water and land? The choices, yea even our choices are ever there for all to make.
The Dragon had been in the sea tending to his Kingly duties and had occasion to be on the land when he saw the Fairy lady and had an immediate reaction to her beauty and charms so that he changed from a dragon to a handsome Prince and with all the powers of persuasion at his command he asked for her hand in marriage. “Fair lady, fair lady whence did thee come thee that my heart should hunger so for your hand, the hand that would bring thy heart next to mine”? And how could she, a Fairy lady, know of the Dragon King’s disguise as a Prince and so she said “Ah, my Prince it will be for a life of two hearts joined into one that give me my courage to say yes and be with you always”.
As the Prince was still the Dragon King the Fairy lady bore him a bag full of eggs as is the wont of nature to follow the Dragon King of the water; for was he not of the earth already and she a being from August Heaven not yet tied to the earth? Yet he considered this a bad omen and threw the bag into a field. Why, oh why would he do this the mother would ask? “Are not the eggs of thy body, art thou not a Dragon King with magic and power at thy hands“? Did her plea’s, maybe to August Heaven, or his magic hatch the eggs and there came forth one hundred boys who needed no earthly nourishment ever and grew into handsome young men blessed with the minds and with courage that would vanquish any foe.
As was his nature the Dragon king left the Fairy Lady on the land with all their sons and she knowing that all children should grow up with a father as all need the direction that comes from both parents even if the children have their own minds and are of extraordinary courage. “Where is the heart that was set next to mine; why leave me alone here as a widow with one hundred children that would see their father; is it not the duty of even a Dragon King to do so”? And so the Dragon King came out of the water and talked to the Fairy Lady.
To expose and combat the pathology of militarism that has taken a hold of so many of this country's citizens, it is important indeed, as Chris Hedges has been doing, to bring to light its social, sexual, affective, economic, scientific, and technological presuppositions, as well as its sheer ethical nihilism and its cynical rationalizations.
It is a disease on a par with cancer as far as sheer insidiousness is concerned, and it can affect pretty much anyone. In the United States, it has reached the proportions of a civilizational condition, not unlike obesity, illiteracy, pornography, excessive television watching, and junk food.
Certain sports, too -- primarily, football -- also contribute to the martial spirit that is required by militarism.
HEY, i agree with you on about all you said, but leave "football" out of this!
Basically, we've become a nation of fat, lazy, stupid predators. And, like all predators, we prey on the weak, be it the 1% robbing and pillaging the powerless 99%, or a bunch of cowards going after one homosexual, or taking out Iraq after ten years of bombings and sanctions that left it the weakest nation on Earth.
We're pretend tough, but we're really a buncha pussies ready to dump 200+ years of work because a 'terrorist' might one day blow up a mailbox in Buttholeville...
Yep! As a nation, we have racked up some heavy penalties and the day of reckoning is yet to come.
The powerlessness of the 99% is a convenient myth serving the status quo.
Lest we forget, during WWII, the Soviet Union was our ally against the Fascists. Josef Stalin was called "Uncle Joe" in US newspapers, as cute and cuddly a mass murderer as one could hope to find.
But as soon as the Axis powers were defeated, a new boogie man was needed. Almost overnight, Stalin became the embodiment of all evil and the repository of all fears.
There's something simultaneously fascinating and terrifying about how easily the public can be taught to hate one individual, to accept that an entire nation is embodied in that one individual, and to believe that when that nation is attacked and invaded, the individual is the only target (remember when bombing Libya was refered to as "kicking Qadafi's ass?").
Orwell's Emmanuel Goldstein looms larger than ever. Hate hate hate!
Lest we forget, during WWII, the Soviet Union was our ally against the Fascists. Josef Stalin was called "Uncle Joe" in US newspapers, as cute and cuddly a mass murderer as one could hope to find.
But as soon as the Axis powers were defeated, a new boogie man was needed. Almost overnight, Stalin became the embodiment of all evil and the repository of all fears.
------------------------------
Funny you should say that. Just last night I was re-reading Eric Frank Russell's 'Sinister Barrier' written in 1939, where he has one of the protagonists note that early in the 20th c. the Japanese were viewed as cultured, wonderful people. Then they became the hideous squinty-eyed, buck-toothed Japs, then by the 1980s [the far future to him writing in '49] they were back to being wonderful, cultured people, back and forth back and forth according to the political desires of the US ruling class. The Japanese people never changed, only how the US ruling class wanted us to see them.
But in reality, the Japanese did change after WW2; and continue to change today.
Also, if anything, the fearmongering about Stalin underrated his atrocities.
stalin's atrocities were well known within elite circles (as were saddam's a generation later) even as he was being hailed as our staunch ally. the fearmongering in both cases didn't begin until they had outlived their usefulness.
and isn't it more likely that the japanese people remained the same while their leaders changed?
"and isn't it more likely that the japanese people remained the same while their leaders changed?"
Actually it is more that the people have changed while their leaders have not changed, or rather their leaders have not changed as much.
The reason Japan is pacifistic today isn't because of their ruling class, it is because the people, society, as a whole will not accept any politician who supports overt militarism. It is why Japanese politicians have to resort to all sorts of tricks when they want militarism.
And if you follow Japanese culture, Japanese society is continuing to change in various ways. The Japan today is not similar to the Japan of the 60s / 70s.
Furthermore, why do you consider it more likely that a society will stay unchanging over several generations, and only the ruling class will change? Are you going to say that for example, the US as a society has not changed in various ways from the 50s, the 30s and that it is only the ruling class who have changed? In general it is the elite who are the conservatives who tend to resist change.
Three comments: One, My seventeen year old grandson cannot find a job, because of the economy, and so he may have to join the military. There needs to be more widespread gov't programs for kids like him, so he doesn't have to surrender his humanity and maybe his life in order to support himself. Two, Dennis Kucinich is a true hero, during the presidential campaign he talked about creating a dept. of peace. But the American people are so hung up on looks and charm, they will never vote him in as president. Three, it is a fact that testosterone runs this country, and until women have an equal role in gov't, including a co-presidency, we will suffer endless wars. I guarantee you, if intelligent, aware women ran this country, we would have NO MORE WARS!
Mine's sixteen. I have a strong objection to the "government program" (the Empire) that waits for him after graduation.
You forget that gov't is supposed to be "of the people, by the people, and for the people". We need to stop looking at it as a hostile entity, and begin to transform it into an instrument for the common good. If you are so upset at "empire", you need to organize and protest until you bring change. As for gov't "programs", my father worked for the CCC camps when he was eighteen, during the depression. He traveled around the country, working on construction of roads, planting trees, etc. I don't see this as "empire", I see it as giving a hand to a young man who was grateful for the job. I see it as gov't working to increase the common good.
plse see my comment under michael klare
Sorry. I can see from rereading my post why you took it to be an extreme libertarian anti-government position. Some of the best parts of my home town are the CCC parks and rock gardens. I have nothing against these.
However, I don't see government programs to create jobs so that young people have an alternative to the military to be a solution to militarism. The solution, as I suspect you'd agree, is to end the wars and to end the policies that produce them. The way I would suggest to approach this would be for us to work to change the way we live so that we can reduce the dependence upon overseas resources that the current crop of militarists uses an excuse to intervene in resource-producing countries militarily.
I have nothing against protesting other than the fact that I have worn out many pairs of shoes marching against wars to no avail.
I find Dennis' tenacity and steadfast loyalty to truth and justice charismatic enough.
His beautiful wife (inside and outside) apparently finds him charming enough. :)
donnalou,
You are right on. I also find Dennis' perseverence and consistent dedication to people and social justice very appealing. And, yes, so does Elizabeth.
Sean Penn and Viggo Mortensen campaigned with Dennis Kucinich. I appreciate them as actors and for their recognizing strength and true character in Dennis Kucinich who is a real public servant. I just don't see that in anyone else.
Penn is back in Cuba doing a reportage for Vanity Fair on how things have changed or have not changed on the island since Obomba become prez.
3 cheers for dennis, a welcome respite from
the shrieking hordes of newties on cspan.
oops forgor thumbs up for sean
for the excellent reportage...
loved his last piece on raul castro
genierae,
My husband and I were talking about male domination in areas of religion and war just this morning.
I hope your grandson will not join the military. This will not help him now, but Dennis Kucinich was also talking about public works programs on CSPAN on Sunday and repeatedly talked about creating jobs. Dennis also will provide free public college education for everyone as President. The military should never have to be an option for anyone to earn a living or merely survive although I know it is for many.
This is an example of why I find it so infuriating that Dennis Kucinich is not President right now. He is a realist and believes there is no reason the U.S. should not provide health care as all other civilized countries do. But he is not cynical as I believe Ralph Nader is. Dennis is charming and if anyone saw him in the debates he was allowed on and ever watches CSPAN or is on his email mailing list would know that.
It takes effort to make the right decision and doing some research on the internet, not just on tv debates, should be sufficient for anyone to vote in favor of their best interests.
I believe Dennis Kucinich is the best person for President for a healthy country and world.
I could deal with an independent Nader/Kucinich president ticket. Nader for president because they could serve out his term and then Dennis would be a shoo-in to carry on as president after that.
What a happy dream for 2012.
I hate to break it to you, Chomp, but we do not have to have a giant LEACH sucking the life blood out of our economy to maintain a true defense. Most of our military spending goes to stealing the resources of third world people.
LEECH
Folks who troll in internet--aka folks like you--are probably evil.
But that doesn't mean I am going to make a war against you.
Anyway, you don't have any petroleum reserves.
"Sometimes war is necessary."
Maybe so. Maybe not. If so, only in defense.
In my lifetime (well over half a century) the U.S. military has never defended the country although they've slaughtered millions. The fact that those who profit from their activities continue to promote wars of aggression suggests to me that the activities of militaries have absolutely nothing at all to do with defense.
War is not the wise or moral or effective way to address evil. The proof is in man's story, or history.
War is always evil.
Try plowshares.
YOU are the one who's wrong.
You always are, in fact.
In fact I believe there is something radically wrong with you.
The Palestinians are RESISTING the genocidal Israelis.
thank you.
thanks nativetongueredux like your style its got integrity and punch, if i needed a lawer i know who to call take care.
Thanks, but the only lawyering I have done was "pro se" (being my own lawyer).
Never lost a case, though....
Interesting.
War is terrorism with a bigger budget. "Collateral damage" is the lazy moral thinker's rationalization for excusing him/herself for killing civilians.
Modern weapons are all WMD's, no matter what lies the Pentagon spews about "smart bombs." WMD's kill indiscriminately. Nuclear weapons are actually weapons of genocide.
Wars massively contribute to catastrophic climate change, burning fossil fuels much more and faster than any peacetime use ever could.
People and land victimized by the horror that is war never truly recover.
A rare war fought in true self-defense may be unavoidable, but that is NOT the same as it being "necessary."
Since 1945, every war the U.S. has fought, directly or by proxy, has been a war for geostrategic position and/or resources, not for true self-defense. Empires such as the U.S. make war to expand and dominate, so these have been wars of aggression, and, therefore, war crimes.
And since 2002, the National Security Policy of the U.S., including the Bush Doctrine of aggressive war, is Full-Spectrum Dominance of all other nations on earth, a policy which the Obama administration has not repealed nor renounced.
War IS evil. So, then, evil is necessary?
Time to poll the gnostics on this.
Human beings love war, at least in the abstract. They love fighting and killing and the warped heroics in the legalized mass murder that is war. Otherwise, war, as a form of human endeavor and a means of solving human conflicts, would never have persisted to this day. Wars are started by closet throatstickers and deadbeat punks like Tom "Tough Hombre" Friedman. We hoi polloi can all "suck on this" but the highest forms of human life, like "Tough Hombre", will never soil their hands or risk their lives. The only way to stop war is for those who are made to fight it to throw down their weapons and walk away. Tell Friedman and Obama and McChrystal and Bush and Cheney to go fight it themselves. LOL!