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'The Coming Revolt of the Guards': Thoughts from Dane County Jail
On entering the Dane County Jail, the first holding cell that Brian Terrell and I were placed in had only one other person. We previously saw this man outside the cell during our initial booking. He was a man with dark black skin and a full beard. I thought I heard one of the officers say he was from Gambia. When we entered the cell, the man was in mid-ritual in what appeared to be a Muslim's midday prayer. A young white guard, who had the accent of a Midwesterner, looked disdainfully at the man and then somewhat positively at Brian and me. The guard said, "Just ignore that," as if the man was insulting or threatening us by his peaceful act of prayer. To which I replied, "It's fine with me."
This experience was contrasted by the next encounter I had with another officer who made digital copies of my fingerprints and pictures. As this middle-aged man placed my hand on the machine, I made a remark that I was surprised that he did not already have my information handy. (This was the third time I was fingerprinted and pictured for this same charge.) He said, "Oh yeah? You arrested a lot? What are you in for?" I told him that I was arrested with a group who engaged in civil disobedience at Ft. McCoy. Getting the sense that this man may have previously been in the armed services, I explained that we were not against the men and women in the military personally, but that our goals were to enter the base to talk to the rank and file soldiers about ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to make certain the soldiers were aware of their right to refuse illegal and immoral orders.
Before I could get all of this out of my mouth, the officer piped in abruptly and surprisingly, "I understand folks like you. I was in Vietnam, and this is the same shit happening today." I said, "Oh yeah? What did they have you doing over there?" He replied, "Killing people and breaking shit, and this is just the same." He gazed at me with a fierce intensity and honesty. I was now a bit nervous, feeling that I had asked too much too quickly. After a moment I said, "I'm sorry sir. I'm sorry they had you do that." I continued, "Well, from my perspective, I don't want any more young men and women to have to do what you did, nor to put themselves in harm's way for a war that has no goals or objectives..." He cut me off. I was planning to finish my sentence with something like "...no goals other than bringing more profits to corporations and expanding the U.S. empire." But he continued in an angry tone, "There was no goal then and there is no goal now. It's all pointless." I nodded my head in agreement.
A few more words were exchanged between us about the families being torn apart in the U.S., Iraq and Afghanistan. The disgruntled Vietnam Veteran, now turned law-enforcement officer, concluded taking my fingerprints. He then told me his name and again repeated something to the tune of "I can respect people like you." After the unexpected bond of our short conversation, the feeling was mutual. Ironically, this same man sent me along the way to serve my jail sentence for speaking out against the crimes being committed by our government and soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have now expanded to illegal drone strikes and extra-judicial killings in Pakistan and Yemen.
Until we build a culture that widely accepts that it is okay and necessary to resist war and injustice, I suppose that's the way it will go. I don't know when or if the day will come, but I look forward to the day of the "coming revolt of the guards" that our late brother Howard Zinn predicted; a day when veterans, soldiers, policemen and judges can stand together with civilians, workers and activists alike to put and end to any further senseless tragedies and atrocities.
Joshua Brollier and Brian Terrell were released earlier this week from Dane Co. Jail in Madison, WI after serving a 14 day sentence for non-payment of a fine which was imposed on them for trespassing at Ft. McCoy in the summer of 2008.
45 Comments so far
Show AllA donkey wandered into a farmer's field and began eating its crop. The farmer yelled and cried "how could it do that?" But the donkey didn't move. The farmer than made a sign and held it up in front of the donkey which said "Donkey- Stop your injustice and get out!"
But the donkey didn't move.
So the farmer went to his neighbors and told him about his donkey. They all made signs and marched to the farmer's field shouting "donkey get out" and "The field belongs to the farmer". And they stood in front of the donkey with their signs shouting and crying for it to leave, and it just kept eating.
The people were in dispair and couldnt understand how the donkey could remain there destroying the crop. They sat along the road crying when a little boy walked by and asked why they were crying. The people told him about the donkey that was in the farmer's field destroying his crop. So the boy went to a tree, cut a branch off and went up to the ass of the donkey and hit it hard. The Donkey was startled and ran out of the field.
That's a story I heard.
I heard it was a 600 pound gorilla
The ending I like goes: A man came up and told the people that what they need to do is explain logically to the donkey that what he was doing was wrong and why. Everyone agreed. So the man grabs a 2x4 and SCHMACKS the donkey across the forehead! Aghast, the crowd says we thought you were going to reason with him. The man replies, yea - but first you have to get his attention.
One must be careful. Asses aim when they kick.
The experience that Joshua Brollier had with the police officer and former Vietnam veteran who was taking his fingerprints is reminiscent of the time about a month ago when I was going into a convenience store to pay for gas that I was going to pump into my car. As I was walking into the store I saw a youngish, tall, slim to medium sized military woman in battle fatigues approach the store. As I held the door open for her I said in a moment of bravado "Let's bring those troops home!" Surprisingly she muttered softly, "You don't have to tell me twice."
One suspects that there are a lot more soldiers and military personnel out there who feel the same way that that young woman feels than Fox "News" and other mainstream media outlets are letting on. The hope is that more of them will finally come to the realization that former Master Sergeant and Green Beret Donald Duncan came to when he wisely noted in the powerful documentary Sir! No Sir! which chronicled the story of the GI movement during the Vietnam War:
"I was doing it right but I wasn't doing right."
Soldiers-resist by saying NO to the American empire.
Unfortunately, so many of the military personal are comming home in body bags, disabled in various ways, addicted, homeless, unemployable... Many are hardly in any shape to behave cohesively as cival activists. Thank god for those that can represent the wrongs and help show a better way.
I know a soldier back from Iraq that has a wonderful positive outlook. He looks healthy as any rugby player or mma fighter, and it is hard to reconcile his modest demeanor and attitude with stories of wading through dead and dying bodies and body parts on a regular basis. The reserves get some of his time, but he is trying for a straight job in the US and also toying with the idea of going to work for a military contractor. With his engineering degree, experience and skills, and great personality, one would think and hope that he will find a decent future for himself. Still, it seems precarious on the surface, and there will certainly be cases where seemingly healthy individuals loose their inner demons uncontrollably.
Interesting modern parable; am I overly sensitive when I ask if there is an ending to the donkey story that does not involve violence? Lets try not feeding the donkey (denying the MIC the money it vacuums out of our pockets)but then I have to ask, once it leaves the field where will this donkey go? Sadly where there is a demand (war, conflict, addiction) there will always be a supply. Perhaps we can find ways NOT to feed the many and various donkies greedily eating in our global field. Perhaps at some point having nowhere to go the donkies will just vanish.! Oh well...
Unlike greedy humans in pursuit of increased wealth, animals are often responsive to non-violent controls and corrective measures. Dogs, for example, are extremely sensitive to almost any form of approval/disapproval shown by their "pack leader" masters. The key is establishing and maintaining dominance from the outset as appropriate and necessary to the breed's instinctive tendencies.
Influencing the behavior of "human donkeys", on the other hand, often does seem to require some quite emphatic attention getting measures for that purpose, at least equivalent to their own willful violence against others. Unfortunate, but neither reason nor appeasement seems to work very well -- nor does returning them to the garden patch time after time in the vain hope that they'll change their ways voluntarily.
In the topsy-turvy world of U.S. politics and economics, bad behavior reaps incentives, rewards, bonuses, legal endorsements and even, as often as not, public applause. Somehow, in the circumstances, I'm doubtful that the donkeys will just vanish.
"Interesting modern parable; am I overly sensitive when I ask if there is an ending to the donkey story that does not involve violence?"
The parable is exactly about liberals like you! You insist on endless appeals to reason and being nice, when in reality, only threats to the wealthy and powerful's _material_ interests will get their attention.
A whack on the butt of a donkey with a switch can hardly be considered "violent". Likewise, breaking the windows of a big bank or McDonalds likewise is not "violence", but is sure gets their attention.
Or an even more effective and even more realistic and not overly-sensitive namby-pamby approach might be to attack them, not only smash their stores, but drag them out into the street, beat them, round them up and put them in camps. That will really be effective and will surely make the world a better place.
There is a better ending and one that actually explains what we need to do.
"The boy grabbed a rope and went into the field. He tied a loop into the rope, walked up to the donkey, slipped the loop over its neck, tightened the loop, led the donkey out of the field into the barn of the man who owned him and shut the barn door tight."
We don't need violence. We just need to realize that we are in charge and take charge. Power to the People.
BUT THAT AIN'T NO DONKEY!
That's a vast murderous complex and extremely defended giant death machine. Not only that but it is also woven deeply intertwined with our culture and consciousness in infinite ways.
It ain't that simple, whack a donkey, argue with a donkey, kill a donkey, corral a donkey, tie up a donkey...
That donkey has satellites and the NSA and police all over the place, and computers and phones and cameras and money in everyone's hands, and guns and bombs and drones.
So the simple story, in whichever version, doesn't really apply to our actual situation.
You are right, webwalk. It's more like a Super Mechagodzilla than a donkey.
You took the donkey to be the Military-Industrial Complex. I took the donkey to be the Democratic Party that is not controlling the Military-Industrial Complex. I still want to affirm that we can take control of the Democratic Party without violence and then through it control the Military-Industiral Complex.
Maybe I'm naive. But I'm not ready (yet) to give up.
If illegal wars are to be ended, the profit must be removed.
Simple, but hard to do.
()
Good going Josh, I am proud of you. Nice essay as well.
There is a movement in the armed forces and within some police departments, called OATH KEEPERS, well known in right wing circles, of soldiers and officers who, because of the oath that they swore to defend the Consitiution, would refuse to violate Posse Comitatus, i.e., participate in domestic martial law. Those interested may go to www.oathkeepers.org.
Tony Vodvarka
I read the information posted on their website about a year ago and was quite impressed. Unfortunately, there are some who believe that the Oath Keepers are an extremist organization.
I also saw a poll relleased some time back where the troops were asked if they would fire on U.S. citizens if order to do so. 67% said they would refuse. Of course, as more troops come home and find they have been abandoned by their govenrment and can't find a job, that number might go higher yet. Of course, there are alway the Blackwater/Xe goons that would probably kill their own mother for a buck. During any insurection, the government would just hire them.
Dear aussidawg, The Oath Keepers may be extremist from the point of view of the left, but they seem to be constitutionalists, genuine conservatives to the right of the Republican Party. I share your fear about the hundreds of thousands of mercenaries that are in fact private armies under the control of corporate buccaneers. They might function as did Hitler's S.A., Mussolini's Squadristi, or Franco's Foreign Legion, enforcing their own discipline on recalcitrant regular military units in time of martial law. I know about the Oath Keepers principally by listening to Alex Jones, a talk show host in Dallas, (his website, www.infowars.com). He is an interesting mix of conradictions, being pretty much correct about half the time (he more or less predicted 9-11) and his rants against "the new world order" have a great deal of truth to them. However, much of his orientation is 1950s John Birch Society, anti-government, anti-intellectual and anti-birth control, etc. Nonetheless, he has been important in spreading the truth about 9-11, apparently is popular and is interesting to listen to as long as you can take it.
Tony Vodvarka
Just remember that police departments have intel officers who pose as your friends and compatriots in order to obtain as much information as you are willing to share about your members, activities, and anything else you might want to share.
Poet
Good point!
As someone who has been to a lot of sit-ins and protests, I think it has to be made clear that sympathetic cops like Josh encountered are very rare. Such a cop just be an intel gatherer - although probably not in this case since the cop wasn't even giving him a chance to speak.
Sioux Rose
POET: The exact same dynamic is operating on this site. And similarly, I'd like to think the exposure to truth might wake up some of the gatekeepers who earn their salaries maintaining the invisible walls of lockdown-style USA.
Sad but true--reminds me of two great hits from the 70's--
"Smiling Faces" by the Temptations
Beware, beware of the handshake
That hides the snake
I'm telling you beware
Beware of the pat on the back
It just might hold you back
Jealousy (jealousy)
Misery (misery)
Envy I tell you, you can't see behind smiling faces
Smiling faces sometimes they don't tell the truth
Smiling faces, smiling faces
Tell lies and I got proof
and
"Backstabbers" by the O'Jays
(What they do!)
(They smile in your face)
All the time they want to take your place
The back stabbers (back stabbers)
I keep gettin' all these visits from my friends, yeah,
They come to my house again and again and again and again, yeah
So are they there to see my woman
I don't even be home but they just keep on comin'
What can I do to get on the right track
I wish they'd take some of these knives off my back
(They smile in your face)
All the time they want to take your place
The back stabbers (back stabbers
Poet
It is too bad that we can't reach young people BEFORE they join the military. Learning "War is a Racket" after the fact allows the insanity to continue. After all we have an all volunteer military so if we could get to the kids before they join then we could in effect starve the MIC.
But we all know that is a lot easier said than done...
NC-Tom, I think it needs to start earlier than that even, all the way back to childhood. I remember as a kid in public schools having to participate in all kinds of patriotic pageants in which militarism was glorified. We pledged allegiance to the flag many years before we even knew what that meant. I remember as a grade school kid, the teachers all took us outside and had us tie a big yellow ribbon around a tree to remind us to support the troops (whatever that means to a 7 year old) during the first Gulf War. By the time, American children are becoming young men and women old enough to enlist, they have already been taught the mythology that our soldiers are heroes making noble sacrifices to keep everyone at home free. It is silly to teach kids about how great war is before they are even old enough to critically evaluate that for themselves.
This mentality is carried into adulthood. How many times do you hear otherwise intelligent adults say that we should thank a soldier for keeping us free? That there is zero logical connection between our freedoms and liberties here and the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan doesn't come into question because it is a seemingly religiously held belief and not a logically analyzed fact.
Sioux Rose
ZEA: Thank you for your post, and sharing your observations. This is the type of "Mars rules" inculcation I speak about often in this forum. It's insidious given the numbers that have been put to death, passed off as collateral damage, by the ambitions of the empire and its expensive arsenal of ungodly weaponry, too often used without probable cause.
Happy valentines day to all my brothers and sisters!
Back atcha xzorloc!!!
"The disgruntled Vietnam Veteran, now turned law-enforcement officer, concluded taking my fingerprints. He then told me his name and again repeated something to the tune of "I can respect people like you. After the unexpected bond of our short conversation, the feeling was mutual."
The prison guard/law-enforcement officer was still working for the repressors. That he can "respect people like" him, as Brollier says, reveals a kind of Stockholm-syndrome on Brollier's part. People DO choose that kind repressive job, being instruments of repression in command over their fellow people.
The prison guard certainly doesn't have my respect.
Maybe he was somehow debilitated in Vietnam and merely earning a living. People are more than their job titles, as seems to be the case here. There are some socially concious people working in the prison industrial complex and in the most destructive corporations.
Wrong place to apply "social consciousness". If nobody worked there, the places wouldn't work.
How many torturers become torturers to ensure a more humane treatment of victims? - Nice pretext for sadists: "I just work here, trying to improve conditions..." Standard nazi argument.
Sioux Rose
SMARTER: Excellent response!
Your effete response troubles me.
Sorry you don't have more vigor.
By the same token, if nobody paid taxes, the beast would starve. That makes most of us complicit, doesn't it? And if you do pay taxes, Smarter, that makes your outrage sound a bit phony.
Let the revolt commence and we'll find out about the wimps these so-called rulers really are.
The US system has been hijacked by a few vested financial interests and the media controls the sheeple with 24/7 Islamophobia, "teerror" paranoia and scaremongering. As the socio-economic conditions worsen the whole rotten core will collapse aka USSR. No totalitarian police state has ever lasted for too long. In the eastern bloc, they had a saying that "they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work".
The day will come, is coming, is getting closer by the hour when the Next Cycle of Humanity we entered in October 1981 will have us leaving chaos, hatred and war to embrace order, love and peace.
The foreseen of inevitablity in these matters makes one foolish beyond belief and more than willing to proclaim the unbelievable loudly, repeatedly and, eventually, without embarrassment.
Why? Because no doubt is given, all doubt is taken away.
There will be peace on this earth, universal and perpetual, up to and including the last breath of the last person to be alive.
I repeat myself in order not to repeat myself.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
A "revolt of the guards" in the direction that Brollier hopes will take place requires further growth of the movements of veterans against the current wars because these vets can reach out to unenlightened vets speaking their language with a better message of real hope for the future. But the other key ingredient would be an emotional and intellectual maturing of enough of the general population of America to both realize why these wars are wrong and ACT on that realization. The dominant military, media, political, and to a disgusting extent, religious culture will resist both of these developments as strongly as they can.
The realpolitiks of this situation get down to domestic jobs. Will the vets finally returning home from these wars find enough domestic jobs? Likely not. Then, will they react by turning to the Right and siding with a Tea-Bagger brownshirt movement in sympathy with corporate/Police State top-down nationalism that promises them economic growth from lowering taxes on the rich & upper-middle-class, savaging government anti-poverty programs, expanding the wars and "fighting them with both hands untied" by going to a military draft? Or will they turn to the timid, disorganized, movementless, on-its-ass Left, out of spontaneous sympathy with shrinking labor unions, poor whites and minorities? They are psychologically conditioned to turn Right. For them to turn Left would require as large or even a larger leap of thoughtfulness than is required of the general public to realize the Democrats & Republicans are essentially a One Party Corporate State masquerading as a Two Party system.
While many on this site debate what the White House vs. Dims in Congress vs. Republicans in Congress blather on about regarding jobs creation, the most realistic forecast comes directly from Tom Donahue, the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He was recently queried by Charlie Rose on his PBS show about jobs creation. Bear in mind, the economic policies supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have been the ones essentially in effect since 1994: Pro- "free trade," pro- deregulation of corporations & banks, pro- government subsidies to U.S. companies to offshore manufacturing plants, anti-union, anti-labor. When Tom Donahue speaks, American politicians quiver and go weak at the knees.
What is he saying? 'Oh yeah, we need job retraining for jobs that really exist, BUT, 30% of U.S. students entering high school don't graduate and not enough Americans can read or write.' "There are plenty of good jobs that exist for those who can read, write and do simple algebra." [This is bollocks, but the Chamber of Commerce features some of the most spectacular liars in the country.] 'We acknowledge that creating realistic job re-training that leads to actual jobs and improving public education requires spending money on programs to do it but we're against more taxes to do it.' Then he says, 'We think America needs to create 20 million jobs over the next 10 years,' but provides no explanation for this time-line or how to create those jobs. I would estimate his real intentions regarding job creation over the next 10 years as less than 5 million--woefully short to even begin to keep pace with the number of people entering the workforce every month let alone employ the long-term unemployed who now constitute fully 40% of the total REAL unemployment figure.
We are becoming more like Weimar Germany every month that passes--only our economy wasn't ruined by the combination of a botched war and a ruinous reparations treaty signed by our former enemies. It was destroyed by multiple botched wars, tax cuts for the super-rich during war-time (unprecedented in all of human history), "free trade" betrayal of our manufacturing base, direct tax subsidies for U.S. companies to offshore jobs & factories to expedite the "free trade" out-flux (that continues to this day), and deregulation of our corporations and banks. We did it fully and unquestioningly all to ourselves with our "leaders" behaving like ravening wolves and our people like the most stupid of sheep.
Josh, RIGHT ON BROTHER. I too have been doing my time 5X for acts of street theatre and civil disobedience. It's cost me alot personally, but I can sleep at night. Sometimes.
I just hope we are making a difference. I guess only history will tell. I still believe our identities and numbers are certainly noticed by our repressive government. I just fear the day when they decide to "mow us Down". Seen it done before. KENT and JACKSON STATES. They're rough, ready and have contingency plans.
I say, MARCH ON, WE SHALL OVERCOME, someday.
KEEP THE LIGHT ON
War is a business.
The oath of office still means just what it says.
But,
Alas, the prison guard seems an exception. There is a "necessary" disconnect in military training, between the fore-brain and the reptilian structure inside the limbic structure of the brain. That fore-brain, the site of empathy, love, thinking and reasoning and judgement, is effectively closed off and the reptilian mind (the Mars archetype works here) with its primitive flee or fight instinct is maximized -- with the flee instinct trained out of the soldier. By constant mind-conditioning and mob-think.
Veterans, I know several who have, can resist successfully this conditioning during their boot-camp days, and return with still functioning fore-brains and probable horror at what they were involved with. Others have reawakened after their return to loving families and a circle of NON-military friends.
But too many reform their military mobs with informal veteran groups and guns and gripe clubs where the conditioning is reinforced. Many for some reason also like motorbikes and are into that sometimes violent sub-genre. Most are conservative and probably into Climate Change denial and wild 9/11 theories (and some are pretty wild). They probably at least support what the Tea Party is about. Too many are racist bigots and sexists and homophobes.
Angry, not always white, men with familiarity with guns and killing fellow humans make for a dangerous situation with their reptile (Mars dominated) minds in constant attack mode. It is surprising we haven't had more incidents with veterans of war flipping out and massacring their neighbors.
Gary
"If we do not end war - war will end us. Everybody says that, millions of people believe it, and nobody does anything."
-~ "John Cabal," H.G. Wells, Things to Come (the "film story"), Part III, adapted from The Shape of Things to Come (1933)
Sioux Rose
GARY: Thanks for combining the "Mars rules" ethos into your post. I believe that if more people understood this archetypal imprint, could separate its violent construct from the meaning of maleness, we might start to see more people put distance between themselves and nakedly aggressive behaviors. Of course the economic considerations of our times work in the opposite direction, as fewer and fewer upstanding young men and women find careers in a depressed economy and are instead seduced by military "opportunities," lured by the premise one can "be all that they can be." No attention or consideration is given to those they will invariably lay to waste in their El Dorado quest toward that great journey of "becoming." Other ways of organizing society NOT around Mars as primary function certainly exist. This is where the knowledge of the Great Circle can save humanity (especially the US) from itself.
Gentlemen:
Don't waste time trying to talk the troops into refusing to serve. They are under the UCMJ; you get a week or couple days in county lock up for trying; trooper refuses to go, gets 2+ in military brig.
I did almost two years in Vietnam inthe Marines; day before I left country (a month and 1/2 beyond my flight date) I made corporal (E-4) instead of Staff (E-5).
Little matter of not shooting a vietnamese kid at a dump inside the main base (phu bai) who jumped in to pit and grabbed at c-ration biscuit caan (best, ham/pork slices, worst peanut butter/crackers or those nasty biscuits).
Scary part was I damn near shot the boy; then I figured he was set up; I was set up; he wasnot told his price. At this time the kids there did not do that; why argue with 2+ big armed Marines when all he had to do was wait for us to leave and do what he wanted. I suspect the only reason I was not court martialed was some very bad publicity that had just come out about a Lt. Calley and his troops following orders (admitted) of a General and a Colonel) at a little place calle My Lai.
I considered myself a career marine until that day; obvious choice was a court martial for killing the kid for no reason, or a court nmartial for not killing the kid (failure to obey orders). For those who still have illusions about the sysetm, failure to obey order in the field can result in being summarily shot; as I was senior man, I was not going to shoot myself - or the kid for no reason exceopt orders of a drunken E-7 (half chinese who hated vietnamese with a passion surpassed only by his hatred of most everyone elsewho also gave me orders to shoot US Air Foce people if they attemped to withdraw thru us; I had already worked out with AF Security Sgt. that if necessary, they fell back on us and we then attempted to get through the swamp under fire into the Sea Bee defense perimeter; couple extra rifles alwasy good when the stuff hits the fan.
STOP PREACHING TO THE CHOIR; THIS NEEDS TO BE STOPPED AT NATIONAL/CONGRESSIONAL LEVEL; BUT NEW GUY SEEMS TO LIKE BUSHES WAR, ECONOMIC AND CIVIL RIGHTS POLICIES. FAILED POLICIES ARE GOOD...........AND PROFITABLE !
Unfortuately, the "Revolt of the Guards" will be by the right wing neo-chistian "Crucaders" currently being indoctrinated within the US Military, and will be against democracy and the people.
You can only create, train and support so many right wing military death squad juntas around the world before someone gets the bright idea that this might work in the USA too.
Unfortunately, anyone who now volunteers for the U.S. military (Commander in Chief: President Goldman Sachs) is either stupid, ignorant, vicious, or really poor.