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They Died in Vain; Deal With It
Many of those preaching at American church services Sunday extolled as “heroes” the 30 American and 8 Afghan troops killed Saturday west of Kabul, when a helicopter on a night mission crashed, apparently after taking fire from Taliban forces. This week, the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) can be expected to beat a steady drumbeat of “they shall not have died in vain.”
But they did. I know it is a hard truth, but they did die in vain.
As in the past, churches across the country will keep praising the fallen troops for protecting “our way of life,” and few can demur, given the tragic circumstances.
But, sadly, such accolades are, at best, misguided — at worst, dishonest. Most preachers do not have a clue as to what U.S. forces are doing in Afghanistan and why. Many prefer not to think about it. There are some who do know better, but virtually all in that category eventually opt to punt.
Should we fault the preachers as they reach for words designed to give comfort to those in their congregations mourning the deaths of so many young troops? As hard as it might seem, I believe we can do no other than fault — and confront — them. However well meaning their intentions, their negligence and timidity in confronting basic war issues merely help to perpetuate unnecessary killing. It is high time to hold preachers accountable.
Many preachers are alert and open enough to see through the propaganda for perpetual war. But most will not take the risk of offending their flock with unpalatable truth. Better not to risk protests from the super-patriots — many of them with deep pockets — in the pews. And better to avoid, at all costs, offending the loved ones of those who have been killed — loved ones who can hardly be faulted for trying desperately to find some meaning in the snuffing out of young lives.
Best to Just Praise and Pray
Far better to pray for those already killed and those who in the future will “give the last full measure of devotion to our country.” In sum, by and large, American preachers are afraid to tell the truth. They lack the virtue that Thomas Aquinas taught is the foundation of all virtue — courage. Aquinas wrote (to translate into the vernacular) that all other virtue is specious if you have no guts.
Writer James Hollingsworth hit the nail on the head: “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” Like the truth.
Those who often seem to ache the most in the face of unnecessary death are mothers. Many mothers do summon the courage to say — and say loudly — ENOUGH. Yes, my son (or daughter) died for no good purpose, they are strong enough to acknowledge, painfully but honestly. He (she) did die in vain. Now we must all deal with it. Stop the false patriotism. And, most important, stop the killing.
Cindy Sheehan, whose 25 year-old son Casey was killed in Iraq in 2004, is one such mother. She and others have tried to put a dent into the strange logic that attempts to translate unnecessary death into justification for still more unnecessary death. But they get little air or ink in the Fawning Corporate Media. Rather, what you will hear in the days ahead from the FCM is well honed rhetoric not only about how our troops “cannot have died in vain,” but also that Americans must now redouble our resolve to “honor their sacrifice.”
President Barack Obama set the tone on Saturday:
“We will draw inspiration from their lives, and continue the work of securing our country and standing up for the values they embodied.”
Gen. John R. Allen, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, also primed the pump for the FCM, saying Saturday, “All of those killed in this operation were true heroes who had already given so much in the defense of freedom.”
And Joint Chiefs Chairman went even further in professing to know “what our fallen would have wanted” us to do — namely, “keep fighting.” Mullen added that, “it is certainly what we are going to do.” All this was duly reported in Sunday’s Washington Post and other leading U.S. newspapers —without much comment.
Over the next several days, TV viewers will get a steady diet of this kind of disingenuous logic from talk show hosts feeding on the grist from Obama, Mullen, Allen, and others. After all, many pundits work for news organizations owned or allied with some of the same corporations profiteering from war.
Too bad CBS’s legendary Edward R. Murrow is long since dead; and the widely respected Walter Cronkite, as well. Taking the CBS baton from Murrow, who had challenged the “red scare” witch hunt of Sen. Joe McCarthy, Cronkite gradually saw through the dishonesty responsible for the killing of so many in Vietnam. He finally spoke up, and said, in effect, any more who die will have died in vain.
(The very long hiatus between Cronkite and Scott Pelley, newly appointed “CBS Evening News” anchor, has been particularly painful. The jury is still out, but I harbor some hope that Pelley may try to follow CBS’s earlier, prouder tradition, if by some miracle his corporate bosses allow him to. Given today’s prevailing atmosphere of obeisance to Establishment Washington, Pelley certainly has his work cut out for him. We shall have to wait and see if he has it in him to take the risk of rising to the occasion.)
Corporal Shank & Specialist Kirkland
Five years ago I was giving talks in Missouri, when the body of 18 year-old Cpl. Jeremy Shank of Jackson, Missouri (population 12,000) came home for burial. He was killed in Hawijah, Iraq on September 6, 2006 while on a “dismounted security patrol when he encountered enemy forces using small arms,” according to the Pentagon.
Which enemy forces? Two weeks before Shank was killed, Stephen Hadley, George W. Bush’s national security adviser, acknowledged that the challenge in Iraq “isn’t about insurgency, isn’t about terror; it’s about sectarian violence.” Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Makiki added, “The most important element in the security plan is to curb the religious violence.”
So was Shank’s mission to prevent Iraqi religious fanatics from blowing up one another? What do you think; was that worth his life?
On September 7, 2006, the day after Shank was killed, President Bush, in effect, mocked his unnecessary death by drawing the familiar but bogus connection between 9/11 and the “war on terror,” of which he claimed Iraq was a part. Bush said, “Five years after September 11, 2001, America is safer — and America is winning the war on terror.”
Flowery Funeral Words
Back at the First Baptist Church in Jackson, Missouri, Rev. Carter Frey eulogized Shank as one of those who “put themselves in harm’s way and paid the ultimate sacrifice so you and I can have freedom to live in this country.”
Correction: It was not Cpl. Shank who put himself in harm’s way; it was those who used a peck of lies to launch a bloody, unnecessary war — first and foremost, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, not to mention the craven Congress that authorized it and most of the FCM that led the cheerleading for it.
Was separating Shia from Sunni a mission worth what is so facilely called the “ultimate sacrifice,” or — for other troops — the penultimate one paid by tens of thousands of veterans trying to adjust to life with brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and/or missing limbs?
Despite the self-serving rhetoric about “heroes,” the young, small-town Shanks of America stand low in the priorities of Establishment Washington. They are pawns in the war games played by generals and politicians far, far from the battlefield.
Even in the Army in which I served, troops were often referred to simply as “warm bodies;” that is, at least before they became cold and stiff. But that term was normally not accompanied by the mechanistic disdain reflected in the memo by a Fort Lewis-McCord Army major that came to light last year.
On March 20, 2010, Specialist Derrick Kirkland, back from his second tour in Iraq, hanged himself in the barracks at Fort Lewis-McCord, leaving behind a wife and young daughter. Kirkland had been suffering from severe depression and anxiety attacks, for which he had to bear severe ridicule by his comrades.
Expendable
As for his superiors, it was Army policy to do everything possible to avoid diagnosing PTSD. And so, Kirkland ended up becoming a new entry on a little-known statistical table; namely, the one that shows that more active-duty soldiers are currently committing suicide than are being killed in combat.
Not a problem for Maj. Keith Markham, Executive Officer of Kirkland’s unit, who put the prevailing attitude all too clearly in a private memo sent to his platoon leaders. “We have an unlimited supply of expendable labor,” wrote Markham.
And, sadly, he is right. Because of the poverty draft (aka the “professional Army”), more than half of U.S. troops come from small towns like Jackson, Missouri and the inner cities of our country. In both these places, good jobs and educational opportunity are rare to nonexistent.
I suspect that one factor behind the very high suicide rate is a belated realization among the troops that they have been conned, lied to — that they have been used as pawns in an unconscionably cynical game. I would imagine that corporals and specialists, as well as high brass like the legendary two-time Congressional Medal of Honor winner, Marine Gen. Smedley Butler, often come to this realization belatedly, and that this probably exacerbates the pain.
Butler wrote “War is a Racket” in 1935, describing the workings of the military-industrial complex well before President Eisenhower gave it a name. It is not difficult for troops to learn that the phenomenon about which Eisenhower warned has now broadened into an even more pervasive and powerful military-industrial-corporate-congressional-media-institutional-church complex. Small wonder the suicide rate is so high.
And for what? Please raise your hand if you now believe, or have ever believed, that the White House and Pentagon have sent a hundred thousand troops to Afghanistan for the reason given by President Obama; namely, “to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat” the 50 to 100 al-Qaeda who U.S. intelligence agencies says are still in Afghanistan.
And keep your hands up, those of you who fear you might throw something at the TV screen the next time Gen. David Petraeus intones that wonderfully flexible phrase “fragile and reversible” to describe what he keeps calling “progress” in Afghanistan.
Troops returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan know better. It must be particularly hard for them to hear the lies about “progress,” and then be ridiculed and marginalized for having PTSD. It seems a safe bet that some of those have read Kipling, and on occasion wish they had found release by following his morbid advice — awful as it is:
“When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
And go to your gawd like a soldier.”
The Establishment Church
I added “institutional church” into the military-industrial-corporate-congressional-media-institutional-church complex coined above because, with very few exceptions, the institutional church is still riding shotgun for the system — and the wars.
I find that most men and women of the cloth avoid indicting “wars of choice,” even though such wars were quite precisely defined at the post-WWII Nuremberg Tribunal as “wars of aggression” and labeled the “supreme” international war crime). They know that in such wars thousands upon thousands die — civilians as well as military.
But then fear seems to walk in, for preachers all too often fall back on platitudinous, fulsome praise for those who “have given their lives so that we can live in freedom.” And, as the familiar phrase goes, they say/think, “I guess we’ll have to leave it there.”
And there continue to be relatively few outspoken folk like Cindy Sheehan, painfully aware that courage and truth are far more important than fear, even when that fear includes the painful recognition that the life of a beloved young son was ended unnecessarily. There are some who dare to point out that the mission given our troops has made us less, not more, safe at home, and ask what is so hard to understand about Thou Shalt Not Kill? The FCM ignores these Justice folks, so all too few know of what they say and do.
It is a curiosity that the Bible and the teachings of Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, seem to have become OBE (overtaken by events) and no longer inform the sermons of many American preachers. Odd that the relevant teachings from this treasure trove seem to have become passé or, as former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said of the Geneva Conventions, “quaint” and “obsolete.”
I have this vision of Stephen Decatur smiling from the afterlife as he watches more and more acceptance being given in recent years to his famous dictum: “Our country, right or wrong.”
Let me suggest that preachers consider drawing material from yet another source in thinking about the wars in which the U.S. is currently engaged. Instead of fulsome encomia for those who have made “the ultimate sacrifice,” they might be directed to Rudyard Kipling for words more to the point, if politically and congregationally incorrect.
Two passages (the first a one-liner) shout out their applicability to U.S. misadventures in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, and — God help us — where next?
“If they ask you why we died, tell them because our fathers lied.”
and
“It is not wise for the Christian white
To hustle the Asian brown;
For the Christian riles,
And the Asian smiles
And weareth the Christian down.
At the end of the fight
Lies a tombstone white
With the name of the late deceased;
And the epitaph drear,
A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East.”
Comments
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181 Comments so far
Show AllDavid Swanson has written the sequel to Smedley Butler's "War is a Racket."<><><>"War is Lies"<><><> It is well documented and the logic is clear and precise.
And, old LaoTzu: "Weapon after weapon conquers everything but chaos."
*******
I demur; while I admit America has a way of life, most of it is not worth defending.
FREE AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY (DIRECT) DEMOCRACY
*******
An excellent article, a credit to McGovern and to Common Dreams, and the comments are exceptional: heartfelt, rational, thoughtful and looking past the sham and self-deception of American character. If we went to a foreign country and saw the general citizenry sucking up the myths of controlled media, financing a corrupt cabal of banks, arms dealers and war criminals, and then discovered their religious leaders were proud to be chaplains and cheerleaders for mercenary troops--well, we would decide such a country needed to practice democracy and shape up. But a blind and dumbed-down nation follows the course of empire and empires rise, flame and die out. Congress is filled with millionaire lawyers and shallow opportunists easily misled and bribed with perks. We get the leaders we deserve. Our silent clergy is no more to be lamented than our selfish senators and representatives, or the hapless Obama and his Bush-era Cabinet.
Of course it is horrible for a parent to lose a child in a stupid war, but it helps no one to pretend they were doing something great and brave and heroic, or "serving their country."
The kid is dead- same as if he got hit by a drunk driver. So mourn his/her loss and cry a lot but don't glorify what they were doing. They were murdering innocent people so don't tak about it. we can never end wars if no matter how stupid and cruel they are we have to keep saying glory glory just to make it easier for their families.
u.s. families do not need help and support when the state murders their children in wars.Moms and dads in Afghanistan and Iraq and Pakistan are not given such paliatives. they take all their suffering straight. And that is really a lot of suffering.
there is a very great man living in our town, an immigrant from Dominican Republic. When the marine officers came to his house to tell him his son had been killed he could not stand it. He told the marines to get the hell out of his house, and when they refused, he torched their van. Crazy? not a bit. He loved his son and knew who had killed him and was not going to forgive them. He's not famous like Cindy Sheehan, but he is a great hero, driving around all over town telling kids not to join.
Actually they died for a real important reason. They died because they were and are and have killed innocent woman and children and men. You cannot just waltz into a nation and destroy peoples lives and not expect retribution. Karma has a way of delivering what it will. Just because Americans think they are heros and good guys doesn't mean a thing in reality. Reality is what it is. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword. Reality is a complex web of destiny.
And so it is. They died for a real important reason...
War is a racket. True.
Soldiers are dieing in vain. True.
Generals see soldiers as "expendable labor." True.
Many news organizations are owned by corporations profiteering from war. True.
Preachers should be faulted and confronted for failing to oppose perpetual-war propaganda. True. Journalists too.
"...super-patriots — many of them with deep pockets — in the pews." Super-pigs wallowing at the government trough are not patriots.
"More active-duty soldiers are currently committing suicide than are being killed in combat." The most startling and persuasive truth presented here.
This one fact, if more widely known, could ignite the broad public protests needed to finally bring the troops home and stop the madness. If this should happen, nose-ring wearing and drum-beating peace iconoclasts should stay home. Your presence is counter-productive.
The incongruities are really as abundant as they were with the charade of killing bin laden. I wonder, and NEVER EVER THINK the u.s. government would not kill its own people be they civilians or military fodder, that something that too many people knew but might leak out would have to be mitigated.
After all, with the twin towers blowing up in explosive demolitions and wtc 7 in a classic implosive demolition, that from the size of all 3 buildings, it would have taken more than just several 'experts' setting the charges that would leave too many 'loose ends' that would more than embarrass those who were responsible. And it would not be inconceivable with 'rendition' popular and effective way of 'disappearing' people for those people to the 'disappeared'. Less messy than blowing up a helicopter full of troops, but it serves the purpose.
No doubt about it 911 was an inside job. And there is anecdotal evidence that some of the Navy Seals were not going along with the Bin Laden story and whether true or not, all but the most politically naive, brainwashed and ignorant know this: YOU CANNOT BELIEVE ANYTHING YOU ARE TOLD BY YOUR GOVERNMENT! Especially in terms of war and its foreign policy. They have to be considered guilty until proven innocent because they have cried wolf far too many times and we found out later there was no wolf.
I see the presstitutes in the whore MSM are all fawning and eulogizing the soldiers that just died in Afghanistan, as heroes who are protecting our freedoms. Nothing could be further from the truth! They are soldiers who have died in vain protecting the freedom of the war profiteers who are occupying a foreign country in order to steal their wealth and making billions in defense contracts at the same time. What a racket! Our troops do not protect our freedoms and it is time we stop thanking them for this canard which is total BS! If anything, they are dieing in vain and are exacerbating the situation. The truth is, they are jeopardizing our freedoms by making enemies for Americans all over the world because of the treason and greed of the people who really are in control of our government.
Differences between iraq, Afpak, etc. and Vietnam.
1. No vitriolic mainstream media commentaries condemning our activity, like during 'Nam. Wonder why?
2. No marches, rallies, sit-ins, moratoriums , campus burnings, Kent states, etc. like during Vietnam.
3. The same 'leftists' who spat on our troops and worshiped 'Uncle ho' morphed into neocons who push their wars for Israel, which have bankrupted America.
I'm waiting to hear Bobby Zimmerman croon "Masters of War' for us.
Invaders can never be heroes.
Invaders are always in the wrong.
Military forces cannot protect their own countries by invading and occupying other countries.
Boiled down - there are no massive protests against these wars because we are fighting to benefit Israel hegemony, Islamic 'containment' where in Vietnam we were 'containing' communism, which leftist jews were in favor of.
We should realize that for years, decades even, we've been cheering the Taliban, long before there were Taliban. Actually not the Taliban, but every war novel or movie in which the British red coats are fired on by the colonists, the rabble who don't fight fair provokes a cheer for the ragged forces fighting the Goliath, not unlike the Taliban forces.
We don't have to like the Taliban (I don't) to realize the relative villain/hero roles. Remember "Red Dawn" and fighting off those invaders? Remember so many movies or books in which the French Maquis kill the German invaders with bombs and ambushes in small, small actions? Often the plot revolves around people who have no desire to fight, just to live and let live. Then the invaders commit atrocities and our peaceful protagonists become enraged, join up and fight back. Remember "Patriot." Not unlike the Afghans and the Iraqis.
From Wiki about the Maquis in WWII: "In an effort to escape capture and deportation to Germany, what had started as loose groups of individuals became increasingly organized; initially fighting only to remain free, these bands eventually became active resistance groups."
It is a very, very old story. We, in a reversal, have become the red coats or the German invaders (choose your movie, same plot line). We have drifted into the villain's role. The next time you see a war movie and cheer for the resistance, remember who lives "in country," who invaded the country, who fought back as best they can against the Goliath, who will stay there because they live there, and who, regardless, will inevitably leave because they do not live there and don't want to.
For what, then, is all this death and destruction - really?
Another great read. I concur 100% with Ray.
My learning and understanding, come from reading and contemplating, the insightful and collective history of individuals who take the time and effort to comment.
Carry on, ..................
“If they ask you why we died, tell them because our fathers lied.”
SHAME SHAME SHAME
We will not be silent. Thank you Amy Goodman, for truth about it all.
Condolences to all the families.
And maybe the citizens of the USA could look at themselves at some point and beg forgiveness for letting their government allow this to continue.
Overall good article, and many great comments!
Ray's conclusion, however, seems to suggest isolation, and an underlying fear of "clash of civilizations" when he quotes Kipling of "Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.":
It is not wise for the Christian white
To hustle the Asian brown;
I think today's world is too small, and different civilizations can learn from each other and benefit each other in many ways. Yes, trying to "hustle" anyone would be bad, but that is probably happening to Christian whites as surely as Asian browns. The couplets somehow advocate isolation through this dichotomy of cultures.
The sophisticated hustlers of today (like GS, IMF etc) are culture-blind and East-West blind, and will sell short any culture or country. People should not hesitate to associate with those construed as the "other". That hopefully will make us see that bulk of our values are common and shared, as provide better understanding of the real threats to humanity and the planet.
The "Christian White" is still a bit harder hustle than the "Asian Brown" for major corporations and monied conglomerates which control western governments, but...
".First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.".....Martin Niemoller
The same holds true for all. If we as the Chrisian white don't stand up for the Asian Brown, then we deserve the same fate...and they are coming for us just as surely as night follows day
To paraphrase a late, great, compassionate human being:
'Truth rings an ominous bell'
-Joe Bageant
I see the truth about our wars creeping into the consciousness of the people I know, slowly. It is maddenly slow. If there is any justice, torture is the evil crime that will take the perpetrators down. There is no excuse for torture.
Soldier
Another day,
Another tragedy.
Another road-side bomb,
Another IED,
Another round
Of American casualties.
Another Al-Qiada sniper
Hiding on the roof;
Bang! Bang! Bang!
He''ll lay you in your grave.
Another Taliban beauty
With a bomb in her burka;
The last thing you'll see
Is the hatred in her eyes.
Another heat-seeking missle
Blowing a chopper from the sky.
Everywhere you look
There's another way to die.
We saddle you back
With a heavy load,
And march you down
A long hot dusty road.
The generals will tell you
That you're bringing freedom
To a troubled land,
But every politician there
Is the leader of an outlaw band.
They tell you what your doing
Is just and right,
But you know damn well
You shouldn't be in this fight.
You wish you were home
With your wife and kids,
But there's no work at home
With the economy on the skids.
They tell you don't lose hope,
But hope flew out the window
The day that your read
Your best buddy's suicide note.
You're not a complicated man,
There's only one question
You'd like an honest answer to:
What the hell are we doing
In Afghanistan?
I have joined the Iraqi Vets Against the War even though I am not an Iraqi Vet. But in my heart I am. i urge all who read this to join them and support them with money and time.
i have a dear friend whose grandson joined the Marines and has served three or four tours in Iraq and perhaps Afghanistan also. It is so difficult to tell her that he is not saving America. He is in truth helping to destroy America. I can't do that to her, yet it is true. How much effort and how many years went into the Viet Nam protests before the mainstream came to believe that the war was immoral?
I urge all the readers here, the vast majority of which agree withe the author, to get vocal! work our ass's off to bring home to our neighbors that our government, Democrat or Republican, is murdering not only our youth, but also our ideals.
i am posting this article on my face book, only hoping that someone other than I shall read it..
Call me naive, but I can never understand why there are even any troops left in this man's army. How can anyone with eyes not see these are so-called wars of agression on foreign soil in the name of oligarchs (or oilgarchs more rightly) and bankster mafiosos? To even think one can have the slightest shred of credibility to defend killing and maiming in the name of "spreading democracy" at the point of a uranium tipped shell or remote controlled drone is the height of insanity. The Sept 11 attacks were at best a LIHOP and most likely from the evidence a MIHOP false flag with the help of terrorist nations (Israel, Saudi Arabia, and/or Pakistan), but let's even suppose they were (CIA/MI6 created) Al Qaeda...how is destroying hundreds of thousands if not millions of Iraqis and Afghanis and poisoning their lands for thousands of years with depleted uranium in any way justified?
First of all, are we not, as the phony religionists like to spew, a Christian nation? What happened to turning the other cheek? How about strengthening bonds with the ME rather than blowing them to bits? No, because that doesn't serve the globalist agenda. An agenda, I wish to remind those in the Armed Services and Policing Agencies, which will use you up and spit you out once you have served its purposes, evidenced by the way we "support the troops" with cutbacks and psychotropic cocktail therapy. You are working so incredibly hard against your own interests, as Americans are wont to do, voting as they do year after year. You should be fighting with such strength and valor against those who would subvert your cause, i.e. the globalist Executive Branch, The U.S. Congress, and the Wall Street cabal of banksters who want nothing more than to institute a World Banking System and World Currency, with them in charge, as if it were not essentially so already, if not yet in name. Once you lose control of your currency, it's game over, sovereignty lost.
So wise up brother and sister soldiers, you are not on the list to be saved when the rit hits the fan. Join the citizen awareness movement and redirect your energies toward home. Know this, one of the globalist/fascist's biggest fears is returning veterans waking up. They already have you profiled and marked for neutralization. So wherever you now are, make plans for after the tipping point, because it is coming. The riots in London are just a taste. Thing is, our government has been preparing, with camps, with troops on the streets, the end of Posse Comitatus, gun grabs, ramping up the police state, Fast & Furious, Operation Gunrunner, Operation Northwoods, Operation Paperclip, Operation Mockingbird, ad nauseum. The mad men are running the asylum, and the sheeple are asleeple.
Let's all join together and put a stop to it before we are locked down, defanged, neuetered and vaccinated into oblivion.
None died in vain... They chose to embattle others... Thus culling those who desire conflict and war... Further exposing the futility of violence and greed... Continuing the cycle of suffering, poverty and revenge that will result in the destruction of a system created and maintained by fear, abuse, usury and violence... Each one a hero that will be held not in high regard by future generations, but in pity by the compassionate survivors who remain to prosper and grow beyond the petty agendas of a fear based mentality... For their sacrifice was not in vain, it simply is... ignorant...
A System which massively under funds social services and education, leaving mostly media, marketing and entertainment to influence the people, then enforces policy that basically criminalizes ignorance is the absolute epitome of doing the same thing and expecting different results.. Hence Abuse and Insanity Rule... Only L.O.V.E. Heals the Heart... 2012 & Beyond will*be exactly what WE make of it...
[ Thus culling those ]
Fuck off. Some of the most staunch advocates of peace I've ever met have been the ones who in your words 'chose to embattle'. Embattle? WTF. Beware of advocating the 'culling' of humans, it exposes you as an advocate of violence as loathsome as the warmongering chickenhawk.
The essence of religion is to keep the poor from killing the rich
Right on!
(edit) One might add, to paraphrase Madison, the function of government is to protect the property of the "opulent" minority from the depredations of the poor minority; thus our Constitution.