War and violence are glorified and portrayed as heroic in vast numbers of new movies and TV shows that are made every year by the media moguls in Hollywood. Turn on your TV any given night and you will find dozens of choices showing the glories of war and generalized violence. We live in a culture drenched in the glorification of war and killing and violence and mayhem and destruction. It's a grotesque spectacle that reflects a perverted sense of what it means to be human.
America will not declare its independence from ~ and addiction to ~ War until the workers, supervisors, managers, executives, and shareholders of the Military Industrial Congressional Complex and the Secrecy Security Surveillance Censorship Propaganda proto-Police State Panopticon can no longer enjoy their $1 TRILLION +/year reward for their “service” as paid for by Deficit spending.
I'm not sure we as a nation are anything without ongoing war or the preparation for the next war. All of our institutions are increasingly reviled - except the military, which is accorded mythic status, in which everyone who serves is a 'hero' and is a "force for good". Only a country that hasn't seen the destruction of its cities in the 20th century wars could believe this nonsense.
That mythic status is even more remarkable when it is pointed out ~ as Bill did ~ that that military has not even come close to winning a War since 1945.
Unless, of course, one calls Grenada, Panama, and Kuwait "Wars."
Enclosed you’ll find a pair of Air Force pilot wings and an Air Force Training Squadron patch. These were awarded to me on 28 June 2019 for accomplishing Air Force Undergraduate Pilot Training, or UPT for short. I’ve been assigned to become a First Assignment Instructor Pilot here … The reason for this letter and gift is just my way of showing my gratitude for your commitment to our University and the history of the greatest force to ever walk this earth, the United States Military. Without the passionate teaching I received from you, I would surely not be the same Officer, pilot, and person I am today. I am sure you’ll be receiving a pair of wings and a patch from … as soon as he’s done training as well. …
Very Respectfully,”
I am responding to your post with this letter to point out that U.S. military teaching is fostering the myth of America having the best fighting force ever. Teaching plays a key role. Myths have a life that never dies until they are destroyed. Some have a long time span (Rome’s lasted for close to 2000 years), others live for a short time (Hitler’s from 1939-45). America’s? Time will tell.
The M.I.C. that Eisenhower warned us about has now fashioned the U.S. into a Thanatos Americana that is unable to give up war/conflict/subversion as means for controlling what those in power need in their addiction. How to give up a cherished addiction? I worked many years on locked psychiatric units (the night shift) and soon learned that addiction and mental conflicts go deep, deep inside the soul and our work to change the war culture will always be dis-heartening at times, but we must still try.
The Big Red One is a favorite movie of mine, but the Reconstruction version which adds 47 minutes to the original movie makes the story far richer.
Sorry the long note here, but I will add that the books by Jonathan Shay (Achilles in Vietnam and Odysseus in America) can be added to Fallaci's excellent book about Vietnam veterans.
Thank you Bill for continuing to keep us focused on what needs doing!
As a kid it did evoke the glory of the American Revolution but this year all I can think of is American bombs dropped on helpless Gaza and I am repulsed. I can't see anything to celebrate when liberty and justice for all is forgotten in the name of powerful donors who are all in for ethnic cleansing.
I just read of a Gallup poll showing that only 5% of Americans said they are "only a little proud" to be Americans. I fall below that, I am ashamed to be American right now as the best we can come up with for presidential candidates is a war criminal for Zionism and as sleazy a character as one could hope to find, the very antithesis of what was thought to make up good character when I was growing up.
I missed the Democratic Convention of 1968, but I will not miss the coming one and am proud of the Americans who will be turning out to demonstrate with me.
Thanks to you, Prof. Astore, for keeping this island of sanity on the Internet map.
Sadly, our times demonstrably show how ineffectual international law is when put up against "might makes right." Layer on top of that the "climate change" party voting for war and weapons at every opportunity.
I frequently comment in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, a paper that puts the US press to shame for its courage in reporting. It takes freedom of speech far more seriously than we do here in America.
Recently, there was an article on an Israeli conscientious objector, a rarity there, but really anywhere. I wrote the following comment that I think is appropriate to repeat here considering today's topic...
Tolstoy, in his book The Kingdom of God is Within You, made the point that there could be no war if nobody could be found to fight. But we are pack animals, I don't mean that we are beasts of burden, but that we associate in packs making it extremely hard for a person to break with it. Waving a flag, patriotic music, the uniform, camaraderie, a powerful weapon in hand, the pressure is almost irresistible, but not quite as with Ms. Orr (the Israeli CO). In the US we get "be all you can be" from the army, not mentioning you could be killing and killed, that an army is a death machine. Potential recruits should be shown films of the enthusiastic youth of all nations leaving for the beginning of WW1 and, split screen, the thousands upon thousands of markers for their graves. This or that flag on the markers, all beneath them equally dead.
it seems so simple and straightforward, eh charlie? all one needs to do as a responsible adult is not allow him-/herself or any member of one's family to download or log onto such mind-benumbing crapola, particularly children. if that responsibility is too challenging to monitor and apply, then defenestrate the bloody electric/electronic drug into the curb-side of one's street for the next homeless trash collector or garbage truck to collect. when this level of adult responsibility is not exercised, it suggests that adult is either too indolent or enervated to take control... or else that adult is also mesmerized, if not gorgonized by the violence and savagery that these films and TV programs glorify.
War and violence are glorified and portrayed as heroic in vast numbers of new movies and TV shows that are made every year by the media moguls in Hollywood. Turn on your TV any given night and you will find dozens of choices showing the glories of war and generalized violence. We live in a culture drenched in the glorification of war and killing and violence and mayhem and destruction. It's a grotesque spectacle that reflects a perverted sense of what it means to be human.
America will not declare its independence from ~ and addiction to ~ War until the workers, supervisors, managers, executives, and shareholders of the Military Industrial Congressional Complex and the Secrecy Security Surveillance Censorship Propaganda proto-Police State Panopticon can no longer enjoy their $1 TRILLION +/year reward for their “service” as paid for by Deficit spending.
Unless we make them, Jeff. However unlikely that is, given the ocean of propaganda we're immersed in.
I'm not sure we as a nation are anything without ongoing war or the preparation for the next war. All of our institutions are increasingly reviled - except the military, which is accorded mythic status, in which everyone who serves is a 'hero' and is a "force for good". Only a country that hasn't seen the destruction of its cities in the 20th century wars could believe this nonsense.
That mythic status is even more remarkable when it is pointed out ~ as Bill did ~ that that military has not even come close to winning a War since 1945.
Unless, of course, one calls Grenada, Panama, and Kuwait "Wars."
“Dear Professor…
Enclosed you’ll find a pair of Air Force pilot wings and an Air Force Training Squadron patch. These were awarded to me on 28 June 2019 for accomplishing Air Force Undergraduate Pilot Training, or UPT for short. I’ve been assigned to become a First Assignment Instructor Pilot here … The reason for this letter and gift is just my way of showing my gratitude for your commitment to our University and the history of the greatest force to ever walk this earth, the United States Military. Without the passionate teaching I received from you, I would surely not be the same Officer, pilot, and person I am today. I am sure you’ll be receiving a pair of wings and a patch from … as soon as he’s done training as well. …
Very Respectfully,”
I am responding to your post with this letter to point out that U.S. military teaching is fostering the myth of America having the best fighting force ever. Teaching plays a key role. Myths have a life that never dies until they are destroyed. Some have a long time span (Rome’s lasted for close to 2000 years), others live for a short time (Hitler’s from 1939-45). America’s? Time will tell.
Yes indeed. Thanks, Karl. The myth lives on.
The M.I.C. that Eisenhower warned us about has now fashioned the U.S. into a Thanatos Americana that is unable to give up war/conflict/subversion as means for controlling what those in power need in their addiction. How to give up a cherished addiction? I worked many years on locked psychiatric units (the night shift) and soon learned that addiction and mental conflicts go deep, deep inside the soul and our work to change the war culture will always be dis-heartening at times, but we must still try.
The Big Red One is a favorite movie of mine, but the Reconstruction version which adds 47 minutes to the original movie makes the story far richer.
Sorry the long note here, but I will add that the books by Jonathan Shay (Achilles in Vietnam and Odysseus in America) can be added to Fallaci's excellent book about Vietnam veterans.
Thank you Bill for continuing to keep us focused on what needs doing!
Fireworks.
As a kid it did evoke the glory of the American Revolution but this year all I can think of is American bombs dropped on helpless Gaza and I am repulsed. I can't see anything to celebrate when liberty and justice for all is forgotten in the name of powerful donors who are all in for ethnic cleansing.
I just read of a Gallup poll showing that only 5% of Americans said they are "only a little proud" to be Americans. I fall below that, I am ashamed to be American right now as the best we can come up with for presidential candidates is a war criminal for Zionism and as sleazy a character as one could hope to find, the very antithesis of what was thought to make up good character when I was growing up.
I missed the Democratic Convention of 1968, but I will not miss the coming one and am proud of the Americans who will be turning out to demonstrate with me.
Thanks to you, Prof. Astore, for keeping this island of sanity on the Internet map.
Sadly, our times demonstrably show how ineffectual international law is when put up against "might makes right." Layer on top of that the "climate change" party voting for war and weapons at every opportunity.
Another good article on the U.S. and war: https://www.aier.org/article/we-still-bear-eisenhowers-cross-of-iron/
That is an EXCELLENT article, Alex. Thank You for sharing.
Should be required reading for anybody who wants to vote in November.
"War is the health of the State" ... Randolph Silliman Bourne
https://mises.org/mises-daily/bourne-war
And that is another article that should be required reading for anybody who wants to vote in November. Thank You for sharing.
I frequently comment in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, a paper that puts the US press to shame for its courage in reporting. It takes freedom of speech far more seriously than we do here in America.
Recently, there was an article on an Israeli conscientious objector, a rarity there, but really anywhere. I wrote the following comment that I think is appropriate to repeat here considering today's topic...
Tolstoy, in his book The Kingdom of God is Within You, made the point that there could be no war if nobody could be found to fight. But we are pack animals, I don't mean that we are beasts of burden, but that we associate in packs making it extremely hard for a person to break with it. Waving a flag, patriotic music, the uniform, camaraderie, a powerful weapon in hand, the pressure is almost irresistible, but not quite as with Ms. Orr (the Israeli CO). In the US we get "be all you can be" from the army, not mentioning you could be killing and killed, that an army is a death machine. Potential recruits should be shown films of the enthusiastic youth of all nations leaving for the beginning of WW1 and, split screen, the thousands upon thousands of markers for their graves. This or that flag on the markers, all beneath them equally dead.
Well said, Clif.
And that doesn't include the tens of millions of soldiers and civilians whose graves are not marked by anything.
War is also the health of the Press. And the Press is very powerful: https://www.eugyppius.com/p/the-awesome-terrifying-power-of-the
it seems so simple and straightforward, eh charlie? all one needs to do as a responsible adult is not allow him-/herself or any member of one's family to download or log onto such mind-benumbing crapola, particularly children. if that responsibility is too challenging to monitor and apply, then defenestrate the bloody electric/electronic drug into the curb-side of one's street for the next homeless trash collector or garbage truck to collect. when this level of adult responsibility is not exercised, it suggests that adult is either too indolent or enervated to take control... or else that adult is also mesmerized, if not gorgonized by the violence and savagery that these films and TV programs glorify.