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Just thought I'd take a break from all the good stuff happening and all the crappy poetry to express my complete awe-struck horror at some news I learned about last week. I didn't really want to get into it in the middle of an already eventful week, but now I'm free to stress myself out about it.
This shit. This horrible and, worse, not unexpected shit.
Our soldiers taking pictures of themselves after killing and mutilating innocent civilians. Like they're so hardcore, man, gunning down a small child from behind cover must take REAL guts.
But the truth is, it's not the soldiers. It's the situation. The torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, the water boarding of detainees in Guantanamo, the bombing of civilian targets during the Persian Gulf, the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. That's just a few of the AMERICAN atrocities.
And what's the common denominator? It's not the people, what is socially acceptable changes constantly. So does leadership. So does the setting. So does the enemy. The common denominator is war. The fact of the matter is that there is no way to wage a humane war. You put people in insane situations, you can't be surprised when they act insane.
You have to be crazy to kill someone. Murderers are either placed into impossible situations or are just completely insane. War cultivates this insanity and we act surprised when our soldiers return and are all kinds of fucked up. We ENGINEERED that crazy and called it basic training.
The thing that's worse about this is that Obama's still harping on the same tired "America is making the world safe for Democracy" bullshit, when the only thing we show the countries we are safe-izing is a barbarism that puts to shame any of the dictators we oust.
Our soldiers gunned down innocent people and smiled about it. I think a situation like this deserves a few years of reflection on what we're doing to our people. Something's gone wrong here. We've created something toxic in ourselves and until we fix it, the only thing we're spreading is misery.
Yes, and no. It is the soldier's choice. There are ethical behavior choices to be made in every situation, and when you make a bad one, for whatever reason, you are personally responsible. Cops out of the unions, means if you choose to stay a cop, you are the enemy of workers. The cops joined the workers in Wisconsin, and then dragged them out of the Capitol. Get a different job. Yes, war provides an attractive haven for the demented, but they must be found, tried and found guilty, then rendered harmless. Truth will always win, but not without a fight. There are necrophilic personalities. Good is often hijacked by the sick and evil as a cover for their necrophilia. (Interesting point: Bjork's new album is called Biophilia, both Frommisms, but the concept of Biophilia has evidently been hijacked by the racist E.O. Wilson for his evolutionary biology back-to-nature movement. The Nazis were also naturists, running around naked being "healthy" in the woods.}
ReplyDeleteThese criminal soldiers really do love dead things, they get joy out of them, just as you or I get joy out of the living world around us. They want it dead, they need it dead, they love it dead, and they must be eliminated from any contact with vulnerable people. These soldiers are as guilty as hell, and as sick as the devil. No excuses, and no quarter given. Otherwise, what is the reason for the good man to resist evil if it is out of his hands and in the hands of "social forces". We are free actors within the large movement of history. References: K. Marx: The 18th Brumaire; L. Trotsky: Stalin; E. Fromm: The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness; E. Fromm: Beyond the Chains of Illusion. (Not necessarily in that order.)