RESIST (ALL WARS)
It’s not about this war — it’s about all wars!
If you think the current international conflict is simply about one out-of-control crazy fuck — and you want to comfortably add to the chorus of self-righteous indignation around on social media — this may just get in your way. It will ask you for some real time and thought.
Full disclosure:
I write from the perspective of opposition to all war—towards debunking any and all excuses/reasons that fuel this insane male-of-the-species driven construction—this regularly generated destruction of human life on the planet.
That includes most of the responses to this that begin with “Yeah, but what about . . . “.
RESIST
I was delighted to see Russian citizens taking to the streets in protest of their government’s invasion of Ukraine.
I was among the 36 million worldwide who took to the streets in 2003 in protest of the United States’ invasion of Iraq.
[I’ve been in the streets in protest of my government’s never-ending rogue actions ever since 1967 when, at 15, I traveled by bus to the March on the Pentagon. At 18 I refused to register for the draft—the Selective Service Kill Or Be Killed Lottery—but that’s a whole ‘nother story.]“The US is the very last government on this entire planet who has any business talking about respecting the sovereignty of other nations. Absolute dead last.”
— Caitlin Johnstone
History lesson #1:
Resistance Is Futile?
While thousands took to the streets in Russia yesterday—the vast majority stayed silent, uninvolved, and going on about their day.
Likewise in the United States in 2003. As much as the excitement of the invasion grew huge television audiences—American Idol and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation kept them from marching in the streets.
Can you blame them?
Firstly — watching over the years one can see how little protests have done in terms of real change — especially when countries are in war mode.
At that point it is all about firing up the populace — distorting information to fit the narrative—bald-faced lies become the method-de-jour to achieve the goal of getting popular support.
Then, as patriotism/nationalism narratives are fired up, the human kink of tribalism takes over.
You don’t have to look too closely to see the puppet strings attached to the talking heads providing the evening “news”.
And as always there is the “traitor” label—ready to be slapped onto those who would risk speaking out against the madness.
It appears the lessons of the McCarthy Era have disappered in the rear-view mirror. Surveillance is as firmly entrenched as in science-fiction novels.
Censorship and state control were not the domain of the “communists over there”.
To see these machinations exposed all you have to do is examine the cover of the NYTimes, the “newspaper of record”—particularly in times leading up to and during international conflicts.
Their fueling the invasion of Iraq, certainly no exception, isn’t all that long ago—and the nightmare lessons of that illegal war are already buried.
Portrait painter George W. Bush now posing along with his dear friend Michelle Obama. “Our values are the same. We disagree on policy, but we don’t disagree on humanity. We don’t disagree about love and compassion.”
How do you spell oligarchy?
Secondly, most importantly — the majority of people just want to go on with their lives.
This is especially true, and easy, if their country is the one doing the invading!
I’ve been on this planet seventy years now but I am still baffled how throughout history men have gotten other men to join them in these insane destructive stampedes. I’ve have had to accept the fact that maintaining a military (with scientist guys working overtime to make it more powerful), and invading other countries, is a thing.
(Its like American football—its existence confounds me.)
Mass murder of innocent people is always part of this brutal war game.
The rules of the game state (I think they decided in Geneva) that the winners get to manipulate excuses for their most vile behaviors afterward.
Y’know—like the NYTimes writing their their excuse-ridden Oopsy editorial about supporting the Iraq debacle.
There are even excuses for the Hiroshima/Nagasaki slaughters.
I accept not a one of them!
Protest is a mere annoyance. A fly to ignore, at worst to swat into jail. The leaders do as they wish.
The USofA has learned to tolerate protest—as they learned to discontinue the draft. The populace is far more malleable if you give them the illusion that their voices matter—and will more readily consent to the grand causes that have been proposed if it is someone else’s son/daughter that will bear the weight of killing or dying for it.
Free speech—once it has little power to actually affect anything—is a decorative talisman the politicians like to wave around and proclaim the power of.
You’ll hear them promising to fight for ideas like “democracy” or “the vote” when in fact the two have been already sold to the highest bidder.
The Military-Industrial Complex Needs Regular Transfusions
The weapons industry has never had a bad year.
Leading exporters of weapons: USofA (37%) and Russia (20%).
“The US government authorized nearly $27 million of commercial defense articles and services to Ukraine in 2016 and about $68 million in 2015, portions of which are classified as lethal weaponry.”
Add to mixture:
Testosterone and tribe. God and/or country—no matter what god/country you believe in. Flags waving.
Ready for war.
The real victims: women and children.
(Aristophanes made an important point in Lysistrata! — which women really do need to take up!)
Add to it a uniform, a testicle-inflating title like “warrior”, and a veneer of honor-in-service.
Serve your country. But don’t ask questions as to what they are actually asking you to do. For those who question we have jail, traitor.
Don’t look at Wall Street behind that curtain.
We’ll now start the game with the national anthem.
Bombs bursting in air.
History lesson #2:
How The Government Supports Troops After Using Them
About one-third of the adult homeless population are veterans.
107,000 veterans are homeless on any given night.
Read about the Bonus Army — how 43 thousand demonstrators (17,000 veterans)— were treated in 1932.
. . .
History Lesson #3
And in every situation, right behind the invading troops, come the bankers.
It’s the War Racket.
“War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. “
— Major General Smedly Butler , awarded Medal of Honor twice
Read the entire short book HERE.
History Lesson #4
Keeping The Wars Over There
Any possibly threatening countries are geographically far away—and so the citizens of the United States have always lived on the invading end of things.
It feeds a frightening lack of empathy and flaming arrogance—dangerous elements for the most powerful to maintain.
When things got close to USofA borders — Cuban Missile Crisis — our government also risked a world war.
“. . . the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union which escalated into an international crisis when American deployments of missiles in Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of similar ballistic missiles in Cuba.”
Thinking deeply is not encouraged — especially in times of war.
Emotional responses—reason and facts be damned—flood the spaces of conversation.
Mass media spin, always in search of clicks, is in full swing.
Fancy jewelry and expensive apartment advertisements still pop up as you scroll the The NYTimes news stories.
There is excitement in the air.
War is a force that gives us meaning.
“Compared to war all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. God, I do love it so!”
— General George Patton
History Lesson #5.
The Crisis Is In The Details
The current international conflict is not simply about one out-of-control crazy fuck. The shit is much deeper and our shoes are mired in the muck.
Most of us knew so little about the backround to the current situation.
Those in power like it that way.
Our culture has been designed to produce the ultimate consumer, ready to digest objects and information quickly and move on to the next item — critical thinking be damned, convenience be worshipped.
Memes and Tweets and Posts and Clicks and Scrolls.
Busy bees producing money, honey — nobody has time to read, or even watch/listen.
The average attention span online is 10 to 20 seconds per page.
I ask you to challenge that average.
Also. . .
As this crisis threatens to metastasize please consider listening to this historical perspective — on the long and complicated history leading up to this conflict — by American political scientist and international relations scholar John Joseph Mearsheimer.
Thank you for reading.
RESIST ALL WARS!
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© AleXander Hirka 2022. All Rights Reserved.
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