[Peace-discuss] Memorial Day

[Morton K. Brussel]

Oops! :=(   As Matt Reichel corrects, 11/11 used to be called  
Armistice day.


On Nov 11, 2009, at 5:34 PM, Brussel Morton K. wrote:

> Reflections on 11/11, formerly Memorial Day.  --mkb
>
>
> Veterans Day or Rulers Day?
> Wednesday 11 November 2009
>
> by: Bob Richards, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
>
> How is it that Veterans Day gets turned around into US Military  
> Hegemony Day? The airwaves were buried under an avalanche of lip  
> service about veterans, but the moving lips were all about the myth  
> that the warfare decisions this country's rulers make have something  
> to do with anyone's freedom. Just as soldiers and sailors are doing  
> around the world today, I did in my time. I was there as a teenager,  
> ignorant of the forces moving me, believing whatever line I was  
> being fed.
>
> I grew up on the hundreds of war/propaganda movies that came out of  
> WWI, WWII and Korea. Today we are deluged with more nationalistic  
> propaganda than ever before in my lifetime. It can't be avoided. The  
> TV spews the images nearly nonstop. Recruiters are in our schools,  
> along with the pop machines. The words Army, Navy and National Guard  
> are on race cars at the drags and the ovals. "Take Me Out to the  
> Ball Game" has been replaced with "America the Beautiful" with  
> cordons placed at Yankee Stadium to keep fans from going to the  
> bathroom while the dose of nationalism is served up.
>
> Once a year the veterans are rolled out, but without a real  
> veterans' voice. The physical support for veterans comes nowhere  
> near what is needed. Suicides of veterans always wind up taking more  
> lives than the wars that set them up.
>
> It is important to some vets to keep believing the myth they fought  
> for, that going into that foreign country had a bearing on anyone's  
> freedom here. These are the vets who get a voice, as this is the  
> only voice acceptable to the ruling powers. The Revolutionary War  
> and the Civil War may have had some bearing on someone's freedoms,  
> but even then, not everyone's. The former held only for white male  
> property holders, and the latter for humans who were property  
> themselves. In both of these cases, those native to these lands  
> could not be included, as they were busy at the time being relieved  
> of their homelands and freedom.
>
> If you want to thank anyone for your rights and freedoms, thank an  
> activist. No soldier ended segregation in the 1960's. No sailor got  
> women the vote. No National Guardsman got you the 40-hour week or  
> took children off the shop floors or out of the mines. No, they were  
> called out by the states to kill the very people who were fighting  
> for the rights they eventually won for you.
>
> Mostly what the vets have done is to be tricked into serving the  
> forces that have used them, and in many cases, used them up. The  
> vets deserve your support mostly because they believed, and gave  
> what was asked, and were promised something in exchange. When  
> promise-keeping time comes up, they find they have to get in a line  
> and wait and then they must fight to receive what was promised. In  
> many cases, what they get is enough for a little cheap wine and a  
> bed at a shelter. These aren't the vets that get dragged out before  
> the game or race, or at half-time. Nope, those vets are the  
> believers. The "presentable" ones.
>
> So, here we are at war to get Unocal's dream pipeline route across  
> Afghanistan secured and prop up that ex-Unocal employee's stolen  
> election. Then there's still that war we don't talk about so much  
> anymore. The one that the lie to get us in there changed nearly  
> every day, when the truth may have been as simple as the Decider  
> told us himself, that Saddam tried to kill his daddy, and that he  
> would use that war for his own ends.
>
> These two wars send home more corpses and vets every day. These vets  
> are more often acute cases needing the highest levels of attention,  
> overloading the system and triaging the old farts back down the  
> waiting lines. The government will front load the wars with the  
> drones, missiles, guns, mines, ships, planes and trained bodies as  
> its priority. It will use up more than it gets from its taxpayers  
> and hand the debts to the future, and vets will fight for crumbs.  
> This is the record from every war the country has ever done. Still,  
> its propaganda works, and it won't have any trouble finding  
> believers to march in the parades. It can parlay that percentage  
> into a rock-solid myth and keep the guns-and-butter gravy train  
> rolling along.
>
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