Re: militarist
Malcolm Lawrence (malcolm@wolfenet.com)
Wed, 19 Aug 1998 09:26:45 -0700
Scottie Bowman wrote:
> But another thing. Those same men of my acquaintance who came
> through combat all looked on `dedicated pacifists' with a gentle
> contempt. Not so much because of their principles but because,
> having missed the most terrible but also most intense, most
> ineffable experience that life offers, they had been left only
> half-men.
(Wondering why I keep hearing the yell of Tarzen when I read this) As if war is
the only time you can have an intense experience? And what is the price paid to
the psychological health of those people who survive such experiences? Ever
worked with homeless veterans, Scottie? Ever heard their war stories? Ever seen
what these "men" have been reduced to? Funny how the "half-men" get the nice big
houses, but the real "men" get newspapers on a pavement and a shattered central
nervous system. This form of machismo is bullshit and is far more prevalent in
Europe than it has been in the States in the past thirty years.
> ALL of us who missed that lesson are half-men compared with
> those who have had their priorities clarified by living minute
> to minute with the possibility, or likelihood, of immediate
> dissolution.
Yeah, but usually only because the opposite of war is pretty much just sitting
in front of the god-damned television morning noon and night. So no wonder it's
going to be seen as this juicy adventure for those with embarrassingly
sedentary lifestyles. Me big he-man. Me not watch TV anymore. Now me in big
jungle killing strangers while strangers try kill me. Fun stuff.Oh, come on. War
is big business. Just like religion is big business. Takes a lot of money to buy
those armaments, all those ugly clothes, pay all those strategists. Takes a lot
of peer pressure also to make average citizens (well, make that men, actually)
feel as if they'll be considered wimps or subhuman because they don't want their
leaders sacrificing their lives for them. Wars are fought for the sake of
business, period.
You miss the whole point, Scottie. Refuse to go to war so that the leaders will
go to war. Refuse to have your life trivialized by someone that "represents"
you. Look how much money George Bush wasted on the Gulf War and never once even
considered just killing Hussein. You want to start a war? Fine. But start off by
killing the person who you have the disagreement with to begin with. Anything
less is gutless and irresponsible. The only reason we allow it, though, is
because war is the best thing in the world for the economy, paradoxes being what
they are these days. To reduce the argument to "Guys who have been to war have
no respect for guys who haven't been to war" is to blindly believe anything your
leaders want to tell you and as a result have the population segregate
themselves all for the whole holy big business of a war to save the economy.
Wake up.
Malcolm