“Peace is Patriotic”
Dedicated to three American combat veterans: John Brown, Harriet Tubman and Crazy Horse. They disobeyed.
When I was approached about doing this commentary, it was because I am a veteran.
In fact, I made a career of the military. That career took me from the cynical and genocidal invasion of Vietnam to the equally cynical invasion of Haiti, with quite a few imperial stops along the way.
For this Independence Day commentary, I was asked to explore the “relationship between soldiers and civilians, and the ways that they experience patriotic holidays.” There was at least FULL
Brighid:
Awesome, as usual, Stan. I especially like the dedication and the final sentence.
5 July 2007, 8:05 pmKevin:
I would add Gen. Smedley Butler (MOH twice)
7 July 2007, 12:44 amGary Edelburg:
I’d just like to add . . . Crazy Horse, beside the moniker being a misgnomer, never put a “Support Our Troops” sticker on the back of his ride.
12 July 2007, 6:51 amGary
Matt Dedinas:
Stan, a Conservative Republican like John Brown wouldnt have had anything to do with scum like you. Dont delude yourself that he would have.
I’m sure you’re proud of helping the Khmer Rouge murder 2 million people while you sat around crying like a little bitch about “imperialism.” Grow up you whiny little drama queen.
[DE SEZ hey stan, let's save this little gem for Enemy Women -- women are the enemy, and enemies are by definition women]
STAN: Hi Matt. You won’t be back, but your rant is so perfectly indicative of everything we write here about feminizing enemies that I couldn’t resist letting people have a peek.
12 July 2007, 12:51 pmGary:
As for comments on indyweek, “support the troops” has SO LITTLE to do with actually supporting soldiers. During Shays’ Rebellion the soldiers got screwed by unscrupulous speculators, then the military was sent to attack them.
Bonus Army was attacked by the Cavalry.
Cuts to VA and other instances of the GOVERNMENT trashing the troops — I’m sure others have more examples.
“Support the Troops” really means “the Troops” are MASCOTS for the MI Complex. So they get used for PR gimmicks, props, then thrown away. (“Good” troops only need apply, either alive-and-well or maimed-but-brave and always grateful and full of patriotic bleating.) What Smokey the Bear is to forests, Soldiers are to the Mil-Corps.
Maybe that’s a little too antiseptic. To really appreaciate the contempt, I quote H. Kissinger on my home page (albeit a quote attributed to him by an author).
McCain said Tillman would be a good TOOL for recruiting. Well, NOT ANYMORE! (Sorry to Pat and Pat’s family.) Now Hannity considers both Pat and the family one inch away from treason.
As for Matt’s comment on the Khmer Rouge, remember the United States National Security Advisor said that “WE” (meaning the US government) supported the KR. Actually, he said it would be bad PR for the USA to do so, so Brzezinski asked China to support them. But from what I’ve read, the CIA did too.
So Matt is not only feminizing enemies, he’s being willfully ignorant.
20 July 2007, 3:03 amdaniel:
just a question… why did vietnam fall to the communists? I thought i read something about there being an independent group of democratic socialist type that wanted a national liberation without communist methods.
I think they were called NLF…national liberation front? I haven’t been able to sort this data out in my head.
16 June 2008, 12:58 pmpeggy:
Stan, what a veteran like you has is credibility, above all when you speak against interest, when you speak against what you were, and to a certain extent still are. But I speak as a person who has opposed all American wars waged since I reached the age of consciousness, as well as to some waged before. So I have absolutely no credibility when I advocate peace against war as a general principle. People who believe in patriotism as it is commonly understood, like Matt, will spit on you and ignore me. It seems to be almost impossible to bring people over from where Matt stands to where you or I stand. The angrier at them we get, the angrier at us they get, and vice versa. War over the very concept of war. When there is war, warriors will always win against non-warriors. That’s the name of the game, I think, or one of them anyway. So then, we have to make this war against war not a war, not a fight, not a struggle, or anything like that.
I am a patriot because I love my country. I love the place and I love the people. But that doesn’t mean I think that my place and my people are better than any other place or people. It doesn’t mean that I don’t fear and worry that the place and the people I love are turning bad, and it doesn’t mean that I won’t do all I can to turn them all around. What it does mean is that I will never give up on them, even when, from a rational point of view, all hope is lost. Maybe this kind of love is stupid, even evil. But there it is, a fact.
I liked your article, by the way. When you are good, you are very good. Kind of like the country and the people we share, maybe.
18 June 2008, 8:24 amCurt:
I made some comments about Purgatory and Limbo a couple days ago. I wanted to add a bit to these remarks but I could not find them again. So I will place them here since this place is just as good as any other now that they will be seperated in any case. Many years ago I had a conversation with a someone who held the idea that when the day of judgement comes few will be saved and many will be cast in to the fires of hell. Purgatory is out of the question becasue there is no biblical foundation for it.
9 March 2012, 7:23 amMy resposne to that is that there is an obvious biblical impiication of it. The bible says that God is merciful and that God is just. While it is true that few of us meet the high standards that the Bible would like us to strive for it is also true that if God is just there would be no hell what so ever as an eternity of punishment is not something that even Hitler deserves. The response given by the person who beieves that few will be saved is that we are judging things by our human standard and not Gods standard.
I did not think of it at the time but there is an obvious comeback to that. The Bible that I grew up reading says that we were creating in Gods image. Do all versions of the Bible say that? If that is the case than a composite human standard who be a reflection of Gods standard. Furthermore if we are created in Gods image we are just as justified in asking God to change behavior and God is in asking us to change our behavior. So if you are going to follow a God you have to decide if you are going to follow the the petty jealous spitful Southern Baptist God of Pat Robertson or if you are going to follow the educated, playful, nurturing God, of the Unitarian Universalists and of the liberal Protestant Denominations and of some Catholics who rule out hell but do not necessarily rule out divine punishments that fit the crime. Pat Robertson would surely accuse me of pretending to be God. My response to that is, why not it is so easy becasue God is so human. It says so right there in your Bible. Of course that will not convince him because he will say that I do not understand the Bible becasue I do not take it seriously and that if I understood all of it and how it all relates togethter I would come up with the same conclusion that he came up with.
These differences in the understanding of very sacred viewpoints about certain issues can lead to situations in which someone can not leave the room alive? Are these situations inevitable?