Blood Makes the Grass Grow
Forgive the haste with which this is written. I am tired, and sad, and disgusted.
George Zimmerman and Robert Bales have secured themselves a place in history the same way many men do, by taking the lives of other human beings in ways that force us to rationalize furiously. Women do, too, infrequently, but not the same way men do. We are socialized to seek out the opportunity to kill other humans as part of this culture’s probative masculinity.
That this desire to kill is inculcated into men as part of their socialization (much of which is now accomplished with television, movies, and games) is the first thing that has to be rationalized away, because before men actually learn to do it (kill), they see killing as a form of redemptive violence that is enfolded in masculine actualization – always done in the name of a higher good of some kind (with the added bonus of that ‘special’ status, the killer-male mystique). We have all been trained by this story convention. That is why we so valorize the military, the police, and the vigilante.
When the story goes awry, when villagers are massacred without an operations order, or a black teen-aged young man is stalked and shot through the heart by a suburban gunslinger (who is not the police), we seek any other explanation except the one that says, “men are encouraged to want to kill.” We seek medical explanations for soldiers, with post-traumatic stress disorder as the first line of defense. Zimmerman is a tougher proposition, but we will medicalize his acts soon enough; because the dominant white culture still does not want to recognize that if Trayvon Martin had been white, he would never have been considered “suspicious”; and he would be alive today. Zimmerman is not allowed to do that; racial profiling is the purview of police.
On NPR, March 20th, there were two military medical men – one a psychiatrist, and one the former Surgeon General of the Army – who spent half an hour with a soft-balling host, discussing how difficult wars are. Not how wrong they are, how morally bankrupt they are, how atrocity-producing they are, but how difficult. For people who might do a Robert Bales. Might it have been head injuries? Might is have been post-traumatic stress disorder? Might Bales have slipped through the military vetting process with a pre-existing psychiatric condition?
During bayonet training – which all recruits endure during basic training in the Army – trainees are directed to shout out the word, “KILL!” It is a response to the question, put loudly to the whole training company by the principle instructor: “What is the spirit of the bayonet?” Trainees: “KILL!” With each thrust, parry, and butt-stroke of the bayonet and rifle, the trainees shout, “KILL!” So if there is a combination (rather like a martial arts kata) of thrust, withdraw, butt stroke, slash, and back to the ready, each move is accompanied by the word, in sequence, “KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!”
When I was running the Bayonet Assault Course for West Point plebes back in 1986, we added a bit of verbosity.
INSTRUCTOR: What is the spirit of the bayonet?
CADETS: To Kill!
INSTRUCTOR: What do you want to see?
CADETS: Blood! Blood! Blood makes the grass grow!”
The former medical Generals on NPR failed to take note of this training, or the hours spent on the range firing at human-shaped silhouettes, or the marching cadences that say things like, “Ambush is killing, and killing is fun!”
Nor did they bring up anything about dehumanization; about people becoming gooks, dinks, hooches, hajjis, japs, krauts, skinnies, and so on. When I was in Grenada for the invasion there, the all-white SEAL teams that were trapped for 36 hours just chose the old stand-by for their enemies, calling the siege a “nigger shoot.” Like “turkey shoot,” get it?
They didn’t bring this up, because this dehumanization (in order to make it okay to kill) is not part of that “higher good” story that is pumped like sunshine up our collective ass. They were on the radio for damage control, which is what they did in the military. That OTHER who is stripped of his or her essential humanity, allowing him or her to be killed with impunity, is not a member of the Wazir family (of whom Bales apparently killed eleven members) or Trayvon Martin. They are simply “hajji” or “nigger.”
If the victim is female, she is simply “bitch.”
The retired military medical men mentioned nothing of this relation that can be drawn between the history of war and the history of lynching and the history of rape.
Head injuries. PTSD. Sleep deprivation. Malaria pills.
The most common causes of PTSD in the US are catastrophic accidents and rape; but I seldom see anyone in the media reaching for these as explanations for why someone has suddenly decided to do murder… unless they are former military. It is a special exception clause for them.
The other thing they didn’t mention was the myth of frontier masculinity. The mythos of Davy Crocket, Daniel Boone – an ideological reflection of empire-building. Cowboys and Indians. The brave and civilized man who sets aside the day-to-day, and takes on the threatening, dark forces outside the gates. This is re-enacted again and again in our cultural productions – especially the male war and revenge fantasies. Imperial Male become synonymous with a special fetish – the gun.
One veteran called into the NPR program and almost queered their pitch. He said that he knew a lot of guys who weren’t twisted by their war experience. A lot of his buddies, he pointed out, stated before they ever deployed that their goal was to kill someone – anyone. The suggestion was that they might be mentally ill, and they should have been screened out. But my experience in the Army was exactly the same, and it wasn’t the minority that stated they wanted to kill people. It was the majority. Men, at any rate. White men in particular. Everyone wanted to be Davy Crockett. Audie Murphy. John Wayne.
It was agreed that better screening is needed.
George Zimmerman didn’t have a war, so he had to construct his probative act inside the mini-civilization of his gated community. A black teenager was the dark “other” chosen for the trophy.
The problem with a lot of military men is they get a pass on their first murder(s), sometimes even awards. When it is not the redemptive violence so favored by film makers, and they discover that the best way to kill is with the least resistance possible, they accept the fact that they are not expected to kill in self-defense… that the enemy is a whole people, then they accept that they might as well just kill them whenever they can get away with it. This is far more common than most people who haven’t experienced so-called “combat” realize. Bales just got drunk (as the story goes) and didn’t plan well enough to get away with it.
He had some liquor and decided to kill a few hajjis. That’s what men do in war. Big deal. “What the fuck is everyone trippin’ about?” (I have heard this in similar circumstances. “We just went to the ville and ripped off a mamason. Who gives a fuck?”)
The reason we can’t ignore these incidents, yet we can ignore the drone killings, Fallujah, cops killing unarmed black men, is because this society has become completely morally incoherent. We are a rotten culture, a dominator-male culture, adrift in an ethical cesspool of deracinated self-centeredness, programmed superficiality, and gratuitous violence.
We don’t want to believe it. That’s why these con artist Generals on NPR can get away with their prevarications. They are reinforcing our denial. They simply can’t say that their wars are moral abominations, that their wars are cause and effect in American gun culture embedded in our more general acquisitive and individualistic corruption, riding a stale narrative of frontier masculinity.
We are a Nietzchean nightmare.
Gianmaria Vitale:
Good points, I agree although I would not totally demonize the US culture.
21 March 2012, 4:57 amSeldom politicians, movie makers and other people being aired to mass public truly represent everyday-people opinions.
The way I see it being geographically and emotionally isolated is the US problem; not knowing or even just realizing that there is another way to do and feel things can be very harmful as you described, because with no comparison or a second opinion you’re stay put in a box with no chance to switch direction.
Always a pleasure to read you.
Josiah:
Thank you for writing for moral clarity about these awful subjects. We should all be outraged by this stuff, but as you explain so well, we are all inured to ongoing horrors by our dominant culture to varying degrees. The whole mainstream media spectrum, from NPR to Fox News, is of course incredibly narrow in what it encourages us to see as “wrong” or worthy of anger, sadness and disgust. Deanander made a similar point about the ecological aspect of all this inuring/complacency in her essay on “Global Cannibalism.”
It’s almost too much to bear if one thinks about the scale of structural violence that those soldiers, and Zimmerman, are a part of, let alone how we are all implicated in it in different ways.
You’re making me want to turn to Christ.
21 March 2012, 7:20 pmMichael Anderson:
Way to go Stan—-this needs to be shoved at, thrown at, yelled at; as many men as possible!
21 March 2012, 11:57 pmWm. Terry Leichner, RN:
Stan,
22 March 2012, 9:37 amAs usual your words carry an important message. I do quite a few presentations about PTSD and TBI and the treatment offered. One of the things I stress is PTSD and TBI are not excuses to commit violence. While we can understand the process leading to the massacre in the village by Bales, it can’t be excused for medical reasons.
You and I both endured combat and understand the depersonalization and demonizing of the enemy was part of the deal to get us to kill. But, we came back and recovered from the brutality taught us. I often ask the question in the classes I go to speak….where’s the treatment for the civilian populations scarred forever by our wars?
Far too often we ignore the trauma we inflict while we focus on readjustment for troops returning. As usual our cultural bias wants to make the trauma of Americans more important than that endured by those caught in the middle of our madness.
While I question the culpability of the military in failing to screen Bales properly, he still bears individual responsibility. We can say he had PTSD and a TBI but it doesn’t excuse his actions. I deal with psychotic patients every day and some become violent. They are still held responsible.
As for the killing of the child in Florida…..if there are those who are surprised, they’re not paying attention to the escalating racism festering in this nation. I was recently at a funeral near the gated community Trayvon Martin was murdered. My wife’s brother had lived in another of the gated communities in Lady Lakes. It was little surprise whenever crime or threat entered the conversations of the elderly white folks at the funeral and associated viewings, it was always “blacks” or people of color who caused problems. Except the local racist slang was most often used in referring to people of color. I felt I was in another world and like Disney World it had no basis for reality.
Unfortunately, Florida is far from being alone in the racist tone demonstrated by the killing of Trayvon. While it may be more insidious in places like my hometown of Denver, it is easily found. Too often it’s the Denver Police Department profiling non-whites and constantly harassing them and brutalizing them. Too often “serve and protect” applies only to the white citizens.
m.c.:
Florida is one of 16 states which has a Stand Your Ground Law. This means that if you feel threatened you can use deadly force to protect yourself. You don’t have an obligation to retreat. Zimmerman probably can’t use this in court if he was the Aggressor though. Several more states have what is called the Castle Law. This means if you are in your home or vehicle, you don’t have to rereat if you are threatened. Zimmerman left his vehicle after the Police Dispatcher told him not to. This shouldn’t apply either. The Stand Your Ground Law is very broad. Most of the 16 states are in the old South(see Wikipedia). It’s kind of a license to use a firearm.
22 March 2012, 11:44 amWinston Warfield:
Jesus, Stan. Thank you. You are one of the few men who gets it. I have been aching to read/see something, anything that cuts through all the PTSD, multiple-deployment, et al, bullshit that’s being trotted out to sanitize Bales’ (and now Zimmerman’s) hate murders. Except I think it’s even worse. I think it was probably casual, or thrill-seeking in the case of Bales. Sort of like stepping on bugs. Maybe to relieve boredom. It would have been consistent with our culture’s psychotic masculinity and history of torture and murder of “indigs” (indigenous peoples) had he scalped them for trophies. Oh, wait a minute. That type of thing has already been happening in Afghanistan, out there in “Indian Country”.
Winston Warfield
22 March 2012, 11:53 amVeterans for PEACE
Michael Anderson:
Interesting—-Zimmerman is not exactly “white” himself. Is he “white enough” to do the deed for the white folks in the gated community? I think we talked about this awhile back—degrees of whiteness imply acceptability—-the old double standard of times past. Lord, how the clock is rolling back!
Still sick, wrong, and a VILE thing…..
22 March 2012, 4:08 pmMichael Anderson:
Looks like the police there in Sanford are implicated, not just for Zimmerman….
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/florida-police-chief-steps-down-in-fatal-shooting/?hp#
Florida Police Chief Steps Down in Fatal Shooting
“The Times’s Lizette Alvarez reports that Chief Lee has served only 10 months in the job. He succeeded Brian Tooley, who was forced out after a scandal that involved a police lieutenant’s son.
In that case, the Sanford Police Department failed to immediately arrest the lieutenant’s son after he was captured on video attacking a homeless man in December 2010.”
22 March 2012, 4:16 pmm.c.:
From a recent Op-Ed by Clarence Page in the Chicago Tribune(no left -wing newspaper):
The first Stand Your Ground Law was signed into law by then Gov. Jeb Bush(FL)in 2005 prompted by lobbying by the NRA. It’s an extention of the Castle Doctrine which only applies to one’s home/property/and possibly one’s motor vehicle. Jeb at the time, called it a “good common sense anti-crime” bill. Critics called it a,”shoot-first law” or a “license to kill and go free.” 15 other states have follwed suit since.
Is this the Militarization of U.S. domestic Law?
22 March 2012, 5:19 pmWinston Warfield:
@Curt
22 March 2012, 5:38 pmBrother, I understand your emotions of revulsion and anger; I feel them too, as any empathetic person will, but I gotta put in a cautionary note. Your imagery is kind of disturbing. Those emotions are positive when harnessed to a struggle for peace here in the metropolitan center. I have witnessed and been profoundly shocked and altered by the moral collapse which takes place in warfare, especially counterinsurgency warfare in an occupation (Vietnam). We as a people have a long road ahead to regain our place in the human family, a struggle for redemption. We can only succeed by insisting on peace and staying the hand of those who would make war. The risings which are shaking our nation have got to make PEACE a central demand.
askod:
Reading the story of Mohammed Merah, the Toulouse serial-killer, redemptive violence was the first thing that came to mind. Of course, the pattern he falls into tells him to claim to be Al-Qaeda and kill the infidels.
23 March 2012, 2:27 amm.c.:
@Curt,
23 March 2012, 12:14 pmRE: The 1930′s
I’m a big fan of Franklin Roosevelt. He & his Wife both came from big money, he was Sec. of the Navy or Asst. Sec. of the Navy before becoming Governor of NY. Like his cousin Theodore he tried to join Porcellian while a student at Harvard(it’s the Skull & Bones of Harvard.) Unlike his cousin Teddy, he wasn’t accepted though. Some psychobiographers think that was one incident which turned him in part away from his class.
Anyway, the one thing he did/allowed which I’m not a great fan of was he gave J. Edgar Hoover Carte Blanche. Partly because catching big bank robbers was smart politically and good front page material for the Newspapers & Radio. Who knows what dirt Hoover had on Roosevelt and his top people.
Curt:
Yes, for many years I thought that the FBI HQ should be more appropriately named after some one else. So many people come to mind who are more deserving to have the FBI HQ named after them I do not have room to name them all.
23 March 2012, 1:14 pmCurt:
Elizabeth Fisher Read (1872-1943), a scholar and one of Eleanor Roosevelts earliest female political and feminist mentors, she was Eleanor’s attorney.
23 March 2012, 1:18 pmEric:
@Curt…huh?
23 March 2012, 9:55 pmBack to the matter at hand…I’m trying to wrap my head around the Trayvon Martin murder. And then one of my F/B friends put up a photo from the American south back in the days of lynch mobs…In the image a bunch of white folks are standing around a tree, a tree which bore that strange fruit…some of them were smiling for the camera. I don’t understand how the beating and hanging of other humans is considered normal??! It’s obscene. This child in Florida has been murdered because of…what? George Zimmerman was “afraid for his life?” WTF is going on with this country? With this world? I watched Michael Ruppert’s doc “Collapse” the other night and then this incident in Florida hit the news. It’s frickin’ overwhelming.
Curt:
Eric, Its been overwhelming for a long time. Yes, Michael Ruppert would be a good name too for the FBI HQ. Micheal might want to tear it down and rebuild it before his name goes on it though. I am glad to hear that he was recovered his health.
24 March 2012, 9:34 amI really do not know anything about the Trayvon Martin case other than an unarmed black youth was shot and killed by a white guy. When I saw that much I thought to myself this is nothing that I have not heard about before so it is not something to read all the details about.
I guess that is a sign that I am jaded. A white guy killing an unarmed young black teenager is not shocking to me anymore. He would have had to have been much younger. If he was like 12 or younger then I wouild have really been outraged. I see Zimmerman not as the ultimate problem but as a symptom of the problem. The source to me is bad leadership. Bad leadership in the institutions that help form the opinions of all the Zimmmermans in the USA. Now if these leaders were to ever face a lynch mob I would consider that divine sanctioned justice. Yes the beating and hanging of people who deserve it is normal human behavior. Ok theortically I am opposed to the death penalty becaause to many mistakes get made. But after WW2 not all German war criminals were given a trial. Some like those that were deemed resposible for the massacre of US forces
at Malmadey were just hunted down an executed according a book that I once read. I would sign up for that. My liberalsim has its limits. Some would say that makes me part of the problem. I can hear them and I consider their complaints.
Bob:
My introduction to killing started with animals, first insects, then birds, then mammals. I have not taken a human life, but I was prepared for that by my father, USMC 1941-1946. He also started with animals as a “sportsman”. I can say that he loved animals too. I never remember him being cruel to them and he seemed to hold them in higher regard than his own species. Killing was a part of his life, something done to survive.
25 March 2012, 6:27 amI was fortunate in that he had empathy and compassion. He became a Wildlife Conservation Officer and considered himself a “defender” of the weaker, (which paradoxially required the supervision of killing and the use of deadly force). The ways and means to do violence have always present in my life.
So it was with this backround that I read Steven Pinker’s “The Better Angles of Our Nature, Why Violence Has Declined”. It is a historical prespective on killing. Not an easy read both in length and subject matter. He makes a very good case that the better angles of our nature are winning, partly because of the horrific conditions that existed in our past, but mostly because of our awareness, our ability for higher level abstract thinking. Compared to one hundred years ago, we are much less willing to accept the anniliation of another culture. One thousand years ago, well the odds of a man dying violently and cruely were considerably higher. Why is this changing, because we continue to evolve.
So maybe there will be a day when our community resource base does not demand killing and violence is no longer acceptable by any party. A day when we do not train our young to kill. Stan, thank you for helping take us this way.
Bruce F:
Stan,
This is powerful and beautiful. Thank you.
There are times when I benefit from John Prine’s advice to “Blow Up Your TV”. The chorus always puts a smile on my face and brings a little tear to my eye.
25 March 2012, 8:32 amm.c.:
Yesterday I saw a car bumper sticker which read,”I Would Waterboard 1,000 Terrorists To Save 1 American Life.”
There is so much wrong with a statement like this. It’s not too far a stretch to change the Waterboard to Shoot.
25 March 2012, 3:13 pmWhat is a Terrorist? Whatever the Government says one is? Those who oppose Libertarian Values don’t usually assume that many people lie for various reasons. Libertarians realize, instictively or not that many people don’t tell the truth or tell half lies. History written by the winners is connected to this.
m.c.:
I hope its not naive to believe that in a Democratic(or quasi) Nation, Not being at War is the Default position. War is the exception to the rule, not the rule.
25 March 2012, 5:28 pmStan:
Each quasi-democratic nation is in a different circumstance, and each has a different history. Each also has a different relationship to the others. Each is also characterized by more than its political mechanisms, ie, culture, forms and types of production, geography, climate, etc. So there is no default position with regard to war that describes, for example, Sweden, the US, and Brazil. The US is in a unique situation, being the lead dog in the North-South (core-periphery) relation of the world system, and it has a history in which war has been the default – from its economic independence war, to its settler expansionism, to its civil war, and into its early imperial expansion, followed by the world wars, and followed again by its position as both consumer of last instance in the global economy and the global cop ensuring the international flow of resources and making examples of ‘recalcitrant’ actors. Gun culture is a big part of US culture, and has been since after the civil war (when the NRA was founded, and when soldier-worship was promoted as a sign of patriotism) and especially after T Roosevelt’s hyper-valorization of frontier masculinity (that became the basis for entertainment conventions afterward).
26 March 2012, 6:59 amCurt:
Bob, you said that compared to hundred years ago we are much less willing to accept the destruction of another culture. In one way I agree with that. But if a part of the WE that we are talking about can work together to destoy or even attack another culture have WE really made any progress?
26 March 2012, 11:28 amAE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC0DnQBAtko&feature=g-vrec&context=G289edf0RVAAAAAAAABw
26 March 2012, 7:50 pmm.c.:
Zimmerman wasn’t wearing a Uniform, a police ID badge, or even a Jacket/Shirt with some kind of large identifiable Security Guard/Neighborhood Watch Logo. Martin is followed by a strange man with a handgun. Flight or Fight…? What would you Do, hoodie or no hoodie.
1 April 2012, 3:08 pmm.c.:
Zimmerman was wearing a red jacket and blue jeans according to Alex. Cockburn’s latest article in CP.
1 April 2012, 3:42 pmRadcliff, D:
I wonder what you think of Steven Pinker’s book (The Better Angels of our Nature) that shows how violence has declined over time? Since modern media (pro-violence) culture is relatively new, and since violence is declining overall wouldn’t it seem to contradict the notion that Stan is putting forward? We are actually becoming more civilized via the culture (since that is the only thing that has changed in the last 100,000 years) according to Pinker’s data.
It seems to me that our genome is what makes us violent (again, since the species was so much more brutal and violent in the past) and it is the modern taboo on violence (in concert with a robust police infrastructure) that has vitiated this instinct. But what do I know? I’m just asking the question, feel free to ignore or ridicule as you see fit…
…And Stan any thoughts on the ‘Rock Beyond Belief’ at Fort Bragg?
2 April 2012, 9:20 amStan:
the what?
3 April 2012, 7:01 amJosiah:
Pinker’s book is deeply problematic. Some of his methodological flaws (including verya “fuzzy math”) have been pointed out in reviews by John Gray, Elizabeth Kolbert and others.
There’s a much, much better book on violence that just came out, which I think resonates with both Stan’s essay and Deanander’s essay “global cannibalism.” The book is “Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor” by Rob Nixon. It looks at ecological violence in the work of writers like Abdelrahman Munif, Ken Saro-Wiwi, Rachel Carson, Wangari Matthai, Arundhati Roy and others using Joan Martinez-Alier’s concept of the “environmentalism of the poor.”
A brief excerpt:
3 April 2012, 1:53 pm“By slow violence I mean a violence that occurs gradually and out of sight, a violence of delayed destruction that is dispersed across time and space, and attritional violence that is typically not viewed as violence at all. Violence is customarily conceived as an event or action that is immediate in time, explosive and spectacular in space, and as erupting into instant sensational visibility. We need, I believe, to engage a different kind of violence, a violence that is neither spectacular nor instantaneous, but rather incremental and accretive, its calamitous repercussions playing out across a range of temporal scales. In so doing, we also need to engage the representational, narrative, and strategic challenges posed by the relative invisibility of slow violence. Climate change, the thawing cryosphere, toxic drift, biomagnification, deforestation, the radioactive aftermaths of wars; acidifying oceans, and a host of other slowly unfolding environmental catastrophes present formidable representational obstacles that can hinder our efforts to mobilize and act decisively.”
Josiah:
Apologies for the multiple typos. I wrote that in a rush. My point is, if readers of this blog see any value in spending money on an academic book about violence at this point (and I can understand why many wouldn’t), Nixon is a better choice than Pinker.
3 April 2012, 4:52 pmStan:
Thanks. http://english.wisc.edu/people-faculty-nixon.htm
4 April 2012, 6:38 amLonna Gooden VanHorn:
I have not been very active in “trying to save the world” since Obama was elected and I quickly realized that virtually NOTHING was going to change. He seems perfectly okay with assassination, war, and serving “American interests” — as much so as Bush, although his world view is a little more sophisticated than was Bush’s. However, yesterday I did see the video of U.S. border agents killing the man they were supposedly deporting. It prompted e-mails to my congress people and shares of the video on Facebook. I don’t care how anyone feels about the immigration issue, this was murder pure and simple and must not be tolerated!! But, the story gets little play. I saw the video on Democracy Now which I watched for the first time in years. I encouraged everyone on my e-mail list and all of my Facebook friends to write their congress people about this outrage. I wonder if EVEN ONE has bothered to do so? If this country goes down, which it almost certainly will, we deserve to. “I tremble for my country when I remember that God is just.” Don’t remember which of the founding fathers said it, but I think more than one in those words and other words that basically meant the same thing.
26 April 2012, 12:25 amDeAnander:
The quote from Nixon is excellent — thanks for the ref. Slow violence and cold evil, eh? two ways of describing a similar problem: violence and evil that happen slowly, or distantly, or impersonally enough that we have difficulty responding appropriately in real time.
27 April 2012, 9:47 pmSam:
“The key to the behaviour of subjects [willing to torture and kill on command] lies not in pent-up anger or aggression but in the nature of their relationship to authority. They have given themselves to the authority; they see themselves as instruments for the execution of his wishes; once so defined, they are unable to break free.” (Milgram)
30 April 2012, 2:04 pmSam:
Former CIA Official Seeking to Confirm Efficacy of Torture Does The Opposite
—By Adam Serwer
| Mon Apr. 30, 2012 8:12 AM PDT
Out of the sewer
Read it at Mother Jones
Former CIA Official Seeking To Confirm Efficacy of Torture Does The Opposite
by Adam Serwer
This man belongs in a dock at The Hague. He and this whole episode are a disgrace to what America stands for, and this is a blot on the United States that can never be eradicated. [Mike Norman's blog]
Former CIA Official Jose Rodriguez talks to CBS’ 60 Minutes. CBS/60 Minutes
Jose Rodriguez, the former head of the CIA’s Clandestine Service during the Bush administration, was supposed to offer proof that the torture of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other Al Qaeda detainees led to the discovery of Osama bin Laden’s hiding place. Instead, his interview with CBS reporter Leslie Stahl confirmed the exact opposite.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/04/former-cia-official-seeking-confirm-efficacy-torture-does-opposite
30 April 2012, 2:50 pmJosiah:
I mangled the quote a little bit. But the whole book is beautifully written, which makes the ugly/disturbing subject matter easier to take. Nixon (like many of the novelists he writes about) uses his prose to try to get us to feel/care about things we are socialized to be numb to/systematically ignore. That’s why it reminded me of the “Global Cannibalism” essay, as well as “Blood Makes the Grass Grow,” which both get at the problem of studied ignorance and evasion of our own moral relationships to people and the world.
30 April 2012, 6:42 pmMichael Anderson:
And now, as the power of the cult of the gun grows, we have this—NRA-sponsored legislation to target gun activists who try to show the porousness of gun-show purchase procedures.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201204270011
“Repeatedly burned by stings intended to demonstrate the ease with which individuals who are banned from purchasing firearms can buy guns from private sellers without passing a background check, the National Rifle Association appears to have found a solution: Make those stings illegal. As usual, their allies at the American Legislative Exchange Council are happy to help.”
Is this another form of “enclosure”? This, and the physical and sexual assault of non-violent OWS protesters?
http://truth-out.org/news/item/8912-new-police-strategy-in-new-york-sexual-assault-against-peaceful-protestors
“Many of these arrests are carried out in such a way to guarantee physical injury. The tone was set on that first night of March 17, when my friend Eileen’s wrists were broken; others suffered broken fingers, concussions, and broken ribs. Again, this was on a night where OWS actions were confined to sitting in a park, playing music, raising one or two tents, and marching down the street. To give a sense of the level of violence protestors were subjected to, during the march north to Union Square, we saw the first major incident of window-breaking in New York. The window in question was broken not by protestors, but by police—using a protestor’s head. The victim in this case was a street medic named José (owing to the likelihood of physical assault and injuries from police, OWSers in New York as elsewhere have come to carry out even the most peaceful protests accompanied by medics trained in basic first aid.) He offered no resistance.”
Forgive me—-I woke up early and saw this, and am just plain SICK of it—It seems very hard at present to get into that space “between the powers’ toes”. Having suffered a broken wrist a month ago, I know how vulnerable this can make anyone. The foulness of this is obscene.
5 May 2012, 1:14 pmMichael Anderson:
Just for reference….all the companies involved with ALEC. Some you wouldn’t think of…
http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=8078765
5 May 2012, 8:11 pmJosiah:
“They passed around packs of Pine cigarettes they had “liberated” during the raid and taunted each other with gay jokes. On the walls the Afghan homeowners had hung posters and odd pictures torn from magazines. An image of a yellow sports car, a photograph of Mecca, an idyllic scene of a cabin in Austria or Germany. Dreams beyond war. Beneath them, the men tipped cigarettes onto the floor and lit detonation cord on the rug, burning black coils into the fabric. A few men retold plans to kill former wives and girlfriends. Givens and one of his close friends talked of blowing up the qalat as they left, a parting thank-you to the residents of the valley.”
http://theamericanscholar.org/a-gathering-menace/
12 May 2012, 11:00 amJosiah:
Stan, I really wish some of these “embedded” journalists would read Sex & War.
12 May 2012, 11:05 amMichael Anderson:
Sounds like “mission accomplished” for the folks who make the money off these wars. Corporate & Ideologues doesn’t care if lives get wasted and minds get twisted, as long as they get their damn pipelines, power, or whatever the periphery has that will be useful.
Wonder what happened to that brigade that came home from Iraq in ’08, to help with “crowd control”?
12 May 2012, 11:03 pmWill:
Forgive me for any errors that might be in this I’m a soldier not a writer. While I do agree that there is a fundamental flaw in our countries mentality towards some key aspects towards socity. I do not believe that blogs, such as this, prepetuating the sterio type that our retired military are nothing more than crazed killers looking for nothing more than an excuse to pull the trigger, should be aloud to go on without the other side being told. I have personally served in both OIF and OEF and while I have seen my share of combat it has never been started on my or for that matter anyone in my company’s end. We fight with the rediculas ROE that if someone shoots at us drops his weapon and surrenders after wounding or killing my fellow soldier that we are not to return fire. The training of the bayonette has been stopped for years now because of its psychological effect on the indivisual and we are trained to respect the locals of the countries we are deployed to. To all of you who wish to demonize us for the actions of the few the less than 1% who disgrace the 99% I say this. Its a free country youre more than welcomed to leave.
7 June 2012, 12:58 pmStan:
I was a soldier, too, Will. For quite some time. I am retired military; and I am not a crazed killer. Since I say both these things simultaneously, I don’t see how you can jump to the conclusion that this is what I am saying at all. And it is not 1% of anything. You don’t know any more than I do what the percentage is that (1) violates ROE, etc, or (2) just plain devolves into revenge and thrill kills. Because most of it goes undiscovered, first of all; but more importantly, whole units participate in some atrocities (giving the lie to the bad apple/1% theory). What I describe about the military is its culture. It is a culture and a (political as well as tactical) practice that makes cruelty, hatred, racism, and misogynistic machismo absolutely inevitable. When and how it emerges is not a statistical issue, but a contextual one.
As for leaving (America love it or leave it); that is precisely the kind of uncritical nationalism that undergirds the dominator-male culture of the military. I have an address in a place much smaller than this “free country,” where I live. You have presumed to speak (you personally) for the whole nation – which can only include, at the end of the day, those who cop to the notion that the military is so essential to our well-being that we are obliged to worship it… and never say what it is.
It’s not the nation that constitutes my problem (or others’). It’s that everyone is a citizen of some nation-state whether we like it or not. The status of state subject applies no matter where you go. Might as well be where my friends, family, history are. So does the fact that I am easily identified as an American (something different and more inclusive and more cultural than citizen); and I take offense at those things that are done in the name of Americans (including me, like it or not) that are reprehensible, irresponsible, or plain stupid.
I wore that uniform a long time. For a long time, too, like you, the uniform wore me. Hang around Will. I am not your enemy.
13 June 2012, 8:15 amcabdriver:
I just found this essay on-line tonight. It seems to fit here
http://therumpus.net/2012/07/truth-in-nonfiction-a-testimonial/
“Freshman year of college I was a Republican hardliner and Pentecostal Christian. I had just graduated from an Appalachian public school where you could sometimes find teachers’ names written inside a textbook cover under the heading “issued to.” I had spent much of my childhood in backwoods revival services, in evangelical youth groups, trips to praise and worship services in stadium-sized venues. I called global warming a hoax and Al Gore a baby killer. I had come down out of the mountains with a wad of snuff in my lip and driving a high-mileage Ford. Somehow, I believed I would be a writer—not just a writer, but one who felt he’d saved himself from falling victim to lies through an uncomplicated narrative of persistent belief. I sensed truth was a fragile thing and once found, could only be kept alive through abidance. I was certain the new Iraqi war and all that ugliness could only be lost if we decided we wanted to lose it…”
8 July 2012, 1:41 amm.c.:
worth reading. there ar a lot out there like him….
8 July 2012, 3:53 pmMichael Anderson:
You ALWAYS need to listen to the small voices.
9 July 2012, 5:27 pmm.c.:
he’s not a small voice, just a writer. its all the same rank…
10 July 2012, 12:01 pmMichael Anderson:
I was speaking of his revelation that happened in a “small” way—-the small voice within. Some people call it a “silent explosion”. Main thing is, we change.
I read the same Orwell story too, some years ago. It got me reading his WW2 dispatches. One tough SOB.
11 July 2012, 1:48 pmMichael Anderson:
Was listening to NPR on the way home from grocery shopping today. They interviewed Malcolm Brady, former second-in-command @ the BATF, about the Newtown shootings. The interviewer was throwing mainly softball questions @ him about the type of weapon used (Bushmaster), and asked him if he saw a drop in sales of that particular one post-shooting. He said (ruefully) no, he sees a spike UPWARD in sales. When asked why, he said that people will buy that particular one as a reaction, for defense. He also said that it has a particular cachet because it is the civilian version of the Army assault rifle, available in COLORS (including pink, ladies) and different levels of trim (sounds like a car, doesn’t it?), and many former military people connect with that cachet. He conveniently forgot about the wannabes.
I got to wondering—given the way that Capitalism operates in this day and age (was it ever any different?), and the generally militaristic and reptilian mindset of those-who-would-rule; and since the domestic arms industry has to maintain their sales level here in this country (!). There seems to be more congress-critters making anti-gun noises now, but they’ll slink back to their holes promptly after New Years’ when the NRA threatens to pull their money.
Merchants of Death, increasing their odds in the “sacred geometry of chance”? The public school kids are a convenient sacrifice. After their 9-day wonder of grief and fame, they’ll fade from public memory. Just wondering….Moichandising, moichandising, moichandising. Lots of big, husky, manly (fearful) men will buy it.
And, after all, it’s just another consumer choice, right? And it’s CHRISTMAS, fercryinoutloud! I’d certainly like a Bushmaster under my tree, wouldn’t you?
It would seem that a significant percentage of Martha Stout’s conscience-less creatures abide here. Obama’s public utterances, from what I’ve heard so far, are more bland and meaningless that ever on this incident. But, like you say, he’s made his bones elsewhere, in Pakistan.
OK—rant done. REALLY glad I finally got the message and got rid of the weapons I had!
17 December 2012, 9:54 pm