The Glory of War

Wars
The two wars that the present regime are engaged in were both unecessary. The situation with Al Q. should have and could have been handled without the war scenerio. The pre-emptive, illegal invasion of Iraq was straight up Imperialism.

Wars are popular and give rise to Nationalistic fervor and also make some, more wealthy. These two wars are a smokescreen for Capitalistic agenda. The American people were duped by pure propaganda and it seems that most remain ignorant of the actual agenda of these wars.

The book
"War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning" by Michael Hedges is top notch.

Who was it that wrote - the whole world is a stage ?

I think that the people who write & publish that stuff must think it's an off shoot of a Hollywood stage. They don't suffer the real slings & arrows of malice or load the body bags. I have a lot of respect for the military who have a job they don't want to do in all reality. The families at home are probably scared shitless, just as the guys at the sharp end are.
However it all ends, it'll just start up again. The encore. It's the very worst kind of scenario.
It will spread further and wider thru Europe and the USA

As I stated elsewhere, war is great fun...especially if you don't actually have to do any of the fighting.

Sitting on the ridge behind Marye's Heights in 1862, Lee turned to Longstreet and said, reputedly: "It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it . . . "

He said this as a few hundreds of Southerners were shot down, and thousands and thousands of Northerners were killed and maimed on the slopes below a sunk road, which lay below them.

Forward ! he cried,
and the front went down
. . .
Listen son, said the man with the gun
There's room for you inside.


The more removed one is from the action, the easier it is to make the sacrifice.

Us, and them
And after all we're only ordinary men.
Me, and you.
God only knows it's not what we would choose to do.
Forward he cried from the rear
and the front rank died.
And the general sat and the lines on the map
moved from side to side.

Black and blue
And who knows which is which and who is who
Up and down
But in the end it's only round and round
Haven't you heard it's a battle of words
The poster bearer cried
Listen son, said the man with the gun
There's room for you inside

Thanks, Boss . . . that's the very one . . .

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from the dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose

If that is from Frozen in the Belly of a Ballturret Gunner, i met the author in my peach fuzz days . . .

PUBLISHED IN 1914
Published in 1913 . . .

[quote] LETTER XXVIII

THE GLORY OF WAR

I have written of the beauty of peace; but I now want to write of the glory of war, for war has its glories. Anything that arouses man to the highest pitch of enthusiasm is glorious; for what is glory but a radiation of light, a burst of that life which is the Sun in man?

I regret this war. The suffering, the agony, the torment that I have seen and have felt through sympathy, have left their marks upon me; but had I remained in the safety of the neutral stars I should have missed the glory of the fight.
Man had grown too tame, without acquiring the virtues of tameness; but this war has served the purpose of the gods by hurling man into the primitive, the savage, where life had its roots, but from which the sap flows that will blossom later in such a faith as the world has never seen.

Suffering and joy are forever opposite and equal. Man may rest for a time in the neutral condition of a well-fed half-consciousness; but when the extremes of suffering and joy come to him, he is no longer half-conscious, but awake and alive, and glory shines round him.

Could the Masters have prevented this war? They could have retarded it; but the causes were present in the hearts of men, in the invisible forces within them as well as outside them, and to have further delayed the explosion would have served no planetary purpose.

The men who are not dead are more alive than they were twelve months ago, and even the so-called dead are living-dead.
We pushed back the forces of evil, yes; but that was a part of the struggle, that was the struggle in our world.
Let me tell you the story of one man whom I knew in the days of peace. He was well-fed and half-asleep with prosperity, he prattled mild commonplaces about life, and ethics, and the duties of a citizen; but what did he really know of life, or of ethics, or of the duties of a citizen?

We will call him Johnson. He has been in this war some months, a fighter for England, and the integrity of England; and now when he speaks of life his speech has meaning, because life to him now is the opposite and mate of death. He feels enthusiasm for it, the glory of it shines round him.

Johnson had a son, an only child. Fathers will know what I mean.

In the great retreat in which Johnson was one of the leaders his son fell before his eyes wounded but not dead. For one swift heartbeat the father turned to his boy . . . then he went on with his command that otherwise would have been leaderless, leaving his only child to the tender mercies of an army drunk with the pitiless glory of conquerors.

Johnson will never again prattle commonplaces about life. He has learned the meaning of death, and of tortured uncertainty far worse than death.

April 20.

(This letter was left unfinished "for no reason apparent to me." Editor.)[/quote]



http://www.earthlypursuits.com/WLLDM/WLLDMintro.htm

War Letters From A Living Dead Man
(Mr. "X" is David Patterson Hatch 1846-1912, a former judge)[/color]

Apparently many US war monuments glorify war (according to a couple of other members). Most Australian monuments seem to target the futility and waste of the act. A fact lost on our current PM. Worthless little slug that he is.

Non-aggressive Marine[/u]

News anchor Dan Rather, The Reverend Jesse Jackson, NPR reporter Cokie Roberts, and an American Marine were hiking through the jungle one day when they were captured by cannibals.
They were tied up, led to the village and brought before the chief. The chief said, "I am familiar with your Western custom of granting the condemned a last wish. Before we kill and eat you, do you have any last requests?"
Dan Rather said, "Well, I'm a Texan; so I'd like one last bowlful of hot, spicy chili." The chief nodded to an underling, who left and returned with the chili. Rather ate it all and said, "Now I can die content."
Jesse Jackson said, "You know, the thing in this life I am proudest of is my work on behalf of the poor and oppressed. So before I go, I want to sing "We Shall Overcome" one last time." The chief said, "Go right ahead, we're listening." Jackson sang the song, and then said, "Now I can die in peace."
Cokie Roberts said, "I'm a reporter to the end. I want to take out my tape recorder and describe the scene here and what's about to happen. Maybe someday someone will hear it and know that I was on the job til the end." The chief directed an aide to hand over the tape recorder, and Roberts dictated some comments. She then said, "Now I can die happy."
The chief turned and said, "And now, Mr. Marine, what is your final wish?"
"Kick me in the ass," said the Marine.
"What?" said the chief. "Will you mock us in your last hour?"
"No, I'm not kidding. I want you to kick me in the ass," insisted the Marine.
So the chief shoved him into the open, and kicked him in the ass. The Marine went sprawling, but rolled to his knees, pulled a 9mm pistol from his waistband, and shot the chief dead. In the resulting confusion, he leapt to his knapsack, pulled out his M-16 , and sprayed the cannibals with gunfire. In a flash, the cannibals were dead or fleeing for their lives.
As the Marine was untying the others, they asked him, "Why didn't you just shoot them? Why did you ask them to kick you in the ass?"
"What!?" said the Marine, "And have you jerks call ME the aggressor?!"