Are our soldiers fighting and dying in Iraq in vain?

[eyelidlessness]

Fuck the US military! for the past sixty years they've been a force for global oppression, at least.

More like since its inception. Have people forgot that before the US invaded Vietnam and Korea, they invaded everything west of the colonies? That they played a major role in the genocide of hundreds of nations? And that when they were beginning to wrap up that process, they started exporting it to other land masses?

* * *

eyelids.... imo comments like "prove it" sound argumentative.

Well, I was engaged in a debate. I can't deal with the cult of niceness in our culture. Here we are talking about a genocidal military force, and people are worried about me being cordial. Biting our tongues isn't going to end it.

The comment was, basically, saying that it's human nature to revere people who commit atrocities (having first set out that there is some connection between our hired killers and warriors in other cultures, no matter what their role really was), and the general impact of statements like that is to diffuse any resistance to atrocities. The US military is committing atrocities, and it needs to be stopped. No amount of LovingKindness™ is going to change the fact that thousands of Iraqis are going to be killed because we're too busy deciding how (not even whether) to have discourse about the fucking matter.

* * *

I suppose I was thinking about people like Pat Tillman. He sure did not need the money.

So you can name an exception. So could I. But exceptions prove the rule.

I appologize if I sound condenscending. But I was so sure about somethings when I was you age. But I guess I am not as sure of things as I used to be. I just can't pass judgement on every soldier in the military. Some of them are just young and don't know better. Some if them are just not as smart as you.

I'm not passing judgement. I'm recognizing the fact that they're doing things that are wrong. I'm not saying they're evil. It was you who brought up "bad apples".

And frankly, "don't know better" or "not as smart" doesn't justify their actions. Most of them do know better. Most of them are intelligent. They're doing things that are wrong, and should be prevented from doing so.

I was really arguing with Cecil eyelid.
did not mean to hijack your post

I think a lot of what you were saying was directed, if not towards me, for me to see. It's a song and dance we've done before. You're older, you know better now that nothing's right or wrong and I'll grow old and cynical too, at which point I'll be able to comfortably accept atrocities in the knowledge that they're not here.

* * *

these guys are not mercenaries by nature
they are fueled by a number of motivations
but are not as calloussed as you would believe

In my experience, and that of every veteran I know, the primary motivation of most soldiers in the US military is personal gain. Yes, there are other motivations, even for those who hope to gain, and probably a lot of them who don't believe in the atrocities they're committing trick themselves into believing they're doing something right—if we talk about atrocities, we can't commit them.

to deprive a person of their basic integrity is the ultimate in dehumanization, and that is what i get from your attitude about the suckers who are inside the us military today

I'm not depriving anyone of anything. Most soldiers join for college money. That's not my fucking fault.

why is there anyone who comes out of the military distraught, if we only go in so serve our own best interests

Because it's a fucking traumatic experience? Going to war, or simply being subjugated to a rigid hierarchy in a violent institution, is traumatic.

afterall there are plenty of those types yes
but they do so by rationalizing thhe military mission and therefore suppress the dissent
within

That doesn't excuse them from responsibility for their actions.

but there are some who debate, dissent, disagree after being involved in the war(s), who come home angry, commit siucide, harm others, become anti-war protesters,
better that they should all be "well adjusted" and go golfing?

I don't know what you're talking about. I don't think they should do anything, with the exception that they should quit committing horrific acts of violence against strangers in foreign lands (and against domestic partners and youth at home).

while i can appreciate an anti-military sentiment, i have to distinguish for myself between an abuse of power and what is potentially acheiveable, a critical usage of military force for peacekeeping, de-escalation, and in cooperation with an intenational community

Well, why don't you start up this magical force of unicorns and gummi bears? It certainly doesn't exist in the US military. I'm not even anti-military, I should point out. I'm not even against the use of force to accomplish certain goals. What I'm against is an empire and its selfish subjects running around the world shedding innocent blood, endlessly for centuries.

besides, how are you gonna entice a kid to sign up, even in the best of times, with the best of executives, without incentives to pride, honor, duty to country, and educational incentives,
afterall this is what it should be about

So what you're saying is that not only should the US military personnel have pride in what they're doing, but they should continue to be mercenaries for the unjust causes they serve?

maybe you should join up and find out about the complexity of those who have served

Um. Maybe you missed the part where I oppose what they're doing.

i would encourage you to look more deeply

I have looked very deeply. I'd encourage you to actually read and comprehend what I write before you come in assuming I said the opposite of what I'd said.

As one old zombie to another
I am trying to remember what it was like to be twenty again.
I was very sure of everything.
Sometimes I think eyelid would make a great president. I am so tired of that wishy washy wimp we got now.

Here we go again. I know you feel like you're more wise in your post-modern refusal to take a strong stand against something you feel is very, very wrong; on the other hand, I have atrocities to stop.

i appreciate your injection into the original question
it opened up and challenged
i just don't like ny kind of dehumanising prospect
it's bad enuf allready

How was what I said "dehumanising"? I'm just recognizing the primary motivation for most US soldiers (and here's a hint: it's more or less the same as the primary motivation for most US civilians), and recognizing the horrific reality of the actions they commit, regardless of motivation. They should be stopped. Earlier you mentioned Shambhala, and compassion. I don't see what's illuminating about making excuses for mass murderers. I don't see what's compassionate about allowing them to continue to do horrible things while recognizing their complex emotional conditions. I don't think it does anyone in the US military any good to do anything other than recognize their role as hired killers for a genocidal empire, and to do everything in our power to remove them from that role.

And for that matter, there is the little matter of nearly a million random brown people who've died at their hands in the last few years, and the millions who've died over the last decade and a half. What about compassion for them, and illumination on the subject of their complex emotions about being subjected to unyielding trauma and untold horror, completely unhindered by the population from which it sprang—while we quietly, meekly debate the feelings of the poor murderers.

Our victims don't have time for us to work out the difference between good-and-evil and right-and-wrong. While you folks are busy accusing me of condemning people and stripping them of their humanity, those people are doing things that are unquestionably wrong, and actually removing people's humanity by murdering them.

[stilltrucking]

I suppose I see too much. I see more than america at fault here.

Here we go again. I know you feel like you're more wise in your post-modern refusal to take a strong stand against something you feel is very, very wrong; on the other hand, I have atrocities to stop.

I don't know what to say about that?






I am trying to stop the atrocities too. Tell me what more you expect me to do?

I do what I can. Sign here .
986247



My post modern refusal?

Jesus H christ, what are you talking about? No shit, explain it to me please. hat is a sincere request. Tell me what you mean by that?

Is it okay if I make a little joke?

Everything after the paleolithic is post modern to me.

[jimboloco]

as one vietnam veteran once said in the first rap groups in nyc
back in the day, the formative years of vvaw, vietnam veterans against the war,
"it's too bad all those people had to die just so we could work through our shit."

so i am saying that we need a transformation of purpose
not all military action is simply gunslinging for a corporate gang of elites

we need to be able to distinguish between right and wrong, yes yes yes

we need to question why

and how

regardless of whether one sees american soldiers as mercenaries or as desperados or as suckers
or as noble
and yes i say that you, without eyelids, dehumanise because you don't allow for the evolution of insight or character

so you are saying that all the dead soldiers i picked up in vietnam got what they deserved,
and that if i had gotten killed, ditto

and all the soldiers who committed suicide or sufferred deep psychic wounds got what they deserved
and that i got what i deserved by having all the troubles that i did
the years of despair, lonliness without family or community,
terrible dark years


a guy in one of my vietnam veterans groups, a nominally well adjusted pharmacist, who was a medic, once affirmed that he had a sort of sense of justifiication in my admitted travails, because i had protested the war on coming home, which of course cost me dearly in terms of familial support,
but i put it back together without them, beyond them

most vets had mixed feelings
some of them were right on about my protest

some "liberals" were arrogant, kind of with a superior judgemental attitude, like the one you have, at least that's how i see it, a sort of superiority of moral insight that makes you lack compassion for the fallen
so in that regard you are like the right wing zealots

we are not gonna change the system without growth and insight, and that comes from all quarters, including those who are outraged by the current overwheening military-industrial complex, as well as those inside of it


where is adolph hitler when we need him?
some fucking fascist or maniacal madman who treatens our democracy?
how do we defend our values?
sometimes we have got to fighht

when they took out the serbian artillery that had been pounding sarajevo all that time it was good

when they, or we, start cooperating with the international community, it will be miraculous, and the way there is fraught with danger,
the first step is showing some restraint
the second step is to lose our national arrogance

good luck
nobody died in vain
they were mercenaries
they got what they deserved

patrolling the streets in baghdad in itself is not an atrocity
murdering people by mass bombing is
or by being inside a situation where one is compelled to shoot first and ask later, then that is where atrocities happen
and it is the fault of the set up

this was brought out in the winter soldiers testimony in detroit 1971
a recent issue of the nation had the same testimony

testimony by soldiers who were survivors but who were also revolted by what they had witnessed and done

so now they should just all go and off themselves?

Veterans said the culture of this counterinsurgency war, in which most Iraqi civilians were assumed to be hostile, made it difficult for soldiers to sympathize with their victims--at least until they returned home and had a chance to reflect. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070730/hedges

http://www.thenation.com/special/hedges/
nice slide show of iraq war veterans
mercenary killers
but by now morally superior to you eyelids
because you are narrow minded and not growth oriented and dehumanising to people like me
how can i hope to heal with people like you?
you condemn me as a criminal when i want penitence and change

ya kmow the dude who wrote
"peoples history of america"
was a navigator bombardier in ww2
killed a lot of people
then he woke up

nobody is saying that america has not had anything but a violent arrogant history
what we are saying is that we also have had an interior history of wanting for a more humane world and out of the cauldron of criminalitywe need to transform ourselves into something better

besides we were in competition with colonial powers from europe as well as fascist emperial powers in europe and asia, and now have fanatic violence to deal with as well,

condemnation of america carte blanc is missing the picture
we need to change
how will that happen? by sitting at a keyboard and tapping out an intransigent moral superiority don't get it done
each of us needs to grow as indivuduals and in community
we need to heal, to evolve, to become more capable, and to discern

interesting eyelidliss made me remember some of the cold hearted so-called peace loving hippies and intellectuals i met along the way

what healed me was a populism that was open minded and welcoming, and i had to dig to find it

it came from a woman at a vet center, a marine brat who was a mental health counselor
it came from a black pshchologist at a vet center who was a populist
it came from a republican marine rehab counselor who was open minded and non-judgemental

it also came from angry anti-war veterans who were on the outside

it came from becoming a nurse

it did not come from a morally suoerior unitarian minister, or from spaced out buddhists who were self centered and self satisfied
it did not come from quakers who were always out to challenge and activist oriented
and who were otherwise insular and capitalist

i know the difference between a moraly superior attitude and one that is open and welcoming
wanna play hardball?

How was what I said "dehumanising"? I'm just recognizing the primary motivation for most US soldiers (and here's a hint: it's more or less the same as the primary motivation for most US civilians), and recognizing the horrific reality of the actions they commit, regardless of motivation. They should be stopped. Earlier you mentioned Shambhala, and compassion. I don't see what's illuminating about making excuses for mass murderers. I don't see what's compassionate about allowing them to continue to do horrible things while recognizing their complex emotional conditions. I don't think it does anyone in the US military any good to do anything other than recognize their role as hired killers for a genocidal empire, and to do everything in our power to remove them from that role.

i got shit in my eyes

[jimboloco]

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=iraq+w ... s&ei=UTF-8

search page on yahoo for iraq war vets who have killed themselves

This undated handout photo provided by the Omvig family shows Army reservist Joshua Omvig. Omvig was one of a number of soldiers who committed suicide after returning from Iraq. Veterans' groups and families who have lost loved ones say the number of troops struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder or other mental health issues is on the increase and not enough help is being provided by the Pentagon and the Veterans Affairs Department. (AP Photo/Omvig Family) http://www.flickr.com/photos/52961928@N00/519514111/

http://joshua-omvig.memory-of.com/

The War On PTSD is NOT about POLITICS.
It doesn't matter if you are Republican or Democrat. It doesn't matter if you are for the war or anti war.

Josh was a Proud American, an American Hero and a member of the United States Army Reserve 339th MP Company based in Davenport, Iowa. At six foot three, the impressiveness of his jet black hair, dark brown, almost black, eyes and long black eye lashes were matched only by his devilish charm and wit. Josh was everyone's friend whether he knew you or not. There were no strangers when he was in the room. He made everyone feel apart of the whole, and being the "clown" of the class made sure entertainment was never lacking either.

To say Josh was the typical "Kid Next Door" sounds odd but he really was JUST A GOOD KID. His whole life he wanted to work in public service and stayed focused on that dream of being a Police Officer for as long as I can remember. He always kept his nose clean knowing it was going to someday be important to his career. He loved to participate in sports, hang out with his friends, play video games and spend time with his family.

As an adult, Josh was a PROUD member of the Grundy Center American Lutheran Church, the Grundy Center Volunteer Fire Department, and the Grundy Center Police Reserves.

He insisted on graduating early from high school after joining the reserves to get his career started. So excited about his future, he wanted to get into basic training as fast as he could....He had wanted to serve and protect his country, and it's citizens. His dream of becoming a Police Officer was nearly here. The Army Reserves was his ticket to achieving that dream.

......then came 911, The War Against Terror, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Iraq.

In November of 2004, Josh returned from an 11 month tour of duty in Iraq, fighting for his country and it's people in "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

While serving in Iraq, the conditions where unimaginable, and worse yet were the UNSPEAKABLE "jobs" and "duties" they had to do.

One truly can't understand unless they've been there, what these men and women face every single day. From the moment they set foot on foreign soil, they are in a combat zone every single second of every single day ...until they return home. Any moment could be their last moment... they know it... they have to... in order to survive.

The stories that come out of these war zones covered in the news are unimaginable to those of us safe in our homes. It's inconceivable, the damage that could be done to one's mind after seeing the mutilation an IED does to a human body, or what it would be like to retrieve the body parts of a friend to send home to their family for burial.

What must it be like to have to watch your back 24 hours a day, even while you sleep...to know any garbage bag on the side of the road could be a bomb...any child could be a decoy for an ambush....any woman who approaches you crying could be strapped with explosives...that giving a candy bar to a child could cost that child his arms as retrobution for accepting it.

THE STORIES JUST GO ON..AND ON...AND ON!

Josh loved his country, and was HONORED to defend her and the freedoms of it's people. He knew why he had to do the things he and others did, he was just never able to recover from having seen and done them.

He came home to us from Iraq with PTSD (POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER) and was never the same Josh again.

Josh's "DEBRIEFING" consisted of ONLY 15 minutes of "Welcome Home, Got any Problems? No? Great.. well, Let us know...See Ya"
AND IT'S HAPPENING TO OTHERS: Read the article -
"Navy acts to improve mental health screening for sailors"

THIS IS COMMON AMONG OUR RETURNING NATIONAL GUARD AND RESERVE UNITS!

THIS IS NOT EVEN THEIR PROTOCOL (rules) FOR DEBRIEFING!
What they are doing (OR NOT DOING) is killing our troops!

We knew Josh was having a hard time, but not in ANY way to the extent it REALLY was. We surely didn't know it had a name, or that it was an epidemic with our American Heroes in and returning from Iraq.

We knew there was such a thing as PTSD, but it just never "clicked" that THIS was what was happening to our Josh!..Josh was the clown, the one with the smile, the one who made others feel better. He hid the magnitude this disorder had on him very well. He suffered in silence like MOST of our soldiers with PTSD are doing.

On Thurs. Dec. 22, 2005, just
sixty five weeks ago, our Josh took his life after leaving a note explaining his torment.
Through the course of Josh's viewing and funeral ( attended by an overflow crowd of over 500 ), his family was made aware there were others suffering from the same disorder, in silence, like Josh had...LOTS OF THEM

While sitting in the Emergency Room for ONE HOUR with their dead son's body, being asked and explained about ORGAN DONATION, the nurse got off the phone with University Hospital in Iowa City and told Josh's parents that despite Josh's request to have his organs donated,
"OH, I'M SORRY... WE FORGOT THAT HE CAN'T DONATE ORGANS BECAUSE HE WAS IN THE MID EAST... HE HAS A VIRUS."

When asked "WHAT Virus?", they were 'put off' and never responded to.

When BEGGED by Josh's parents to TEST him to SEE if he had a VIRUS "just in case he COULD DONATE".. They just said,
"WE WON'T CHECK THE BODIES, EVERYBODY FROM THE MID EAST HAS GOT IT"
"..it's a blanket policy!" http://joshua-omvig.memory-of.com/

the "blanket policy" against iraq war vets donating organs is bercause they were exposed to depleted uranium and other toxic substances

but hey, who gives a shit
they are all mercenary killers right eyelidlessness

[jimboloco]

JONATHAN SCHULZE

http://jason-cooper.memory-of.com/
mother of suicide vet flies flag upside down

http://michael-dickey.memory-of.com/

http://domcampisi.memory-of.com/

http://becky-marseglia.memory-of.com/

http://internetexplorer.memory-of.com/
http://www.suicidereferencelibrary.com/ ... d~1136.php
brandon ratliff


http://www.webhealing.com/hon/maryw.html
william weiss

They found his body leaning against the navigation light, his eyes staring out toward the sea that he loved. In his left hand was the gun. In his right hand, a copy of _What the Buddha Taught_. In the matter-of-fact letter he mailed to his roommates, he said: "I will not be returning to the house. If anyone asks why I have done what I have done, tell them that for me, it was a good thing. Never thirst. I am free."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/200 ... usat_x.htm
COREY SMALL

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/186 ... ide13.html
ken dennis "rifleman couldn't take it any more"

http://www.gsfso.org/LcplJeffreyLucey.html

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articl ... n_anguish/
ted westhusin

http://www.courant.com/news/specials/hc ... 5642.story
jeffrey henthorn

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/6886
https://www.memory-of.com/Public/Hostin ... teId=51946
douglas barber commits suicide

http://www.ktvl.com/engine.pl?station=k ... twork.html
chris forcum

[jimboloco]

• 

• natural born mercenary
  i scarred the wall
  almost destitute
  hatred for my country
  25 years old
  lost
  lucky i didn't have a gun

i still have suicide fantasies
but i live on a survival revival lo down mission
love and peace to all
healing
resilience
revolution
but before all esle
compassion without condition
you can still feel real, man

statement of purpose page of Iraq Vets against the War, with photographs and associated info

[Arcadia]

s-t:"Everything after the paleolithic is post modern to me." you mean because the agriculture thing, the sedentary thing, the writing thing, the blend of metals thing or what?

jimbo: chuik!

[jimboloco]

William - an Unfinished Portrait

Mary Withers



I joined the Suicide Survivors' club, without realizing it, sometime between 6:30PM on March 14, 1996 and 12:45PM the next afternoon, when my amusing, talented, handsome, popular 25-year-old son, William Ellery Weiss, decided to eat a 9mm hollow-point bullet.

All his life, Bill balanced a tender, sensitive, bookish private side with an outrageous, extroverted, over-the-top public personality. No one was more trouble to raise than Bill, and no one was more fun!

Some things Bill was:


Sweet, funny, talkative baby with huge blue eyes
Constantly questioning, vulnerable schoolchild
Protective big brother
Friend to cats and most other small animals
Voracious reader
Outrageous punker teenager (double Mohawk, leather jacket with

the legend "zerstorte jugend" on the sleeve)
Almost a genius (170+ IQ)
*VERY* bad student (underachiever, constant discipline problem)
Brave US Marine (Gulf War combat veteran - 2nd tank across the

Kuwait border)
Humorist
Part-time Casanova (three girlfriends, one fiancee' and one

friendly ex-wife at the time of his death)
Spiritual seeker
Raconteur
Good friend and confidant
One of the Funniest People on Earth

Even with his intelligence, school and Bill just didn't mix. We tried different approaches, ranging from warm and permissive to cold and authoritarian. He responded better to strictness. He could be talked into behaving, but couldn't be talked into excelling, except on his own terms. I was surprised when he announced his secret desire to join the United States Marine Corps! I thought that he would surely be kicked out of boot camp. I was wrong. He loved the Marines and became a perfect soldier. He loved the physical challenge, the camaraderie, and the travel.
But something happened to him during the Gulf War. The guys in Bill's tank crew say they had several close calls, and they had to kill a lot of enemy soldiers. That bothered everyone. When Bill came home, some of the light was gone from his eyes. To make matters worse, his youthful marriage failed tragically just a few weeks after his homecoming.

He didn't re-enlist. He took a few college classes, tried to launch a graphic arts business, waited tables, and wrote for small magazines. He also took up "extreme" sports, such as bungee-jumping and snowboarding. I once asked him if he thought he wasn't supposed to have survived the war. He told me to stop worrying. I stayed worried when I found that he was using drugs - Ecstasy and LSD, and something called, I think, GHB? But during this troubled period, he and I became friends again.

About 18 months before his death he really cracked down on himself. He stopped using drugs, and began reading Zen Buddhist literature and following a strict semi-macrobiotic diet. He began preaching to his friends, cutting people off because of drug use or poor morals. I thought he overdid this "sage" role, but I figured he had to go through this "reformed and self-righteous" phase as a natural part of finding his balance and becoming the person he was meant to be. We talked a lot during this period, and he seemed busy and thoughtful, but happy.

So - it makes no sense that on March 14th, 1996, William borrowed an H&K 9mm pistol from a roommate, took the bus to the beach (in San Diego), and walked to the end of the north jetty on San Diego's Mission Bay. Near sunset, he called 911 on his cell phone, gave his location, and said "I'm going to take my life. I want an officer to come get my body so that no civilians find it. On second thought, why don't you wait until morning? The tide is high right now, and it's slippery." Always considerate. The girl who took the call did not forward the location to the SDPD, so he was found shortly after noon the next day by a civilian. So much for his last request on Earth.

They found his body leaning against the navigation light, his eyes staring out toward the sea that he loved. In his left hand was the gun. In his right hand, a copy of _What the Buddha Taught_. In the matter-of-fact letter he mailed to his roommates, he said: "I will not be returning to the house. If anyone asks why I have done what I have done, tell them that for me, it was a good thing. Never thirst. I am free." The autopsy showed that his health had been perfect, and his blood 100% drug-free.

I keep replaying parts of a conversation he and I had one month before he died. He mentioned that it seemed strange to be older than his father (his Dad died at the age of 24). He told me that he wasn't sure he would ever be good at computers because he was so poor at Math. I told him that he didn't need math - just a logical mind and creativity. He told me that he couldn't have children because of the war, and that the war had disillusioned him. He wasn't sure where he was going to fit in the world, and it bothered him to be getting older and losing his hair. I told him that everyone feels that way, and that things get better. I noticed that he looked too thin and maybe a little sad, but I thought I was just "being a Mom" and worrying unnecessarily.

He had never attempted suicide before, and he never seemed mentally ill, but still --- how could I miss these warnings?

Ah, God... I miss him so damned much... I feel lost, hopeless, terribly guilty, and I just ache at the thought that he will never call me on the phone again to share a joke.

I suppose the point now is not why this happened, but where I'm going to go from here. But I had to tell you what happened, and about who it happened to.

All I know is that wherever he is now, people are laughing... Lucky them. Wretched me.

Mary Withers

http://www.webhealing.com/hon/maryw.html

so how was this young spirit a mercenary?
i wanna know
what about him, eyeliddless one,
tell me what insight you have into this one spirit

i think that you have deep feelings under that intellect
and but for the grace of god
he could be you or i,
so how does this young spirit become anything less than sacred?


yantra mandala

[stilltrucking]

Our ignorance of history makes us slander our own time. People have always been like this. Flaubert

The John Brown mindset.

I, John Brown, am now. quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be. purged away, but with Blood.”

I don't know what John Brown accomplished by the blood he shed
but I can understand his righteous anger.

I see a lot of myself as a young man in eyelid jimbo
His user name interests me. It reminds me of a bit from The Lord of The Rings.


LSD can also leave one naked under the lidless eye. I know it has me. I can see myself in everyone. From saint to sinner. From humanitarian to killer.

This bit from William's mother kind of jumped out at me jim

He wasn't sure where he was going to fit in the world, and it bothered him to be getting older and losing his hair.

Freud said human behavior is over determined, it is hard to pin down any one reason for our actions. But the war was probably the straw that broke his will to live.
Maybe my worst fear in my twenties was getting old. You know “I hope I die before I get old”
The forlorn rags of old age is hard to face for some of us.
I can’t remember how exactly Camus said it something like
“Suicide is the only philosophical question.”


It seems the older I get the less I fantasize about suidide. Except for smoking. I used to have this vision of my self walking on a beach with my pockets full of rocks and my lungs full of cancer.


WAR Is a Racket by Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient:
Major General Smedley D. Butler, USMC [Retired]

'Why are you so sad? Mankind is displaying nothing new. Its irremediable wretchedness has embittered me ever since my youth. So I am not disillusioned now...Our ignorance of history makes us slander our own time. People have always been like this. A few years of quiet fooled us, that's all.' Flaubert

Arcadia all I meant was a joke. I am a low brow. I feel like a Neanderthal among all these postmodern intellectual whizzes here.

[mtmynd]

jimbo... thx (i guess) for that letter you posted on William Weiss. very heartfelt and sorrowful. (she wrote from her soul).

suicide can be seen dualistically - relief from mental anguish or honorably for others (think hari kari). but whatever side of the coin it all relates to too damn much seriousness in one's life. sure, these are serious times (why is Dubya always grinning???), but when we reach that point of seriousness x 2 (or 3 or more), someone has got to shake us and tell us to stop! It's a big fucked up world 'out there', but if we even just have an inkling of our inner world, we should know what people of wisdom have been saying for thousands of years - our outer world is a world of illusion. sure it looks real - our senses assure us of that, but having any control over it..? that's the illusion. the only control we can ever have is our own inner peace, our own inner world that is not so much our own as it is something much greater than this world we are all living thru... its all temporal this material life that is filled with pain and sorrow, desires and and death. the inner world transcends all that b.s.... ask the meditators, ask the 'wholly people'... those that have realized the divinity of the inner. they know. they know that life as we live it is the great illusion that materially does not really exist. it's all one 'gi-normous' cosmic joke... one that we should ultimately laugh about and with. there is a special joy in doing that that gives us something greater to live for... the union with our inner spirit which is part and parcel of the whole ball of the divine.

peace.

[stilltrucking]

The Denial of Death and the Practice
of Dying (or: "Tasting Death")

By Glenn Hughes

About the title:

"The denial of death" is a phrase from Ernest Becker, and the title of his most famous book, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1974. Becker's book focuses on how we human beings develop strategies to fend off awareness of our mortality and vulnerability and to escape into the feeling that we're immortal. "The practice of dying" is a phrase used by Socrates, as recorded by Plato, for describing one aspect of how a person becomes morally mature. Socrates is urging us to face into our mortality and to let an awareness of death purify our motives

I am sorry jimbo
you know how irreverant I am
First I am always concerned for the living.
Like the vet said
to bad all those guys had to die so we could work out our shit.
back to hesters question are the soldiers dying in iraq dying just so we can work out our shit. I suppose so.

One thing different with this war is these people have not been drafted. They have volunteered.
Even so the tragedy remains.
William did not find his way with Zen or drugs,
He had to kill some soldiers his mother said.

I am done.

As a cultural anthropologist, Becker was searching for explanations of why human society develops in the way that it does, and he was particularly interested in why human society is so violent, why different social groups are so intolerant and hateful of each other. By the time of writing The Denial of Death, his ninth book, he had reached the conclusion that he had found a very important explanatory principle for understanding human behavior and human culture. This principle, summarized with extreme brevity, is as follows. Human beings are mortal, and we know it. Our sense of vulnerability and mortality gives rise to a basic anxiety, even a terror, about our situation. So we devise all sorts of strategies to escape awareness of our mortality and vulnerability, as well as our anxious awareness of it. This psychological denial of death, Becker claims, is one of the most basic drives in individual behavior, and is reflected throughout human culture. Indeed, one of the main functions of culture, according to Becker, is to help us successfully avoid awareness of our mortality. That suppression of awareness plays a crucial role in keeping people functioning--if we were constantly aware of our fragility, of the nothingness we are a split second away from at all times, we'd go nuts. And how does culture perform this crucial function? By making us feel certain that we, or realities we are part of, are permanent, invulnerable, eternal. And in Becker's view, some of the personal and social consequences of this are disastrous.


First, at the personal level, by ignoring our mortality and vulnerability we build up an unreal sense of self, and we act out of a false sense of who and what we are. Second, as members of society, we tend to identify with one or another "immortality system" (as Becker calls it). That is, we identify with a religious group, or a political group, or engage in some kind of cultural activity, or adopt a certain culturally sanctioned viewpoint, that we invest with ultimate meaning, and to which we ascribe absolute and permanent truth. This inflates us with a sense of invulnerable righteousness. And then, we have to protect ourselves against the exposure of our absolute truth being just one more mortality-denying system among others, which we can only do by insisting that all other absolute truths are false. So we attack and degrade--preferably kill--the adherents of different mortality- denying-absolute-truth systems. So the Protestants kill the Catholics; the Muslims vilify the Christians and vice versa; upholders of the American way of life denounce Communists; the Communist Khmer Rouge slaughters all the intellectuals in Cambodia; the Spanish Inquisition tortures heretics; and all good students of the Enlightenment demonize religion as the source of all evil. The list could go on and on.

~The Denial of Death



"let the dead take care of the dead"
I was thinking about his mother

HOLDEN
Describe in single words. Only
the good things that come into
your mind. About your mother.

~ Blade Runner

"The mother is the first awesome miracle that haunts the child his whole life, whether he lives within her powerful aura or rebels against it."

The Denial of Death

[jimboloco]

it's what i told my dentist,
i wanna leave in that gap in my left front teeth
it reminds me of my mortality
loooks kinda cool in a smile

he wants me to buy a teeth grinding plate
chrizt
it's the bell of mindfulness

mercy
it's a good day to visit the dentist
why should i feel vulnerable
why would i want ta feel immortal by group identity?
and the impulse to group identity is not entirely due to fear of mortality
that concept kinda feels neurotic to me
cause and effect do not compute here

thanks for your thoughts elpasoloco
inner peace is a part of the quadrant
whatever the hell that means
it is thhe refuge
the safe place
and should be cultivated
to better enable effective coping in this world

st, the quote by william's mother
about his fear of not being able to fit in
even as he waws doing a lot of interesting things
yet there was this alienation
and an inability to have a focus a life plan
existential bewilderment
purgatory with the blues
somehow detached from his war experience
but it is a fragmented detachment

this kind of developmental disruption
happens with some young war veterans and older ones also and others who
go thru traumatic experiences that they can not validate

he was lacking in ongoing contact with his compatriots
essentially he needed work in readjustment with other veterans
returning and learning how to deal with the aftermath in theiir heads
and it is a powerful psychic force
and can be dealt with
thru cognitive work
and other positive affectations like meditative inner peace

war is a racket
obama popped his karma
sean penn's been to venezuela
smedly butler was pissed because he saw the other side of the history of the us marines, not in ww1 or 2
he was in the spanish-american war
in the phillipines
where they fought the huks
cool name for the phillipine nationalists
long and bloody war for the huks
400,000 died
each one of them was somebody too
and in the boxer rebellion
what the heck was the us marines doing in shanghai?
and in central america
he invaded nicaragua and the dominican republic
then he got out and found his existential niche
but he definately did not fit in

the diamond cutter
always be present with the other person
on the phone
at work
in the store
wearing shades

[jimboloco]

I don't see what's illuminating about making excuses for mass murderers.

thx (i guess) for that letter you posted on William Weiss. very heartfelt and sorrowful. (she wrote from her soul).

suicide can be seen dualistically - relief from mental anguish or honorably for others (think hari kari). but whatever side of the coin it all relates to too damn much seriousness in one's life. sure,

so can we lighten up a bit about having no compassion for mass murderers
too much damn seriousness there

how can mass murderers be healed?
how soiled and sullied they must feel
i hugged mass murderers
somehow they healed
recognised their role as war machine for the empire
but not all vets feel that way
irregardless
aberrations of the psyche do endure
and the ones who question the "why"
the reason to do and die
after the fact, no wonder they feel alienated
when the entire mainstream national medisa is just peeking
at dissent, as before,
when the entire national media was complicent in the buildup
to the iraq war
and now must be aware. the ones who occupied those media roles,
that becauuse they did not question the buildup,
that upwards of a million people are not now alive
so now what?
how can we hope for an objective media until they become disillusioned and wake up
to modify the use of power to better ends

as a society we are all complicent if we do not question
and uphold the role as citizen
seriously

and now we got expanded govt powers for warrantless wiretapping
rapping tapping
seriously
thankx for your thoughts, all
we have met the enemy and we have been wasted
i yam gonna take up the magic weed once again
Samatha

[jimboloco]

Jim wrote:
> Mary, I came across your memoir to your son while investigating Iraq war
> veteran suicides. As a Vietnam veteran, nominally zen Buddhist, survivor
> of a deep dark and lonely abyss, healed and now a walking wounded, a
> nurse, I want you to know how I was moved by this young man's story.
> I feel deeply this young man's loss, and yours.
>
> All we can do is offer support, to try and change what we can, and alert
> others to the error of judgmental thinking.
>
> I am sending you the link to our cyber-club website, where we have been
> having a conversation about whether the soldiers "died in vain" in Iraq.
> One young fellow has decidedly taken a negative attitude
> about the worth of these soldiers, as mercenary, at which point I became
> involved, and hoped to show him something about the complexity of
> character that these young people have had, in their joining up to the
> military in these times. When I came across your memoir to your son,
> William, I was deeply touched. This is something that I will carry with
> me in my heart.
>
> When I meet young returning Iraq War veterans, I tell them to get help
> through the VA if they begin having PTSD symptoms, negative thinking. I
> will continue to do this.
>
> Sincerely in sympathy for you and your son,
> Jim

Mary Withers <mwithers> wrote:
Thank you so much for your kind comments, Jim.

Although I am deeply opposed to our current involvement in Iraq, and I
have come to believe that the arrogant and irresponsible and untruthful
Bush/Cheney administration is the worst thing ever to have happened to
this country, I also caution people never ever to say that our young
soldiers "died in vain", and never ever to equate our brave young
volunteers with "mercenaries."

Our kids enlisted because they cared, and caring about the welfare of
others is never "in vain." My son was an idealist, and a very brave
boy. He, and all of them, are heroes, whether or not those in power
over them sent them there for heroic reasons or not.

I pray that this country and its leaders may someday again be worthy of
them and of their sacrifice.

I appreciate your efforts to urge servicepeople to seek help for PTSD.
Anything that can be done to remove the stigma some folks place on
Admitting a Problem and getting help for it is a *very* good thing. I
applaud your compassion from the bottom of my heart.

But even the patriotic must recognize that a good-hearted servicemember
can and *will* have psychological problems if they are asked to do that
which they believe is fundamentally immoral.

The answer is *NOT*, IMO, to "never question the government", or "never
allow servicemembers to hear criticism of the war", or to hypnotize or
drug servicemembers into forgetting or minimizing the things they saw
and were made to do.

I am reminded of the remarks of one grizzled old Vietnam Vet, who spoke
to me on a veterans' blog just a few months after my son's death: "I
take comfort in the fact that I must have been a pretty nice kid to have
been so bothered by what I was asked to do."

Amen.

The answer is to create a country, and a world, that is worthy of such
courage, of such "nice kids". Thank God for all of them.

Dear Mary, I appreciate hearing back from you. I confess that this particular young man's loss touched me deeply and reminded me of the deep hearted wounds that we carry. I can only offer you my shared emotional caring. I am in agreement with you about the encompassing viewpoint about our returning veterans and the "service" that was robbed from them, that they went because they felt the call to go, in service of something greater than themselves, and the key word here is service. I will keep you in my heart always, in faith and courage, I am yours in spirit,
Jim

[hester_prynne]

"I take comfort in the fact that I must have been a pretty nice kid to have
been so bothered by what I was asked to do."

I love this statement. It's terrible and yet beautiful at the same time.
The catch 22. You got sucked in. The lure and the kill of the fishermen of greed. Eat my worm, so I can eat you.

I mean, what about doing things that bother us, actions that we know and deeply feel are wrong, yet only after signing the dotted line, a dotted line that of course was presented in a totally different light when you signed. There is no recourse from this.
None.
And that is shameful.
That is what really kills the spirit.
Being trapped in a lie.

Jimbo, thank you for sharing those letters so much. Quite a gift of exchange and I hope everyone reads them, and thinks about them, lets their guards down, cries damn hard like I did.....
H