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Work 4 Peace,Hold All Life Sacred,Eliminate Violence! I am on my mobile version of the door-to-door, going town-to-town holding readings/gatherings/discussions of my book "But What Can I Do?" This is my often neglected blog mostly about my travels since 9/11 as I engage in dialogue and actions. It is steaming with my opinions, insights, analyses toward that end of holding all life sacred, dismantling the empire and eliminating violence while creating the society we want ALL to thrive in

Saturday, July 09, 2016

We MUST prevent our youth from ever 'joining up'.


What I am trying to question is the myth – no, the propaganda – of the war mongers that allows us to believe it is possible to be ‘re-introduced’ after engaging in this modern present-day ‘wars’, where men are taught, trained, and ordered to do things that permanently damage if not destroy their humanity.

It is hard for me to believe that a human being can engage in such acts of violence as are demanded by our military – especially the youth who are idealistic and believe they are doing something brave and good for our country when they learn they are merely tools of oppression, racism, misogyny, genocide and violence – and then return expected to function ‘properly’ in the ‘real world’. What I’ve read, especially from pre-conquistador, pre-colonization, pre-enslavement accounts, and have come to believe is that once a human being has taken another human being’s life – whether by accident or on purpose – that human is no longer fit or trusted to live amongst other human beings. In those olden dayz, such individuals were exiled or committed suicide. And furthermore, some peoples believed it took 4 generations (of hard, conscious work) to remove the stigma from that person’s family and peoples.

Micah Johnson was probably barely 18 when he enlisted in the army and most likely did not read the small print that indentured him to ‘service’ for 8 years: he probably thought after he did his 2 year stint from 2009-11 which he signed up for and was apparently was not then sent into combat, he was super lucky and free. Instead he was put into the reserve and then called up for ‘duty’ and sent to Afghanistan, where he probably committed and/or witnessed acts of such atrociousness he couldn’t recover. For we are using reservists and national guard folks for over 45 per cent of our combat troops, the first time in our history, as there is a huge shortage of young people swallowing the recruiters’ lies and ‘volunteering’ for active duty.

I believe the only way to “re-introduce” anyone is to make sure they NEVER ‘serve’ in this military; to smash the myths that they will somehow be better off, or that this is an ‘escape’ for them, or even that they will be educated. The harsh truths of our military are many, and the immense propaganda machine almost undefeatable. Youth who join the military, whether for a brief time or for a life-long career, do consistently worse in life, are less ‘successful’ than their peers – by race, class, sex – who do not join the military; men who join the military are 2 to 3 times more likely to murder their girlfriends, wives, or ex-es than their peers; only 17 per cent of men who are entitled to educational ‘benefits’ are in any shape after ‘serving’ to use those benefits.

But probably most telling of all is the number of Afghan, Iraq, and all recent combat veterans (of the over 7 countries that we know about that we are engaged in killing their people) who are committing suicide: even during and shortly after the Viet Nam era, many more soldiers committed suicide than were actually killed in combat. And today the numbers are even greater, as the heinous crimes men are engaged in are even greater. I can’t remember the exact statistic but something like 6000 soldiers have died in combat and over 100,000 soldiers have committed suicide in the past 15 years.


That this moment...



I wail for the mother earth, for those human beings on this earth who have no idea how to create a nuclear weapon let alone pay taxes to manufacture them, how to hold an aka1 whatever rifle, how to intentionally administer extreme pain on another human being; I weep for those humans who have no idea how to live using 12,837 plastic bags a second or 1,500 plastic water bottles a second, or know how to turn on a computer let alone skype.

I howl for the violence certain ones of us indolently embrace as a daily reality let alone an unquestioned yet cleaved to mode to live life – the violence of racism, misogyny, capitalism; I sob for the willingness to imprison human beings and to hoard so much more than we need to ‘survive’ as we distantly witness infants murdered by starvation, children by poverty, adults and youth by police and soldiers.

I weep for that moment in time where surely womyn could have stood up and taken control, that moment when men directed us down a path of such hatred and violence; a moment when if only womyn could have seen exactly where that path was leading us, could have intervened when the intervention seems simple and yet so crucial, like the invention of guns – if only womyn could have stood up then and forbid the continuing use and making of such weapons of destruction and violence.

What would life be like on this planet if womyn would have said NO guns, NO weapons of unmitigated violence whose only purpose is to inflict harm on any creature unarmed or lesser armed. What was so wrong with hunting for food with snares and spears, so unacceptable with fighting the wars certain men seem to desire more than anything – except maybe dominance over womyn, children and the mother earth – with sticks and swords and fists. 

That moment, like the moment the womyn of Greece and Rome (was it?) who decided together they were not going to allow their men sex if they continued to kill. That moment, when was it, when the first weapon of mass destruction was produced and used, the first rifle fashioned, the first canon created – if that moment could have roused womyn to see the future, as we know it today, surely they would have acted to direct life away from violence and down the path of harmony, peace, love.

And today, what is our moment when we womyn can act now to ensure the future is plunged toward honoring the sacredness of all life on this planet and the planet herself; what is that moment where the action we can take together will destroy the path of white male dominance and smolder the minds and hearts of those willing to wander that path, laying bare the earth and erasing the dominant powers so that human beings and the mother earth can begin to live again.

This has to be that moment when womyn – and any of our allies – must rise up and take action, for we know as surely as we know how to create, protect and sustain life that our moment is now. We know as surely as we know the flow of our bloods, that if we do not act now, if we choose to move along in the white male capitalist flow or at best be silent, we know what the future holds: all life destroyed, and destroyed by the handful of humans who own the worst weapons and the willingness to use them.