Remembrance day

The emphasis of remembrance day is so wrong!

November 11, 2015 Incoherent ramblings , , , , , , , ,

I’ve deposited my stepson for the day at the Unionville public school warfare celebration and indoctrination center for the day. He’s got his scouts uniform with him so he can put it on for the celebration of war, and make the veterans feel good. He was sent off with instructions to enjoy the celebration, and how much this day is about respect.

The flag is at half mast today. In reverent tones other fathers tell their sons that this is to show respect. I stand there listening, just barely able to keep from gagging.

Needless to say, I feel significantly different about remembrance day than most people I know. It seems so obvious to me that this day was designed as war propaganda, but I’m not allowed to have that opinion. My opinion is viewed as one of disrespect. I’m not allowed to view veterans as unwitting pawns in the actions of evil men. I am supposed to respect the fact that they had the misfortune to have to go off to war and kill other people for the psychopaths that run governments “in our names”.

I am especially not allowed to have an opinion that the great and holy world war II shouldn’t have been fought. I must love Hilter for thinking something like that. It’s true that I consider it a tragedy that so many civilian populations in Germany were bombed in the name of bringing down Hilter. I also consider it equally tragic that civilian populations in Britain were also bombed by Germany. Warfare should not involve civilians, but it always does. That is one of the reasons that it is so profitable.

We will never know what history would have been like if North American forces did not submit the propaganda of glorious warfare, but there are a few things that we can know. We know that Allied support was given to Stalin, killer of more of his own people than Hilter killed. We know that Churchill gifted still more victims to Stalin when all was done. We know that the United States engineered to have Japan enter the war by imposing brutal sanctions. We know that US companies like Ford and IBM supported Hitler’s war and genocide actions (respectively). As with all the current enemies of the United States, you can almost always find a time when those enemies were incubated by the same people who later turn on them as warfare fodder. We know from the admissions of Germans interviewed after the war, that full fledged war was used as the justification for the Jewish genocide. We know that psychopaths in the United States government killed hundreds of people in Japan with needless atomic bombs. Those atomic bombs were explicitly dropped on civilian populations, because they wanted test sites that had not already been ravaged by conventional carpet bombing. Japan was ready to give up when these bombs were dropped, but the atomic bombs were a great way to show power, especially to Russia, who was ready to move in and take desired resources. We know a lot about the blatant evil that did occur because “we” joined the war. Despite that one is not allowed to question the holiness of world war II.

It seems especially despicable to me that remembrance day is pushed on us and on the kids without any context of history. Don’t look at the root causes for the wars that turned your grandfathers into pawns. Don’t think about all the civilians that are were killed and displaced as they served.

Close your eyes and observe the holy moment of silence, but don’t think. Thank and respect the veterans for their service, but never look at the underlying issues. Celebrate the goodness of war.

Remembrance day, a celebration and glorification of war

November 11, 2014 Incoherent ramblings

Today I received the following Remembrance day message at work:

“Every year on November 11th, Canadians pause for a moment of silence in remembrance of the men and women who have served our country during times of war, conflict and peace. More than 1,500,000 Canadians have served our country in this way and over 100,000 have paid the ultimate sacrifice.

They gave their lives and their futures for the freedoms we enjoy today.

At 11:00 a.m. today, please join me in observing one full minute of silence.
“

This illustrates precisely the sort of propaganda that is buried in this yearly celebration of war. Many people will object to my labeling of Remembrance day as a celebration of war, but I think that is an apt label.

We should remember the collective insanity that drove so many to send themselves off to be killed or kill. We should remember those who profited from the wars, and those who funded both sided. Let’s remember the Carnegies who concluded that there’s no better industry than war for profits and pleaded to Wilson to not end world war I too quickly. We should remember the massive propaganda campaigns to attempt to coerce people into fighting these wars. We should remember the disgusting lies that have been used again and again to justify wars that are later proven false. We should remember the US companies like Ford and IBM (my current employer!) that provided financial and resource backing to Hitler, without which his final atrocities would not have been possible. We should remember how every war has been an excuse for raising taxes to new peaks, raising nationalistic debt servitude at every turn (*). We should remember that civilians are the people most hurt by wars, and not focus our attentions on those soldiers that held the guns or were shot by them.

There are many things to remember, and if we are deluded into focusing our attention on the “sacrifices of soldiers”, who are pawns in the grand scheme of things, then we loose.

It is interesting to see just how transparent the Remembrance day propaganda can be. It is not just the glorification of the soldiers who were killed and did their killing. We are asked specifically to also glorify the people that “serve” Canada in it’s day to day waging of what amounts to US imperialistic warfare in times of peace.

Ron Paul’s recent commentary on Canada’s current war mongering nature was very apt.  We should remember that the aggressions that happen in our names have consequences.

If it were not for acceptance of the sorts of patriotic drivel that we see on Remembrance day, and patriotism conditioning events like the daily standing for the national anthem, perhaps a few less people would be so willing to fight wars for or against governments that are not worth obeying.

We give governments power by sheepish compliance. This service is to an entity that is a figment of our collective agreement.

Today I’ll actually just remember my dad. He is the only person I knew that saw through the social conditioning of Remembrance day and so aptly identified it as a propaganda event.

 

 

Footnotes:

(*) I’m not sure how definitive the debtclock link above is, nor it’s sources.  Here’s a newer Canadian debt-clock.  That site is currently also vague about it’s sources, citing “Canadian Government Data” without specifying them, nor linking to them.