Tag: patriotism

TIME TO THINK (BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE): TWO POEMS FROM TOM GREENING

Posted on by kathiemm
United States Navy recruitment advertisement in Popular Mechanics, 1908. In the public domain.

Military Recruiters

by Tom Greening

Ghouls troll school halls

preying on the young

who have no better options.

A protester asks a teacher,

“Aren’t you afraid they’ll get killed?”

and is answered,

“Better a short life with meaning

than a long one without.”

That’s it?  Meaning is in short supply

and worn out like the textbooks.

There are recruiting quotas to be met,

so standards are lowered,

bonuses paid, hopes inflated,

felonies forgiven,

and patriotic delusions fueled.

This is the greatest military machine in history.

It grinds slowly, but it grinds exceedingly fine.

 

 OUR LEGACY

Let’s weigh the facts a little more

before we launch another war.

Are we so sure we’re in the right

and blessed by God to launch this fight,

and is cruel war the only way

triumphantly to seize the day?

Let he who lives devoid of sin

proclaim who righteously should win.

Survey all human history–

Is blindness our main legacy?

Tom Greening was educated at Yale, the University of Vienna, and the University of Michigan. He has been a psychologist in private practice for over 50 years, and is a retired professor from Saybrook University, UCLA, and Pepperdine. He was Editor of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology for 35 years. He is a Fellow of five divisions of the American Psychological Association and Poet Laureate of the International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry.

 

 

Is the military-industrial complex striking again?

Posted on by kathiemm

Wikimedia and countless other sources will tell you that Armistice Day was established on November 11 to commemorate the armistice signed between the Allies and Germany at Compiègne, France, to cease hostilities on the Western Front in World War I. The end of that blood bath was a worthy cause for celebration, as would be any genuine armistice or peace agreement.

Many of the Allies declared the date a national holiday to honor servicemen who died in the war. Following World War II, the United States changed the name of the holiday to honor veterans of all its wars. And here we are in 2015 about to “honor” our veterans again.

So, I ask you, What the heck does that mean? What does it mean to “honor” our veterans? Clearly it means to hold parades and try to get some uniformed veterans to march in them. Perhaps those particular veterans marching in those parades feel honored. Or at least vindicated for their role in any violence perpetrated in the name of their country.

And I ask you, who gains what from the parades and the hype about honoring veterans? Do the celebrations serve in any meaningful way to make the lives of  veterans better? Do commemorations get the homeless veterans off the streets and into housing? Do they provide job training programs, adequate medical care, psychological treatment? Do they relieve PTSD? If our country truly wanted to honor veterans, wouldn’t it treat them better? 

Or are the Veteran’s Day parades and ceremonies largely just another media event, a form of propaganda in service of that false god, patriotism?  Are they also, moreover, a recruitment device, an enticement offered to young men and women, particularly in cities jammed full of unemployed and underemployed people, to convince them that it is honorable to join in whatever armed conflicts the government decides will serve its agenda in the next generations? And can’t we do better than that for both the veterans and the civilians in this country?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Inconvenient memories: Veteran’s Day 2014

Posted on by kathiemm

by Guest Author Ross Caputi

cost ofwar
Iraq war protest poster showing Lancet estimate of Iraqis killed, May 28, 2008. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Author: Random McRandomhead.

Most Americans believe Veterans Day is a day of remembrance; in reality, it’s generally a day of forgetting.

On Veterans Day, people applaud as veterans march in parades, wearing their medals and fancy uniforms. People who have never seen or smelt war’s rotting corpses bask in an atmosphere of pride and patriotism, suppressing inconvenient memories of hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in Iraq, millions in Vietnam, hundreds of thousands in Korea, and so on throughout our nation’s short and bloody history.

On Veterans Day, we are spared all the unpleasantries that might give us pause about the value or benevolence of our wars. We listen to the bands playing, but ignore the troubles faced by returning veterans. Where is the glory in PTSD, addiction, suicide?

On Veterans Day, we make believe that support for the troops is apolitical. Just like the victims of our wars, the reasons why young Americans have been asked to go to war, and the consequences of those wars are conveniently forgotten and nobody seems to notice.

On Veterans Day, we are called upon to remember America’s wars, sanitized of the harm they brought to countless victims around the world, and abstracted from their historical and political context. We are asked to support our veterans while forgetting the reality of what they participated in. It is a pleasant fairy tale, and I wish I could partake in it. But my experience as a Marine in Iraq has forever changed the way I look at war and the way I feel about being a veteran.

Let’s change the way we celebrate Veterans Day. Let’s make it a day of learning, not forgetting. Let’s be sympathetic to the ways veterans have suffered without ignoring the suffering of civilian victims. Let’s teach and learn about the wars in which our veterans have participated without glossing over the historical and political context in which they occurred. Let’s end the reflexive support for popular mythology, the jingoism, the cheer-leading, and the forgetting. Let’s refuse to encourage the next generation to follow in the footsteps of today’s veterans.

Revolutionize society with revolutionary peace

Posted on by kathiemm

Millions of Americans celebrate the Fourth of July, honoring the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the subsequent Revolutionary War by waving flags and marching in parades.

"Peace is Patriotic" button
Image in public domain.

Swept up in patriotic fever, many celebrate by getting drunk and harassing people perceived as less than “red-blooded Americans.”

There must be better ways to honor the goals of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” A new revolution is painfully overdue. It’s once again time to confront distant and out-of-touch power structures with the demands of a new age and a new frontier.

A peace revolution is already underway:

Don’t be left behind.  Join the REVOLUTIONARIES.

R=Rightfully revolt against raging reactionary rhetoric

E=Enthusiastically endorse enlightening programs for peace

V=Valiantly voice views against violence

O=Obdurately occupy oppressive institutions

L=Lovingly learn lessons in lessening violence

U=Universally unite under peace’s umbrella

T=Tactfully tailor tactics towards tolerance

I=Intelligently invest in innovative peace

O=Openly oppose onerous taxes for war

N=Nicely nurture the pathways to peace

A=Adamantly advocate apology and forgiveness

R=Rigorously restore routes to reconciliation

I=Imperturbably initiate ideologies of peace

E=Energetically embark on ensuring social justice

S=Solicitously support efforts of engagingpeace*

*Small donations will  help; we need your support to maintain our status as a non-profit.

Peace riding in triumphal chariot
Peace riding in a triumphal chariot. Image in public domain.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology