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bram
27th November 2012, 13:37
I have wanted to write this post for some time, but I have hesitated because I know it will cause offence to some people, and I don’t want to do that. Many of us have relatives serving in the armed forces, and can therefore testify that these are good people, and have taken the decision to join up for a number of different reasons. Few have joined up because they want to take up weapons and kill innocent people.

Also,particularly in countries such as the UK and the USA, there has been a strong increase in militarism over the past decade to the extent that anybody who fails to take the line that our armed forces are heroes, fighting selflessly for our freedom against an unseen terror. In the UK, the wearing of the poppy to mark remembrance day (11/11) has become almost obligatory, to the extent that a young professional footballer who opted out of wearing a shirt emblazoned with a poppy was vilified in the press and received death threats of a horrifying nature.

Remembrance day marked the end of WW2 and was supposed to signify and end to war. However,war continues seamlessly and without missing a beat. The USA is now almost continuously at war, and the UK takes every opportunity to ingratiate itself to the world bully-boy by backing it at every opportunity. The enemy was communism in the form of the USSR and China and has now graduated to Islam. The murder of innocent civilians is now routinely accepted as a ‘lesser evil’, and the recession provides a constant flow of cannon fodder for the imperialist armies of the west.

We can excuse the individuals who sign up for the armed forces by pointing out the grossly inaccurate and misleading marketing that the forces employ, however it's true that the people are more than willing to be fooled. The victims of this marketing are ready to complain that they were duped, but not ready to lay down their arms when they find this is the case (with the exception of real heroes like Bradley Manning).

As a peace activist in the UK in the 1970s and 80s, I can attest that the ordinary Joe in the street could not care less about the cost of nuclear weapons and the concept of peaceful coexistence between nations. They would rather go with the flow and subscribe to the collective ego with its national pride and hatred of the other.

When a British youth suggested on his facebook page that the soldiers themselves were responsible for killing, and therefore deserved themselves to die (an extreme view commensurate with a youthful mind) he was arrested and prosecuted for daring to have an opinion which differed from the prescribed viewpoint. Only a swift and insincere apology saved him from imprisonment and no doubt the further covert vengeance of the ‘good guys’.

In a country like the UK, with its disproportionate spending on the military, there is hardly a murmur about spending billions on upgrading the nuclear ‘deterrent’ even as the poor are suffering further cuts. This blatant corruption (the only benefactors of this spending are the arms manufacturers and of course the ministers offshore bank accounts) goes without anyone apparently questioning the need for increased nuclear deterrent.

Are we to assume that the UK is therefore planning a preemptive nuclear strike? Of course not. The weapons will sit there slowly leaking toxic radiation until the next government can justify a further upgrade from the taxes.

So now I think it is time to say that yes, the individual members of the military are responsible, like the rest of us, for their actions. It is time we started to help them to help themselves, for the law of karma is irrefutable and the karmic seeds sown by involvement in the slaughter of innocents, whether by abuse, neglect or the pushing of a button and the operation of a drone, will necessarily lead to an equivalent or greater amount of suffering, possibly through numerous lifetimes, until the lesson has been learned finally by the perpetrators.

Now it is time to stand up against this pro-military brainwashing, and say loudly that yes, it is the soldiers who kill, and they are responsible for doing it.

They can no longer hide behind the following of orders. I am also sorry to say that the death of a soldier, however brave and patriotic he/she may be, is not therefore a tragedy as it is portrayed by our masters, but probably instead is likely to lead to saving of civilian lives.

The following song was recorded at the beginning of the 1960s, before Vietnam and the peace movement; its message is as true or truer today than it was back then.
cwZ9QAosNTk

kaon
27th November 2012, 14:12
A touchy subject indeed.

To quote you...."So now Ithink it is time to say that yes, the individual members of the military areresponsible, like the rest of us, for their actions." I have to disagree with that statement.

There are many reasons why our young people go into the military. In the U.S. it is primarily for economic reasons. A very substantial number enter the military to escape poverty. Entering the military is a job and many are drawn in for that reason. Schooling is another big reason. In the military you can get an education, where many of our citizens cannot afford to put their kids through college. Veterans who are well educated can come out of the service and be employable in skilled positions that would be unattainable with only a high school diploma.

I can tell you that I don't know of a single family member or friend who went into the service to kill. Not one. I am not saying that there is not an element of some going in to become a killing machine, but I believe an extremely small percentage of our enlistees are in it to go to war and risk their lives in some far away place.

That being said, I will shake the hand of the soldier and thank them for their service. Sorry, but I can't blame the village for the actions of the village elders.

robinr1
27th November 2012, 14:33
so let me see if i got this straight........joining the military means u are 100 percent not responsible for ones own actions?......and two. people who join the military , when

the military only has one purpose in the world......... to kill other humans ...... didnt join to kill other humans......wow

interesting thoughts.

solidiers are paid mercenaries unable or unwilling to know what they are doing is so very wrong.





A touchy subject indeed.

To quote you...."So now Ithink it is time to say that yes, the individual members of the military areresponsible, like the rest of us, for their actions." I have to disagree with that statement.

There are many reasons why our young people go into the military. In the U.S. it is primarily for economic reasons. A very substantial number enter the military to escape poverty. Entering the military is a job and many are drawn in for that reason. Schooling is another big reason. In the military you can get an education, where many of our citizens cannot afford to put their kids through college. Veterans who are well educated can come out of the service and be employable in skilled positions that would be unattainable with only a high school diploma.

I can tell you that I don't know of a single family member or friend who went into the service to kill. Not one. I am not saying that there is not an element of some going in to become a killing machine, but I believe an extremely small percentage of our enlistees are in it to go to war and risk their lives in some far away place.

That being said, I will shake the hand of the soldier and thank them for their service. Sorry, but I can't blame the village for the actions of the village elders.

robinr1
27th November 2012, 14:36
also i must preface i was referring to usa soldiers in the post above......defending your homeland/ home from invaders is a totally different subject.

bram
27th November 2012, 14:53
There are many reasons why our young people go into the military. In the U.S. it is primarily for economic reasons. A very substantial number enter the military to escape poverty. Entering the military is a job and many are drawn in for that reason. Schooling is another big reason. In the military you can get an education, where many of our citizens cannot afford to put their kids through college. Veterans who are well educated can come out of the service and be employable in skilled positions that would be unattainable with only a high school diploma.



Hi Koan,

What you seem to be saying is it is okay to join an organization which invades countries and then asks you to kill innocent people, if it means you get a job and an education. This philosophy could also be applied to organized crime too couldn't it?

I can't imagine what it must be like to know you have killed innocent people, and have to live with that for the rest of your life. If our society pretends this can be done, then this only proves how deeply unconscious our collective behaviour is. Being in the military, you risk being brutalized for llife and never being able to fit back in and resuming the life of a normal citizen. We should not be asking our young people to do this, and they should not be volunteering to do it either.

Love, bram

spiritwind
27th November 2012, 14:59
I know for a fact my husband did not enjoy killing people, and yes, he did kill quit a few (especially in Vietnam). In fact, he was given a bunch of medals for doing just that. But then, in the end, our government did to him what it does to all that know too much, or are becoming a liability in their mind in any way. He should be getting a pension now and we should be living well but he gets nothing, and that was after appealing to 2 different presidents. He did love the adventure and would have had a hard time just living a mundane life but now has a hard time with civilian life. He truly thought he was being brave and representing our country and the people's interest for the right reasons when he joined and I am sure that many who join are doing so for the same reasons, plus as stated above, to escape poverty and get an education. Being a medic I also know he saved a lot of lives too. This is unfortunately still a violent world that, while we are trying to change it for the better, may still require certain actions to stay alive and I for one am glad that my husband would have no problem defending his home and family if the need arises. Yes, there are some bad apples, but there are plenty of those in oureveryday lives if you just look around. Plenty with no conscience that couldn't make it in the military if they tried. I used to have a certain mind set about the military (I grew up as a JW) but since I met my husband I now see the situation with our (US) military is much more complex than I thought. I'm a lot less quick to make snap judgments these days. Plus, many who join, especially during times of relative peace, don't ever see any combat at all. You may see the military as a killing machine but don't assume those that join really just want to be able to kill with impunity. And I'm not even going to get started on what I think about how our veterans are treated in this country either. There are many who haven't been left with a very good feeling about their years of service. Just look at the suicide rate.

spiritwind
27th November 2012, 15:05
There are many reasons why our young people go into the military. In the U.S. it is primarily for economic reasons. A very substantial number enter the military to escape poverty. Entering the military is a job and many are drawn in for that reason. Schooling is another big reason. In the military you can get an education, where many of our citizens cannot afford to put their kids through college. Veterans who are well educated can come out of the service and be employable in skilled positions that would be unattainable with only a high school diploma.



Hi Koan,

What you seem to be saying is it is okay to join an organization which invades countries and then asks you to kill innocent people, if it means you get a job and an education. This philosophy could also be applied to organized crime too couldn't it?

I can't imagine what it must be like to know you have killed innocent people, and have to live with that for the rest of your life. If our society pretends this can be done, then this only proves how deeply unconscious our collective behaviour is. Being in the military, you risk being brutalized for llife and never being able to fit back in and resuming the life of a normal citizen. We should not be asking our young people to do this, and they should not be volunteering to do it either.

Love, bram

I guess you were replying the same time I was. My only comment is, I'm glad you're not the one to judge me for where I have been in my life. Everything you say is true, but as I said, people change and hopefully their awareness grows, especially in how we have been programmed/socialized to accept what would normally be considered psychologically unbalanced behaviors to downright wrong. Iknow my awareness has grown tremendously in this lifetime and what I thought was okay 10, 20, 30 years ago, is definitely not the same today. And yes, there are many veterans who are having a hard time living with what they now realize they have been a part of. And you are lucky to not be one of them.

donk
27th November 2012, 15:15
It is sad, because the fact is, the good ones (brainwashed into believing that following orders unquestioningly is a good thing, somehow helps others) were lied to and/or lying to themself.

The military (I exclude Coast Guard/National Guard) is not like being a cop, where there is possibility of killing someone in the line of duty. The military is by definition is a weapon used by the government. Whatever reason you tell yourself that it is ok (family tradition, protecting country--best defense is good offense, right?, no other opportunity, get out of a bad situation), that is what it is...to varying degrees, you are responsibile to actual kill other human beings or support the effort of those that do.

Personally, to me it is in the middle of the range of "honorable", it depends on how honest you are about it. If you are a sniper thinking that you are used--by people you trust and believe in--to take out what you think are truly evil people, it is still killing people...but you are a better person than the scientist that discovers a way to weaponize a virus or something.

It's just like anything else, the level of awareness and personal responsibility the individual takes and the amount of integrity in which they do so is the only way that you can judge them (or anyone), in my book. I apologize for replying after only getting a quick skim of the thread in, though it is a subject I thought long and deeply on. Blanket statements are dangerous, but then again, the fact that the military is essentially the killing machine of the government, no matter what you tell yourself you're doing within it--is also a "blanket statement", that seems to me to be TRUTH, and needs to be considered.

Unfortunately we are brainwashed to blindly "support our troops". Sorry if it has been said, but to me it sounds like "support our wars". I like the bumper sticker "war is never the answer". It is easy for me to choose not to directly participate. But living a middle-class western civilized consumption based lifestlye with my job as a cog in the production wheel, no matter how SEEMINGLY far from directly related my job in financial retirement services seems to be, I am directly participating in the culture of war, it's just that fewer people around me are aware or would be as honest about it...

Carmody
27th November 2012, 15:22
http://www.jonahhouse.org/archive/images/ad04.jpg

And neither did Gandhi, for that matter.

It really is that simple. Anything else is wishful thinking.

as in: "I'll just join the elites to make a few bucks. Just for a while. I'll create a justification in myself that I can somehow separate myself from this self lie, and live on."

kaon
27th November 2012, 15:32
There are many reasons why our young people go into the military. In the U.S. it is primarily for economic reasons. A very substantial number enter the military to escape poverty. Entering the military is a job and many are drawn in for that reason. Schooling is another big reason. In the military you can get an education, where many of our citizens cannot afford to put their kids through college. Veterans who are well educated can come out of the service and be employable in skilled positions that would be unattainable with only a high school diploma.



Hi Koan,

What you seem to be saying is it is okay to join an organization which invades countries and then asks you to kill innocent people, if it means you get a job and an education. This philosophy could also be applied to organized crime too couldn't it?

I can't imagine what it must be like to know you have killed innocent people, and have to live with that for the rest of your life. If our society pretends this can be done, then this only proves how deeply unconscious our collective behaviour is. Being in the military, you risk being brutalized for llife and never being able to fit back in and resuming the life of a normal citizen. We should not be asking our young people to do this, and they should not be volunteering to do it either.

Love, bram

Hello Bram.

I don't condone a lot of what the military does. In fact, I disagree with quite a bit of what they are doing these days.
I wanted to make the point of a civilian who is entering the military and the primary reasons why. I cannot in good conscious call them demons. Also consider that people who are entering the military are young and many are probably clueless and don't have the knowledge that we do.

You can't blame the thousands of Enron employees for the deeds of a dozen corporate officers, can you?

donk
27th November 2012, 15:39
I don’t want to leave a vague post hanging on a serious topic, especially one I have little direct experience with. So let me clarify my position:

If you are an American and sign up for the Army, Navy, and especially Marines (front lines and all that), you are signing up for the team whose job is it to see foreigners as the other team, that you are trained and on board to kill if the coach needs you to.

You can tell yourself what you want, as pretty much everyone who signs up does. But I think it would serve America (and humanity) well to be honest about it.

That way, maybe the honesty can trickle down to civilian life. And we can start being honest about the fact that in order to live our “non-negotiable way of life”, we need the military to exploit other nations resources, so that we can consume them in this sick cycle. And what’s a better way to generate revenue that destroying ****? Got to keep the machine chugging along.

I used to tell myself what I do is just a job. That’s how I had to rationalize it. But now I can be honest: I am choosing to participate in this culture of war.

By going to work. By buying ****…even stuff I “need to survive”. I have chosen not to struggle to try to live outside of this seemingly all-encompassing system, instead I take as much advantage of it as I can. The only thing I feel I can do is to bring awareness of the lies we tell ourselves about it. 100th monkey and all…

But I am preaching to the choir here. I do try to live as close to outside the system as I can. I try to point in ways that people can hear, things that they are normally resistant to. That is the amount of personal responsibility I have taken so far. Not much, but the system makes it tough to do more, and the lies I have told myself my whole life had me digging myself a huge hole, developing a dependency on the system.

Is the military bad? No worse than just about anything else. They might just be a little more honest about it. The few that are aware. We (civilians) have the luxury of not knowing what they know:

8hGvQtumNAY
We want them on that wall, we need them on that wall…(and they’d rather us just say “thank you”)

Carmody
27th November 2012, 15:47
Too much externalization. Too much ego.

Is your life really worth killing others for?

That is one of THE prime questions one faces, in the form of human incarnation, or soul inclusion.

Answer that within the self....and one can begin to pass from needing to be in this place.

One might note that this question has been put squarely, and undeniably... in the face of one's life and being, for quite some time now, regarding being a human on earth. The comfortable quiet grass munching times/aspects..... are over.

bram
27th November 2012, 15:51
Hello Bram.

I don't condone a lot of what the military does. In fact, I disagree with quite a bit of what they are doing these days.
I wanted to make the point of a civilian who is entering the military and the primary reasons why. I cannot in good conscious call them demons. Also consider that people who are entering the military are young and many are probably clueless and don't have the knowledge that we do.

You can't blame the thousands of Enron employees for the deeds of a dozen corporate officers, can you?

Hi Koan,

I know, its not black-and-white at all. And I know a lot of young people are drawn into the military following those recruiting ads telling them what a great life they will have.

As soon as the system has finished using them, they are dumped, as Spiritwind described it so eloquently, and left alone with the knowledge of what they have been asked to do. hence the suicide rate amongst veterans. Also, war seems to have changed (not that I would know) into an endeavour where the killing of innocents, not opposing forces, is the whole point. that means women, children and babies dying a horrible death at the hands of our soldiers according to the agenda of our masters.

but you know, we encourage these kids to join up by not speaking out, and then by being so damned proud of them!

donk
27th November 2012, 16:05
You can't blame the thousands of Enron employees for the deeds of a dozen corporate officers, can you?

Actually what I was saying at some point we have to.

The millions of consumers, too...

¤=[Post Update]=¤

Rationalization and excuses are necessary for the American way non-negotiable way of life. It's hard to imagine how, but the only way to continue as a species is to stop participating

. Easier said then done, but I kinda thought that figuring out how was what most of us are here for?

truth4me
27th November 2012, 16:11
I believe most of the young men really don't understand the ramifications of joining the military really is now days. Ever noticed the commercials when sporting events are on television? They pay and give you a free education. Free medical and dental for life.Which is all fine and dandy but when they put a gun in your hand and ask you to start killing.....that's the biggest problem of all. Even though you might have been brainwashed you still know killing in your heart is wrong and you sign a contract ,enlisting is the military term, you knowingly commit murder. Now it would be different if your defending your homeland but that's not whats happening America is going over there for oil and such...

spiritguide
27th November 2012, 16:30
The answer is blowing in the wind. Listen carefully this song imparts a message.

link.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSSjM6-fUFE

Have not learned to upload videos yet. I apologize but worth a watch.

:peace:

Let us work together on resolutions instead of blame.

Another thought... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3xJf8t_hK0&feature=related

Some messages live forever...

conk
27th November 2012, 16:31
Soldiers: Sincerity betrayed by ignorance. Ignorance: The real demon.

albativo
27th November 2012, 16:41
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donk
27th November 2012, 16:48
I believe most of the young men really don't understand the ramifications of joining the military really is now days.

I believe most people don't understand the ramifications of having a job, buying stuff, voting, and every other facet of participating in the "western civilization democracy based capitalist way of life". If not for that, we wouldn't need a military, right?

Maybe just a "guard" from any outside culture that lives this competitive parasitic individualistic lie-based ownership society...but even then, we'd be stooping to that level.

Love and life based culture is the only way to sustain a society. Fear & death based cultures like ours don't seem to work out.

Isn't that what we should focus on? The military latched on to and bastardized that concept: changing "hearts & minds". But they want WIN hearts and minds, twist them to their (our) selfish way of thinking & feeling. Way I see it, the problem is like Charlie says "duh...WINNING!!!"

Mark
27th November 2012, 19:55
Since there seem to be no other Vets stepping up to address y'alls "commentary" I'll share an article I wrote on the topic a while back. It's a bit long but with all of the excoriation of Vets in this thread I feel the length is warranted. It's real and from my life experience as Air Force Brat for all of my youth up to 18 as well as serving in the Army for 4 years and 8 months myself Active Duty, culminating in Desert Storm in 91.

Military Blues: A conscious Vet's perspective (http://rahkyt.wordpress.com/2011/05/13/military-blues-a-conscious-vets-perspective/)

What makes people choose military service? Why would a person risk their lives for another, for someone they don’t even know, or even for people that they hate? Is Nationalism dead? Does it need to die? With so many people disillusioned with the state of these United States, what reason is there to pledge allegiance to anything besides family and friends? According to some sources, less than one quarter of the U.S. congress has worn a uniform. Fewer than one in ten Americans has served their country by joining the military. With these kinds of statistics, what does military service have to do with being a good American, or patriotism?

Should it make a difference if someone has been in the military when it comes to determining who decides if a country should go to war? What does military service say about one’s commitment to one’s country, or one’s amount of patriotism? And, if someone castigates the military and those who serve in it, do they have the right to do so no matter their self-perceived status under the pale of American citizenship? These questions and more have formed the core of my experiences and I can only speak to them out of the books of my own, personal history.

My perspective is experientially biased. For nineteen years of my life I was the son and dependent of an Air Force NCO who, through his own initiative and hard work, became a respected and successful Officer. I gave up my Air Force dependent’s ID card for an Army active duty ID card, serving from January 1987 to July 1991, honorably discharged. My experience growing up as a brat made military service no less an option than college although I did do a year and a half of college before entering the Army.

Did I enter specifically to serve my country? No, not directly. The GI Bill and the Army College Fund were my primary incentives, made even more irresistible by the Europe 9 option, which guaranteed me a tour on the Continent. Most of my AF dependent friends in HS had spent years in Germany, Great Britain or Italy and, even though I’d lived on the Isle of Crete, Greece as a young boy, I wanted to go to Germany and experience the Continent for myself. Aside from those admittedly sensate considerations, I was a victim of what some call the economic draft, in which economically disadvantaged Americans with few options choose service in the military to increase their technical and/or educational skillsets in order to gain an advantage in the workforce post-service.

In Basic Training and during all phases of national military service, Patriotism, Duty and Sacrifice are ingrained into soldiers in the physical, mental and spiritual dimensions. None of this was new to me, as I’d undergone the same conditioning all during childhood. Nation, fraternity and the possibility of making the Ultimate Sacrifice form the foundation upon which generations of Americans have stood, finding common cause in the shared love of community and family and the necessity of defending these societal institutions against all threats. For individual soldiers, these ideas resonate at a conscious level and, alongside the desire to serve with and protect one’s fellow soldiers, result in a martial stance on many issues, both social and political, that might be considered extreme by those outside of the military establishment, i.e. kill them all and let G-d sort them out.

During times of peace, the lives of American soldiers’ center around training – in the field and on post/base/installation – and rear echelon maintenance activities that leave plenty of time for fun and carousing, which is perfect for young people with few or no responsibilities to anyone other than themselves. My European Tour was just that, for almost three years. But when STOP-LOSS was initiated right before Desert Storm – the first Persian Gulf War – it became incumbent upon me to determine whether or not these subconscious and ideological pinions that had been inculcated within me and my fellow soldiers were indeed worth the possibility of giving up my life, and whether or not the cause for which we had been called into conflict was in line with a direct threat to the nation, its communities and families.

After much thought and counter to my plans previous to the onset of hostilities, I determined that this conflict, wherever it might lead, would comprise the extent of my willingness to sacrifice my life for “my” country. And so when my service ended – and as soon as STOP-LOSS released me into the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) on inactive status – I was done and, as a passive sign of my new-found aversion to nationalism, did not cut my hair again for 12 years as I embarked upon an educational Awakening that continues to this day, 20 years later. My knowledge of the military industrial complex at that time was minimal, but the observation that Desert Storm seemed mostly about natural resources and the economic concerns of a wealthy minority did not pass over my then-shorn head or those of my friends even though we were only soldiers. Subsequently, the Clinton Presidency saw us out of the Gulf and into the Balkans at the onset of wars in the former Yugoslavia, which was when the center of gravity of American troop deployment moved from West to East. Then, the end of the 90s and beginning of the new century, a new president from my home state, Texas, and, after 911, a return to the Gulf by way of Iraq and Afghanistan leading up to the Present and Now, an incursion, potentially, into North Africa by way of Libya.

The Cold War-based military that I was a part of is no more; all the Vietnam vets waiting for retirement are long gone as my peers, those whom I entered the military with, have reached their 20 years of service and more, achieving whatever heights they aspired to during the intervening decades. A soldiers life recedes in memory if not intensity, leaving her or him experientially diversified yet foundationally similar to those who currently wear the uniforms, carry the rifles, and shout the cadences. This fraternal experience, which bonds men and women in terms of service is as real as any other bond, and sometimes more visceral and powerful than many.

To make the decision to go to war requires a sober mind that, at the very least, understands a soldier’s mentality. That shares his concern about family and friends, protection and safety. That displays a certain level of connection to community and nation, as an extension of the personal circle of friends and family. While military service is no indicator of patriotism as an expression of personal nationalistic fervor, the experience of military service imbues citizens with a real-world understanding of the sacrifices that are made daily by those charged with defending the country and its interests. In times of warfare, accepting a military draft as one’s personal commitment to the common welfare is considered to be a matter of duty and responsibility. While there are many reasons why people act to circumvent or avoid such prescriptions, be they political religious, ideological or familial. Within the context of the national corpus, all citizens of a nation could be considered to be more or less responsible to and for that nation, at least according to their level of participation in its institutions leading to the accumulation and enjoyment of its national treasure, wealth and overall indices of political, cultural and social well-being. When a nation’s military is made up of “volunteers” from the lowest economic and social echelons of society, a “free” nation made up of “equals” supposedly represented governmentally by their ‘equals” has lost its way and become representative of the imperatives of a more Oligarchical type of polity.

I can’t say whether or not National Military Service should be a mainstay in America, as it is in some other countries, but such service does instill a sense of duty within a country’s citizenship that elevates the needs of the whole over the needs of the individual. The cohesion of nations depends upon a shared metanarrational thread that binds disparate peoples together in time and space, and absent that National Myth, multiple cultural narratives compete for primacy, leading to warring factions based upon racial, social or cultural differences. Military service helps to form the parameters of that story. Considering the fact that all National Myths are part-fiction part-truth, their general acceptance as fact by those who believe in them does more to bind a society together than does geographical proximity or economic necessity.

In my own experience, military bases are the closest this country has come to truly egalitarian societies based upon a merit-based equality that discounts race and ethnicity and relies upon individual achievement in order to determine one’s ability to rise in society. And while this fraternal society has proven imperfect in many facets – as a reflection of the racial and economic trends of the greater society – it is a model that many Americans and non-Americans have used in order to achieve some facsimile of the American Dream. Those who grow up within the auspices of the military lifestyle are often remarked upon as displaying certain characteristics that reflect this upbringing, with a penchant towards egalitarianism, a certain adaptability and gregariousness that reflects their geographically diverse and socially vibrant youths. Upon reaching adulthood and entering the civilian world, either through work or college, the real life prejudices, inequalities and the harshness of the verisimilitudes of unabashed capitalism, racism and classism are often an unexpected wake-up call.

All of the talking heads, politicians, demagogues and institutional acolytes of various stripes fall somewhere between that one in ten that dons a uniform and those nine in ten that do not, for whatever reason. These designations also include the disillusioned bloggers and conspiratorial dissenters, the counter-culture revolutionaries, righteous anarchists, disaffected libertarians and conflicted rebels who speak derisively of service to the USA and those who take it on, but who have never sacrificed a thought toward the practical defense of – or a day of their lives in the protection of – those they love, let alone those whom they profess to hate. The rights to freedom of expression that form the bedrock of these individuals arguments and derision are the very thing that the soldiers they castigate are fighting to honor and maintain, if not upon the shores – or within the deserts and mountains – of Southwest Asia, then upon the battlefield of their service to an ideal held in common by generations of Americans, no matter the race, ethnicity or creed. Arguments as to the validity of foreign wars fought for corporate gain are often specious in nature and concerned with deflecting attention from the key answer rather than the discomfiting but obvious question. Consider your own reasons for not joining the military, for instance, and extrapolate those as surrogate motives, recognizing that, in the end, and quite probably underlying all other rationalizations, the core reason for not doing so has to do with the possibility of making what soldiers and politicians alike call the Ultimate Sacrifice. Of facing death. Of facing Fear.

And, considering that this one, overriding and pervasive dread of personal material dissolution is the foundation for so many other dysfunctions in our society, from the personal to the community levels of aggregation, the probability of empathic resonation grows higher. Even soldiers are afraid of dying. If they’re not, we, as a society, tend to think that something’s wrong with them; and something’s wrong with people who can send other people to die without empathizing with those individuals or their families, and who do not recognize – or care – that their own fear of death is shared by others who make the decision to put their lives in other peoples hands, in the end – and beyond all economic considerations – for a higher purpose.

A higher purpose that is the same purpose that is shared by all of us who want the best for ourselves and our loved ones. Nations represent – to the individual – extended communities, which represent extended families, which represent us. By embracing our countries, we embrace our own highest aspirations. By believing in our countries, we believe in ourselves. And when that embrace fails, and that belief falters, the resulting trauma results in the kind of national and personal moralistic and spiritual dysfunction that afflicts nations on the verge of dissolution, rent within by competing factions and economic failure. Those whose expectations are left crestfallen by the weight of sheer despondency once the truth of much of this nation’s martial history is revealed are, perhaps, justified in their resultant lack of fealty to the national myths. As the legions of the disaffected grow, a certain listlessness and resentment becomes apparent in the national conversation, expressed as a strident, self-righteous indignation and declamation against the abuses of power. This describes the state of these United States, currently. The disillusionment with economic policies and social policies, the disillusionment with the state of racial relations, of sexual relations and of class relations soars as the American dream lies moribund, destroyed by enemies both domestic and foreign.

It seems that the dream has died; that the spirit has been defeated, until another dream, more encompassing and inclusive, can rise to take its place. Nationhood is a surrogate for a higher brotherhood, sisterhood, person-hood; the union of souls, the agglomeration of humanity as one family. Amongst the family of nations, the United States stands as an exemplar of countries, the one nation in the world founded, if not originally to make a single corpus of all diverse peoples in the world, one which has now taken on that mission in service of a higher form of oneness, even higher than that envisioned by its founding fathers. And yet, regardless of the state of the State, there is something beyond the state that has taken root and that has risen from the ashes of failed national daydreams to encapsulate a world-wide desire for freedom, that has resulted in what is being called the Arab Spring, and what has been expressed around the world as a rising tide of populist sentiment against the depravities of the Elite and the wanton disregard for humanity of the Corporate Overlords and their soulless, multi-national instruments of resource extraction, social and political evisceration and economic destruction. The spirit of personal freedom and of certain inalienable rights that is so much a part of the American expression of individuality, even and perhaps especially amongst those who consider themselves perennially suspicious of all state-sponsored “benefits” and oppressive structures of governmental domination, has become an American export, globalized and fully adaptable to local conditions on the ground wherever economic and social discrepancies, dissent and disillusionment may exist.

Within the United States, a new people have been born upon the face of the earth, at once fractious and contentious, united and seeking a higher form of consensus. A mixture of racial and ethnic populations have combined to merge old world lineages ancient in delineation, unbinding generations once tied to histories too visceral and immediate to be denied, until, for whatever reason, individuals uprooted themselves voluntarily – or were uprooted involuntarily – to make their way here, to the distant West, the lands of the setting sun. They knew the future, could sense that here, in this land, something special was to Become. Here, they knew, the destiny of their lineages would play out. Here and Now, their descendants engage themselves in the Struggle of the Ages, of employing the Will to Power in order to express that which is most innate and indicative of the intractable and indomitable will of humanity to persevere and beyond that, to thrive and express the very vibrancy of Life and of Creation itself.

The strength of Freedom has worked its magic upon bonds of dna and blood, creating new, genetic alliances, hybrid racial and ethnic groups of renewed vigor, a reality that is reflected in other nations around the world, but in none so intensely as in the United States of America. Old ideas of purity and hierarchical relationships between Masters and slaves, Rulers and the ruled, Owners and the owned, Haves and have-nots are crumbling beneath the overwhelming insistence of life itself upon the equality of incarnation, of new social and economic realities, of new understandings of the nature of consciousness and what it is to be human, as the world around us cries out for succor from the madness of the current Age. The result of these new, alchemical machinations is yet to be seen, but these portentous times awaken the inner call toward the manifestation of the highest of destinies, speaking at the collective level to all that is best, and worst, in humanity. Nations rise and fall, but the bonds that bind us in time and space remain, strengthened by the lives and love that we share, mostly unknowing, building aspirations with the mortar of hopes and dreams, soaring skyward manifest as a rainbow-hued bridge of light between the hallowed past and boundless and brilliant Future.

Litenites
27th November 2012, 21:38
Young people see this differently, I have to confess that I saw an attraction in joining the forces when I was younger, but thankfully my eyesight prevented me. I am now older and have changed dramatically in that I fear and distrust the blind obedience that permeates the military condition and I start to think that the elite only have power over us because they can call on this blind obedience to put us down if we rebel. I hope that soldiers would not ever turn on their own people, but the reality of it is that the majority would and already are doing. I hope in the crunch, it would not be the case. Even the civilians in the police and security are turning on their own people. Too many people are in 'the program' and at the moment I feel we are in the minority. Ignorance and the inability of their ego's to see all the directions available for them, feed the corrupt systems. I would defend my countrymen in an invasion as I am sure most would if their families and friend were in danger, but I would not invade another peoples as a war puppet of the elites.

Ernie Nemeth
27th November 2012, 21:41
Armed forces. Without reading a thing - total demons of course. Any who go to war to kill are demon-spawn, without exception. Interesting to see the length of some of these posts. You'd think there might be a compromise position we can all live with. NOT ME!

donk
28th November 2012, 00:52
Rahkyt I love the way you think and write. I hope nothing I said offended you, including what I'm about to:


The rights to freedom of expression that form the bedrock of these individuals arguments and derision are the very thing that the soldiers they castigate are fighting to honor and maintain, if not upon the shores – or within the deserts and mountains – of Southwest Asia, then upon the battlefield of their service to an ideal held in common by generations of Americans, no matter the race, ethnicity or creed.

While I believe this is what you may have fought for, and good troops fight for, and what we tell each other we get out yellow ribbons out for...how exactly does the govt having a military honor and maintain these rights?

I may need to re-read, but my initial thought is from that point on, the article is about personal ideals based on the lies we are told about our "freedoms".

I don't think anything you wrote conflicts with anything you said. I respect the individuals who feel they are doing others a service by being a part of it, now matter how broad or small their ideals...but the way it looks from where I'm sitting, every team (each countries armed force) feels the same way about themselves, and can't really choose who the bad guys are--the "coaches' bosses" (aka those in power), do and always have.

Maybe I missed something, but how does that 1 in ten participating in this deadly game "protect our freedoms" as our last figurehead in chief liked to say?

Again I mean no offense, but the "service" they (you) provide (ends) don't seem to add up to the individual provider's ideals (or the cheerleaders'...or even the boo-birds' for that matter. And the means (as they are described to us arm chair QBs) rarely seem to do more good tha harm.

Much love, I appreciate you

shadowstalker
28th November 2012, 00:52
Many do join the military to gain financial security and medical and the like and had never pick up a gun except to hit a none living target..
Nice to know folks have totally forgotten this tiny little fact. and are still dividing themselves with black and whites only.
Why must we always forget the ones stuck in the middle. And are scared to death to live on the streets if they didn't join..
It's not like there are many jobs left out there, and getting a loan for education would probably take the rest of there lives to pay back.
And lets not forget the credit score crap going on out there.
And all the other things in combination with it.
One does not need a gun to kill when one judges strangers.

P.S. My statement was not meant to judge,(tho it prolly sounds like it to many) but to point out many other facts of the true situation..... FEAR...

Guest
28th November 2012, 01:06
The answer is blowing in the wind. Listen carefully this song imparts a message.

link.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSSjM6-fUFE

Have not learned to upload videos yet. I apologize but worth a watch.

:peace:

Let us work together on resolutions instead of blame.

Another thought... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3xJf8t_hK0&feature=related

Some messages live forever...

Hi Spiritguide -lets all work together

tSSjM6-fUFE


t3xJf8t_hK0


There has been someone in the military from every generation of my family since they came to the Americas -a soldier, officer, nurse or medic in every single war. Some of them fighting on either side in the Revolutionary war and the Civil war. My Mother was the first in her family to protest war -protesting the Vietnam war and I followed suite protesting 2 wars and 2 presidents which I was unmercifully hounded for years.

War is for a few to have power, profit and souls -all of it built on lies.

Consciously make a choice for Peace for all of life.


Love


Nora

bram
28th November 2012, 01:08
A lot of well considered and interesting points of view expressed here. I have a few questions that spring to mind:






Most of the sympathetic voices speak about the hardships of the soldiers involved, but what about the victims of their violence? Shouldn't we also consider them?
Is it really acceptable to target a drone on a house to kill 1 man, knowing that there is a family of 10 (including babies and small children) inside?
I have long suspected that Americians largely consider that the life of Americans is somehow more valuable than the lives of any other nationality. Is this really the case? (If so, it is bad news for the rest of us).
Can a person ever recover and live a normal life after killing another person? While the fantasy world of hollywood tells us yes, yes, yes, real life experience seems to indicate otherwise.
Is patriotism a good thing? I always thought it was a crime against the human spirit.

spiritwind
28th November 2012, 02:13
A lot of well considered and interesting points of view expressed here. I have a few questions that spring to mind:






Most of the sympathetic voices speak about the hardships of the soldiers involved, but what about the victims of their violence? Shouldn't we also consider them?
Is it really acceptable to target a drone on a house to kill 1 man, knowing that there is a family of 10 (including babies and small children) inside?
I have long suspected that Americians largely consider that the life of Americans is somehow more valuable than the lives of any other nationality. Is this really the case? (If so, it is bad news for the rest of us).
Can a person ever recover and live a normal life after killing another person? While the fantasy world of hollywood tells us yes, yes, yes, real life experience seems to indicate otherwise.
Is patriotism a good thing? I always thought it was a crime against the human spirit.


I only want to add one thing here and that is that when my husband was in Vietnam in particular (he still can't talk about some of the things he did) he ended up actually fighting for the people in the villages who were being over-run by the khmer rouge. It became very personal and he taught them how to defend themselves so that they could protect their families (women, children, elderly) from what amounted to genocide. They were very thankful at the time that he was there. In fact, one of the things he can't seem to get over is the fact that there were several young boys that ended up being killed as a result of basically politics. I can't remember all the details and it is probably just as well. He also saved two other people when he made his escape after being tortured as a prisoner of war. He still bears the scars to this day. Many of our ideals are great but unfortunately there are still too many people in this world that don't live by them.

Of course what is happening today is an entirely different story with drones going in to do the dirty work so I cannot speak to all the changes that have taken place in recent years. It seems to me that young people are indeed questioning which is a good thing. I just don't want people to be making snap judgments on our men and women who could be potentially giving their life up, not just to save their own ass, but because many if not most believe they are doing what they should do to guarantee the freedoms we really don't have any more in this country.

TOTHE
28th November 2012, 02:23
Since there seem to be no other Vets stepping up to address y'alls "commentary" I'll share an article I wrote on the topic a while back. It's a bit long but with all of the excoriation of Vets in this thread I feel the length is warranted. It's real and from my life experience as Air Force Brat for all of my youth up to 18 as well as serving in the Army for 4 years and 8 months myself Active Duty, culminating in Desert Storm in 91.

Military Blues: A conscious Vet's perspective (http://rahkyt.wordpress.com/2011/05/13/military-blues-a-conscious-vets-perspective/)

What makes people choose military service? Why would a person risk their lives for another, for someone they don’t even know, or even for people that they hate? Is Nationalism dead? Does it need to die? With so many people disillusioned with the state of these United States, what reason is there to pledge allegiance to anything besides family and friends? According to some sources, less than one quarter of the U.S. congress has worn a uniform. Fewer than one in ten Americans has served their country by joining the military. With these kinds of statistics, what does military service have to do with being a good American, or patriotism?.......................................


Rahkyt;
Your post on this thread was the only one worth reading, most of the other posts were opinion based judgment on total ignorance. I experienced the military for 6 years ‘63-‘69 to avoid the draft and determine my career path into Computer Engineering. It was the best decision I ever made, no regrets whatsoever and it was an honor to serve in that commitment for those brief years. The fact was that I EXPERIENCED IT and WITHOUT JUDGMENT made me wiser on my spiritual path of conscious awareness.

For an emerging civilization to win freedom and justice in an unbalanced world where slavery is rampant it has to EXPERIENCE the shedding of blood to know the affect and difference of the forces of positive and negative directed energy.
When a civilization reaches enlightenment to balance Spiritual Science, Social Science and Material Science then and only then we will understand our neighbor to avoid bloody conflict.

Forget that man should love his neighbor and forgive his enemies for we in effect are surrendering and misdirecting our creative energy for a lost cause based on judgement and ignorance. Rather we should direct our energy to UNDERSTAND (replace “love”) to say that if a man understands his neighbor and his neighbor understands him, they will never become enemies. UNDERSTANDING (replace “forgive”) our fellow man requires the ability to put ourself in his place and to see things as he sees them. We can have knowledge and still be ignorant but when we take the time, experience and energy to understanding we become enlightened. With directed energy to understand and understanding, love and forgiveness will follow naturally manifesting in the outcome.

This is why we exist consciously on this planet anyway to learn this stuff...or relearn.

bram
28th November 2012, 02:36
For an emerging civilization to win freedom and justice in an unbalanced world where slavery is rampant it has to EXPERIENCE the shedding of blood to know the affect and difference of the forces of positive and negative directed energy.


Hi Tothe,

I will freely admit that my posts were posted in total ignorance. I have never served in the military and have never touched a gun in my life. i don't need to kill to know that killing is wrong.

But let me just get what you are saying straight:

By invading countries and shedding blood, you are helping them to raise the level of their consciousness, and therby doing them a favour?

Honestly, that seems like a pretty far fetched justification to me, and really confirms my suspicion that Americans consider non-American lives expendable.

Love, bram

mosquito
28th November 2012, 02:43
Thank you Bram for having the courage to start this thread. It's too complex and sensitive a subject to merely add some trite comment, so I hope I can add my thoughts and perceptions in a clear manner.

First of all, the questions you raise above - American lives very clearly ARE considered to be more important than non-American. The evidence abounds, and not just in the USA. I remember back in 2001, I'd returned to the UK for a weekend, and was waiting for a train. As usual, every other passenger had their heads glued to a newspaper, the lead story being the loss of one of the American space shuttles. It was described as a loss for humanity in one paper. I can't remember how many were killed, 5 or 7, but it took up the whole front page, and in some cases more. Then I happened to notice in one man's paper, 2 column inches devoted to "50 killed in gas blast in Indonesia (or the Philippines, I can't remember)". That speaks volumes. Without wishing to belabour the point, John Pilger gives many examples of this attitude in his writing and his documentaries.

Drones ? These should be banned under international law.

Samuel Johnson's words on patriotism suffice, "...the last refuge of the scoundrel"

The problem we have now is that world governments lie to their citizens, con them into believing there actually is an enemy, and that joining the military and killing them is the only answer, and a noble one. But I'm not one to believe in the fluffy bunny version of reality that says we can all live in peace, though I sincerely wish it were true.

I recognize my right to defend myself and my family against attack. I extend that right to larger groups of people, including nations. (Funny how the US/UK axis quite happily declares that Israel has the right to defend itsself, but cannot then extend that right to the Palestinians).

Given the curent state of humanity, I believe that scrapping the military altogether just wouldn't work, so I propose that ALL nations should follow the example of Switzerland, and have a trained army, ready for duty should the need arise. That army should only be used when the countries borders are physically threatened. I believe I'm right in saying that Washington advised against standing armies; just 1 more reason for him (and the others) to be spinning frantically in their graves.

So I believe there is a sense of nobility in defending one's family, and one's people. Defending the rights of a bank, a fizzy drink manufacturer, or a lying parasitical politician does not count as heroism in my book. Neither does pemanently garrisonning brigades of troops in other people's countries (why exactly is this legal under international law ?) in order to defend "our interests"

I hear what people are saying about joining the military in order to make a living, in fact I know an American who joined up for exactly that reason, and he tells me that there are many many young people in the USA for whom the military is the only viable option. This is a very sorry state of affairs, and is symptomatic of the fact that the USA is now a militarised nation, whose main business is not trade or manufacturing, but WAR. I have no idea how to change this.

Finally. There are 2 phrases which I would like to see permanently eradicated from our vocabulary and our consciousness:

"Colateral damage" and "I was only following orders"

Tesseract
28th November 2012, 03:12
If invader swine were occupying my country, destroying infrastructure, killing my people, poisoning the earth and stealing resources – and they told me that they were doing it because it was necessary to get a free education and a better life – do you think I would stand back and let them continue? The idea that murder and destruction can be justified by the ‘pulling oneself out of poverty’ argument is as pathetic as it is facile – and this argument is coming from the USA. Satire to be sure.

The old Nuremberg defense ‘I was just following orders’ is equally empty in the age of information that we now live in. Particularly in the post-Iraq world, there is little excuse for not understanding the specious, murdering, thieving, imperialist nature of the US/NATO military machine.

Instead of madly celebrating Western imperialism, we ought to have a remembrance day to honour every brave Iraqi, Afghani, Libyan, Vietnamese, Pakistani, Palestinian, Cambodian and many others who risked or gave their lives protecting the wellbeing of their fellow countrymen from the invading, conquering, rampaging, bombing sons of ****, as they are known in Afghanistan, that so freely get given the label ‘hero’ in their own countries.

bram
28th November 2012, 03:56
Instead of madly celebrating Western imperialism, we ought to have a remembrance day to honour every brave Iraqi, Afghani, Libyan, Vietnamese, Pakistani, Palestinian, Cambodian and many others who risked or gave their lives protecting the wellbeing of their fellow countrymen from the invading, conquering, rampaging, bombing sons of ****, as they are known in Afghanistan, that so freely get given the label ‘hero’ in their own countries.

Yes, lets do it. Everyone can wear a white poppy. Should it be the 21 december starting this year?

TOTHE
28th November 2012, 05:29
Bram;
It is obvious that no matter what I write here, my words have no real meaning unless I understand that of which I write. I was trained to kill those who would have no compunction or guilt to interrupt my own soul journey on Earth with a ‘physical death’. I have no guilt, regret and see no error in this as I have never developed the psychic ability to defend..bad teachers? suppression? I guess I will retreat and go back to seeking into the Spiritual while you continue on your quest as one who has already found. After all the America Collective in your opinion is not good enough to break the chains of enslavement on this prison planet.

bram
28th November 2012, 07:33
Bram;
It is obvious that no matter what I write here, my words have no real meaning unless I understand that of which I write. I was trained to kill those who would have no compunction or guilt to interrupt my own soul journey on Earth with a ‘physical death’. I have no guilt, regret and see no error in this as I have never developed the psychic ability to defend..bad teachers? suppression? I guess I will retreat and go back to seeking into the Spiritual while you continue on your quest as one who has already found. After all the America Collective in your opinion is not good enough to break the chains of enslavement on this prison planet.

Hi Tothe,

I started this thread off because I genuinely wanted to know what other people thought, so I thank you for taking the time to tell me. Although I posed the thread as a series of questions, I already had my opinion on the matter. I am not, of course 'one who has found' as you rather ironically state in your last post. I have never been able to fully understand viewpoints such as yours, but of course we are both equally entitled to our views, and I respect yours. I hope I have not given the impression otherwise, if so then I sincerely apologize.

Also no slight is intended to your nation; I just don't think that the ''America Collective'' should think that it is empowered or entitled to interfere in the business of other countries, regardless of the domestic situation therein.

I don't feel that this is a ''prison planet'', I think we make our own prisons for ourselves through our ego-dominated minds, and that freedom is to be found within, and not down the barrel of a gun.

Best wishes my friend,

Love, bram

crosby
28th November 2012, 07:40
before you knew the peach was poisoned, you all took a bite. use the apple if it helps you feel any better. this type of discussion is pissing me off. i grew up in military. every single person on this forum has made decisions regarding their lives based on what has been available information. the programming is preset. enough with trying to 'blame'. enough! what has anyone done here that has saved someone's or anyone's life. what have you done that may have ended a life???????? this is b.s. i do not post here much anymore, but i am certainly getting pissed off at the resurrection of this scenario. there isn't a person on this forum that has lived their life so 'clean' that they can truly say that they haven't hurt or killed another soul. because the truth is nobody knows what they do and say what will be the outcome. and do not try to say "what have they done lately", because i will blow this forum up with what some of the awakened members of our military are doing and have done. i am definitely p.o'd.
corson

donk
28th November 2012, 08:01
I just want to say as an American (that make me part of the "collective"?), we are absolutely NOWHERE NEAR good enough at the moment to be breaking any chains of any sort.

This comment has nothing to do with individuals' decisions to join any military (though they ma be well serves to give this some thought):

The decision makers, media, and populace who "support" a policy of "shock and awe" and our use of drones & "interrogation methods" in a freaking "war on terror" are hypocrites of the highest order...there has never been worse acts of terrorism, we are the goddam bad guys...

Sorry, I had to drop that truth bomb real quick...back to discussion on the judgement of those that execute the orders of the aforementioned military policy.

But don't forget the fact you're able to afford an internet connection and relative comfort to read this makes you complicit as well...I'm well aware of my own hypocracy...maybe some day I'll let go of the chains I cling to, just talking the talk at the monent...carry on

Oh yeah, and before you tell me if I have a problem with America why don't I leave? ....I picked up the answer around here somewheres: I'm afraid to be subject to our foreign policy

mahalall
28th November 2012, 15:07
"In the UK, the wearing of the poppy to mark remembrance day (11/11) has become almost obligatory, to the extent that a young professional footballer who opted out of wearing a shirt emblazoned with a poppy was vilified in the press and received death threats of a horrifying nature" Bram

To be seen wearing a white poppy is the message to share
-WwyeIdwgio

GloriousPoetry
28th November 2012, 16:17
Unfortunately war and economics go together like hand and glove. We continue to live in a hierarchy regarding power in this world. The poor do the killing and the rich profit from it. The military is just another institution to brainwash and implement hits.

Carmody
28th November 2012, 16:54
For an emerging civilization to win freedom and justice in an unbalanced world where slavery is rampant it has to EXPERIENCE the shedding of blood to know the affect and difference of the forces of positive and negative directed energy.


Hi Tothe,

I will freely admit that my posts were posted in total ignorance. I have never served in the military and have never touched a gun in my life. i don't need to kill to know that killing is wrong.

But let me just get what you are saying straight:

By invading countries and shedding blood, you are helping them to raise the level of their consciousness, and therby doing them a favour?

Honestly, that seems like a pretty far fetched justification to me, and really confirms my suspicion that Americans consider non-American lives expendable.

Love, bram

My experiences tell me that he's both correct and also in error. I stress --both.

When we incarnate in this pinball alley of manifest experience, we are here to experience things like that. To be killed and to kill. To learn to not kill for any reason, and so on. To understand the inherent costs and values of the given choices. One cannot understand lies without knowing truth,and the opposite is also true.

All the horrors need be experienced.

All the horrors need not be experienced.

Both are true, in a system of juxtaposition of self, in order to find personal balance, to be and have experience.

It's a carnival of 7 billion, who are, for the most part--consciously unaware, and driven by bodily directives and polarizing wiring (DNA patterned origins).

Truth is available at any time, in this world of constant chance and opportunity. All directions and potential -are available at any time.

It's a matter of perspective, really, more than anything else.

The human body is designed as a semi-automatic avatar, or meat machine, a vehicle we occupy, to have or 'be' this experience, or window we look through.

The underlying operational parameters are the given DNA encoding of the body we are suited to and chose to integrate with.

We, as an occupant, originate from the 99% of the universe that is NOT 'solidus' it is plasma, and it is multidimensionally connected, this plasma dark matter 'space' we originate from.

The body, which has an overarching control program 'voice' or interface, that we call the 'ego' (it develops as we learn to operate the avatar), will tell you that this cannot be true. It has to, as this is part of it's design parameters, that are to keep it safe and alive, no matter how inept the given occupant is. The sheer complexity of the body's operation is astounding. Note that Buddhist monks and the like can integrate with the lower layers of the machine and perform astounding seeming feats.

Living and dying, giving life, taking life, killing and being killed, wanting to kill and wanting to live, wanting to save lives...all the same.

The question is, what do you take away from this incarnate human experience?

We've been told, by some, that this place is the biggest game, the most difficult school, right now, in what one might call the entire area of galaxies.

It's not so bad, for some of the comparisons and gripes being passed about ----I do remember worse.

IF..the reader of this bit of symbols that need be interpreted (words on page)..does finally begin to understand what they mean and what they indicate...THEN... the cost of killing does indeed go UP. as they say, 'everything is permitted', and it is... but some seem to be bent on not recognizing the given aspects of personal COST.

Innocence is not so bad, regarding costs, but not pleasant, either. Part of the learning process.

Murder and associated acts.....in the face of knowing, is another matter altogether.

And what we're running into right now, on this grand carnival of a planet, is too much capacity, too many incarnates... some incredible lessons and experiences..but...the system is in, or on the verge of breakdown. But the upshot is that an incredibly cool lesson can be brought to the table for nearly all, individually and collectively.

Thus, it is in the process of switching to a KNOWING, as it needs be corrected. Knowing brings the layer of connectivity to a level where it self corrects the system. As in..."All right kids, the fun and games time is over - for a while".

Litenites
28th November 2012, 16:55
Mariposafe said

Finally. There are 2 phrases which I would like to see permanently eradicated from our vocabulary and our consciousness:

"Colateral damage" and "I was only following orders"


The other phrase I would remove is the constant reference to the war zone as the 'Theatre' is as if its a pre-arranged and scripted farce played out for an audience of blood thirsty and power mad elitists.

Carmody
28th November 2012, 17:19
And right now, I'm heading outside to find a hunter. Someone is hunting illegally on the property, in the area.

Where I live, I hear gunfire, all day, every day.

This particular bit of gunfire came from the wrong direction.

BRB......

edit:

OK, it was just the wind blowing around the sound of shotguns from the other range, so I aurally mislocated the gunfire origins, from inside the house.

Flash
28th November 2012, 17:40
I am happy it was just that Carmody. At the beginning of the reading, I wonder if it was not a follow up on the Nevada calls.

Carmody
28th November 2012, 19:07
I am happy it was just that Carmody. At the beginning of the reading, I wonder if it was not a follow up on the Nevada calls.

No worries about such things, no big deal. It's all just little bits of connectivity in motion, is all.

PurpleLama
28th November 2012, 19:40
Yes, Carmody, broad is the application of that statement.

TargeT
28th November 2012, 19:42
If you choose to blame the military and consider them all demons, I think you should label all tax payers the same as well. All t hose who allow the government status quo to continue through in-action; do no tangible thing to make a change & through their acquiesce and complacency support the machinery that oppresses us all.

In my avatar, that is an Army uniform, I wear it every day.

I am not as proud as I used to be of my line of work; I have seen through patriotism and nationalism and no longer feel I am supporting a country whose ideals I believe in. For a while I used to consider myself "better" than the average citizen who WOULD NOT sacrifice years of service as I have to support the country they benefit from; but that was a much younger me.

I have 6 years of active duty under my belt, and deployments (of course, almost unavoidable during these times) I have never fired a single shot outside of this country that wasn't at a paper target or a sand berm. I carried 120 rounds of 5.56 in pouches on my body armor, I wore a ballistic helmet and had an M4 within reach for a year in Iraq and while I was shot at, endured rocket and mortar attacks and IED's were set off in my direction (luckily all were poorly aimed) I never used this equipment for its intended purpose.

I have been in uniform since 1999, I was in service during 9/11/2001; my last deployment ended in 2007. I am glad that I choose to do what I have done, I have a deep understanding of what most (especially in this thread) speculate on.

I understand comradery

I understand combat

I understand patriotism & nationalism (from the ignorant view point that I held early on)

I understand tragedy, not everyone comes home, the countries we occupy suffer for it as well.

I understand what an occupying force does to the country it occupies and why a military force should NEVER be a "peace keeping" (or police) force.

I know Iraqis and Kosovans, I know their perspective of the US and its allies (and I bet you would be supprised at what it is).

I know and can articulate why we (the US) need to vacate our some 550 foreign bases and bring our troops home (not because they are devils or demons btw)

I have learned these things and much more, in fact everything that I post on this forum is related to my military experience. Without it I would not have started to question, started to seek answers.

I am now in the National guard (I thought it a better alternative to active duty army, a higher moral ground while still being in position to help those in need and defend my country, I was wrong) I continue to learn and grow, my experiences are as needed as yours according to my understanding of this reality we are experiencing. I think judgment binds us tighter into the trap of duality, acceptance; love, is the answer.
If you want to blame someone and hold a polarized view, fine, hold up a mirror and point at it, you'll find the perfect enemy there pointing back at you.

Vitalux
28th November 2012, 19:59
The Armed forces- heroes or demons?


All comes down to perspective.

The fox is a demon to the rabbit but, a hero to it's own offspring.

http://cs402424.userapi.com/v402424245/382a/AvXZgE71Qs0.jpg

Demons are imaginary.

Mark
28th November 2012, 20:49
The responses continue to interest, although I'm not interested in debate or argumentation. Here in this forum we discuss all of the ills of society and nations in the world, so there is no need to reproduce the economic or material discussions here, at least for me. Those truths of our reality bind us together in complicity, warriors and non-warriors alike. If we participate, benefit in any way from society, to the extent that we nenifit - taking into account the hierarchical structure of soceity, the benefits acrruing to certain segments over others, sub-group and personal karmic accruement and other factors - we are all implicit and in measured part responsible for it in its positive and negative qualities., as others have also said.

Obviously, for those who have been on the battlefield, or have been faced with the very real opportunity of finding themselves there, killing, warfare and death are among the things they have considered very deeply. Some of them make the choice to become warriors because it is a family tradition, others do so because they feel called to it, while still others do it because they feel they have no other option. Regardless, the choice of a martial life is not only a material choice, it is a spiritual choice. Here is the issue from another perspective.

Everyone has a fate. Everyone must die. And yet, there is, according to the highest understanding, no death. Consciousness is eternal. Since that is so, it follows that death is a gateway. The method of death, a result of previous actions or in-actions during life (or lives) leading to an inevitable outcome.

I'm going to post a few quotes from the Baghavad-Gita concerning the topic, wherein Hrishikesha/Krishna, states the following to Arjuna, who was afraid and did not want to die or kill:


You are mourning for that which should not
be mourned for, though you have said the words of wisdom.
But the wise bemoans neither the living nor the
dead!

2:12. For, verily, never there was a time when I or
you or these kings did not exist; and, verily, we will not
cease to exist in the future.

2:13. Just as a soul dwelling in a body goes through
childhood, maturity, and old age, so it leaves one body
and enters another. The strong one does not grieve about
this.

2:14. The contact with matter, O Kaunteya, produces
feelings of heat and cold, of pleasure and pain. These
feelings are transient: they come and go. Endure them
with fortitude, O Bharata!

2:15. The one who is unmoved by them, O greatest of
men, who remains sober and unfaltering in joy and in
trouble — such one is able to attain Immortality.

For those who don’t know, the Bhagavad-Gita is the story of Krishna and Arjuna, on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Krisha, the Supreme Personality of Godhead has incarnated into Arjuna’s extended family and has chosen to be Arjuna’s charioteer in the final battle between warring factions of that selfsame family. Arjuna, facing a battle as a result of which he is expected to kill his friends, family members and mentors, despairs and falls prey to fear and attachment, both qualities that Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead spends the entire text exhorting against. It is an amazing story and a sublime treaties upon the ideas of karma and dharma, one’s cause/effect relationship with the cosmos and one’s duty to one’s family group, culture and world. More:


2:16. Know that the transient, impermanent has no
true existence, and the eternal, imperishable never ceases to exist! This is discerned by those who have perceived the essence of things and see the truth.

2:17. Know that no one can destroy Him Who pervades the entire universe! No one can bring Him to death! That Eternal and Imperishable is beyond the control of anyone!

2:18. Only the body of an embodied soul is perishable, but the soul itself is eternal and indestructible. Fight, therefore, O Bharata!

2:19. They who think that they can kill and they who
think that they can be killed are mistaken! Man can neither kill nor can be killed!

2:20. Man neither appears, nor disappears; having once come into being,
man never ceases to be. Man, an immortal soul, does not perish when the body is destroyed!

2:21. The one who knows that man is an imperishable, eternal, unborn, and immortal soul — how such one can kill or be killed?

2:22. As one throws off worn-out clothes and puts
on others that are new — so a soul throws off worn-out
bodies and enters new ones.

2:23. Weapons cannot cut a soul, fire cannot burn it,
water cannot wet it, nor can wind wither it.

2:24. Nothing can cut, burn, wet, or wither a soul
— uncutable, unburnable, unwettable, unwitherable.

2:25. A soul — non-incarnate — is said to be unmanifest, formless, and imperishable.
Therefore, knowing this, you should not grieve!

2:26. Even if you thought that a soul gets born and
dies again and again, even then, O mighty-armed, you
should not grieve!

2:27. Verily, death is predestinated for the born one,
and birth is unavoidable for the one who has died. Do
not grieve over what is inevitable!

When the above quote is written, it is Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead speaking, remonstrating Arjuna for refusing to fight. It was his destiny, Krishna exhorted, and for him to refuse to fight because his relatives were on the other side would be worse than him dying on the field of battle. They were dead already, Krishna argued, unarguably so, since nobody ever really dies, the Soul being eternal in nature. Furthermore, to live as a coward and lose all respect was much worse than dying as a hero, thereby fulfilling his dharmic and caste responsibilities. As a Ksatriya, a warrior-protector, killing in the name of Krishna was his chosen dharmic path to a Heavenly reward.


2:28. All beings are unmanifest before the material manifestation, and unmanifest after. They are manifest only in the middle, O Bharata! What is the reason to grieve, then?

2:29. Some think about soul as a wonder, others speak of it as a wonder,
and there are those who having come to know about it cannot understand what it means.

2:30. The incarnate can never be killed, O Bharata!
Therefore, do not mourn any killed creature!

As Jesus the Christ exhorted his disciples, and taught them through their failings to ‘become like him’, so Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead exhorted Arjuna that he was the All, and that each aspect of Creation – from the mineral to the animal kingdom – was some small part (atomic) of Him, conscious and eternally existing. On the issue of dharma, or the fate of those who kill:


2:31. And thinking of your own dharma, you should
not waver, O Arjuna! Verily, for a kshatriya there is nothing more desirable than a righteous war!

2:32. Lucky are those kshatriyas, O Bharata, to whose
lot falls such a battle; it is like an open gate to Heaven!

2:33. But if you withdraw now from this righteous
battle, refusing your dharma and your honor, then you
will incur sin.

2:34. All people will know about your eternal disgrace. And for the glorious one, disgrace is worse than
death!

2:35. The great warriors on chariots will think that
fear made you flee from the battlefield. And you, whom
they esteemed so much, will be despised by them.

2:36. Your enemies will say many mean words slandering your valor. What is more painful?

2:37. Killed — you will go to paradise; winner —
you will enjoy the Earth. Arise therefore, O Kaunteya,
and be ready to fight!

2:38. Regarding alike joy and sorrow, success and
failure, victory and defeat, — enter this battle! Thus you
will avoid sin!

As long as we are incarnate in form in a world of duality, there will be Defenders and there will be those who must be defended. That is the way of it, while we are here and this earth-realm remains as it is. Many religions exhort their warriors to kill in defense of their people and their God. But before responding to this msg by stating that Religion is terrible and evil re-read the first quote above regarding the Eternal Nature of Consciousness.

Armies through time and across space are filled with people who represent extremes between Good and Evil, as are all groups and institutions. There are Demons and there are Angels, Psychopaths and Samaritans. Because of the peculiar purpose of the military, of the warrior-imperative, the moral median most probably actually tends more toward a higher conscious awareness of moral and spiritual responsibility.

If it is not your Path, sobeit. But there should be respect for those whose Path it is, as there should be respect for all life-choices leading to the evolution (or even devolution) of a person, group or the human family in general, no matter how far outside of our own personal orientations they might be. Choice and free-will remain our overriding imperatives.

Kiforall
28th November 2012, 21:52
I think the soldiers will soon be the worlds heroes.

With society as it is today, no jobs, no decent healthcare, racism, instigated terrorism, gangs, propaganda, lack of housing, low pensions, expensive further education, low self esteem etc,etc. Joining the army offers a security that can be very tempting.

There will be young people who go out to kill Muzzies because society has caused racial hatred by trying to force integration. All part of Common Purpose. Just because they can't see through that at the moment doesn't mean they are demons.

People who believe being a soldier will provide security for their families and go into the Army believing that they are going out there to help provide security to other families living in e.g. Iraq or Afganistan can't be classed as demons.

They do not know at the time that if they die their wives will be offered no support and will have to fight for every penny owed to them. They do not realize that if anything happens to their wives that their children may end up in a social security system that could easily place them in homes where god knows who will do god knows what to them. They do not know that the politicians and Royal family for whom they serve care nothing for their children.

They do not realize that when they come back without limbs that they are being part of an experiment to produce robotic prosthetics.

They do not realize that emotional support will be useless to heal the post traumatic stress they undergo.

When they do realize this how are they going to feel?
Some are past caring and some may well be too far gone to do anything about it but I believe the real men will feel ashamed, embarrased, furious, manipulated just like alot of us have been when we find out the truth.

How anyone can have anything but sympathy for the soldiers is beyond me when they have to re-live the deaths of the innocent people they have killed and can no longer justify it by using the crap the elite have filled them with (because they will know eventually it is all ****ocks) imagine how they will feel?

They will gain respect from the people by laying down their weapons and telling the elite to fight their own wars.

And lets hope they can forgive us for allowing this to happen because as in other posts we have allowed the world to become like this, somewhere along the path.

No one is innocent no matter how we feel about it now.

Zoe x