Monday 18 June 2018

S/he's a universal soldier and s/he really should wake up.......Armed forces day 2018

S/he's a universal soldier and s/he really should wake up.......


While coming in today . I heard on the radio today about armed forces day on June 24. It talked about freedom a great deal and of thanking the services for their work. I have sat with soldiers destroyed by war, blown up on the Sir Galahad and who have been psychologically destroyed by the state and its wars. I have talked to their relatives and to many soldiers who have seen through the lies of our politicians. Many relatives and service personnel have woken up and have understood how the arms industry works, how the propping up of dictators and how wars about economics work. I have performed therapy with the victims of PTSD. I loathe war and its effects. Throughout history the military industrial comples recruits in areas of high unemployment. They recruit the victims of the economic system and they make them into its servants.
He says it's for the peace of all.
He's the one who must decide,
Who's to live and who's to die,
And he never sees the writing on the wall.

And yet there are those who having seen the realities of war and occupation of countries both near and far stick to a rigid right wing agenda and abuse the peacemakers and those who have changed from purveyors of violence. It's almost as if the conditioning has taken hold and that it takes shock and horror to awaken realiry. Some never awake and are loathsome to those of us who dare to be critical. Others stick to old ways of thinking and become unthinking right wingers.In a few cases they turn to Fascism and the Far Right. I know that I will have abuse about this post. I will have ex soldiers criticizing me . They will say I am a leftie..I will be called a commie and yet I have seen in my consulting room and in my practice more of the victims of war than anybody else other than the victims themselves.

We have had peace studies mocked. We have had those who are gentle and peaceful criticized by many who have themselves been brutalized. Working with over 50 ex service people in the last 25 years i keep coming back to Twain's comment "That it is easier to fool people than convince them that they have been fooled. There are more ex service people suffering from the effects of mental illness, more are homeless, more in prison than in a comparative sample of the general population and yet in many cases military psychology leads potentially to a host of other issues, to conditioning that lasts a life time. Throughout history the most appalling massacres, sexual violence and destruction originates in armies. I am not a pacifist, i would protect those I love with whatever means i could but that is not how an army is created or used. Repressive governments fall when the army wakes up and refuses to follow the orders of its rulers. Yes I honour heroes but a hero is someone who wakes up, rebels because they thought it through. These are the heroes U honor who have served the military and seen through the old lies.
Perhaps we should celebrate those who free themselves from the hypnosis of the state and the ego of the rulers who slaughter the working class of both sides. The generals know the uselessness of Trident and systems like that. Yet the propaganda that the state gives out is believed by those who it enslaves and kills. There was only one just war that was the Second World War. My Grandfather served in World War one and every other war has been aimed at supporting the ego of failing dictators or of western rulers seeking to distract away domestic concerns . From Trump to Trajan and back again ..the universal soldier really is to blame...until they wake up........
"Universal Soldier"

He's five foot-two, and he's six feet-four,
He fights with missiles and with spears.
He's all of thirty-one, and he's only seventeen,
Been a soldier for a thousand years.
He'a a Catholic, a Hindu, an Atheist, a Jain,
A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew.
And he knows he shouldn't kill,
And he knows he always will,
Kill you for me my friend and me for you.
And he's fighting for Canada,
He's fighting for France,
He's fighting for the USA,
And he's fighting for the Russians,
And he's fighting for Japan,
And he thinks we'll put an end to war this way.
And he's fighting for Democracy,
He's fighting for the Reds,
He says it's for the peace of all.
He's the one who must decide,
Who's to live and who's to die,
And he never sees the writing on the wall.
But without him,
How would Hitler have condemned them at Dachau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone,
He's the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war,
And without him all this killing can't go on.
He's the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame,
His orders come from far away no more,
They come from here and there and you and me,
And brothers can't you see,
This is not the way we put the end to war.

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