An introduction to a man who doesn't need one, the great the only, Psaaaaaam.
(The following is not the personal view of this blog. Viewer discretion is advised.)
Since the dawn of civilisation, there have always been people in positions of influence in nations who realized that the best way for their nation to gain more power over their populace was if that populace felt there was a threat to them. There are many easily observed cases, and probably many more that haven't been recognized, where two different governments collaborated to make sure that their respective citizens felt threatened by the other nation so that they could justify creating armed forces to increase their power. The cold war between the US and the USSR is probably the most potent example of this phenomenon to date. The US government benefited tremendously, in terms of control over their population, by the threat of nuclear war posed by the USSR, and vice versa. There has been much speculation that the attacks on the trade centre of September 11, 2001 were condoned or even partially orchestrated by people with great influence in the American government.
Another tactic used by power-hungry people of influence in government is to instruct their armed forces to perpetrate atrocities against other people, thus exacerbating the animosity against their own populace, and giving them greater power to expand their armed forces, and control them. They are adept at hiding the facts from their population, so that they can let their own citizens believe they are the "good guys". There are several highly visible examples of this too. For instance, many Germans still don't believe that their government under the Nazis was attempting to purposefully exterminate entire cultures of people just because of their lineage. Similarly, many Americans still don't even consider the possibility that the war in Vietnam was a deliberate genocidal atrocity committed by their government. Many Canadians don't understand that in the creation of their nation, the same sorts of tactics were used by their government on the First Nations people in North America as the Nazis did on the Jews in Europe, except that the Canadian government was far more successful at hiding this fact from their citizens.
Mandatory conscription has always been a part of these processes of subjugation. Membership in the army comes with having it beaten into you that you do exactly what you are instructed to by your superiors when you are told to, whether you believe it is a good idea or not. There are stories of Americans in Iraq torturing Iraqi people by order of their superiors, and then never being able to absolve themselves of their guilt and shame because their indoctrination is telling them what they did was right while their heart tells them what they did was wrong, a conflict they can never resolve.
The strongest symbol used by a government to ensure compliance from their population is to indoctrinate them with pride in their flag. The principle purpose of a national flag has always been to incite people to be willing to kill people from other countries to increase the power of their own nation. At present, there are Canadian troops in Afghanistan who are told they are doing what they are doing "for their flag". This blinds them and distracts them from the real reason that they are there: because they care about human beings no matter what their race or nation and they want to defend them. If a soldier saves innocent people from harm by the murderous, self-righteous Taliban government, it is a self-defeating practice to heap praise on the Canadian flag or nation rather than honour and respect the individual soldier as a humanitarian with great courage and personal conviction.
Elvis Presley was drafted in 1958 by the American government to serve two years in the military. Following these two years he went on to continue his very successful career as an entertainer. He used the American flag in his shows as a way to capitalise on American devotion to better his own career. During his two years of service, he never encountered open combat situations. He was not exposed to the horrific nature of war enough to cause him to consider the harmful effects that the flag has. He was an unwitting and unwilling participant in a scheme that has been perpetrating itself since the dawn of civilisation: rallying troops to be ready for war. There has never been a military solution to a problem that didn't always end up as something worse.
When you watch Elvis Presley sing his American Trilogy with the American flag rising up behind him in glorious grandeur and national pomp and pride, try to forgive that flag for all the war and suffering and indoctrination and ignorance that it represents. Just because history has orchestrated a flag's influence to be a proud call to arm yourself so that you can kill whoever stands against your nation, does not mean that it has to continue being that way. Watch with an air of sobriety and give consideration to the amount of injustice and brutal inhumanity that has been caused by its use. Remember that it was people acting in the name of that flag that are the only people in the world to ever slaughter entire cities of people in one devastating explosion, causing the greatest numbers of deaths this world has ever seen from one action.
By all means though, if you wish to feel pride in your ability to turn a symbol of destruction into a symbol of love and charity, then do not hesitate to feel pride when you look at that flag. It is, after all, a symbol that was intended to foster pride. The only harm is that it has been used throughout history to turn those feelings of pride into feelings of superiority and persecution. Keep the pride, but don't let it put you above or below any other human beings. We are all in this together.
Thanks for your attention,
Psam.
9 comments:
I hope this isn't the last blog.
Chanks you started this bs I think you should end this bs.
Psam, when I read about your generalization of civilization, I think of a board game we used to play. The is the same in real life only on a bigger board. You arean't sure who is going to attack you. Look at how the native indians behaved before the white came into the picture.
Man is always seeking security. As far as killing people that comes down to math really. Under box A is something that stops the killing but 100 people need to die. Under box B is something that is much less dramatic but takes alot longer to work so 500 people will die over a much longer period of time. If 100 people have never died before from one event would that mean you would rather have 500 people die over a longer period of time?
As far as threats go some are real some may not be, but one would still want to be prepared. Psam, it seems to me that you think people would all get along if given the chance. To this I disagree. History shows us that man is just as capable of hating each other as it is to loving one another. In that sense I think it is easier to hate then to love.
To sum this all up, civilization is an attempt to bring law and order to our everyday lives, when that order is threatened then there is war. There may be some threats that aren't real but there are planty that are real. To this we must be on guard. We do not need to be the provoker but we do need to be the defender. Defending order is our role in afganistan. Irac is a different matter.
Bench
AWESOME Psamie:
A subject near and dear to my heart:
Like when we sing the national anthem, (well, you know what I mean, when someone else sings it at a hockey game and we wait it out in our usual bored expression) the words "We stand on guard for thee"... I need a pistol or a shotgun or a rocket launcher to do that. What have we got? Cell phones to phone for help.
Some great leader (War Monger) said that people will die for you if you offer them a medal. Big WOW for a lost life, or a lost limb.
As in the words of Dubya, "make no mistake" and then go on with the words of Alex Jones to say that 911 was an inside job, a controlled demolition, so that the land of the free could be turned into a police state.
Love and Hate? I would rather be a lover than a hater. However, I am still working on the idea that I should love my enemies, especially when those enemies want me dead so they can spit on my grave.
Bottom line.... War is big business, it helps the economy at home and brings hope and freedom to dictatorships abroad.
Speaking for a generation that never knew what it was like to be a soldier, and for your generation that hopefully will never know and for my grandchildren that I hope never go to war I say: " It is kind of like Knocks College (i.e. the school of hard knocks). People learn but the tuition is high."
Another thing that intrigues me is the code of secrecy that goes along with being a soldier. If we all had a choice then we might say to our rulers that it is not my war and I am not your soldier.
How is that for a RANT?
Go ahead,,,,, toast dost
Oh, ya, that picture you have shows a big hole where an abandoned building is.
Who ever fired that one or dropped the bomb sure missed that school or is it a hospital or a department store. Whatever, they should go back and get some more practice so they can hit the target. What a waste of a good bomb.
Bench, did I read the news wrong or is it not the case that Canadian soldiers recently gunned down innocent people in Afghanistan? How can you call that "defending order"? I don't understand. From what I understand of the military, innocent casualties are called "collateral damage" and are forbidden to be reported by the media for fear of losing support for the troops back home. This means that if ONE incident of civilian casualties gets through our media blackout for our eyes to see, then it must be happening A LOOOOOOOOT. That means that Canadian soldiers are probably causing a lot of suffering and death in Afghanistan. They are KILLING PEOPLE'S CHILDREN!! I thought the American military had the monopoly on that role abroad, but unfortunately we can now suffer the same shame and despair and tragic sorrow. Please consider for a second that the attitude you expressed in what you wrote in your last comment sounds to me like trying to justify your role in a killing machine. Is that really what you want to be? Someone who kills people?
Doast, how may I offer you proper praise for your words of wisdom, wit, and wiliness? Ya got me all smilin' and stuff with that schtick there.
You said you're working on the idea that you can love your enemy. Well, according to theory perpetuated by renowned psychologists, loving your enemy makes it more likely that your enemy stops wanting to be your enemy and starts wanting to be your friend, so it almost seems that you live a permanent win-win life when you are capable of loving your enemy. And that's just plain simple science, but not irrefutable or conclusive, just a theory with scientific presentation and credibility.
There's another way of looking at it too. Some naive and possibly quite unreliable person once said "strangers are just friends waiting to happen". Well, the more people that adopt this attitude, the happier the world will be. If you don't live by this credo, yer part of the problem. If ya do, then please accept my gratitude and respect and what the heck some of my love too.
And chanks. Your blog is a masterpiece. Comparable in the world of blogging to a Yellow Tail Shiraz in the world of winemaking. I feel honored to have my words given a place, and more importantly, the despair I felt in writing those words is placated by the thought that there are those who agree and will continue to try to eradicate the problems I was depicting. Thank you for helping assuage the sadness one cannot help feel when one sees what is happening in the world today.
Psamy you got a real load of BS between your opening statement "Since the Dawn of Civilization" and the ending in which you say "we are all in this together."
Really now,,,,, think about it!! Civilization has alway been the survival of the fitest, and right not the fitest nation is the GREAT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
No one can stop them from "staying the course" because no one nation is greater than the U.S.A.
Think about it. The great Mohamed Ali and the king himself (Elvis) all came from the great U.S.A.
The U.S.A are doing a wonderful job of bringin democracy to the rest of the world.
Fogey
Let's talk "compliance"!!!!
You said one of the methods to make the people compliant is to give them a flag.
Compliance is a real thing to deal with, especially when you have governments that have the POWER to do whatever they want to whoever they want.
Do you suppose.... that 911 was a tactic to make people compliant? Bring them into a police state and control every person who would ever want to get on an airplane. The event was so catastrophic that even the thought of something similar happening again would make them compliant. i.e. Threaten them that it might happen again if people are not compliant to "Homeland Security"
One of the tactics to keeping the people compliant is to control the media. You touched on that one in the Blog Psamy. Well done.
What about WACO Texas? Was that another strategy to make people compliant? The government actually used the military to go in and kill and destroy american citizens, women and children in order to control that "Cult" that might get out of control.
What if the people of a country decided they didn't need BIG GOVernment any more? What if the real people of a country decided not to participate in fighting a war or paying taxes? Would BIG GOV make them compliant?
Another topic for your comment Psamy is NIMY i.e. not in my back yard. Like the Vietnam War it was no where near America, and they needed or wanted to go over to Iraq so they created a 911 so they could say they brought it to us so we are bringin it to them. When in actual fact the perpetrators of 911 will probably never be known or will never be brought to justice, because it was really an inside job which was blamed on a patsy over in Iraq.
Whover FOGEY is should get his head out of the sand and recognize the "Great USA" for what they are.
dost is steamed up.....
Chankslee, you do an excellent job of maintaining a blogspot that is an open forum for discussion where people do not have to be attacked for their views. Your tact and taste are a model of sensitivity and good judgement.
Your decision to censor one of the more recent comments on this blog was a good one, and I hope it was appreciated by those who noticed it.
Folks, most of us that share our views on this website are trying to use our intelligence to come up with ways to make this world a better place, and we come up with some good stuff. One of the principle goals that we all share is to find people who have destructive attitudes and take away the weapons they intend to use against others. The person whose comments were censored from this blog is one such person. His or her comment was "the more of them that we kill over there, the less of them will move over here". I want the person that wrote that to hear a response to his or her comment, so I hope you are reading back through here again, perhaps to see if your comment you made is still here.
I believe that there are two basic motivations for your comment. The first is that you have a hatred for people of middle eastern origin. The second is that you are angry because several thousand of your compatriots were murdered in 2001, and you want to get somebody back for it. I often speak about corrupt and subversive elements in the American government, and I think it may give off the impression that I'm not sympathetic to those people that died that day. I am sorry for this. I wish there was something I could do to take away your hatred, but I don't know how. But one thing I can do is tell you that for what it's worth, I gave blood on September 12, 2001, because I care about those people.
Dost said recently that he was working on learning to practice the old adage: "love your enemy". Well here's an instructive example. Your comments that you want to kill people just because of the colour of their skin or the part of the world they come from would make you as much my enemy as I can imagine anybody being. But nonetheless, I can glean in your words some human compassion, because I know that the anger you feel, your will to do harm, was originally created out of caring. You cared about the people that got killed on September 11; you were traumatized because of losing those people, and I love you for that. I am sorry that your response to this tragedy was to find people to try to kill. I believe this is a mistake. I believe that you are wanting to kill people who had nothing to do with those attacks, just to satisfy your sense of vengeance because of a senseless malicious tragedy.
I hope that my attempt to "love my enemey" amounts to something worthwhile, something good. And I really hope you don't remain my enemy. Please stop speaking of yourself as a killer.
Hey Psam,
It looks like you are insinuating that dost was the one who made the BAD comment. is this the case or am i reading this wrong?
some guy
OOPS!! No, I guess I wrote that wrong. I meant that dost was saying "love your enemy" is a good one to try to learn, and then I was addressing the person that wrote the offending comment in reference to this credo. Sorry dost!
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