Yeah. So, for the record, I’m coming out of the closet about my deeply held belief that military equals murder, as the military has existed for humans on planet Earth up to this point in time. (Maybe it’s possible to have ‘ethical armies’, but that’s a whole other convo.) Particularly with regards to the US, our military is about legalized murder — state-sanctioned, legally & socially approved homicide. Generally on massive scales. & to me, it’s murder, premeditated intentional homicide with loads of malice.

One of my basic premises is that war is destructive & not productive, that diversion of resources to war-making is a diversion away from myriad other far more productive uses of resources, & that the end result of war is the destruction of productivity, productive capacity, & resources. Not the most popular opinion, but there it is . .. .. .

I’ve kept my mouth shut war after military action after invasion, covert & overt. &, yeah, reading Blum’s ‘Killing Hope’, in addition to being massively painful, did radicalize me as to our decidedly murderous actions over & over again. (& typically for the most squalid of mercantilist & imperialist ‘reasons’.) But before that I never really did buy into the big lie that there is such a thing as a ‘good war’ or a ‘justified war’. Nope, I refuse to sign onto any of the offered justifications, rationalizations, excuses, or explanations. War is murder, participating in war is participation (however indirectly) in murder. War is one of the ultimate expressions of abuse culture, & it’s fetishized appurtenances are the rituals of the abusive in minimizing individual participants’ discomfort with all that abuse & murder.

Given this perspective it rarely surprises me to see that militaries are full of abuse culture manifestations, for the record . .….  ;)

Ah. & the whole supporting-our-soldiers meme gives me all kinds of gut-queasy stuff. (A), it’s telling that we increasingly must coerce the impressionable young into going into the military, it’s an increasingly unpopular choice in the modern profusion of life-choices. (As compares with, say, classical western antiquity, where every able-bodied post-pubertal male rather enthusiastically marched off to war after war after war, from village after hamlet after town. It was the exception _not_ to get in on all the spoils of war up until fairly recently for the majority of human cultures that have existed.) I’m very curious what a completely un-coerced military might look like, how large it might be.

& (b), outside of the coercion factor I tend to expect those who choose military careers (& policing careers) to believe more unquestioningly in authority & the utility of force & violence & similar concepts. Mostly I radically disagree with much of the discourse on the usefulness of non-consensual violence & its various premises.

Okay, so now we’re all on the same page about my opinion on this topic. :D

LOL … . The problem with taking the high road is that someone actually has to behave _better_than_ … . & that’s apparently a high hurdle even for its ostensible aspirants.

Which would not necessarily include Maher.

This is, I think, triply-meta funny stuff … . . ;)

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it—always.” - Mohandas Gandhi

Increasingly I’m seeing the pursuit of extremes of wealth & power in terms of being symptomatic of mental health issues way more than some kind of admirable path, (a).

& (b) It’s times like these when those most at risk & with the most to lose are those with the most, despite propaganda to the contrary. Bubble patterns have a long recorded history & they are invariably characterized by the wealthiest chasing the highest possible returns & the elimination of associated risk, an unsustainable path that inevitably comes to a crashing end … ..

Dynastic ambition turns out to have darn little legs, a few generations at best before the house collapses … . . Thankfully, children turn out to be able to wrench themselves free of the prison of grand-parental & parental aspirations. & the tyrannical dreams of any given one inevitably peter out over time . .. ..  ;)

Haven’t we outgrown borders yet? Didn’t the lesson of Germany & India & Italy & the US teach us all that we can live lives freed of the constraints of political borders keeping us away from each other? When are we gonna let the people flow across all the borders freely?

Cut the deficit? END THE WARS!!!

The only regular thing of worth, for me, on the NYTimes is Krugman’s blog. The rest of their coverage has to be read with an awareness of its role as a semi-official spokes-piece for the complacent, contented corporacracy.

For example, NYT’s ‘news’ coverage of Europe has some weird skew going on for such a supposedly cosmopolitan ‘newspaper’ published for that quintessential melting-pot megalopolis, NY City. There’s an edge of near-hysteria in the NYT’s seeming to always see Europe as on the edge of incipient meltdown (particularly of the economic variety). The NYT’s basically anti-socialist-but-let’s-not-even-mention-that-word-unless-we-absolutely-must stance is showing … . ;)

Anyways, Krugman is a breath of fresh air within that context.

& outside of that frame he’s a very useful teacher of economic concepts, an excellent source of data & links & evocative charts on the need for universal single payer healthcare here in the US, & an otherwise generally thoughtful progressive voice. I at least skim thru all his blog postings every week or so, he cheers me up with his reasoned sensibleness … . . :D