shoving it up their arse...
Sometimes you make comments on other people's blogs which are just too damn good to leave buried deep in their comments stack:
Sometimes it's not easy being a pacifist...
Aummmmmmmmmmmm...
If you're wondering on which blog I had left that comment and you want to read the whole thread, go to the April 2005 archives on Deirdre's blog, then scroll down to the April 3 post and the comments thereunder (I cannot give you a direct link to the comments because I can't.)
Vietnam became a blur broken into eternally recurring snippets of memories. I remember coming home from Vietnam and feeling remote from everyone I knew, even my fiancé. There was no counselling, no debriefing, and I just repressed that shit for about 25 years. Then from '94 onwards it all began to ooze out of the subconscious and I "hit the wall" in '97....lest I forget myself and rip the head off some war-glorifying, xenophobic, jingoistic racist and shove it up his arse!
"If you went to war for us..." Ha! I can no longer think of it in terms of "fighting for Australia". We were never fighting for Australia as far as I'm concerned. We were sold to the Yanks by a Liberal government and the Yanks were there fighting communism because it was in the interests of Big Business to smash communism because it denied them the opportunity to exploit that part of the world. We were fighting for Big Business.
This made us, in effect, mercenaries. Damn cheap mercenaries too. The economic ideology of capitalism had decided that three million Vietnamese can be killed in an abortive attempt to defeat the economic ideology of communism. In other words, we killed them because they belonged to the wrong religion of economics.
It was capitalism's holy war, its crusade, and we were its crusaders. "Onward Christian soldiers, marching off to war..." And I was a good little Christian soldier. I did a bit of the murdering for them. And I was damn proud of that! Damn right!
"Lo as I walked though the valley of the shadow of death, I feared no evil, for I was the meanest goddamn son of a bitch in that valley..."
Actually, I was a shit-scared little boy putting up a brave front. We all were... Bullshitting each other with manufactured bravado. And the corporals out-bravadoed the privates, the sergeants out-bravadoed the corporals, the lieutenants out-bravadoed the sergeants, et cetera, et cetera, all the way up the chain of command... A pyramid of bullshit. And it's kept alive and well by the RSL. And the band played Waltzing Matilda... And it's Anzac day again soon... I have to hide on Anzac day...
Sometimes it's not easy being a pacifist...
Aummmmmmmmmmmm...
If you're wondering on which blog I had left that comment and you want to read the whole thread, go to the April 2005 archives on Deirdre's blog, then scroll down to the April 3 post and the comments thereunder (I cannot give you a direct link to the comments because I can't.)
posted by The Editor at
1:48 PM
10 Comments:
oh Gerry I love ANZAC Day and get to the Shrine at 7am and don't leave till it's all over. I clap and cheer the old guys and I love the Veterans Motorcycles bringing up the rear with their flags and hate that they are forced to veer off the forecourt - I weep with their tough chicks who weep with pride when they pass - for me the day is not about the wars or the country but about the individuals - stand there and clap them you bastards because tomorrow they will be just another grimy old guy in a cardigan at the bustop - it is their one moment for us to say we appreciate their individual part.
I acknowledge you for what I take to be your romanticism, Brownie. That's the best I can do for now. I could go to town on your dissertation but I'm just too depresssed right now to bother. And in any case, I've offended enough people in the blogosphere without adding you to the list. Yours is the popular and socially acceptable response [and now I'll shut up].
Gringo, "lest we forget" means different things to different people...
Check out the work of Stan Goff whop spoke recently in Sydney
http://stangoff.com/
He is a potent voice in regard to the whole experience of being conned into fighting for the big end of town.
What is so significant is how resistive (at least) US soldiers sent to Iraq are at this present time.
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/619/619p14.htm
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/612/612p11c.htm
and a i/v with Goff
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/619/619p14b.htm
and i/v with a serving officer in Iraq
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/618/618p12.htm
Dave, thanks for the links. I'm familiar with Goff's activism. I was busy enjoying Scottish communist folk music at Katoomba that weekend.
If he comes to within coo-ee of the Blue Mountains I'll go listen to him speak anytime.
Did you hear him justify violence with regard to political action?
Scottish communist folk music?? Would that be collective bagpipes or something?
Gerry, if you want to link to the whole thread, is there something I need to do in HaloScan (or something)? I don't think it's necessary, anyway - what you've got posted here was the guts of it.
Nice new colours, too. They seem vaguely familiar...
:)
Deirdre, Scottish communist folk music? Check this out.
How to link to the actual post? I couldn't figure out how to make it work except the way I did it.
The colours? Good aren't they? Well you did say somewhere that people could just help themselves. So I did. Thanks.
One more reason to love Scotland, eh?
I hope you realise I've got copyright on these colours? Every time someone views your blog I should get a cut on your Paypal millions... Pay up, pal, or I'll start calling you a Fatcat.
Best wishes, etc.
Oh yes, Deirdre, the huge amounts contributed to this blog by the likes of George Soros, the Rockerfella Foundation, the Gerard Henderson Benevolent Society, the Tim Blair Endowment Fund, the Vladimir Putin Free Russia Foundation, et al, has resulted in my having to pay more tax than Kerry Packer this fiscal year.
Gerry, sometimes that 'I am so depressed' feeling, is just DESPONDENCY. Clapping a parade of people who were conned into killing other guys just like themselves, is just showing them I understand they were conned -my grandfather in 1915, my father in 1939, my Nasho friends in 1965. What can I do to stop wars apart from voting, as I did, for the ones who said they would not be in it. I went to an anti-war demo at the Swan St Barracks at 6am one August morning in 1965 . . . .
I've killed every reply I've drafted. I just can't respond, Brownie.
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