Background:
Underground Panther wrote an article for Unknown News called Military morals, and if you haven't read it you've missed something pretty terrific.
In response to Panther's article, Thomas M. sent this, and we published it on our dialogue page:
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While you were busy attacking the morals of service-members, remember that you openly admit that, in your "enlightened" state, you could not handle the challenge of military service. Don't demonize our sacrifices by rationalizing your own sanctimonious, self-righteous, Jesus-with-an-A-cup attitude.
You only belittle yourself and reinforce stereotypes about ignorant, hypocritical "hate-full" pacifists.
And I seriously doubt how much ass you can kick. If it was true, you wouldn't need to say it.
Just because your dad was a fucked-up drone doesn't mean everyone is. You could gain so much support by growing up some, but somehow I suspect you'll do little more than get pissy and delete this.
I don't know you. I can't judge you. If you were a true humanists and not some loud-mouthed grand-stander you would know that.
Think about what I said before you respond. For once.
=Thomas M.= |
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My editorial reply is here, and
now, Panther responds to Thomas M. ...
=H&HH= |
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Answer to a military manfrom Underground Panther in the Sky, Dec. 3, 2003
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While you were busy attacking the morals of servicemembers, remember that you openly admit that, in your "enlightened" state, you could not handle the challenge of military service. Thomas M. —
No. It isn't that I can't do shit like climb walls, say yes sir, or shoot guns (I'll need my glasses tho). The military is just not a healthy challenge I would remotely want to be involved in.
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Military moralsby Underground Panther
in the Sky |
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I can say NO to any challenge any yahoo puts out. I have no pride to wound. I don't care about what people say anymore. I am tired of playing P.R. What you see is what you get here.
As for turning your challenge down, I don't enjoy being abused by authoritarian types and brainwashed into thinking I am a gun. I've got self-respect, self-interest, integrity, and I always pick my own priorities, you know. You DO remember how to pick your own priorities and say no, don'tcha?
In the free world, or in these days free mind, it is understood you can reject anyone's "challenges" that may do damage your mind, body, and health, if you believe it's wrong. It's something like turning down a "challenge" from a crackhead who believes you are a wimp for not smoking a bowl of crack with him. I don't want to hurt myself for some online yahoo's dominance challenges because he's offended at what I think. I don't care what you think of me, or if you think I am weak or crazy, whatever. I really don't look up to patriotic, aggressive, macho-nachos with vagina-envy for advice on life altering decisions that could put me in harms way, for some potentially really "evil" reason I'll never be privy to. Don't demonize our sacrifices by rationalizing your own sanctimonious, self-righteous, Jesus-with-an-A-cup attitude. I wish they were an A cup. Shit, I want a friggin mastectomy. And Jesus? Ask me if I care. I am no follower of the fucked up creator of this world.
As for sacrifice, I ain't demonizing it, I think it's sad and really strange to die for oil, but hey, whatever.
No I despise your commanders, the brass chickenhawk ceasars and their death machine, a pig they pretty up with shiny lipstick to sell to servile loyal grunts like yourself, so you will want to die for them so they can make more money. You only belittle yourself and reinforce stereotypes about ignorant, hypocritical "hate-full" pacifists. Hate full? OK, can you explain to me how it's a hateful thing to refuse to kill somebody I've never met, somebody I know nothing about, who might have kids and a mate who loves him, who would be torn apart for the rest of their lives without this person, wounding them — just for GW Bush and Halliburton?
I don't get it. What's so hateful about discretion, and not killing just because I am told to, and I cannot even ask my alleged superior with the gutter mouth and asshole the size of Texas, why do I have to kill "them"? and get a straight honest answer?
What's hateful about wanting to stop exploitation and corruption by authority figures that harm people? And how nice and noble is it really for a person with a family to go over where GW chimp says to go, and get yourself shot at, traumatized, for Halliburton, for oil companies, and kill lotsa people and piss them off at behest of commanders with conduct disorders? And do all this somehow "for" this entire country, which includes ME? How noble is it to go where you may get hurt enough to die, so your mother, brothers, wife, whatever has the privilege of getting an unceremonious phone call telling them their daddy-son-brother is rotting in a box? Oh, how considerate is that guts-n-glory, and what about THEM?
Hey,if you are lucky and kill a lot of people they might get your corpse delivered with a cheap medal. Then your family can be "proud" even though still torn apart, having to move back in with grandmom because they can't pay their bills with you dead. Whoo-wee, the joys of sacrifice.
Why not go jump off the top of the temple of the sun because the Aztec king told ya to because it might make it rain? I fail to see the difference between the two sacrifices.
What if you come home injured? I'm sure it was all worth it when you change that colostomy bag every hour and struggle to hoist yourself in a wheelchair, one-armed, and your wife turns into the mommy you never had, mopping your chin when you eat because of those injuries you subjected yourself to. Is it OK because YOU wanted to be sacrificed and didn't care why? She'll be mommy until she can't take it anymore or another guy with a digestive tract that works sweeps her off her feet.
Guts and glory with a colostomy bag and shattered caretakers and a home full of sad sad people ... and what to do, my little victim of the state, go crawl into a bottle and sleep in a box until a cop finds you frozen stiff?
Whoo-hoo, what a wonderful life for a sacrifice.
And don't try to tell me this does not happen to vets in this country. There is more to having a life than killing or killing yourself for your ego and your glory, dreams that make choices to commit suicide on the national corporate dole somehow look so appealing and justifiable in your skewed perception. Your impact on others is always bigger than you are ... or know. And I seriously doubt how much ass you can kick. If it was true, you wouldn't need to say it. Aww, that's so adorable, macho you bumping chests with me, whilst hooting like a chimp. Isn't that *cute*?
Does it really matter on this dustspeck ready to self-destruct whether I can kick your ass in a big way or not? Shall we measure dicks? I'll win, 'cause mine is a detachable penis and I can get one as long as I want.
So if you can beat the crap outta me, so what? There is never surrender, right? Everyone needs to sleep sometimes, despite how many amphetamines they keep people whacked out of their gourds with over in Iraq to pilot 10-million dollar warplanes for days on end. Everyone has a vulnerable moment when they must be unguarded. That's when you can slip the ice pick in. :)
Oh come on, you should KNOW all about this stuff, you ARE military, right? Just because your dad was a fucked-up drone doesn't mean everyone is. You could gain so much support by growing up some, but somehow I suspect you'll do little more than get pissy and delete this. .If you go to war, I'm sure you'll do just fine deleting yourself.
I don't think my father was a drone. I said I thought he was a dupe for signing away his sanity on a dotted line. Big difference.
And how much older will you say I am if I agree with you — does it get me out of high school? Is it my hairstyle? Shucks.
My father wasn't just a dupe. He was a gunner/modelmaker, he had incredible drop-yer-jaw skills with woodworking. I hate his guts for being such an abuser to me, but damn, that guy knew wood and everything about it. It was amazing what knowledge about trees, lumber, carpentry, and all was in his head, and the skill of his hands was awe inspiring. We put together a table and he measured so precise it's still here in my living room, put together without a drop of glue.
For Uncle Sam, my father made some very precisely-weighted, perfectly round wooden balls. He said two MP's stood by him as turned them on a lathe, micro-sanded them, etc. His balls went up on the Apollo space mission to test gravity, and I surmise they're still sitting there.
Yes, my father's balls are on the moon, and they were there first "neuticles" to get there (canned laughter).
The man had a built-in compass in his head, it was like he had a natural brain powered GPS system in there. He could spot a single four-leaf-clover growing among a lawn full of three-leaf ones from 10 yards away.
My father got an honor for having his eardrum blown out, and for the rest of his days it was huh?, huh?, every time we said something to him.
He came home with one day with a rash that made him dreadfully ill after a day of firing shells loaded with god-knows-what, exploding them into the same air I breathe (that's civilian air). And he wasn't allowed to ask what the hell it was he was exposed to — that ol' game of need to know, you understand.
So our family doc could do nothing to help him with it, because he had never seen a rash like that before. My father just had to suffer sick and in pain until he healed. He did not sign any papers warning him of the crap in those shells, or asking his permission to be a guinea pig. Nothing other than the usual papers that say don't tell anyone about this or well cut your balls off your future career. Kinda extortion.
My father was accomplished in his military career, he had a big deal clearance card with a really bad photo on it. He had such a stunning display of misplaced trust and sheer obedience, it makes you proud, doesn't it? It makes me wanna gag.
He got no honors for all the untested drugs he was injected with, or the incident in Florida, where he was given leave after he went to the Pentagon, then got sent home stark-raving-crazy because of some classified shit they did to him. They wouldn't talk about it, and my mom won't say, and his folks won't say.
He was a cruel and drunk man after being used up by Uncle Sam for these 'experiments'. I never knew him. He had changed into someone else through the years, and his heart was a tightly closed shell. He took his military secrets to his grave. He never talked about it, he preferred to numb it all away in a bottle. Eventually he got cancer and went to Perry Point.
My last question to him was, "Do you love me, Dad? " He just rolled over, facing away from me, and never answered me back. I went home. I was willing, when I saw him all broken and tortured like that, to forgive (not forget or excuse) him for all the abuse, drunks, and hate, if he could just tell me if he loved me and let me know that I meant something precious to him. And his silence felt like stake through my heart that has never fully stopped hurting to this day.
The next time I saw him he was dead. I noticed how his dead lips were sewn shut, forever. When the disabled vets played taps, the tape player slowed up and down giving the scene an eerily fitting soundtrack for our dysfunctional family's tyrant.
The system isn't human, despite the fact it's us humans who give it an agenda, a shape, and power. So in effect my father was killed by his military career. It murdered him slowly from the inside out, by destroying his one and only heart and then shutting down his conscience. First they defied his rational mind, then they crushed his spirit, playing games with his pension, until his body just wasted away.
For human-made monsters and systems and the leaders of systems there is no forgiveness in me. I would burn their heads with an unstoppable fire, running up that awful chain of command, carbonizing it all the way to the top, looking for answers like a heat-seeking missile. And you bet I would sing, I'd yowl to CNN like a cat on a hot in roof. I'd tell all the true tales about their ugly hearts, their guarded secrets, tearing that machine apart with my claws until the whole truth was exploded out into the sunlight for all to see. Maybe then I would finally know what happened to my father at the hands of our 'leaders.'
But you see, I don't have enough money or time to do this. The system is too big, and too rigged against me. Unless people within that system change their hearts, unless they get some guts and stand up to authority, then it will not change.
I know this offends loyal systems, offends people like you — stuck in a fantasy where commanders can do no evil. The authority show is too convincing or seductive, so I guess we'll never be told the truth. Que sera, sera.
I know the military, and it doesn't care about my life. They got my father's life, but I ain't usable to them — thank the Feline gods!
I know the machine would desire to crush the likes of me to protect their awful secrets if I actually got close to finding out what they were, because I know they are so fearful I would judge them for what they did and dare to tell others of it.
But would a country that has given up its integrity to machines really listen to me? Probably not. Bullies playing "good guy" can't have a nasty P.R. problem like the truth get out. Even if it was just what they did to my father — hell no, it's a secret if they want people to willingly go and die for them. If this wasn't so I'd know everything by now.
Another way I know I ain't military stock, I want to see justice put against your masters. And I have no desire to trust or give my loyalty to beliefs, authorities, states, or systems... I don't know you. I can't judge you. If you were a true humanists and not some loud-mouthed grand-stander you would know that. Yes you can, you have already judged me and from the looks of it you totally missed the point I had made in "Military morals." Am I a grand-stander? Oh well, yes I am grand, aren't I? Smooch, *smirk* — I guess you DO know me, then.
Do tell, how is it truly "humanist" of you to be willing to kill yourself or kill other humans to grease the corporate industrial money death machine of domination with human blood and other civilizations' wealth, for the concept of empire and control that is the ugliest thing a human heart can produce that isn't even alive? For a system that is responsible for every planned-led-directed-deliberate mass slaughter of humanity by humanity we call war, and supports the travesty against humanity called colonialism? How is this anything but pro-death and domination?
Can you tell me some good, sane reasons that it would benefit me to pretend to be lame online and not be honest in my own feelings and thoughts, in my writings, considering how I feel about authoritarians? Why shouldn't I be ready when I go speaking to pro-military biased people like you, ready to speak about what is in my heart that is, by it's subject matter, confronting to aggressive people caught up in an aggressive soul-destroying system that is making excuses for something as ludicrous as this neo-con dream of world Christian empire?
Unlike you I do see the military as a dangerous, corrupt, insane, life-threatening system-machine that is a danger to all the lives on the entire planet. In respect to how I feel about this, why would I want to be quiet about my own strength to military types? That doesn't make any sense to me.
Is what you really wanted to imply here a threat, a blatant judgmental insult to me, but you didn't quite have the guts to bare your whole ass because it might fit a size 9-1/2 doc martin air wear just too nicely for comfort?? And then you say you didn't mean to judge me? Of course you meant to judge me; that's why you chose the words you used.
But because you are a chickenshit like GW Bush, you tacked on that fake sanctimonious "apology" to smooth it down, hoping I'd ignore it. Who are you kidding, with this hypocrite tripe? Certainly not me. And if that threat intention was what was truly being veiled in your insult, please in the name of sanity, tell me why should I EVER play weak, back down, shut up, censor myself, roll over, play dead, and generally make myself look smaller and meeker just to appease some fantasy of what a humanitarian looks like in your head?
Look, I am not scared to die. God knows I've tried to hurry it up to no avail. I am not scared of death because there is no avoiding it, so I might as well live. I'm not scared of you. Nor am I going to be intimidated if you had the entire United States obedient drone Army behind you.
If you insist on acting like a bully to bully me into shutting up or not saying my thoughts just because I disagree with your criminal superiors' agendas, when you and I know nothing about them, fuck that manipulative garbage. I have my integrity and no army can take my soul from me and force me to sell myself out under threats, hoping I'd go abuse people for them and keep my mouth shut over it.
Understand? I love my life and all, but survival isn't my highest law, because it's a losing battle from the start. Keeping my own integrity, compassion, autonomy, and dignity of my own spirit alive and strong is my law — and it's the one thing I CAN do in this world.
If I break this law of my heart, and give my power of self-direction to some authority figure, I might as well die at that moment, because I know I could not live with myself anymore. I will not abuse people or kill them because I am told to do it by authoritarians who can't even tell me exactly why they ask such an awful thing of me. PERIOD.
This is why I am not military material. I will not follow evil orders that offend my spirit. I don't give a shit who the order-givers think they are, or what their rank is. Fuck em if they are an ass. They might as well discharge me or kill me if I was forced in the military, because I won't obey an asshole. No-one can force me to.
No-one can force me to follow an evil request from a bad or simply mindlessly-obedient person. I will not bind up my inner locus of control with those bullshit chains of command. No matter how bad it hurts or how bleak or scary it seems, I owe this to myself. I command myself; no one else can.
I am not compatible with the military because military leadership is so corrupt, and it serves death and evil people, and this I will not participate with. I don't want the blood of children on my hands ... those stains never go away.
It's bad enough my hubby's taxes pay for this shit along with the good stuff we all need. I feel bad about our money funding organized mass death. But that is his choice to make, it's his paychecks and it's his ass if he doesn't pay IRS...
No-one controls this world, they just like to pretend they do, to get your compliance and warp your consent. We are wrapped up in fantasies. Our whole way of life is fantasy. Why in the hell should I shut up and let you go on assuming all anti-war people like me who are against the power-tripping corrupt sickness in the military are pathetic or hateful? Why should I let you think it's cowardice explaining why anti-war people don't line up to die in modern day rituals of sacrifice and murder duty when Rummy wants to steal more oil, shed more innocent or not-so-innocent blood, make mo' money and gather more war victim photos for jerk-off material? Think about what I said before you respond. For once. How can you be so arrogant to assume I didn't ponder just this sort of argument in anticipation of the offended guts-and-glory types who would get their knickers in a twist reading my article? I put my heart out there on-line for all to see, and of course it hits nerves — it's supposed to make you think.
Do you believe I never anticipate responses past my own whiskers to what I write? How can you assume this reply to you is not thought out carefully, just because it offends you? How can you say how thoughtless my response must be before I even write it down? Hey, what's it like to be like God, eh? All knowing, omnipresent, whatever.
What color is my underwear?
I do not remember if have I ever responded to you before. So as far as I remember, I haven't. Human memories aren't perfect at remembering every person one corresponds with, so what's this "for once" all about? Please enlighten me. Have we spoken before or not? If so, where? I'm curious now. (You know how felines are when they wanna know)
Or are you just talking to someone else in your imagination, someone you think sounds like me in your head? (begin X Files soundtrack)
PLEASE, take care of YOURSELF. Try not to break a leg, lose an eye, a heart, a mind ... a soul. You're stuck in a system that does not care what happens to you, as long as you believe you are just a two-legged gun and ask no questions and let anyone with more rank than you pull your trigger and point you where ever they want regardless of who dies.
So hut two, and put your ass on that altar of unwarranted mass slaughter, corporate-state sacrifice for dead white men and fossilized old money to mammon. This is that ritual you wax so sentimental about, almost like a wistful lover.
Come back and talk after you've been shot at enough to get PTSD and a sucking chest wound in the middle of nowhere and at home you dive under the bed and scream into an invisible walkie-talkie when the alarm clock goes off because you are certain there are Iraqis in the kitchen stealing your beer. I want to see if you are still in love with that ol' star spangled guts-n-glory while you are quivering stuck in a slide zone time warp, looking at the kitchen door and wondering if it's just a dishtowel. (My sister's ex-husband went through almost this exact flashback scenario, except it was the Vietcong after him ... in his kitchen, stealing his beer ... )
Please, try to listen to your own spirit speaking up when you decide something. For the sake of your own integrity and dignity, before you just obey anything that may be ordered out of you, listen to your heart.
I am not saying you are bad or evil person (but you do appear to be a hothead and a bit of a hypocrite); I'm just saying you are too obedient to authorities and that is dangerous indeed.
In my eyes you are a unique human being, with a life to live that is all YOURS — with adventures, friends, family, lovers that love you. There will be good times and bad times, so those who love you need you alive and near because they love YOU. They love you alive, participating in their their lives, not as dead war hero in a box or as broken veteran racked with shellshock, guilt, and regrets eating his soul away. Too many vets become like this; they commit slow suicides on the street, laying on a bench in 20° winter, lost in a bottle because of the weight of their own grief.
You can have better future than that, if you want to be bold enough to stand up for it. You have things to create, new things to learn, lots to share, time to grow deeper, wiser, fuller. That is what a life is lived for.
As far as I can tell a life in this time and space will only come around once . Do you really want to know it was your hands that helped little children get blown apart, that it was you who caused their mothers to cry holes in their hearts that never goes away? Do you like to think that your unquestioned loyalty to a bully in command caused all that suffering? Was all that blood and rage and rape justified enough for you to sell out and grease the machine of death and empire, made profitable by the merchants of destruction to make them money? Can you live with what you may be asked to do? What if you do it — will it come back in nightmares, like others' blood you shed in the Earth screaming your name? Can you listen to the pain after the thrill of the battle is long gone and the government checks stop and you have time to THINK on what YOU did and why? Can you sell your soul to a monster and not regret it later in your secret heart, even when you don't tell anyone else and keep secrets until the grave? Can you?
To me you are much more than a standard issue gun in a human suit. You are far too precious for that kind of objectification, even if you don't want to think of yourself that way.
You can't stop me from feeling as I do about the sacredness of this great mystery we are. Even if you think it's hokey.
Sigh, this whole conversation makes me want to cry. Am I just banging my heart against some mad buggers' wall ... again?
Helen? =Underground Panther in the Sky= If you're asking me, Panther, I'd say you soon wouldn't have a heart, if you didn't bang it against a wall now and then.
If I know Thomas M. (and I don't know him, of course — and yet I do) you're not going to break through the protective shields that surround his mind. But you've still done an admirable job trying, and banging your heart bangs mine, in the best way.
A lot of lives are on the line, today, tomorrow, for as long as humans are lucky enough to last — kids considering a career in the military; young and older adults who've already made that choice but still retain heart enough to reconsider, or to disgreard orders that should be disregarded; and of course, all the lives of all the people they'll point their weapons at; and their friends, their families.
Here's hoping your answer will get through to someone else, if not to Thomas M. =H&HH=
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