Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
More Annotations
![A complete backup of everykindapeople.blogspot.com](https://www.archivebay.com/archive/162ea1bb-a556-4a67-ba81-ba6303f3bf6a.png)
A complete backup of everykindapeople.blogspot.com
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
![A complete backup of form9.tumblr.com](https://www.archivebay.com/archive/3cf0bc69-a131-47ee-9633-195ead9bdc9d.png)
A complete backup of form9.tumblr.com
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
![A complete backup of ambientairshop.com](https://www.archivebay.com/archive/9fd9ca80-4a53-464d-92de-50d97c0d1578.png)
A complete backup of ambientairshop.com
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
![A complete backup of nikkigames.co.jp](https://www.archivebay.com/archive/077b0613-390b-4a04-a1f2-19d0f75cb57e.png)
A complete backup of nikkigames.co.jp
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
![A complete backup of northwestrailways.jimdo.com](https://www.archivebay.com/archive/088c159f-6db6-4dce-b49e-77a7553288cf.png)
A complete backup of northwestrailways.jimdo.com
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
![A complete backup of mikrotikstore.ir](https://www.archivebay.com/archive/d2ee4ec9-726e-4fc8-b3ae-d391664fb789.png)
A complete backup of mikrotikstore.ir
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
Favourite Annotations
![A complete backup of unlock-protocol.com](https://www.archivebay.com/archive2/f2ae5ed6-03bc-45cd-bce5-79aa40c69db0.png)
A complete backup of unlock-protocol.com
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
![A complete backup of presentsathome.nl](https://www.archivebay.com/archive2/fb2c6b98-4a5d-4318-b02c-3c31582b6c22.png)
A complete backup of presentsathome.nl
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
![A complete backup of funnypigblog.wordpress.com](https://www.archivebay.com/archive2/a89d8310-81a6-4cac-8851-1acc25c820bc.png)
A complete backup of funnypigblog.wordpress.com
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
![A complete backup of disability-people.com](https://www.archivebay.com/archive2/27be830e-ac9d-4786-ac50-872540151401.png)
A complete backup of disability-people.com
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
![A complete backup of thefilmpoets.com](https://www.archivebay.com/archive2/38145b1f-8104-4d5f-b25f-2498bce5de76.png)
A complete backup of thefilmpoets.com
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
Text
S. BRIAN WILLSON
S. Brian Willson. This site contains essays describing the incredible historic pattern of U.S. arrogance, ethnocentrism, violence and lawlessness in domestic and global affairs, and the severe danger this pattern poses for the future health of Homo sapiens and Mother Earth. Other essays discuss revolutionary, nonviolent alternative approaches based on the principle of radical relational mutuality.AUTOBIOGRAPHY
THE MOST DANGEROUS OF ROGUE NATIONS: THE UNITED STATES Shame is the Wool IN our Eyes. 02/10/2016. The Weight Of It All: From July 3, 1979 to 9/11 to Paris 2015. 01/01/2016. The US Fear of Peace. 11/18/2015. “Thank You For Your Service!”. – Armistice Day* Has Morphed Into Veterans Day, From Honoring Peace to Glorifying War.11/10/2015.
WALPOLE STATE PRISON: AN EXERCISE IN TORTURE Walpole is the maximum security prison for the state of Massachusetts. There are currently about 680 men imprisoned there in 13 cellblocks. Block 10 (and its various annexes) comprises the notorious Departmental Segregation Unit (DSU) where many, but by no means all, of the allegations of torture and abuse of prisoners by guardsoriginate. As
SURVEILLANCE, SEARCHES, WIRETAPPING WITHOUT WARRANTS Introduction Searching for honest history enables us to possess a critical frame of reference in which to judge current policies, and in which to re-evaluate the authenticity of our supposed "Constitutional Republic." From the origins of our Republic, the Federalists led byAlexander
HOUSING AS A RIGHT, BUT NOT YET PROTECTED BY US Article 11 (1) of the ICESCR also guarantees the right to housing as part of the right to an adequate standard of living. The ICESCR, ratified by 145 other countries, was signed by President Carter on October 5, 1977, and sent to the Senate for advice and consent to ratification. The Senate, however, has yet to even consider thecovenant.
ARE PRINCIPLES OF QUANTUM PHYSICS APPLICABLE TO HUMAN The New York Times on October 21, 2015 revealed that new experiments have proven a fundamental principle that “objects separated by great distance can instantaneously affect each other’s behavior” and measuring one particle instantaneously influences others, “regardless of the distance separating them”. [“Quantum Theory Experiment Said to Prove ‘Spooky’ Interactions” (NYT THE WEIGHT OF IT ALL: FROM JULY 3, 1979 TO 9/11 TO PARIS Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to 10 September 2001 (New York: Penguin, 2004). Coll’s book is an excellent study of blowback which presents a much better reconstruction of this history than the official 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Norton REVELATIONS CONTINUE TO MOUNT OF U.S. WAR CRIMES IN KOREA Revelations Continue to Mount of U.S. War Crimes in Korea. August 1, 2001. Summary Report of U.S. Veterans Delegation to Korea, August 2 – 9, 2001, a project of the Korea Truth Commission (KTC) planned with members of Veterans For Peace (VFP). Yoomi Jeong, Deputy Secretary General, Korea Truth Commission, served as guide andtranslator.
THE SEPT. 1, 1987 TRAGEDY AT CONCORD, CA NAVAL WEAPONS On Friday, August 28, 1987, the Contra Costa Times printed an article on page 5A, "Peace Group Sets Arms Blockade: Will Block Weapons Hauls At Concord Naval Station" where it is reported that we are "expected to start blocking trains Tuesday morning" (Sept. 1). The Contra Costa Times is the daily newspaper of the area in which the CNWS is located.S. BRIAN WILLSON
S. Brian Willson. This site contains essays describing the incredible historic pattern of U.S. arrogance, ethnocentrism, violence and lawlessness in domestic and global affairs, and the severe danger this pattern poses for the future health of Homo sapiens and Mother Earth. Other essays discuss revolutionary, nonviolent alternative approaches based on the principle of radical relational mutuality.AUTOBIOGRAPHY
THE MOST DANGEROUS OF ROGUE NATIONS: THE UNITED STATES Shame is the Wool IN our Eyes. 02/10/2016. The Weight Of It All: From July 3, 1979 to 9/11 to Paris 2015. 01/01/2016. The US Fear of Peace. 11/18/2015. “Thank You For Your Service!”. – Armistice Day* Has Morphed Into Veterans Day, From Honoring Peace to Glorifying War.11/10/2015.
WALPOLE STATE PRISON: AN EXERCISE IN TORTURE Walpole is the maximum security prison for the state of Massachusetts. There are currently about 680 men imprisoned there in 13 cellblocks. Block 10 (and its various annexes) comprises the notorious Departmental Segregation Unit (DSU) where many, but by no means all, of the allegations of torture and abuse of prisoners by guardsoriginate. As
SURVEILLANCE, SEARCHES, WIRETAPPING WITHOUT WARRANTS Introduction Searching for honest history enables us to possess a critical frame of reference in which to judge current policies, and in which to re-evaluate the authenticity of our supposed "Constitutional Republic." From the origins of our Republic, the Federalists led byAlexander
HOUSING AS A RIGHT, BUT NOT YET PROTECTED BY US Article 11 (1) of the ICESCR also guarantees the right to housing as part of the right to an adequate standard of living. The ICESCR, ratified by 145 other countries, was signed by President Carter on October 5, 1977, and sent to the Senate for advice and consent to ratification. The Senate, however, has yet to even consider thecovenant.
ARE PRINCIPLES OF QUANTUM PHYSICS APPLICABLE TO HUMAN The New York Times on October 21, 2015 revealed that new experiments have proven a fundamental principle that “objects separated by great distance can instantaneously affect each other’s behavior” and measuring one particle instantaneously influences others, “regardless of the distance separating them”. . Conclusion: A total of 560 overt U.S. military interventions, 1798- 2008 . At least 170 interventions occurred between 1798 and the end of WWII in 1945 (167 in CRS and 3 in Collins). Post-WWII to 1990, all US military EXPOSING THE FOUNDING FATHERS AND THE US CONSTITUTION Exposing the Founding Fathers and the US Constitution. March 12, 2021. Essentially property – in the form of stolen land, slave labor, and raw materials – serves as the foundation for our nation, along with the attendant desire for material prosperity. This is illustrated in an examination of the participants at the founding Constitutional THE FIRST U.S. KOREA WAR The history of U.S. nineteenth century military intervention in Korea included the first American Korean War in 1871, a war noted by its belligerence. Five years earlier, in July 1866, a U.S. Merchant Marine ship, the General Sherman, a heavily armed ship with a mixed crew of U.S., British, and Chin U.S. AND SOUTH KOREA ASSAULT AN IDYLLIC ISLAND: NOT FOR Following the Korean War, Dean Acheson concluded that “Korea saved us,” enabling the U.S. to implement its apocalyptic imperial strategy laid out in NSC-68. In Korea, this meant that the U.S. consistently assured dictatorial governments for nearly 50 years, long after Rhee was forced out of office at age 85 in 1960. MAHATMA GANDHI’S TWO-PRONG PROGRAM: (1) NONCOOPERATION In the mid-1930s, Gandhi (1869-1948), when in his 60s, began demonstrating a significant shift in his emphasis and thinking. He had been significantly influenced by reading Leo Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1894) in which Tolstoy wrote of the power of disassociation from the state altogether in numerous self-reliant communities.In fact, Gandhi’s life and work became THE WEIGHT OF IT ALL: FROM JULY 3, 1979 TO 9/11 TO PARIS Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to 10 September 2001 (New York: Penguin, 2004). Coll’s book is an excellent study of blowback which presents a much better reconstruction of this history than the official 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Norton US AMERICA NEEDS NO FIXING US America Needs No Fixing – It is Already Totally FIXED. November 26, 2019. It continues to be very difficult for we US Americans to acknowledge that our political system and its capitalist economy is deeply corrupt and fixed , that we find it easier to always distract ourselves by demonizing others. In some ways, it is irrelevant whether WHOSE BLOOD, WHOSE HANDS? The United States of America was founded on two horrific genocides – the forceful dispossession of Indigenous Americans, stealing their land, murdering millions with impunity, and the forceful dispossession of Africans, stealing their labor, murdering millions with impunity.Their blood is
THE SEPT. 1, 1987 TRAGEDY AT CONCORD, CA NAVAL WEAPONS On Friday, August 28, 1987, the Contra Costa Times printed an article on page 5A, "Peace Group Sets Arms Blockade: Will Block Weapons Hauls At Concord Naval Station" where it is reported that we are "expected to start blocking trains Tuesday morning" (Sept. 1). The Contra Costa Times is the daily newspaper of the area in which the CNWS is located.S. BRIAN WILLSON
S. Brian Willson. This site contains essays describing the incredible historic pattern of U.S. arrogance, ethnocentrism, violence and lawlessness in domestic and global affairs, and the severe danger this pattern poses for the future health of Homo sapiens and Mother Earth. Other essays discuss revolutionary, nonviolent alternative approaches based on the principle of radical relational mutuality.AUTOBIOGRAPHY
THE MOST DANGEROUS OF ROGUE NATIONS: THE UNITED STATES Shame is the Wool IN our Eyes. 02/10/2016. The Weight Of It All: From July 3, 1979 to 9/11 to Paris 2015. 01/01/2016. The US Fear of Peace. 11/18/2015. “Thank You For Your Service!”. – Armistice Day* Has Morphed Into Veterans Day, From Honoring Peace to Glorifying War.11/10/2015.
WALPOLE STATE PRISON: AN EXERCISE IN TORTURE Walpole is the maximum security prison for the state of Massachusetts. There are currently about 680 men imprisoned there in 13 cellblocks. Block 10 (and its various annexes) comprises the notorious Departmental Segregation Unit (DSU) where many, but by no means all, of the allegations of torture and abuse of prisoners by guardsoriginate. As
SURVEILLANCE, SEARCHES, WIRETAPPING WITHOUT WARRANTS Introduction Searching for honest history enables us to possess a critical frame of reference in which to judge current policies, and in which to re-evaluate the authenticity of our supposed "Constitutional Republic." From the origins of our Republic, the Federalists led byAlexander
HOUSING AS A RIGHT, BUT NOT YET PROTECTED BY US Article 11 (1) of the ICESCR also guarantees the right to housing as part of the right to an adequate standard of living. The ICESCR, ratified by 145 other countries, was signed by President Carter on October 5, 1977, and sent to the Senate for advice and consent to ratification. The Senate, however, has yet to even consider thecovenant.
ARE PRINCIPLES OF QUANTUM PHYSICS APPLICABLE TO HUMAN The New York Times on October 21, 2015 revealed that new experiments have proven a fundamental principle that “objects separated by great distance can instantaneously affect each other’s behavior” and measuring one particle instantaneously influences others, “regardless of the distance separating them”. [“Quantum Theory Experiment Said to Prove ‘Spooky’ Interactions” (NYT THE WEIGHT OF IT ALL: FROM JULY 3, 1979 TO 9/11 TO PARIS Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to 10 September 2001 (New York: Penguin, 2004). Coll’s book is an excellent study of blowback which presents a much better reconstruction of this history than the official 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Norton REVELATIONS CONTINUE TO MOUNT OF U.S. WAR CRIMES IN KOREA Revelations Continue to Mount of U.S. War Crimes in Korea. August 1, 2001. Summary Report of U.S. Veterans Delegation to Korea, August 2 – 9, 2001, a project of the Korea Truth Commission (KTC) planned with members of Veterans For Peace (VFP). Yoomi Jeong, Deputy Secretary General, Korea Truth Commission, served as guide andtranslator.
THE SEPT. 1, 1987 TRAGEDY AT CONCORD, CA NAVAL WEAPONS On Friday, August 28, 1987, the Contra Costa Times printed an article on page 5A, "Peace Group Sets Arms Blockade: Will Block Weapons Hauls At Concord Naval Station" where it is reported that we are "expected to start blocking trains Tuesday morning" (Sept. 1). The Contra Costa Times is the daily newspaper of the area in which the CNWS is located.S. BRIAN WILLSON
S. Brian Willson. This site contains essays describing the incredible historic pattern of U.S. arrogance, ethnocentrism, violence and lawlessness in domestic and global affairs, and the severe danger this pattern poses for the future health of Homo sapiens and Mother Earth. Other essays discuss revolutionary, nonviolent alternative approaches based on the principle of radical relational mutuality.AUTOBIOGRAPHY
THE MOST DANGEROUS OF ROGUE NATIONS: THE UNITED STATES Shame is the Wool IN our Eyes. 02/10/2016. The Weight Of It All: From July 3, 1979 to 9/11 to Paris 2015. 01/01/2016. The US Fear of Peace. 11/18/2015. “Thank You For Your Service!”. – Armistice Day* Has Morphed Into Veterans Day, From Honoring Peace to Glorifying War.11/10/2015.
WALPOLE STATE PRISON: AN EXERCISE IN TORTURE Walpole is the maximum security prison for the state of Massachusetts. There are currently about 680 men imprisoned there in 13 cellblocks. Block 10 (and its various annexes) comprises the notorious Departmental Segregation Unit (DSU) where many, but by no means all, of the allegations of torture and abuse of prisoners by guardsoriginate. As
SURVEILLANCE, SEARCHES, WIRETAPPING WITHOUT WARRANTS Introduction Searching for honest history enables us to possess a critical frame of reference in which to judge current policies, and in which to re-evaluate the authenticity of our supposed "Constitutional Republic." From the origins of our Republic, the Federalists led byAlexander
HOUSING AS A RIGHT, BUT NOT YET PROTECTED BY US Article 11 (1) of the ICESCR also guarantees the right to housing as part of the right to an adequate standard of living. The ICESCR, ratified by 145 other countries, was signed by President Carter on October 5, 1977, and sent to the Senate for advice and consent to ratification. The Senate, however, has yet to even consider thecovenant.
ARE PRINCIPLES OF QUANTUM PHYSICS APPLICABLE TO HUMAN The New York Times on October 21, 2015 revealed that new experiments have proven a fundamental principle that “objects separated by great distance can instantaneously affect each other’s behavior” and measuring one particle instantaneously influences others, “regardless of the distance separating them”. . Conclusion: A total of 560 overt U.S. military interventions, 1798- 2008 . At least 170 interventions occurred between 1798 and the end of WWII in 1945 (167 in CRS and 3 in Collins). Post-WWII to 1990, all US military EXPOSING THE FOUNDING FATHERS AND THE US CONSTITUTION Exposing the Founding Fathers and the US Constitution. March 12, 2021. Essentially property – in the form of stolen land, slave labor, and raw materials – serves as the foundation for our nation, along with the attendant desire for material prosperity. This is illustrated in an examination of the participants at the founding Constitutional THE FIRST U.S. KOREA WAR The history of U.S. nineteenth century military intervention in Korea included the first American Korean War in 1871, a war noted by its belligerence. Five years earlier, in July 1866, a U.S. Merchant Marine ship, the General Sherman, a heavily armed ship with a mixed crew of U.S., British, and Chin U.S. AND SOUTH KOREA ASSAULT AN IDYLLIC ISLAND: NOT FOR Following the Korean War, Dean Acheson concluded that “Korea saved us,” enabling the U.S. to implement its apocalyptic imperial strategy laid out in NSC-68. In Korea, this meant that the U.S. consistently assured dictatorial governments for nearly 50 years, long after Rhee was forced out of office at age 85 in 1960. MAHATMA GANDHI’S TWO-PRONG PROGRAM: (1) NONCOOPERATION In the mid-1930s, Gandhi (1869-1948), when in his 60s, began demonstrating a significant shift in his emphasis and thinking. He had been significantly influenced by reading Leo Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1894) in which Tolstoy wrote of the power of disassociation from the state altogether in numerous self-reliant communities.In fact, Gandhi’s life and work became THE WEIGHT OF IT ALL: FROM JULY 3, 1979 TO 9/11 TO PARIS Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to 10 September 2001 (New York: Penguin, 2004). Coll’s book is an excellent study of blowback which presents a much better reconstruction of this history than the official 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Norton US AMERICA NEEDS NO FIXING US America Needs No Fixing – It is Already Totally FIXED. November 26, 2019. It continues to be very difficult for we US Americans to acknowledge that our political system and its capitalist economy is deeply corrupt and fixed , that we find it easier to always distract ourselves by demonizing others. In some ways, it is irrelevant whether WHOSE BLOOD, WHOSE HANDS? The United States of America was founded on two horrific genocides – the forceful dispossession of Indigenous Americans, stealing their land, murdering millions with impunity, and the forceful dispossession of Africans, stealing their labor, murdering millions with impunity.Their blood is
THE SEPT. 1, 1987 TRAGEDY AT CONCORD, CA NAVAL WEAPONS On Friday, August 28, 1987, the Contra Costa Times printed an article on page 5A, "Peace Group Sets Arms Blockade: Will Block Weapons Hauls At Concord Naval Station" where it is reported that we are "expected to start blocking trains Tuesday morning" (Sept. 1). The Contra Costa Times is the daily newspaper of the area in which the CNWS is located. S. BRIAN WILLSONHOW IS BRIAN WILSON TODAYWHAT MENTAL ILLNESS DOESBRIAN WILSON HAVE
S. Brian Willson. This site contains essays describing the incredible historic pattern of U.S. arrogance, ethnocentrism, violence and lawlessness in domestic and global affairs, and the severe danger this pattern poses for the future health of Homo sapiens and Mother Earth. Other essays discuss revolutionary, nonviolent alternative approaches based on the principle of radical relational mutuality.AUTOBIOGRAPHY
THE MOST DANGEROUS OF ROGUE NATIONS: THE UNITED STATES Shame is the Wool IN our Eyes. 02/10/2016. The Weight Of It All: From July 3, 1979 to 9/11 to Paris 2015. 01/01/2016. The US Fear of Peace. 11/18/2015. “Thank You For Your Service!”. – Armistice Day* Has Morphed Into Veterans Day, From Honoring Peace to Glorifying War.11/10/2015.
WALPOLE STATE PRISON: AN EXERCISE IN TORTURE Walpole is the maximum security prison for the state of Massachusetts. There are currently about 680 men imprisoned there in 13 cellblocks. Block 10 (and its various annexes) comprises the notorious Departmental Segregation Unit (DSU) where many, but by no means all, of the allegations of torture and abuse of prisoners by guardsoriginate. As
SURVEILLANCE, SEARCHES, WIRETAPPING WITHOUT WARRANTS Introduction Searching for honest history enables us to possess a critical frame of reference in which to judge current policies, and in which to re-evaluate the authenticity of our supposed "Constitutional Republic." From the origins of our Republic, the Federalists led byAlexander
HOUSING AS A RIGHT, BUT NOT YET PROTECTED BY US Article 11 (1) of the ICESCR also guarantees the right to housing as part of the right to an adequate standard of living. The ICESCR, ratified by 145 other countries, was signed by President Carter on October 5, 1977, and sent to the Senate for advice and consent to ratification. The Senate, however, has yet to even consider thecovenant.
ARE PRINCIPLES OF QUANTUM PHYSICS APPLICABLE TO HUMAN The New York Times on October 21, 2015 revealed that new experiments have proven a fundamental principle that “objects separated by great distance can instantaneously affect each other’s behavior” and measuring one particle instantaneously influences others, “regardless of the distance separating them”. [“Quantum Theory Experiment Said to Prove ‘Spooky’ Interactions” (NYT THE WEIGHT OF IT ALL: FROM JULY 3, 1979 TO 9/11 TO PARIS Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to 10 September 2001 (New York: Penguin, 2004). Coll’s book is an excellent study of blowback which presents a much better reconstruction of this history than the official 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Norton REVELATIONS CONTINUE TO MOUNT OF U.S. WAR CRIMES IN KOREA Revelations Continue to Mount of U.S. War Crimes in Korea. August 1, 2001. Summary Report of U.S. Veterans Delegation to Korea, August 2 – 9, 2001, a project of the Korea Truth Commission (KTC) planned with members of Veterans For Peace (VFP). Yoomi Jeong, Deputy Secretary General, Korea Truth Commission, served as guide andtranslator.
THE SEPT. 1, 1987 TRAGEDY AT CONCORD, CA NAVAL WEAPONS On Friday, August 28, 1987, the Contra Costa Times printed an article on page 5A, "Peace Group Sets Arms Blockade: Will Block Weapons Hauls At Concord Naval Station" where it is reported that we are "expected to start blocking trains Tuesday morning" (Sept. 1). The Contra Costa Times is the daily newspaper of the area in which the CNWS is located. S. BRIAN WILLSONHOW IS BRIAN WILSON TODAYWHAT MENTAL ILLNESS DOESBRIAN WILSON HAVE
S. Brian Willson. This site contains essays describing the incredible historic pattern of U.S. arrogance, ethnocentrism, violence and lawlessness in domestic and global affairs, and the severe danger this pattern poses for the future health of Homo sapiens and Mother Earth. Other essays discuss revolutionary, nonviolent alternative approaches based on the principle of radical relational mutuality.AUTOBIOGRAPHY
THE MOST DANGEROUS OF ROGUE NATIONS: THE UNITED STATES Shame is the Wool IN our Eyes. 02/10/2016. The Weight Of It All: From July 3, 1979 to 9/11 to Paris 2015. 01/01/2016. The US Fear of Peace. 11/18/2015. “Thank You For Your Service!”. – Armistice Day* Has Morphed Into Veterans Day, From Honoring Peace to Glorifying War.11/10/2015.
WALPOLE STATE PRISON: AN EXERCISE IN TORTURE Walpole is the maximum security prison for the state of Massachusetts. There are currently about 680 men imprisoned there in 13 cellblocks. Block 10 (and its various annexes) comprises the notorious Departmental Segregation Unit (DSU) where many, but by no means all, of the allegations of torture and abuse of prisoners by guardsoriginate. As
SURVEILLANCE, SEARCHES, WIRETAPPING WITHOUT WARRANTS Introduction Searching for honest history enables us to possess a critical frame of reference in which to judge current policies, and in which to re-evaluate the authenticity of our supposed "Constitutional Republic." From the origins of our Republic, the Federalists led byAlexander
HOUSING AS A RIGHT, BUT NOT YET PROTECTED BY US Article 11 (1) of the ICESCR also guarantees the right to housing as part of the right to an adequate standard of living. The ICESCR, ratified by 145 other countries, was signed by President Carter on October 5, 1977, and sent to the Senate for advice and consent to ratification. The Senate, however, has yet to even consider thecovenant.
ARE PRINCIPLES OF QUANTUM PHYSICS APPLICABLE TO HUMAN The New York Times on October 21, 2015 revealed that new experiments have proven a fundamental principle that “objects separated by great distance can instantaneously affect each other’s behavior” and measuring one particle instantaneously influences others, “regardless of the distance separating them”. . Conclusion: A total of 560 overt U.S. military interventions, 1798- 2008 . At least 170 interventions occurred between 1798 and the end of WWII in 1945 (167 in CRS and 3 in Collins). Post-WWII to 1990, all US military EXPOSING THE FOUNDING FATHERS AND THE US CONSTITUTION Exposing the Founding Fathers and the US Constitution. March 12, 2021. Essentially property – in the form of stolen land, slave labor, and raw materials – serves as the foundation for our nation, along with the attendant desire for material prosperity. This is illustrated in an examination of the participants at the founding Constitutional THE FIRST U.S. KOREA WAR The history of U.S. nineteenth century military intervention in Korea included the first American Korean War in 1871, a war noted by its belligerence. Five years earlier, in July 1866, a U.S. Merchant Marine ship, the General Sherman, a heavily armed ship with a mixed crew of U.S., British, and Chin U.S. AND SOUTH KOREA ASSAULT AN IDYLLIC ISLAND: NOT FOR Following the Korean War, Dean Acheson concluded that “Korea saved us,” enabling the U.S. to implement its apocalyptic imperial strategy laid out in NSC-68. In Korea, this meant that the U.S. consistently assured dictatorial governments for nearly 50 years, long after Rhee was forced out of office at age 85 in 1960. MAHATMA GANDHI’S TWO-PRONG PROGRAM: (1) NONCOOPERATION In the mid-1930s, Gandhi (1869-1948), when in his 60s, began demonstrating a significant shift in his emphasis and thinking. He had been significantly influenced by reading Leo Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1894) in which Tolstoy wrote of the power of disassociation from the state altogether in numerous self-reliant communities.In fact, Gandhi’s life and work became THE WEIGHT OF IT ALL: FROM JULY 3, 1979 TO 9/11 TO PARIS Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to 10 September 2001 (New York: Penguin, 2004). Coll’s book is an excellent study of blowback which presents a much better reconstruction of this history than the official 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Norton US AMERICA NEEDS NO FIXING US America Needs No Fixing – It is Already Totally FIXED. November 26, 2019. It continues to be very difficult for we US Americans to acknowledge that our political system and its capitalist economy is deeply corrupt and fixed , that we find it easier to always distract ourselves by demonizing others. In some ways, it is irrelevant whether WHOSE BLOOD, WHOSE HANDS? The United States of America was founded on two horrific genocides – the forceful dispossession of Indigenous Americans, stealing their land, murdering millions with impunity, and the forceful dispossession of Africans, stealing their labor, murdering millions with impunity.Their blood is
THE SEPT. 1, 1987 TRAGEDY AT CONCORD, CA NAVAL WEAPONS On Friday, August 28, 1987, the Contra Costa Times printed an article on page 5A, "Peace Group Sets Arms Blockade: Will Block Weapons Hauls At Concord Naval Station" where it is reported that we are "expected to start blocking trains Tuesday morning" (Sept. 1). The Contra Costa Times is the daily newspaper of the area in which the CNWS is located.Skip to content
* Bonus Book Text
* Summary of the Common Thread Running through these Essays* Brian’s Essays
* Autobiography
* Brian’s Favorite Books * Brian’s First Book: On Third World Legs* Links
* S. Brian Willson
S. BRIAN WILLSON
THIS SITE CONTAINS essays describing the incredible historic pattern of U.S. arrogance, ethnocentrism, violence and lawlessness in domestic and global affairs, and the severe danger this pattern poses for the future health of Homo sapiens and Mother Earth. Other essays discuss revolutionary, nonviolent alternative approaches based on the principle of radical relational mutuality. This is a term increasingly used by physicists, mathematicians and cosmologists to describe the nature of the omnicentric*, ever-unfolding universe. Every being, every aspect of life energy in the cosmos, is intrinsically interconnected with and affects every other being and aspect of life energy at every moment. *everything is at the center of the cosmos at every moment -------------------------BRIAN'S BLOG
All blog entries and essays posted on this site are authored by S.Brian Willson.
USA PRETEND UNMASKED August 29, 2019 – 12:47 pm VIET NAM – EPIPHANY FOR THE USA There was a moment in Viet Nam when I questioned whether everything I had been taught about “America” was one big fabricated lie – a huge _pretend_. It was April 1969, and I had just experienced witnessing the aftermath of a series of bombings of supposed military targets. They were in fact inhabited, undefended villages where virtually everyone in those villages perished from low flying bombings, that included napalming. The majority of dead – murdered – were young burned children. On several occasions I observed those bodies up close, sickened by the sight, now burdened by the criminal nature of the US war. The policy of accumulating massive numbers of body counts was an inkling of the Grand Lie. Reading the entrance sign to my squadron in-country headquarters, “Welcome to Indian Country,” was a first clue. My duty station was the “home” of the fighter-bombers and pilots who followed orders to destroy those “enemy targets”, i.e., villages. I was the USAF night security commander following orders to protect those soldiers and planes from mortar and sapper attacks. A few days later I was reading an article in _Stars and Stripes_, an official, independent newspaper for soldiers, reporting on a recent Supreme Court decision (_Street _v_. New York_, 1969) that upheld the right of desecrating our “sacred” symbol – the US flag. During a period of increased burnings of the US American flag in protests of the US wars against African Americans at home, and Asians abroad, an African American veteran recipient of a Bronze Star, Sidney Street, publicly burned his personal flag on a New York City street corner for which he was arrested and convicted. Depressed, I pondered how it is that one could be arrested for burning a piece of cloth – even a national symbol – that represented an official policy of criminally burning innocent _human_ beings, including large numbers of young children, while the pilot-perpetrators were commended, and whom, in my duties I was protecting? Initially suicidal, I had difficulty wrapping my head around this dystopian nightmare. I was in psychic shock from extreme cognitive dissonance. Our behavior against the Vietnamese, a nation of peasants with one-sixth the population of the USA, one-thirtieth its size, certainly must rank as one of the worst of a number of barbarisms in the 20th Century. The US left 26 _million_ bomb craters, sprayed 21 _million_ gallons of DNA-altering chemical warfare on the landscape and people, murdered some 6 _million_ Southeast Asians, destroyed by bombing over 13,000 of Viet Nam’s 21,000 villages, 950 churches and pagodas, 350 clearly marked hospitals, 3,000 high schools and universities, 15,000bridges, etc.
Why all this overwhelming firepower and destruction? Incredulously, to prevent the Vietnamese from enjoying their self-determination, absurdly touted as necessary to stop “communism.” Does there in fact exist a kind of psychopathy in our cultural DNA? Though I hadn’t fired a bullet myself, or dropped a bomb, I had been a compliant participant in a mindless murder machine. Viet Nam was not an aberration, but consistent with a long history of arrogant interventions revealing something very dark about who we are. Was I part of a savage culture of unthinking sadists, I wondered? LEARNING REAL PEOPLE’S VERSUS FAKE, KOOL AID US HISTORY I have spent countless hours studying a more comprehensive people’s version of world and US history. Study of US history of course is part of the Eurocentric globalization/colonization over the past 500 years. The 20 percent Eurocentric “developed-world” is a product of self-proclaimed “superiors” violently and deceitfully stealing resources and labor from the other 80 percent, all cloaked in the conceited rhetoric of spreading “civilization.” This patriarchal policy is totally unsustainable from a social, political, ecological, psychological, and moral perspective. It is instructive to learn that the “Founding Fathers” chose, not democracy, but oligarchy/plutocracy “to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.” Jefferson’s “empire of liberty” was a vision to expand private property for large landowners. Our Constitution is more a document to preserve freedom of “property” and commercial transactions, than it is to preserve human liberty, of which free speech is the most fundamental. Historian Staughton Lynd summarized it thus: inherited land replaced inherited government. Recently the highest court of the land ruled the legal fiction that property (money) is a person with free speech rights, as preposterous as the earlier legal fiction that a person (slave) is property. A fear-laden gun culture originating in violent settler-colonialism and white nationalism-supremacy serve as a basis for the founding ideology and military strategy of the United States. Slave patrols and Indian fighters were our first “special operations,” establishing the essential White _character_ of our militarized culture. As the systematic dispossession project continued, the US government signed over 400 treaties with Indigenous nations, violating _every one_ of them, establishing deceit and outright lying as part of our culturalDNA.
The politics of violence based on classism and racism has been incessant throughout our history. Examining the US criminal injustice system housing a _quarter_ of all the world’s prisoners reveals brutal truth when comparing extreme disparities in punishments by race, and class. Justice? I studied the history of the city of my birth – Geneva, New York, which in the 1700s was Kanadesaga, capitol of the Seneca nation. On September 8, 1779, Major General John Sullivan and his forty-five hundred soldiers eradicated these “merciless Indian Savages” in the largest Revolutionary War battle of 1779 – a terrorist, scorched-earth campaign massacring civilians while destroying all forty of the well-established Seneca towns, including Kanadesaga. By 1788, the European settlers renamed it Geneva, as if nothing had happened, a deserved reward for superiors. All those arrowheads I enjoyed collecting as a child possessed a profound dark secret about the nature and character of my ancestors. However, I would only discover their secret after deep reflections from my Viet Nam awakening. Official US military interventionism began with the US Marine invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1798 during the undeclared naval war with France. However, hundreds of settler paramilitary units had been killing Indians since the 1620s. But imperialism has been _explicit_ policy since the late 1890s to assure _domestic_ prosperity. In 1907, Woodrow Wilson while president of Princeton University (six years before being elected US president) lectured: “Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed against him must be battered down.….Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused.” President McKinley, and various Senators continued to advocate “a foreign market for our surplus products.” US meddling, both “soft,” and hard, has never stopped. Traveling to a number of nations in Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East have exposed me to details of _hundreds _of US overt interventions, and _thousands _of covert destabilization actions. These policies have caused the murders of _millions, _20 to 30 million alone since WWII during the so-called “Cold War”. Only five of these nearly 600 military interventions have been declared wars as required by the Constitution, clearly indicating our sacred document is not taken seriously. This also tells us the system has no interest in being accountable to its own Constitution, or international law. Speaking with peasants in these victim-countries invariably reveals the horrendous cruelty of US interveners and their surrogates. Does the US possess any intentions to be law abiding? Does the US possess any feelings for others, or only selfish imperial ambitions? And doesanyone care?
Violence against even White citizens has matched violence we have carried out in foreign policy. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1917-18 were enacted to suppress anti-war dissent against US entrance into World War I. _Thousands _of US Americans were deported and imprisoned following World War I for “radical” anti-war expressions, including labor leaders and socialists. Some were tortured in US prisons. Ironically, free speech dissent is most critical when a government decides to go to war. The original Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 stifled free speech of US citizens, including elected officials, who objected to the undeclared war against France. Freespeech? Huh?
While the US was locking up and deporting citizens for opposing World War I, the FBI was _ignoring _extremely violent KKK supremacist groups whose six million members – nearly 25 percent of the white male population at the time – were lynching with impunity an average of six African Americans a month. Equal protection? The first known use of air power against civilians was committed by US Marines in Haiti in 1919. But, the second known use of US air power against civilians occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma, May 31-June 1, 1921, when hundreds of economically successful Black residents living in a 36-square block community were murdered, including from low flying white-piloted planes dropping incendiaries, destroying nearly 1,300 buildings. How many US Americans know about this abomination? Walter White, a longtime leader in the National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), concluded that southerners _fear_ of Negro _progress_ offends the intangible feeling of racial superiority, explaining the intensity of White savagery. The sense of established White superiority (or anyone possessing those feelings) often leads to an insecure character from lack of practicing accountability with others in a world of varied, challenging relationships. Those feelings easily morph into paranoia of others, and delusions of self grandeur – one of the most difficult psychological orders to treat, as the persistent pathology of racism (and classism) so attests. The third known use of US bombing civilians occurred at Blair Mountain, West Virginia, August-September 1921. As many as 15,000 striking coal miners attempting to unionize were attacked by 2,000 armed sheriff’s deputies, coal company paramilitaries, US troops, and US Army Martin MB-1 bombers, killing as many as 100 miners, with many more wounded. Before the battles had ended, more than a million ammunition rounds had been fired. Nearly 1,000 miners were ironically indicted for murder of the nearly 30 deaths among the miner’s attackers. Over 700 union organizers have been murdered in our history. Is this known by many? We continue to be obsessed with personal and government guns (police and military) as a guarantor of our security. Those who question easy access to guns, even assault weapons, or the ridiculously wasteful military spending, are thought of as nearly traitorous. US citizens personally own nearly 400 million firearms, or 40 percent of all private guns in the world. On average, three US citizens are killed every day by police, disproportionately African Americans. So far in 2019, the US has experienced more than one mass shooting (4 or more shot) _every_ day. Our gun death rate is ten times above that of other high income countries. Using violence as a default position historically ends in disaster, as it has been proven over and over that violence spirals out of control into more violence, while distracting from serious discourse. Why the incredible record of violence? Insecurity? Under its doctrine of Full Spectrum Dominance, the US government routinely dispatches military ships to every sea space, military planes to every airspace, hundreds of satellites into outer space, while ordering Special Forces units to operate clandestinely in nearly three-fourths of the world’s countries. Additionally, of the 1.4 million US soldiers in the world, nearly 200,000 are positioned in as many as 150 countries, most stationed at 800 major military bases in 80 nations. The US also possesses a large percentage of the world’s weapons of mass destruction, and recently has dispensed with any genuine effort at containing the spread of nuclear weapons. The annual military budget, including hidden costs, amounts to an exorbitant $1.25 trillion a year, more money than the next seven countries combined spend on their militaries. If you want to be guaranteed health care and a modest house, join the Army. Otherwise these human rights are “unaffordable.” If you want gun control, start at thetop.
How to explain the extent and breadth of our violent militarism and global imperialism? Paranoia? It seems that our sense of superiority justifies hurtful dispossession from others to acquire and preserve undeserved privilege. After exiting the military in 1970, my opinions about the US war against the Vietnamese were affirmed with the 1971 release of the Pentagon Papers revealing the more than 20 years of criminal intentions, and deceit, to thwart Vietnamese aspirations for self-determination. Earlier in 1971, January 31-February 2, Vietnam Veterans Against the War conducted the “Winter Soldier Investigation: An Inquiry into American War Crimes” when nearly 120 veterans testified about the war crimes and atrocities they committed or witnessed in Viet Nam. I was aghast when learning about Nixon’s intended Huston plan to criminally interrupt antiwar activities, the FBI’s sixteen-year COINTELPRO of more than 2,000 illegal actions against innocent US citizens, the CIA’s Operation CHAOS keeping tabs on 300,000 citizens opposed to the Viet Nam war, and the National Security Agency’s Operation SHAMROCK watch lists of those communicating with people overseas. Respect for the law? Huh? Further research revealed that as early as 1934 President Roosevelt instituted a long-standing joint FBI-military program to conduct domestic intelligence with broad investigative scope. The “American” Kool Aid indeed has sedated us. Today our freedoms are further curtailed, for example, as the National Security Agency (NSA) spies on _every_ US American, the Authorization of Military Force Act (AUFA) allows warrantless electronic surveillance of anyone suspected of aiding terrorism, and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) enables indefinite detention of US citizens, even arrest by the military. Where is the Constitution when we need it? Or was it ever really there for us? One of the most revealing chapters in our history is the incredible sympathy the US possessed for authoritarian Nazi Germany. Even though the Soviet military was most critical in defeating the Nazis in World War II, deep fear of the Bolsheviks (the emergence of an alternative social-economic system to capitalism) motivated US America’s wealthy class, with complicity of the US government, to support the rise of Nazi Germany from the _mid-1930s_ into the war years themselves. The US capitalists supported the Nazi capitalists to defeat the “threat” of socialism. Elite power brokers included leaders of Wall Street and wealthy “barons” such as the Rockefellers and Andrew Mellon, and businesses such as Ford Motor, IBM (tabulating daily location of Jews in the Holocaust), General Motors, General Electric, Standard Oil, Texaco, ITT, International Harvester, Chase Manhattan Bank, the House of Morgan banking dynasty, DuPont, United Aircraft, etc., who enjoyed huge profits from the war. And following the war, the US’s “Operation Gladio” systematically defeated popular _anti_-Nazi groups throughout Europe, while “Operation Paperclip” secretly brought Nazi scientists and other professionals _to the US._ Our affinity for fascism has been established. Psychologically, it is important to note that our national _identity_ has consistently been markedly defined by demonizing others – “merciless savages”, “uppity niggers”, “anarchists”, “radicals”, “communists”, “Russians”, “alien filth”, “narco-traffickers”, “terrorists”, “shithole countries”, “vermin”, etc., echoing psychologist Carl Jung’s principle of “shadow projection.” Jung described a cowardly trick we play on ourselves: avoid looking in the mirror so as not to take responsibility for seeing our own demons. We “see” the evil in others, perpetuating a nation addicted to war against them, obscenely profiting as we self-righteously deny our own severe pathologies. If we had looked in the mirror we would have learned what Pogo told us, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Ecopsychologist Chellis Glendinning suggests that modern humans suffer from deep insecurity that emerged from collective traumas hundreds of generations ago. A serious disconnect from intimacy with the earth occurred when our ancient ancestors began controlling nature through agriculture and animal domestication. Evolutionary philosopher Gregory Bateson concludes that addictive behavior is consistent with the Western approach to life that pits mind against body, while behaving as if the natural world is a commodity. We seek various distractions to numb our pain from this feeling of aloofness. Technology, not Nature, has become our God.RECOGNIZING THE LIE
Could it be that virtually everything I was taught by my parents, community, school, church, and political leaders in terms of factual history, morality, ethics, and rational thinking about “America” was the _opposite_ of what had been represented? How could that be? Yes, I have been conditioned by an incredibly comfortable fairy tale, a massive cultural system denying or distorting historic realities, founded on shameful genocides. I had been betrayed. We are told we are the greatest, even as we (s)elect imperial Presidents and Congresspeople in an orgy of fantastic fiction about “democracy.” The US Senate is a millionaire’s club, with many members of the US House also in that class. Indian author Arundhati Roy describes “democracy” and “pro-democracy” as the “Free World’s whores”, hollow words satisfying a whole range of tastes, available to be used and abused at will where facts don’t matter. US America loves its myth of being committed to justice for all, but in fact it is a society ruled and funded by a wealthy elite. This is _not_ a government of, by and for the people! It is a ruthless oligarchy sanctioned by a majority of the people _believing_ their vote counts. Money has _always _mattered, severely rigging the game in many ways toward an upper class (obscenely bribing candidates, corporate personhood power, gerrymandering, proprietary election software, hacking capacity to effect results, Jim Crow laws, voter suppression, etc.). The oligarchy approves “acceptable” candidates, while contrived rhetoric, propaganda, and our education system keep us faithful to our political system comprised of one party with two right wings, the winner ruling by tyranny of its majority. But the bottom line is that (s)elected representatives obey their large donors who thrive on war-making against vulnerable others. Nonetheless, these facts do not preclude existence of individual conscientious politicians. However, the political economic system itself is fixed, it is not broken, a dilemma every honest politician must face. This delicious Kool Aid has in fact concealed a delusional madness, a Kafkaesque, Orwellian nightmare. Our political leaders have consistently and collectively acted _outside _the Constitution, while selectively applying laws that preserve the cabal in power. It has always been this way, though the social revolution of the 1960s threatened to overturn the oligopoly. This revolution was unfortunately unsuccessful but the fearful system’s repressive reaction is now in its fifth decade. In the end, we are in fact a nation of men, not laws. So, in effect, our mythological story made me functionally stupid, a “good kid” who became complicit in mindless, mass murder. And I am suggesting that it has created a society comprised of millions of functionally stupid people. This is different from intelligence. This is not idiocy. This is serious _non_-thinking of intellectually capable people who, in effect, have suspended their autonomous critical thinking, basking in an intoxicated spell of our sense of national invincibility. It has enhanced the Friedman era of neoliberal privatization, worshipping greed, while millions are without health care and homeless. This is mass psychopathy, a dangerous culturalmental illness.
German Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, while a prisoner in one of Hitler’s jails, wrote about the role of stupidity in the German people that substantially contributed to the rise of Nazism and worship of savior Hitler. He argued that it is very separate from intellectual capacity but occurs when a cult-like belief system dangerously suspends critical thinking, bringing collective relief to an emotionally anxious population. It is a form of voluntary servitude more dangerous than malice, an entrenched belief system that makes genuine dialogue and education almost impossible. (Bonhoeffer was hungin April 1945).
As US Americans we possess no _visceral_ memory of the two _unspeakable_ genocides our ancestors shamefully committed, forcefully dispossessing Indigenous Africans of their labor, and genuine Americans of their land, murdering millions with impunity. Even though we are superficially taught about slavery and conquering the Indigenous, their egregious suffering has been outsourced outside our feeling fields for 25 generations_. _Thus, was established our cultural “DNA” of achieving expansion benefitting a few (mostly White males and those who think like them) through _any_ means while escaping any accountability whatsoever. Now nearly 600 overt, and thousands of covert interventions later, US Americans still know little or nothing about our unspeakable imperialism. Why not? Isn’t it critically important that we seriously grapple with our diabolicalhistory?
In 2019, the President, US military, CIA, and other “regime change” entities like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and their funders in Congress, continue to intervene almost everywhere, destabilizing with crippling sanctions, sadistically causing suffering, causing chaos, creating kill lists, murdering, bombing, etc. Does any of this criminal insanity even happen? Has it ever? Does it matter to most people? I believe there is a deep _shame_ that burdens us. It is understandable to avoid looking at shame, but the cost is perpetual war for perpetual peace until we are all dead. The era of privilege is over, as we enter the terrifying era of consequences, bringing fear, insecurity and anxiety to many heretofore privileged folks. Denial becomes a lethal seduction. Our amnesia has precluded _emotional_ intelligence, a depth of character, so necessary for mature development, with little understanding of historical context. We are effectively emotionally retarded, blocking the universal embedded human feeling of empathy, and the collective solidarity that emerges therefrom. Thus, “America” is very insecure having been conveniently wrapped in a fake, pretend narrative, convincing us of our “exceptional” nature, ignoring both our systemic pattern of domestic violence, and global imperialism. The corporate media, and corporate-owned social media platforms, serve as stenographers for our oligarchic policies and values. They create an agenda-driven narrative that inoculates our minds with constant group think untruths of neo-liberal capitalism. We now live in a post-truth world, where narcissistic life is experienced as virtual, not real. Do we feel the pain of the Afghani, Yemeni, the Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian, Libyan, Somali, the Russian, the Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Honduran, Guatemalan, Mexican, Palestinian in Gaza, or our neighbor down the street whose cancer left her homeless due to foreclosure? How much do we care? Answering these questions can tell us a lot about our own survival, including yours and mine. _Serious_ discussion and debate of a broad range and depth of ideas is virtually nonexistent. Mention of “socialism” is considered traitorous to the religion of neoliberal corporatism. In reality, we promote individualism over community, competition over cooperation, and acquisitiveness over inquisitiveness. These capitalist characteristics condition human development in a way that is diametrically opposed to our inherent, genetic nature as a social species requiring for survival cooperation in all our relations. The economy and political system is now virtually dependent upon what Eisenhower proclaimed as the military/security industrial complex, and that complex thrives on creation of endless “enemies” which produce obscene war profits for a very few. Community and family units have disintegrated, and citizenship is less engaged as life is increasingly defined in terms of commodities. Everything and everybody is for sale to the highest bidder. This leads to anomie, violence and madness. And yet, we continue to enjoy shopping as the government conducts its daily bombing. How can this be? How can we pay taxes and go about our business as usual when so many people in the world are being impoverished or eliminated by US policies facilitating the wealthy getting richer? THE DEEP DIVIDE – 1959 – 2019 Having graduated from a rural upstate New York high school in 1959 at the height of post-WWII Cold War euphoria, in the midst of the short historic blip of aspiring consumerism, the “American” Kool Aid I and my 28 fellow graduates drank at that time was delicious. I was raised in a lower middle class home by conservative, religious parents, not dissimilar to the upbringings of many of my classmates. Life seemed great, and simple. However, my Viet Nam experience rudely exposed the poisonous nature of this delicious drink and its trueingredients.
Discovering information about my former classmates finds several still living in the same area we grew up, possessing similar views to that which we believed in 1959 – religiously and politically conservative, but now supporters of MAGA, Trump and Israel. One classmate who had been a basketball cheerleader, still married to her high school sweetheart after 60 years, read my Facebook postings from Nicaragua, then declared me “a fool” admonishing me to “stay there.” This same cheerleader chanted for each starter before games, such as “Brian, Brian, he’s our man, if he can’t do it, nobodycan.”
Being raised in and conditioned by US America instills a desire to preserve a fantasy of post-WWII euphoria for many, at least until President Reagan. But experiential reality painfully destroys make-believe. I argue that the USA has never been great, but suspect many of my 1959 classmates would vehemently disagree. TRUMP EXPOSES THE PRETEND SOCIETY The phenomenon of the Presidency of Donald John Trump disturbingly “offers” our culture, and the world, an overdue _undisguised_ photo of our real culture and its politics. Some say Trump brings out the worst in people – hatred, self-centeredness, cruelty, insensitivity, crassness, racism, insulting language, poisonous divisiveness, adolescent delinquency, etc. But is it possible that his language and demeanor are validating expressions of historically suppressed feelings and values which have never been sufficiently addressed or openly acknowledged in our Eurocentric, capitalist, money-oriented, nature-defying, often mean-spirited culture? These censored feelings once unleashed, no matter how adolescent they seem, are capable of manifesting in a vicious authoritarian and neo-fascist state, as they did in Germany nearly 100 years ago. It seems we are atthat point again.
The “developed” world, now led by the United States of America, has historically been built on egregious exploitation and violence hidden under fanciful rhetoric. Inevitably, the chickens will come home to roost. As Eurocentrics we have been lying to ourselves and the world with our highly touted economic system and “democracy,” fooling ourselves by myths and lies we have long believed about our “superiority” built on the suffering of others. As stated above, we have (s)elected leaders who are to varying degrees corrupted by money who use politically “correct” language and a finessed demeanor to gain approval. In fact, they have consistently been imperial and oligarchic, selfishly stealing to assure an insatiably consumptive lifestyle for under 5 percent of the world’s population (but only benefitting a minority of its own people), while gobbling up anywhere from 25 to 50 percent of the globe’s resources (depending on the resource and era examined). We _ad nauseum_ excuse our interventions using “national security” or “humanitarian justice.” We have followed in the footsteps of our imperial teachers in the United Kingdom. Fair? Sustainable? Ever thought about the structural unfairness and gross arrogance that has enabled 500 years of colonization? Trump’s Presidency reveals a lot about us that we have not wanted to recognize. Scary? Our historical chronic complicity in this horror story cannot be ignored. Trump serves as an avatar, or caricature, of a collective, creepy, violent, disgusting, mean-spirited, immature culture, at least as experienced by large numbers of people both in the US and the world. Trump’s appeal can largely be attributed to the fact that he has taken the clothes off of _Pretend_. His childish nature of lying, tweeting and exaggerating, ironically reveals an ugly “truth” about our modern selves that has been drowned under incredible “public relations” – education, the media, Hollywood, sports, the State Department, etc. His extreme personal narcissism matches well our extreme collective exceptionalism. Is it clearer now just how big the LIE has been, protected by our comfortable 500-year myths? Welcome to dystopia, Kafka, and Orwell.CONCLUSION
The 400-year history of Western dualistic Cartesian thinking (named after French philosopher Rene Descartes’ view of reductionist mind-body dualism) divorcing human beings from study of observable nature, has produced a terribly flawed epistemology. The opposite basis for knowledge is holism, a framework that enables comprehension of multiple interconnections and historical context. Dispensing with any serious concern for consequences, the insatiably consumer-driven materialistic Western Way of Life has ironically and blissfully been destroying life itself by its addiction to burning finite fossil fuels. The harsh truth is that a capitalist system is on a direct collision course with sustainable societies that require conserving healthy interconnected relationships with each other and the earth’s eco-system. We have become accustomed to wishful thinking that resources are infinite, and that they belong to us. This theft can only happen, of course, by force or its threat, and deceit, while living in the toxic _illusion _we are better than others. Does this suggest a kind of arrogant collective stupidity? Nature bats last, something our cortex apparently chose to fatally ignore. We now face the greatest existential crisis as Nature bats last humbling modern humans into extinction, or near so. We somehow forgot the most critical truth of all – that we all part of the One. If we can now recognize our various levels of “stupidity”, we have an adrenaline opportunity to leap out of our heretofore seductive comfortable fantasy, choosing instead to access our buried human characteristic of interconnection with everything and everybody, i.e., mutual respect and accountability. This leap now must be of a revolutionary nature, rocketing us out of our historic arrogant pleasureableness. Our survival foundation: embracing the evolutionary feeling of empathy. Saving ourselves is pretty damn important, and that means saving life for all. Let’s do it! We are not worth more; they are not worth less. S. Brian Willson, Viet Nam veteran and trained lawyer, has been a lifelong critic of US domestic and foreign policy. His essays and biography are found at his website: brianwillson.com. His recent book, “_Don’t Thank Me for My Service: My Viet Nam Awakening to the Long History of US Lies_” is published by Clarity Press (2018). His psycho-historical memoir, “_Blood on the Tracks: The Life and Times of S. Brian Willson_” was published by PM Press (2011). A documentary, “_Paying the Price for Peace: The Story of S. Brian Willson_” was produced in 2016 by Bo Boudart Productions. Posted in Brian's Blog , The Most Dangerous of Rogue Nations: The United States,
Uncategorized ,
Challenging Traditional Patriotism| Comments (4)
ROOT CAUSES OF WAR
January 19, 2019 – 10:11 amR
INTRODUCTION: THE TRAUMA OF CIVILIZATION The human invention of urban “civilization” about 3500 BC (5,500 – 6,000 years, 250-300 human generations) coincides with the advent of patterns of systematic violence previously unknown. The development of massive civil _obedience_ to the _vertical _authority structures that first ushered in civilization, originally in the form of kings, has witnessed a reported 14,500 major wars. This obedience has become a _habit,_ generally void of any memory of the autonomous freedom of pre-urban civilization tribal groups. Power became and has remained an abstraction as an end in itself, utilizing the first megamachine comprised of human parts in support of statehood – kings and their elite team of priests and scribes overseeing huge projects using organized human labor. Civilization’sfeatures:
* centralization of control with _hierarchy_ overseeing _bureaucracy_ * separation of classes – stratification and lifetime division oflabor
* slavery, and forced labor for industrial, agricultural, militarypurposes
* mechanization for massive production (pyramid tombs, irrigation, palaces, grain storage, etc.) * magnification of power via a military expanding into adjacent territory, enforcing more labor* secrecy
* human sacrifice, direct or disguised (as in the West) SEE Mumford, Lewis. (1966). _The Myth of the Machine: Technics and Human Development._ New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.ROOT CAUSES OF WAR
PSYCHOLOGICAL –
*Massive complicity with vertical authority structures (rigidly adhered to belief systems) that emerged with the passing of Neolithic Goddess period of small, tribal units; consent became and remained a _habit_ from losing memory of pre-urban civilization freedom, and the corresponding insecurity and fears arising therefrom, setting the foundation for living with “protection” of defense mechanisms (deferring freedom to authority structures, mythologies, ideologies, obsessive controlling) instead of living authentically; *Many successive generations of shame-based child upbringing (ignored, routine put downs, physical or sexual violence, authoritarian versus nurturing atmosphere, etc.) ; shame-ethics lead to generations of patterns of violence unless the insecure authoritarian parenting habit is interrupted by more secure nurturing (James Gilligan, _Violence: Reflections On A National Epidemic_,Vintage, 1997)
*Arrogance rather than humility, and Denial rather than awareness, became major “defense mechanisms” to override deeply felt insecurities *Changes from hunter-gatherers to Neolithic and beyond, to urban “civilization” has removed people from their visceral and experiential integration and oneness with Mother Earth – perhaps such removal has created a _primordial breach_ resulting in severe trauma and insecurity within the human psyche that has manifested in consenting to defer freedom to vertical authority as asubstitute.
*The ancient memory of the high of a “rush” from critical social experiences such as rallying collective defense to a common enemy (Barbara Ehrenreich, _Blood Rites: The History of Origins and Passions of War_, Henry Holt, 1997) and search for a meaning of life in a culture of void suggests “war is a force that gives us meaning” (Hedges) *The need to _Believe _in a _mythology_ directly associated with a sense of well being keeps us intact, since the ancient grounding experience of being integrated with the earth has been lost, at least for the moment; when belief collapses or is intentionally withheld, systems collapse. *_Tyranny is inherent_ in concentration of political, social, economic power, whether achieved through elections, force of arms, or inheritance. The method of ruling is essentially the same — achieving massive consent either through fear or propaganda/myth (Etienne De La Boetie, _The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude,_ Circa 1553, Black Rose, 1997). STRUCTURAL – political-economic systems that are based on preservation of privilege and class through exploitation, require forceful expansion (for workers, resources, markets), which has been mysteriously supported by the masses (psychological-see above); AWOL (4.6% consuming 25% to nearly half the world’s resources) is the mother of all structural problems – requiring constant theft by force or its threat; AWOL resides within the context of 500 years of colonialism by Eurocentric powers enriching 20% on the impoverishmentof the other 80%.
POLITICAL – ECONOMIC – centralized _vertical structures_ from the origins of “America” in first “bourgeois” revolution (American Revolution) which initially “preserved inherited property (over human rights) as it destroyed inherited government” shrouded in language describing it as “republican” when in fact they were and remain oligarchic in nature forcefully _protecting privilege_ and what emerged as monopoly capitalism, but mysteriously supported by the masses (psychological) despite hurtful policies; the second “bourgeois” revolution (Civil War) enhanced property in factories and railroads as it abolished property in man.” . C_orporations as legal persons_ usurps the Bill of Rights (especially 1st, 4th, and 14th Amendments); _The military-industrial-intelligence complex makes huge sums of money on war._ TECHNOLOGICAL – myth of progress through large technologies (rather than small and local ones), capital technologies (rather than labor intensive ones), violent technologies (versus nonviolent ones), and complex technologies (versus simple ones), pre-empt intermediate technologies, local ingenuity, and real democracy enabled by bioregional economic and cultural sufficiency i_ndependent_ fromexternal inputs.
CULTURAl – AWOL/WWOL after 500 years of colonialism created a spoiled rotten 20% while impoverishing 80%, rationalized with a racist ideology and Eurocentric arrogance that enabled the “West” taking a holiday from history, a holiday from an accounting (virtual total impunity), living in a bubble of make-believe; militarization of culture in entertainment, language, Humvee vehicles, clothes, etc.THE US CIVILIZATION
The U.S. “Founding Fathers” had a vision for an “empire of liberty” (Jefferson), “imperial republicanism” (Madison) and a mercantile, expansive nation, but NOT a vision of democracy or popular freedom. U.S. historian William Appleman Williams has described U.S. America – “Empire As A Way of Life” – what author Derrick Jenson describes as “The Culture of Make Believe,” a fantasy which SBW describes as having been built on 3 unrecognized, incomprehensible holocausts that stole land, labor and global resources at gun point, killing millions (billions?) with virtual total impunity. The U.S. has been on a holiday from history, as if it suffers from the convenience of virtual total amnesia. Some call it the United States of Amnesia. The United States has been built and sustained by TERRORISM from our origins. And the people, believing in their “exceptionalism” have eagerly paid for it, allowed it, and have often directly participated in it. The 1787 Constitutional Convention pre-empted the vision and values of the original U.S. American revolution of 1774 emerging from farmers and small communities in MA that did not seek nor want a strong central authority structure. The United States origins and continued growth as a “civilization” occurred and continues to occur in the context of 500 years of colonialism that has enriched 20% of the world’s “White” nations while impoverishing 80% of the “Colored” based on racial ideology and technology conducting grotesque patterns of terrorism, but even within the 20%-nations, the stolen riches are not distributed equally due to the continued oligarchic, selfish nature of vertical structures. Globalization began 500 years ago, not in the 1970s. Modern civilizations (since 1500) have participated in some 3,000 serious military wars with substantial casualties, and about 250,000 battle encounters in maintaining its colonial ambitions. AWOL (American Way Of Life) is the most dangerous force in the world, far more threatening then WMD, because its government and collective population insist on continuing grotesque overconsumption maintained by military aggression or its threat, bully diplomacy, and massive lying to preserve at ANY cost its make-believe mythology and the ideology of racism that makes it possible. AWOL _requires_ war and grand theft and virtually all of us are implicated to varying degrees. It is our collective responsibility to correct this unjust result of a history of manifest destiny and imperialism, because justice for all is the precondition for our survival – for all of us. Equity ISsurvival.
EPILOGUE
The folly of “progress” – human evolution has not been linear or “progressive” but like a twig on the hominid (bipedal primates of which humans are a part) bush with happenstance a major determinant as to which twig survived; the theory of “punctuated equilibria” suggests that rather than a process of Darwinian gradualism the evolution of a typical species is most accurately characterized by periods of geologically _rapid_ change followed by lengthy periods of stasis (equilibrium) with most of the change occurring at point of speciation (original formation of new species). The present is the product of countless contingent events like “wandering across a landscape of possibility” governed primarily by happenstance. – Stephan Jay Gould Posted in Brian's Blog , The Most Dangerous of Rogue Nations: The United States,
Root & Structural Causes of War| Comments (2)
THE OBSESSION WITH AND LIES ABOUT NICARAGUA December 17, 2018 – 4:24 pm The intense focus on the “ills” of Nicaragua completely misses the deep issues of continued US intervention – imperial neocolonialism – into the sovereign lives of other countries, as here with Nicaragua. Whether you love or hate Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, their personalities and personal lives are not the issue, whatsoever. For US Americans to be so closely scrutinizing clearly the most progressive government in Central America, ignoring the new US friendly but unpopular president of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado Quesada; the systematic violence in the streets of El Salvador which is directly related to the US funded death squad governments of the 1980s; the repressive and illegal President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez; and the repressive and corrupt government of Guatemala under President Jimmy Morales, is very interesting, and disturbing. The elaborate, well-planned conspiracy behind the April-July 2018 US-orchestrated coup attempt against Nicaragua, included most of the church hierarchy, many wealthy ex-Somocistas, many NGOs including the European-funded CENIDH, the NED (National Endowment for Democracy) and USAID, and a couple thousand young Nicaraguans trained over 4 years in the use of social media to blitzkrieg an agenda-loaded propaganda campaign when the right opportunity arose. It had been in the works since at least 2011 when Nicaraguan Felix Maradiaga teamed up with Colombian narco-trafficker Julio Cesar Paz Varela to develop a drug distribution network in Nicaragua, many of the proceeds of which were to be devoted to overthrow the Sandinista government. The facts are that the few NGOs (of over 4,000 NGOs in the country) who have recently been curtailed by the Nicaraguangovernment, is because of their support of various criminal activities designed to overthrow the government. Their accountability to the law was long overdue. The same goes for several TV stations (funded largely by NED), the internet news outlet Confidencial (funded by the NED), and La Prensa (funded by NED) which have openly supported opposition “terrorist” activities (yes, that is correct), something that would never be tolerated in the US or in virtually any country. Many of the hundreds participating in dozens of murders, arsons, destruction of buildings, tortures, and destruction of equipment (including over 50 ambulances), etc., committed by Opposition members, are fortunately now on trial or in jail. Over 200 fugitives remain inCosta Rica.
It is also ironical, that those people in the US who are so condemnatory of the Nicaraguan government, remain comfortably removed from the terror campaign, April-July, which was awful as I can attest as a resident, while I was forced to read and view, with rage and anger, the spew of scripted lies days after day on social media, and major media outlets, not based on any actual investigative reporting. Ironic, because the US is one of the most oligarchic, non-democratic countries on the planet, and its citizens possess no legal or moral authority to judge others. The US possesses the largest prison per capita population in the world, with 80,000 of prisoners in solitary confinement; it produces the most waste and pollution; it has military troops in 150 countries, and war planes and ships everywhere; it is the wholesale terrorist force on the Planet; it has on average 3 citizens a day murdered by US police; it has a president who has been accused by over 15 women of sexual misconduct/assault, a president who lies multiple times each day; it is a country where student debt keeps graduates in a kind of servitude for life to the banks; it has thousands of homeless living in tents and abandoned cars in virtually every city; it is a country without accessible health care for millions of its citizens; etc. It has a political election process unreliable due to systematic voter suppression, gerrymandered Congressional districts every ten years, privatization of the voter counting process, while the process itself is literally owned by the millions and billions of dollars of the rich and mighty, headed by the military industrial complex that makes obscene profits on interveningeverywhere.
So, Nicaragua is an easy center of focus. If any one of us, or any other Central American government, was subjected to the intense efforts to destroy us, or any country, then one can predict the likely consequences. Neighboring Honduras has not yet recovered from the 2009 US sanctioned coup of President Zelaya. The fear and the repression there is horrendous, but it seems that with those in the US, including in the government, nobody gives a shit? The NICA Act should be the HICA Act for Honduras instead of Nicaragua. But Honduras is a safe Cry Uncle government, despite the fact that the people live in constantfear.
And the idea of name calling people as usual is not helpful in the discussion. Catherine Cusic, who has called Camilo Mejia a liar, has called me several times as an idiot – then, in the past, and now. Not too constructive for healthy debate. When will the issue of US imperialism be taken seriously, and a recognition that the US political economy is so destructive it is on a path to destroy the planet? And, yet, the most progressive country in Central America (where there really is NOT repression) – Nicaragua – with no friends in the Senate or House of Representatives, very little support in the solidarity community, and only supported by the ALBA countries of Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia, is targeted for destruction. Lies, lies, more lies. Disgusting beyond disgusting. The truth as I have documented is virtually the exact opposite of what most social media and major media organs spew as if reading from a script. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, is famous for saying that a lie told enough times becomes the truth. Goebbels principle has come once again to haunt Nicaragua. And the US govt. has spent millions of dollars through NED, US AID, NGOs, etc., at least since 2014, getting ready for the overthrow of a progressive government, primarily because it IS progressive compared to the other Central American governments. It is not a Cry Uncle government. And despite the lies, the Sandinista government remains popular with a majority of the people, similar to Assad in Syria despite intense western media propaganda against him. So, Libya, The Ivory Coast, the Ukraine, Venezuela, Russia, and on and on, are touted as enemies, subject to the “exceptional” US to seek their overthrow to “correct” matters, if they haven’t already succeeded. It is interesting that Trump’s fanatical security adviser, John Bolton, has identified the Troika of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua (and soon Bolivia) to be targets as threats to the national security of the US. So preposterous yet it is official USpolicy.
Astonishing, absurd, and criminal. So continue, folks, focusing on the issues you have with Ortega-Murillo, while the US continues on an uncontrolled imperial savagery. Meanwhile, feel smug with your support of “humanitarian intervention” by the most dangerous country onEarth.
Posted in Brian's Blog , The Most Dangerous of Rogue Nations: The United States,
Challenging Traditional Patriotism,
Nicara gua
| Comments (45)
THE GROTESQUE IMMORALITY OF THE US WAR AGAINST VIET NAM June 5, 2017 – 11:20 am Celebration of Memorial Day in the US, originally Decoration Day, commenced shortly after the conclusion of the Civil War. This is a national holiday to remember the people who died while serving in the armed forces. The day traditionally includes decorating graves of the fallen with flowers. As a Viet Nam veteran, I know the kinds of pain and suffering incurred by over three million US soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen, 58,313 of whom paid the ultimate price whose names are on The Vietnam Wall in Washington, DC. The Oregon Vietnam Memorial Wall alone, located here in Portland, contains 803 names on its walls. The function of a memorial is to preserve memory. On this US Memorial Day, May 30, 2016, I want to preserve the memory of all aspects of the US war waged against the Southeast Asian people in Viet Nam, Laos, and Cambodia – what we call the Viet Nam War – as well as the tragic impacts it had on our own people and culture. My own healing and recovery requires me to honestly describe the war and understand how it has impacted me psychically, spiritually, and politically. Likewise, the same remembrance needs to be practiced for both our soldiers and the victims in all the other countries affected by US wars and aggression. For example, the US incurred nearly 7,000 soldier deaths while causing as many as one million in Afghanistan and Iraq alone, a ratio of 1:143. It is important to identify very concretely the pain and suffering we caused the Vietnamese – a people who only wanted to be independent from foreign occupiers, whether Chinese, France, Japan, or the United States of America. As honorably, and in some cases heroically, our military served and fought in Southeast Asia, we were nonetheless serving as cannon fodder, in effect mercenaries for reasons other than what we were told. When I came to understand the true nature of the war, I felt betrayed by my government, by my religion, by my cultural conditioning into “American Exceptionalism,” which did a terrible disservice to my own humanity, my own life’s journey. Thus, telling the truth as I uncover it is necessary for recovering my own dignity. I am staggered by the amount of firepower the US used, and the incredible death and destruction it caused on an innocent people. Here are some statistics: * Seventy-five percent of South Viet Nam was considered a free-fire zone (i.e., genocidal zones) * Over 6 million Southeast Asians killed * Over 64,000 US and Allied soldiers killed * Over 1,600 US soldiers, and 300,000 Vietnamese soldiers remainmissing
* Thousands of amputees, paraplegics, blind, deaf, and othermaimings created
* 13,000 of 21,000 of Vietnamese villages, or 62 percent, severely damaged or destroyed, mostly by bombing * Nearly 950 churches and pagodas destroyed by bombing * 350 hospitals and 1,500 maternity wards destroyed by bombing * Nearly 3,000 high schools and universities destroyed by bombing * Over 15,000 bridges destroyed by bombing * 10 million cubic meters of dikes destroyed by bombing * Over 3,700 US fixed-wing aircraft lost * 36,125,000 US helicopter sorties during the war; over 10,000 helicopters were lost or severely damaged * 26 million bomb craters created, the majority from B-52s (a B-52 bomb crater could be 20 feet deep, and 40 feet across) * 39 million acres of land in Indochina (or 91 percent of the land area of South Viet Nam) were littered with fragments of bombs and shells, equivalent to 244,000 (160 acre) farms, or an area the size of all New England except Connecticut * 21 million gallons (80 million liters) of extremely poisonous chemicals (herbicides) were applied in 20,000 chemical spraying missions between 1961 and 1970 in the most intensive use of chemical warfare in human history, with as many as 4.8 million Vietnamese living in nearly 3,200 villages directly sprayed by the chemicals * 24 percent, or 16,100 square miles, of South Viet Nam was sprayed, an area larger than the states of Connecticut, Vermont, and Rhode Island combined, killing tropical forest, food crops, and inlandforests
* Over 500,000 Vietnamese have died from chronic conditions related to chemical spraying with an estimated 650,000 still suffering from such conditions; 500,000 children have been born with Agent Orange-induced birth defects, now including third generation offspring * Nearly 375,000 tons of fireballing napalm was dropped on villages * Huge Rome Plows (made in Rome, Georgia), 20-ton earthmoving D7E Caterpillar tractors, fitted with a nearly 2.5-ton curved 11-foot wide attached blade protected by 14 additional tons of armor plate, scraped clean between 700,000 and 750,000 acres (1,200 square miles), an area equivalent to Rhode Island, leaving bare earth, rocks, and smashedtrees
* As many as 36,000,000 total tons of ordance expended from aerial and naval bombing, artillery, and ground combat firepower. On an average day US artillery expended 10,000 rounds costing $1 million per day; 150,000-300,000 tons of UXO remain scattered around Southeast Asia: 40,000 have been killed in Viet Nam since the end of the war in 1975, and nearly 70,000 injured; 20,000 Laotians have been killed or injured since the end of the war * 13.7 billion gallons of fuel were consumed by US forces during thewar
* If there was space for all 6,000,000 names of Southeast Asian dead on the Vietnam Wall in Washington, DC, it would be over 9 sobering miles long, or nearly 100 times its current 493 foot length I am not able to memorialize our sacrificed US soldiers without also remembering the death and destroyed civilian infrastructure we caused in our illegal invasion and occupation of Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia. It has been 47 years since I carried out my duties in Viet Nam. My “service” included being an eyewitness to the aftermath of bombings from the air of undefended fishing villages where virtually all the inhabitants were massacred, the vast majority being small children. In that experience, I felt complicit in a diabolical crime against humanity. This experience led me to deeply grasping that I am not worth more than any other human being, and they are not worth lessthan me.
Recently I spent more than three weeks in Viet Nam, my first trip back since involuntarily being sent there in 1969. I was struck by the multitudes of children suffering from birth defects, most caused presumably by the US chemical spraying some 50 years ago. I experienced deep angst knowing that the US is directly responsible for this genetic damage now being passed on from one generation to the next. I am ashamed that the US government has never acknowledged responsibility or paid reparations. I found myself apologizing to the people for the crimes of my country. When we only memorialize US soldiers while ignoring the victims of our aggression, we in effect are memorializing war. I cannot do that. War is insane, and our country continues to perpetuate its insanity on others, having been constantly at war since at least 1991. We fail our duties as citizens if we remain silent rather than calling our US wars for what they are – criminal and deceitful aggressions violating international and US law to assure control of geostrategic resources, deemed necessary to further our insatiable American Way Of Life(AWOL).
Memorial Day for me requires remembering ALL of the deaths and devastation of our wars, and it should remind all of us of the need to end the madness. If we want to end war, we must begin to directly address our out-of-control capitalist political economy that knows no limits to profits for a few at the expense of the many, including oursoldiers.
S. Brian Willson, as a 1st lieutenant, served as commander of a US Air Force combat security police unit in Viet Nam’s Mekong Delta in 1969. He is a trained lawyer who has been an anti-war, peace and justice activist for more than forty years. His psychohistorical memoir, “Blood On The Tracks: The Life and Times of S. Brian Willson” was published in 2011 by PM Press. A long time member of Veterans For Peace, he currently resides in Portland, Oregon. Posted in Brian's Blog , The Most Dangerous of Rogue Nations: The United States,
Pax Americana
,
Vietnam
| Comments (5)
MORE THOUGHTS ABOUT THE US FLAG December 2, 2016 – 10:00 pm In April 1969, I witnessed the immediate aftermath of bombings of several inhabited, undefended Vietnamese villages, where virtually all of its inhabitants were napalmed, most very young children – burned to their death (murdered). A few days later, I read in the military newspaper, “Stars & Stripes”), of a young man in the US who was jailed for burning the US flag in protest of the US war. I experienced a mind fuck because the pilots who dropped the napalm were commended and promoted, while the person who burned the US flag which represented the symbol of the bombing and burning of human beings, was jailed. What is wrong with this picture? And the US bombed 13,000 of Viet Nam’s 21,000 villages, many napalmed, and in total when the US war ended, somewhere between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000 Southeast Asians had been murdered by our (US) grotesquely illegal and criminal invasion and occupation of another country that simply wanted to be free to pursue their own sovereignty free of western colonial powers. Where is the outrage about what the US does every day – every fucking day – as it continues to bomb 7 countries under Obomber? (Sorry, Mr. Barack Obama, but you have earned a new spelling of your name, managing every Tuesday your kill list from the air via drones, the ultimate terrorist machine). The piece of cloth – the US flag – the symbol – is focused on, while the egregious policies continue unabated. When do we become outraged – really outraged – at the systematic US killing of humans? Burn the fucking flag if you want as a free speech protest, but all the folks who condemn that act just sigh over the fucking murders of countless human beings around the world DIRECTLY attributable to very intentional US policy. NONE of them deserve to be murdered, while our political and military leaders continue committing their Nuremberg-style crimes against humanity and war crimes, withabsolute impunity.
The US is one big Fucking lie, since our origins, and the sooner we massively revolt and withhold our continued cooperation and complicity with it, the sooner it will collapse to the benefit of the earth andher many species.
Posted in Brian's Blog , Challenging Traditional Patriotism| Comments (4)
Older Entries
Click on book to purchase: 50% off until 12/31/12 (coupon code "Holiday")*
SEARCH
*
PAGES
* Home
* Autobiography
* Brian’s Favorite Books * Brian’s First Book: On Third World Legs* Links
* Email Brian
*
BRIAN'S ESSAYS
* Thematic Summary
* The Most Dangerous of Rogue Nations: The United States * Envisioning Nonviolent Revolutionary Alternatives * Philosophy, Religion & Ecology * All Essays by Title and Date*
BLOG ARCHIVE
* August 2019
* January 2019
* December 2018
* June 2017
* December 2016
* November 2016
* October 2016
* March 2016
* February 2016
* January 2016
* November 2015
* October 2015
* September 2015
* August 2015
* April 2015
* December 2014
* October 2014
* May 2014
* March 2014
* December 2013
* November 2013
* August 2013
* July 2013
* June 2013
* May 2013
* April 2013
* February 2013
* January 2013
* December 2012
* November 2012
* October 2012
* September 2012
* August 2012
* July 2012
* June 2012
* January 2012
* February 2011
* December 2010
* April 2010
* February 2010
* January 2010
* October 2009
* August 2009
* July 2009
* June 2009
* May 2009
*
RSS FEEDS
* All posts
* All comments
Blogging _avec_ WordPress | Straightforward theme by Matthew KempsterDetails
Copyright © 2024 ArchiveBay.com. All rights reserved. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | DMCA | 2021 | Feedback | Advertising | RSS 2.0