Once again, members from from both political Parties, this time with Donald Trump and Frederica Wilson, managed to accuse each other of using veterans or "Gold star" families for political purposes, without pointing out that the vast majority of wars we've been fighting have all been based on lies.
It may seem like Donald Trump is the worst of these two, since he doesn't even do a good job pretending to tell the truth; however this makes Frederica Wilson seem like the lesser of two evils even though she doesn't challenge most of the lies leading us into one war after another. Furthermore, even though Donald Trump does so bad a job telling his lies everyone should be able to see right through it, there appear to be plenty of people that seem to believe him, which is part of the reason the Democrats and a few of the Republicans that are finally speaking out against him seem to be the lesser of two evils.
The sad truth is that the vast majority of our military activity has little or nothing to do with defending our country and some of it even incites retaliation like the Fort Hood attack, Boston Bombings, San Bernardino attacks, the Orlando Pulse attack and, assuming the 9/11 attacks weren't an inside conspiracy as some believe, the 9/11 attacks were also retaliation for foreign policy that involves forcing our will on countries around the world. According to Wikipedia: Terrorism in the United States the number of people that die as a result of terrorist attacks is relatively small compared to other causes of death, yet it's used to stir up an enormous amount of fear and help justify the so called "War on Terror" around the world which is almost entirely based on lies.
And, many of these attacks are actually domestic terrorism including abortion bombings the Charleston shootings and the Oklahoma terrorism attack, which according to McVeigh was partially inspired by his outrage of activities by the United States Government including their foreign policy. His perceived justification won't hold up to scrutiny, of course, but he was trained by the United States Government along with many other mass murderers.
Many people in the alternative media outlets have gone into much more detail about how our history of fighting wars based on lies including a couple of my own recent articles, Wars Based On Lies Has Long History Of Political Support! Vietnam Documentary Hits Hard While Downplaying The Worst! both of which cite additional sources and there are more below.
The sad truth is that this is part of a vast propaganda effort to convince the public that the United States is the "leader of the free world fighting to defend democracy," when it is simply not true and a close look at history and the support of many tyrants or coups to overthrow democratic governments proves this, although they're poorly reported in the mainstream media. However the academic world, good non-fiction books, and the best alternative media outlets do a much better job reporting this, although most people don't rely on these sources, and may not even want to hear the truth, since it makes them feel good about their country to believe this myth.
At times, when I have written about wars based on lies, or a lot of veterans that have come back from war after suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, often caused as much by boot camp training and military culture as from combat, and going on shooting sprees, I have expected a significant amount of outraged from veterans; and I was surprised that, for the most part this hasn't happened. If anything most responses, which have almost always been relatively brief, have been partial agreement, although it often comes in re-tweets or likes that don't explain details or reservations about some of it. Part of this may be because although I have been critical of these wars base don lies, and tried to point out that military indoctrination leads to escalating violence, including mass shootings and domestic violence; I've also tried to point out that some of the people that recognize this the most, and try to reverse this problem, are veterans.
Perhaps one of the most famous anti-war veterans that attempted to expose these lies might be John Kerry, or so many people might think; However John Kerry wasn't opposed to the war when he was there and he asked for an early discharge so he could run for office, which he received. He didn't run for office right away though, perhaps because he learned how opposed the public was to the war when he returned; and then he became a opponent of the war long enough to develop a political reputation, but later supported more wars based on lies.
Real peace activists don't oppose war only when it suits their political career!
The vast majority of activists, veterans or not, that are really trying to expose the lies used to justify war get little or no attention even when they organize their activities at the grassroots level for years if not decades like Medea Benjamin or Bruce Gagnon who never get any coverage from the mainstream media unless they stage loud disruptive protests; then they portray them as fringe elements or "radicals" without giving them time to make their points. When they do get an opportunity to actually speak and make their case on alternative media outlets, it often becomes clear that they're not radical at all, and that they've done a far better job researching the lies that are used to justify wars based on lies than the mainstream media.
Even when a celebrity does speak out about wars based on lies they're often marginalized and fired from the traditional media like when Phil Donahue was fired from MSNBC for questioning the war and he was almost never heard from again in the mainstream media; or when Jesse Ventura spoke out against wars based on lies they often portrayed him as a fringe conspiracy theorists, and some of his old wrestling outfits might make him fit the stereotypes. However, those that think about some of his comments, books including the following article, and fact check them might realize that he has some good points:
Jesse Ventura: Military doesn't 'fight for our freedom' 11/11/2014
Former wrestler and Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura has some harsh words for the armed forces this Veterans Day: If given the option today, he'd opt out of military service.
"I hate to say it, but no, I would be a conscientious objector today," the Navy special forces veteran said in a video posted Tuesday. "I don't believe that the military fights for our freedom."
"They give them all the ra ra at the stadiums, and they cheer 'em on," said Ventura, who served as a Reform Party governor of the North Star state from 1999 to 2003. "But when the veterans come home, we pretty much forget about them. They're old news. They're yesterday's garbage. And it's time to move on to the next war."
He pointed to the fallout from the Vietnam War as an example of these attitudes -- and he predicted that veterans from more modern wars would experience the same thing. "There gonna come back to parades, but it's gonna end about right there," he said.
Ventura did say, however, that he isn't anti-veteran. After all, he is one himself, having served in the U.S. Navy Underwater Demolition Team member during the Vietnam War.
"You can hate the war and not hate the vet. The veteran is a pawn. They have to do it. They are not given a choice," he said. "Our vets are honorable people... I bear no grudge."
In particular, Ventura took issue with the large dollar amount pinned to foreign wars, arguing that "international corporations" are the ones who "truly run our country today."
"That's why wars are fought -- so the profiteers of war can make money," Ventura said, pointing to the large portion of the annual budget that goes toward national security and defense.
"If we weren't involved in these wars, we would have more freedom," he said. Complete article
Former wrestler and Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura has some harsh words for the armed forces this Veterans Day: If given the option today, he'd opt out of military service.
"I hate to say it, but no, I would be a conscientious objector today," the Navy special forces veteran said in a video posted Tuesday. "I don't believe that the military fights for our freedom."
"They give them all the ra ra at the stadiums, and they cheer 'em on," said Ventura, who served as a Reform Party governor of the North Star state from 1999 to 2003. "But when the veterans come home, we pretty much forget about them. They're old news. They're yesterday's garbage. And it's time to move on to the next war."
He pointed to the fallout from the Vietnam War as an example of these attitudes -- and he predicted that veterans from more modern wars would experience the same thing. "There gonna come back to parades, but it's gonna end about right there," he said.
Ventura did say, however, that he isn't anti-veteran. After all, he is one himself, having served in the U.S. Navy Underwater Demolition Team member during the Vietnam War.
"You can hate the war and not hate the vet. The veteran is a pawn. They have to do it. They are not given a choice," he said. "Our vets are honorable people... I bear no grudge."
In particular, Ventura took issue with the large dollar amount pinned to foreign wars, arguing that "international corporations" are the ones who "truly run our country today."
"That's why wars are fought -- so the profiteers of war can make money," Ventura said, pointing to the large portion of the annual budget that goes toward national security and defense.
"If we weren't involved in these wars, we would have more freedom," he said. Complete article
Since Jesse Ventura has been much higher profile he's often been vilified much more especially when he had a disagreement wit Chris Kyle that Kyle initiated, and if the court case that resulted from that disagreement was correct then he lied; but even if it wasn't and the description in Kyle's book is accurate it implies that Chris Kyle is justified in punching people out that disagree with the war, which turned out to be based on lies!
No reasonable person would come to that conclusion unless he was thoroughly indoctrinated to believe a bunch of lies, which regrettably many people are. Ironically CNN has recently come out with a new propaganda piece that reminds the public of some of the propaganda tactics it's been using for decades; however it's trying to get credit for exposing the tactic without acknowledging the fact that it's been using it!
One of the most basic and effective principles of propaganda often ironically attributed to Vladimir Lenin is, "A lie told often enough," often with appeals to emotion, "becomes the truth," or at least it seems to for those that don't check their facts.
This has been a well known propaganda tactic that the media including CNN has known about and used for decades to promote their ideology and convince the vast majority of the public that the United States has been fighting for freedom since the revolution. They've recently come up with an "apple" ad where they try to convince the public that they're telling the truth and implying that someone else, perhaps Donald Trump or fringe media outlets like Breitbart is using propaganda, to reinforce their false reputation as "The most trusted name in news," which is one of the lies they repeat over and over again!
Another propaganda principle that is widely understood by people like George Orwell, Hermann Göring, Adolf Hitler and the mass media is that the vast majority of the public have a very short memory; and do little to fact check, or at least they have most of the time, which is why Hermann Göring's explanation in prison about how effective war propaganda has always been in the past has proven to be effective, so far, at least:
Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. additional Hermann Göring quotes
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. additional Hermann Göring quotes
Whether it should go without saying, that I don't like Hermann Göring or his support for the Holocaust anymore than anyone else, or not, he has described war propaganda very effectively and it has worked as he described every time, or almost every time, at least so far.
But does it have to continue working so effectively every time leading us into wars based on lies every time it suits our political purposes?
Not necessarily, if we understand why it has been so effective and what kind of educational institutions it would take to change it!
One of the most important things that we need is of course a much more diverse media that reports different points of views, as many people in alternative media outlets ahve repeatedly pointed out, including me in Alternative Media is an Absolute Necessity, which includes a long list of lower profile media outlets, including many that do a much better job than the mainstream media.
It would also help to understand how they indoctrinate veterans to blindly obey orders without question, and as I pointed out before some veterans that have been through boot camp have learned from it and spoken about against the wars, and in some cases the boot camp indoctrination that teaches blind obedience through a process that involves hazing and intimidation among other things. As I reported in Philip Zimbardo, Lucifer Effect, Stanford Prison Experiment and Eli Roth’s Milgram/Obedience experiment much more extensive than most people realize the military and the Office of Naval Research supported research that was allegedly designed to understand obedience to authority so they could avoid a repeat of World War II; however the knowledge to stand up to these indoctrination methods, has for the most part, been distributed in the academic world, while among the working classes, especially in uneducated rural areas or the South, there is little effort to educate potential camp cadets about them, and the research is used to improve boot camp indoctrination methods.
The military that supported this research has never been in the business of teaching their cadets to question orders, and think for themselves.
This boot camp indoctrination method apparently uses intimidation tactics heavily from the beginning to teach everyone to get with the program believing what they're told and obeying orders without question. Veterans are often taught to believe that they're fighting for freedom and that the enemy is threatening it, even when it is often not true. However, if they question it everyone from the military may join in on the intimidation tactics.
Some of them may eventually rethink things when they're not surrounded by a lot of people inclined to intimidate them if they question orders. There are plenty of memoirs about how hard it is to reconsider this including Lynda Van Devanter's "Home before Morning," where at one point or another she describes how many veterans had to believe that they were fighting for freedom after going through a lot of trauma, since to admit otherwise would mean that they were fighting on the wrong side. A few others in the recent PBS documentary also came to the same conclusion; however in the case of the Vietnam war, and many other conflicts, there never would have been sides in the first place if they had let Vietnam control their own government after World War II as they wanted to according to their own Declaration of Independence.
These veterans found out the hard way, as Jesse Ventura said, that "The veteran is a pawn," that was betrayed first with patriotic propaganda then with intimidating boot camp indoctrination.
Many veterans are apparently so emotionally involved that they can't admit to themselves that they've been used as pawns; and in some cases, the political establishment turns them to to spokespeople to reinforce the lies that cost them their loved ones or led to serious injuries to themselves, including Khizr Khan, Patricia Smith and Tammy Duckworth among many others, adding insult to injury. If people challenge these beliefs they might be portrayed as the villain; however if they don't and the lies continue then there will only be more wars based on lies leading to more veterans sacrificing their lives for nothing.
This denial also leads to even more problems with emotional instability as I pointed out in Teach a soldier to kill and he just might when many of these veterans come back with Post-traumatic stress disorder and act out of anger, often getting involved in more domestic violence incidents and occasionally even mass shootings. Sometimes the same people that help develop the propaganda to indoctrinate veterans in the first place try to have it both ways like David Grossman, who I explained in that article used selective statistics to deny how many veterans were involved in a large number of shootings and in another article, Videogames as ‘murder simulators’ 01/18/2013 attempts to blame video games on the shooting in Sandy Hook.
He may be partially right on this, I've seen some studies, in addition to his, that claim that children that watch a lot of video games are desensitized to violence, and might be more prone to kill; however it is almost certainly not as big a factor as early child abuse leading to escalating violence later in life including military hazing, which also increases violence, despite Grossman's denials.
Also, these video games are also used as part of military training as well; Grossman tries to argue that when it is done in a controlled military training setting that it doesn't lead to shootings however he can't back this up without distorting his statistics.
I don't like pointing out these inconvenient facts anymore than anyone else does; and I don't expect everyone to like it. However even if I don't do the best job drawing attention to it, ignoring these problems will only make them worse.
As I said the vast majority of the mainstream media and even a lot of alternative media outlets don't do a good job pointing out all the lies our government gives us to lead us into wars; however there are some that do including the following articles, which I suspect will hold up to scrutiny much better than the propaganda from the mainstream media:
US Troops Do Not Fight ‘To Keep Us Free’ 01/29/2014
Our Troops do NOT Protect Our Freedom and We Should Stop Thanking Them for Doing So 08/07/2011
American Soldiers Did Not Die Defending Our Freedom 05/27/2014
You don’t protect my freedom: Our childish insistence on calling soldiers heroes deadens real democracy 11/09/2014
The Myth of American Exceptionalism 10/11/2011
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