I know many veterans who think this way as well, my grandfather became very anti-war post WW2. He served in it and lost 2 out of his 3 brothers to it. He always told me when I was growing up that war is pointless and just a game to the elites of this world. They treat us like pawns and sacrifice us for their benefit
It has proven incredibly difficult to communicate to fellow former colleagues on our role in maintaining an immoral empire. The patriotism we believed in was hijacked to perpetuate global dominance for all types of “logical” reasons. The violation of sovereignty of peoples across the globe will always conjure up resistance. It is unsurprising it is dominated by the most violent and morally flexible of factions in areas where the strictest resource and populace control operations are deployed. So we send the patriots in to fight for state instilled ideals, not so coincidentally aligned with the very structure needed to continue global dominance over a satellite state. They fight us, which a great deal of us believe it is them fighting the ideals, but this is very small in the causality graph. It is the occupation they fight. Our presence and our overlords domination desires with the approved warlords and oligarchs they assign to steward over such a satellite state.
They desire autonomy to decide for themselves how land and people are organized. Sounds a little 1776ish. What is best for global stability is our overlords decision optimization metric not those we send our Patriots to sacrifice to tame. It is their liberty from us and who we align with that drives them. But down at the level of physical interaction, when the bullets fly, the bombs explode, and consequences of power plays from global oligarchs become real, the individuals pay the cost. They are mourned by their own as heroes. Just like we do. Heartbreakingly too often for a purpose that was not in their best interest and a far cry from the propaganda reasons used to create loyalty, discipline, and respect to orders and decrees handed down from on high. Power games from the owner and political classes. All for the promise of money for a better life, a skill set to achieve sustained prosperity, or the glory of defeating an immoral monster or defending your fellow countrymen from tyrannical powers.
Sacrifice for others is a virtue, and even to the misguided and confused I cannot deny them the honor regardless of that fact, even when it was mostly a propaganda campaign that conflated reasons for them to exercise their sacrifice. However, there is no shortage of bad men being honored today, just as their is no shortage of bad men they likely killed prior to meeting their own end. Wrath and rage and a perverted sense of purpose by terrorizing others drives more people to willingly participate than anyone wants to admit. To some it is their own ticket to the power and political class.
The warrior class must transition back down scales of society to focus more locally and reject this empire of dominance. It’s very existence perpetuates consequences to the innocent at such scales it matters not it’s “good” intentions nor utilitarian calculations. Natural rights are violated on the regular and the warrior class is used to do so both domestically and internationally. May our awakening to the realities of the sins of our overlords (and of ours for blindly following them) change the context on how we view this weekend. Not necessarily to downplay the importance of sacrifice for a cause, a righteous sacrifice is a virtuous one, but to understand the complete tragedy of useless or immoral sacrifice to pad the comfort and wealth of the immoral. There is no shortage of that occurring this weekend either. A welcomed start of new understandings.
Amen Bro Quiñones !
thank you
I know many veterans who think this way as well, my grandfather became very anti-war post WW2. He served in it and lost 2 out of his 3 brothers to it. He always told me when I was growing up that war is pointless and just a game to the elites of this world. They treat us like pawns and sacrifice us for their benefit
Fucking heartbreaking
It has proven incredibly difficult to communicate to fellow former colleagues on our role in maintaining an immoral empire. The patriotism we believed in was hijacked to perpetuate global dominance for all types of “logical” reasons. The violation of sovereignty of peoples across the globe will always conjure up resistance. It is unsurprising it is dominated by the most violent and morally flexible of factions in areas where the strictest resource and populace control operations are deployed. So we send the patriots in to fight for state instilled ideals, not so coincidentally aligned with the very structure needed to continue global dominance over a satellite state. They fight us, which a great deal of us believe it is them fighting the ideals, but this is very small in the causality graph. It is the occupation they fight. Our presence and our overlords domination desires with the approved warlords and oligarchs they assign to steward over such a satellite state.
They desire autonomy to decide for themselves how land and people are organized. Sounds a little 1776ish. What is best for global stability is our overlords decision optimization metric not those we send our Patriots to sacrifice to tame. It is their liberty from us and who we align with that drives them. But down at the level of physical interaction, when the bullets fly, the bombs explode, and consequences of power plays from global oligarchs become real, the individuals pay the cost. They are mourned by their own as heroes. Just like we do. Heartbreakingly too often for a purpose that was not in their best interest and a far cry from the propaganda reasons used to create loyalty, discipline, and respect to orders and decrees handed down from on high. Power games from the owner and political classes. All for the promise of money for a better life, a skill set to achieve sustained prosperity, or the glory of defeating an immoral monster or defending your fellow countrymen from tyrannical powers.
Sacrifice for others is a virtue, and even to the misguided and confused I cannot deny them the honor regardless of that fact, even when it was mostly a propaganda campaign that conflated reasons for them to exercise their sacrifice. However, there is no shortage of bad men being honored today, just as their is no shortage of bad men they likely killed prior to meeting their own end. Wrath and rage and a perverted sense of purpose by terrorizing others drives more people to willingly participate than anyone wants to admit. To some it is their own ticket to the power and political class.
The warrior class must transition back down scales of society to focus more locally and reject this empire of dominance. It’s very existence perpetuates consequences to the innocent at such scales it matters not it’s “good” intentions nor utilitarian calculations. Natural rights are violated on the regular and the warrior class is used to do so both domestically and internationally. May our awakening to the realities of the sins of our overlords (and of ours for blindly following them) change the context on how we view this weekend. Not necessarily to downplay the importance of sacrifice for a cause, a righteous sacrifice is a virtuous one, but to understand the complete tragedy of useless or immoral sacrifice to pad the comfort and wealth of the immoral. There is no shortage of that occurring this weekend either. A welcomed start of new understandings.