WAR IS IMPERSONAL IF YOU AREN’T THERE

 

 

The people who are sending us to war don’t have any skin in the game.  To them, it is a game.

 

We destroyed their missile sights – we destroyed their navy – we are winning – we are invincible – we have casualties?  It happens.-  We’ll force regime change – take their oil – destroy their drone capability – destroy their nuclear capability – I’m the greatest President – It’s over when I think it’s over in my bones…  they say, Yes Sir Mr. President…

I would be willing to bet that Trump can not remember the name of one of the 13  military personnel who have so far died as a result of his war.

Remember suckers and losers? 

Neil deGrasse Tyson has written two books that further explore war and civilization:  Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization and Accessory to War.

 

We are now at war in the Middle East: at war, not because Iran is a threat to the homeland; not to protect Israel; not because of weapons of mass destruction; not to force regime change; not to free the Iranian people.

 

Those are the excuses.  We are at war in the Middle East because that is who we are.  We are homo sapiens.

 

Look at the history of the world.  Humans make war because it is in our DNA (see The Accidental Homo Sapiens by Tattersall and Desalle.)

 

When Australopithecus Lucy walked across the African plains, the father of her child was probably smashed in the head by his best friend, to acquire his food and his female.

 

The first battles were likely fought over food and females.   Since that time, we have expanded our reasons for killing.   

Though it is likely World War 4 will be fought over food and females. 

This war began as a vanity move by Trump - it seems to have backfired.  

the Ol'Buzzard

Let's quit calling this the Iran War.

Trump likes his name on everything

Let's call it: 

The Donald J Trump Israeli War

 

 

 

IN THIS WEEK CELEBRATING WAR, CAN WE IMAGINE?

 

please enlarge to watch

You can show respect for the young men who fought and died in wars without agreeing with it.

the Ol'Buzzard

WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST

 

God damn, I’m old – but against the odds, I’m still here.   The avatar for old men is Homer Simson’s father - and that pretty much suits me. 

 

I have seen it all, and it all replays over and over again. 

War in the Middle East, so what’s fucking new?   The only other species that regularly make war and genocide against its kind are Chimpanzees, our first cousins in the animal kingdom. 

We share 98% of our DNA

 

In the United States, peace is just the interval between wars.   We spend more on our military than the next five major militarized countries combined, yet we haven’t won a war since World War Two.

 

We stalemated in Korea, and we lost in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan; and all the scrimmages in between produced nothing. 

 

The root of all wars can be summarized as: 

My God is better than your God, and my dick is bigger than your dick (women don’t start wars.)

 

I despise Donald Trump, especially because of his disrespect for the military.    Among other things, he called the dead at the Arlington National Cemetery losers.  But tangentially, these young men and women died, before they had a chance to live and love; meanwhile, politicians move us on to the next war, and the next, and the next…

 

I spent 22 years in the military, a Vietnam vet.  I have seen what the war shredder does to young men and women psyched on patriotism and glory.  I was one of them.   They too often die young and are mutilated physically and mentally.

 

Life is too precious.  We are here by chance and only go around one time.   Young people have a right to grow old, to have adventures, to love and be loved, and to bask in the beauty of nature.  Wars and the military can steal the right away.  No country and no God is worth dying for.

War! What is it good for?  Absolutely nothing. 

the Ol’Buzzard

 

 

 

 

ENJOY YOURSELF IT’S LATER THAN YOU THINK

ISIS in the Middle East; terrorist around the world; militia morons talking of fighting the government; Korea developing a hydrogen bomb; nuclear weapons stockpiled by nations; police violence; racial violence; religious violence; social prejudices spawning hatred; carbon pollution of the atmosphere; financial motivated dependency on fossil fuels; violence; mayhem; corruption; climate change…  

This is mankind’s legacy for the earth.   This is who we are.   As individuals we are not bad animals; but let us organize in packs and we a blight on the earth.

There was a time when our actions didn’t affect the planet we live on.  We were devastating to the weak and vulnerable of our own species, but the earth could absorb our folly. 

About three million years ago Lucy (Australopithecus Africanis) walked across the plains of South Africa.   It took over three million years for our species to finally gain one billion in population and the ability to change the earth.  

We throw around words like million, billion and trillion until they finally seem small in our imagination.   Actually, If you banged on your desk once every second, twenty four hours a day – nonstop,  it would take you 32 years to bang out one billion, and 32,000 years to bang out one trillion.

The human race population reached one billion about 1800:

1927 – two billion

1960 – three billion

1974 – four billion

1987 – five billion

1999 – six billion

2012 – seven billion

And on January 28, 2016 @ 10:05 am – the time of this writing – the world population topped 7,397,975,316 and climbing.

Check out this link:

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

With each increase in population we increase the consumption of food, water and natural resources; we create exponential garbage pollution, release more hydrocarbons into the atmosphere, and increase our own destructive tendencies and ability to bring about global annihilation.   

When we talk about pollution of the earth it is like blaming the mosquito for malaria: we are the virus.

We think we are so God Damn smart that we can fix things when they get to the panic phase.   But, at some point, because of our pettiness and conceit, a hand is going to reach out of the mire and haul us down.   We will reach a deserved ending: we will inherit the wind.   

Have a good day

the Ol’Buzzard

1984 REVISITED

I urge anyone with time for books to read or reread George Orwell’s 1984.   The similarities to our government is astounding.   It is obvious to the observer that science fiction writing has predicted advances in real science; and we might say George Orwell has predicted our present.

The story, of course, is the extreme of an individual’s manipulation by a government; but the underlying picture of our government’s manipulation of facts and reality is strikingly familiar.

(Note: the movie sucks)

EXCERPTS FROM 1984 FOR CONSIDERATION:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

“The enemy of the moment represents absolute evil.”

“If all others accepted the lie which the party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became true.”

Mission Accomplished

“Who controls the past, ran the party slogan, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

George W Bush Presidential Library

“Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version.  A great deal of the time you were supposed to make them up out of your head.”

“The aim of the high is to remain where they are.   The aim of the middle is to change places with high.   The aim of the low, when they have an aim – for it is an abiding characteristic of the low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives – is to abolish all distinction and create a society in which all men shall be equal.”

U.S. Congress

“Imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public execution, torture to extract confessions, the use of hostages and deportation of whole populations not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive.”

“In the past no government had the power to keep its citizens under constant surveillance.”

“The essential act of the party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty.   To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient…”

Weapons of Mass Destruction

“The Proles (people) are only intermittently conscious of the war.   When it is necessary they can be prodded into frenzies of fear and hatred, but when left to themselves they are capable of forgetting for long periods that the war is happening.  

What War?

 It is in the ranks of the party, and above all the inner party, that the true war enthusiasm is found.”

Republican Neo-Cons

“We know that no one ever seized power with the intention of relinquishing it.  Power is not a means; it is an end.”

Partisan Politics

NEWS SPEAK: (news released designed to diminish the range of thought.)

DOUBLE THINK: (to successfully manipulate the mind to the point that people think the opposite of what is true.)

The correlations are obvious.  

the Ol’Buzzard

MAN IS MADE IN GOD’S IMAGE

MAN IS MADE IN GOD’S IMAGE

AND

GOD IS SUCH A PRICK THAT HE THOUGHT NOTHING OF FUCKING DROWNING EVERYBODY. 

Everyone is appalled at the cruelty of ISIL – but should we be?   The natural desire of groups to live fear free, and especially the affluence of our country, allows us to maintain a system of laws and standard of behavior that suppresses the darker nature of our human kind.

  

We are all (especially males) capable of heinous cruelties toward people ‘not like us.’  You see it in wars and insurrections and mob violence…  When the veneer of civilization is removed the human being often reverts to its baser animal instincts.

You want a snapshot of the nature of human beings?  Just watch elementary kids on the playground barbarize the week and different.

  

Our closest kin in the animal kingdom is the Chimpanzee.  We share 98.4% of our DNA makeup with our simian cousins.    When we see the actions of a marauding band of male chimps attacking a weaker band we are seeing a mirror image of ICIL.

From the earliest history of mankind, cruelty toward weaker groups or individuals has been the bloody legacy of our species.  War is the natural state for humans and peace the interval for rearmament.

Stoning, beheading, lynching, burning, electrocution, gas chambers, shootings, knifings, beatings, drowning, rape, torture: How can I kill the?  Let me count the ways…

We are all capable – and capable of justification…

  

We can put a hellfire missile up your ass baby, and that evening go home and have a barbecue with our family.

 

Decapitating: It is an atrocity when someone else does it; but when we nuke a quarter of a million men, women, and children – we are the good guys; just bringing peace, justice and the American way to the ‘others’ - the bad guys.

I’m just saying:

the Ol’Buzzard

THE AMERICAN WAY: WAR, MOM AND APPLE PIE

Did you ever wonder about the term ‘The American Military Industrial Complex?’   It is said that one third of our national budget is spent on National Security; but, once we include the military, Homeland Security, NSA, CIA (and all the other A’s we don’t know about) along with foreign aide and nation building we are probably closer to fifty-percent. 

We can’t afford health care for US citizens but we can spend a projected one trillion, five hundred billion ($1,500,000,000) for a new F-35 fighter aircraft that so far has been a production disaster.

(Just to get an idea how ridiculous this sum is: If you banged a hammer on top of your desk once every second for twenty four hours a day – it would take you 48,000 YEARS to bang out 1.5 trillion)

I have often written in this blog that war is the natural state with intervals of peace between conflicts in order to regroup.   But the real fact is that war and the military are a financial necessity for this country.  

The base of the US economy is no longer farming, but a military industrial complex.

We buy oil from Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia in turn buys military weaponry from us.   We give foreign aide to Israel and Israel returns the money in the form of weapons purchases.  We don’t just police the world, we arm the world.   We are supplying American weapons to Iraqi Kurdistan to fight ISIL that is armed with American weapons that we originally supplied to the Iraqi military.  This is not new.   The sick joke in Vietnam was: You can tell the North Vietnamese Army from the South Vietnamese Army – because the North Vietnamese have only fifty-percent American weapons. Many of the M-16s in Vietnam were made by the Mattel Toy Company (Made by Mattel – It’s Swell) and I was once issued a military 45 pistol made by Singer – a weapons spin off of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. 

Our economy depends on the military industrial complex.   The military is constantly purchasing tanks, cars, trucks, aircraft, ships, fuel, uniforms, electronic equipment, ordinance, small arms, medical supplies, food and toilet paper…   Much of the U.S.  economy is directly or indirectly supported by military expenditures and by the sales of weapons and supplies sold, or furnished to foreign nations in the form or foreign aide. 

WAR, GOOD GOD YOU ALL – WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR – THE ECONOMY”

the Ol’Buzzard

ZEN OF APATHY

A passenger aircraft shot down in the Ukraine.

There is nothing I can do about it.

800 dead in the 18 day conflict between Israel and Hamas.

There is nothing I can do about it.

Fighting continues in Iraq and Pakistan.

There is nothing I can do about it.

Fighting in Syria, atrocities in Africa.

There is nothing I can do about it.

Russia, Cuba, China;

I am powerless.

A dysfunctional U.S. Congress

Prisoners inhumanely put to death in Oklahoma, Ohio and Arizona.

Obama Care is being challenged in court.

Bigotry, Racism, Sexism, Homophobia…

I vote but my vote is canceled by the Tea Party.

Beyond  my control.

In my mid-seventies, my days are limited, the grim reaper rides bitch on my bike.

It is what it is.

Today I am going to prepare the west side of my house for painting.    I painted the front (south side) first of the week.   I have one more cord of wood to order and stack for winter fuel; and I plan to replace the front storm door before winter sets in.   I haven’t meditated in a long time.   I need to take a few minutes this morning for Zen time.  It is suppose to be a beautiful day today – sunny with temps in the low seventies. 

Change what you can and accept what you can’t change: live in the moment: appreciate this day.

The Ol’Buzzard

SNAFU

SITUATION NORMAL ALL FUCKED UP

When you read the blogs across the internet probably seventy percent of them are doom and gloom.   They expound about things going wrong in their state, their town or the world – and they are right.  Humanity is fucked up.  But there is nothing new. 

The human social condition is like war: there have always been wars and there will always be wars; the weapons change; the venue changes; the participants change but the results is always the same: people die.

The point I am making is: I am 70+ years old and I have seen it all before.  There has never been a time in my lifetime when everything was not fucked up.  My first memories are of the Second World War – then the McCarthy era, Southern states rights and segregation, the Korean War, the Cuban crisis, the Presidents assassination, Vietnam War, integration struggles, race wars, Nixon, Clinton’s blowjob, Russia, the Cold war, Bush years, Iraq…  Then each state, city and town had its own issues: corrupt police forces, corrupt politicians, religious intolerance, murder – rape - riots – carnage – shit, fire and molasses. 

It is amazing that we have the internet and we can express our frustrations and incredulousness with the state of our individual worlds; but nothing has changed and nothing will ever change.   The players will be different, the venues will be different, the crisis of the moment will be different; but the world will remain fucked up – that is the natural order for the human race.  

Most individuals are basically decent people; but as soon as we pack – we heard up – we take power over others we become corrupt.  That’s who we are. 

It is hard to find something positive to blog about – perhaps cats.  

But in the meantime my blog will join the majority seventy percent and continue to express wonder at the insanity the human race brings to bear against itself. 

There is a ZEN story about a man on a journey that builds a boat to cross the river then drags the boat with him for the next hundred miles. 

 

It is good to be cognitive – it is good to be aware – and it is fine to be troubled; but let us remember we all have eighty-six troubles and let’s not drag the boat once we have crossed the river.

Have a good day

the Ol’Buzzard

THE ANSWER TO WAR

WAR: GOOD GOD YE'ALL 

WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?

MOHAVE RAT just published a post about the foolishness of war.  

I have an Idea that could end all wars and save warring countries the expense of maintaining an army and fighting.

When countries cannot reach a civilized agreement on issues and feel that bloodshed is the only answer - I prescribe the following:

1.    Take the top twenty politicians from each country

2.    Strip them buck naked

3.    Issue each two single edge razor blades

4.    Lock them in a large room

5.    Turn off the lights

6.    Either an agreement is reached or the last man standing wins.

I believe this would bring about a lasting peace and we could spend all our money on social programs for the people instead of a run away military complex. 

THIS IS NOT THE GLORY OF WAR

THIS IS

the Ol'Buzzard

PERHAPS WE ARE MARGINALLY INTELLIGENT CREATURES LIVING IN A MEANINGLESS WORLD.

Most everyone knows the fable of the frog and the scorpion. 

A scorpion wishing to cross a river approaches a frog on the bank.

‘Please help me Mr. Frog – I must get across the river – let me ride on your back.’

The frog replies, ‘If I let you on my back you will sting and kill me.”

‘Never,’ the scorpion says ‘for I can not swim and if I were to sting you I also would die.’

‘What would stop you from killing me once we reach the other side?’

The scorpion says, ‘I could kill you now; but if you help me I will be forever indebted to you.’

The frog agrees to carry the scorpion, but half way across the river the scorpion stings the frog.

‘Why have you done this?’ the frog asks.  ‘Now we shall both die.’

‘I cannot help myself,’ the scorpion replies.  ‘It is my nature.”

We live on a small blue planet: one of a billion-billion planets circling a billion-billion stars in one of a billion-billion galaxies.   We are the product of chance – the results of chaos.   Our species has been on this earth a relatively short time.   We evolved as a basic animal, and our animal instincts allowed us to procure the food, shelter and sex we needed for the survival of our species.  The ability and willingness of the male to kill, rape, murder and seek vengeance determined his pecking order and his success in the primitive pack.  

These same instincts are ingrained in our DNA even today, but are antithetic to modern society and the rule of law and the ethos of civilization.   These same ingrained male primitive instincts are the reason for our wars, our violence, our inability to live peacefully and the callous divides between the have and the have not’s. 

To see the real unvarnished human nature you only have to watch middle-school children on a play ground.   

The real violence and mayhem we are capable of as adults rears it head during war time – in a combat zone. 

I personally am aware of the violence and atrocities I am capable of committing. 

I make no apologies (though I have regrets) for this is my nature.  

the Ol’Buzzard

WARS AND THE PEOPLE THAT LOVE THEM.

I have stated before that the normal condition for the United States is war and that the intervals between are used to produce new and better weapons and to grow a new crop of cannon fodder.

  

Let’s look at a list of the major wars the United States has fought: this is by no means a complete list as there are perhaps a hundred skirmishes with nations large and small all over the world that don’t amount to a war; supplying war technology and training to numerous third world nations; and memberships in coalitions that don’t count as wars.    

1.     American Revolution                       1774-1783

2.     Barbary Coast War                          1785-1795

3.     Franco – American War                   1798-1800

4.     War of 1812                                    1812-1815

5.     Mexican American War                    1846-1848

6.     Civil War                                         1861-1865

7.     Spanish American War                     1898

8.     Philippine – American War               1899-1902

9.     World War One                               1917-1918

10.  World War Two                              1941-1945

11.   Korean War                                    1950-1953

12.  Vietnam War                                   1960-1975

13.   Grenada                                                    1983

14.   Invasion of Panama                         1989

15.    Persian Gulf War                            1990-1991

16.    Invasion of Afghanistan                   2001

17.    Invasion of Iraq                              2003-2011

Did I miss some?  I don’t doubt it. 

In the early days, before the World Wars, we honed our war skills with Indian campaigns.   No wonder the Native Americans still hold a grudge against the government and white men in particular.

1.     King Philips War                              1675-1676

Wampanoga, Narragansett and Nipumuck against New England colonist.

2.   Numerous scrimmages with Indians throughout the colonies.

3.   Cherokee War                                      1761

4.   Indians that sided with the British during the Revolutionary war (an enemy of my enemy is my friend):                             1784-1783

 Iroquois, Cherokee, Shawnee, Seminole, Ojibwa, Creek, Chickamauga, Meskwaki, Miami, Mingo, Kickapoo, Lenape, Mascoutah, Potawatomi, Sauk, Wyandot, Choctaw.

5.  Tecumseh War                               1811

Assisting the British in the War of 1812:  

Shawnee, Red Stick, Ojibwa, Chickamauga, Meskwaki, Iroquois, Miami, Mingo, Odawa, Kickapoo, Lenape, Mascoutah, Potawatomi, Sauk, Wyandot.

6.   Creek War                                    1813

7.   First Seminole War                        1817-1818

8.   Black Hawk War                           1832

Ho-Chunk, Potawatomi

9.   Second Seminole War                   1835-1842

10.   Pitt River Expedition                      1850

Tolowa, Nomlaki, Chimariko, Wintun.

11.  Apache War                                 1849-1886

Apache, Ute, Yavapai

12.  Puget Sound War                          1855-1856

Nisqually, Muckleshoot, Payullup, Klickitat, Haida, Tlingit

13.  Rogue River Wars                         1855-1856

Rogue River People

14.  Third Seminole War                       1855-1858

Yakima War                                         1855-1858

15. Navajo War                                     1856-1858

16.  Paiute War                                      1860

Paiute, Bannock, Shoshone

17.  Dakota War                                    1862

Dakota Sioux

18.  Colorado War                                 1863-1865

Cheyenne, Arapaho

19.  Snake War                                       1864-1868

Paiute, Bannock, Shoshone

20.  Powder River Expedition                  1865

Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho

21.  Red Cloud War                               1866-1868

Lakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho

22.  Comanche War                               1867-1875

Comanche, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa

23.  Red River War                                1874-1875

Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche, Kiowa

24.  Black Hills War (Little Big Horn.)     1876-1877

Lakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho

25.  Nez Perce War                                1877

26.  Bannock War                                  1878

Bannock, Shoshone

27.  Cheyenne War                                1878-1879

28.  Sheepeater Indian War                     1879

Shoshone

29.  White River War                              1879

Ute

30.  Ghost Dance War                             1890-1891

Sioux

By 1900 there is no one left to war in this country so we turn our sights to other countries.  

In this day and age we have bases and troops and Naval ships scattered all over the world.  If we are not in a perpetual state of war we are in perpetual readiness – just waiting for the next one. 

the Ol’Buzzard