Quoth the Vultures “Evermore”
Edward curtin
On the short roof outside the bedroom window, two black vultures sit, staring in. They have come to remind me of something. I put my book down and peer back at these strange looking creatures.
The book: Our War: What We Did in Vietnam And What It Did to Us by David Harris. I had read it when it was first published in 1996 and it has stuck with me, as has the utterly savage US war against Vietnam that killed so many millions, what the Vietnamese call The American War.
I am of the same generation as Harris, the courageous draft resister and anti-war campaigner who died on February 6. Like him, many of us who were of draft age then have never been able to extricate the horror of that war from our minds. Most, I suppose, but surely not those who went to Vietnam to fight, just moved on and allowed the war to disappear from their consciousness as they perhaps tried to think of it as a “mistake” and to live as if all the constant American wars since weren’t happening. As for the young, the war against Vietnam is ancient history, and if they learned anything about it in school, it was erroneous for sure, a continuation of the lie.
But it was no mistake; it was an intentional genocidal war waged to torture, kill, and maim as many Vietnamese as possible and to use drafted (enslaved) American boys to do the killing and suffer the consequences. Its Phoenix Program, the CIA’s assassination and torture operation, became the template for Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, CIA black sites, hybrid wars, terrorist actions, etc. up to today. Harris writes:
[that] calling the war a mistake is the fundamental equivalent of calling water wet or dirt dirty […] Let us not lose sight of what really happened. In this particular ‘mistake,’ at least 3 million people died, only 58,000 of whom were Americans. These 3 million people died crushed in the mud, riddled with shrapnel, hurled out of helicopters, impaled on sharpened bamboo, obliterated in carpets of explosives dropped from bombers flying so high they could only be heard and never seen; they died reduced to chunks by one or more land mines, finished off by a round through the temple or a bayonet through the throat, consumed by sizzling phosphorous, burned alive by jellied gasoline, strung up by their thumps, starved in cages, executed after watching their babies die, trapped on the barbed wire calling for their mothers. They died while trying to kill, they died while trying to kill no one, they died heroes, they died villains, they died at random, they died most often when someone who had no idea who they were killed them under the orders of who had even less idea than that.
That’s the truth. Unvarnished. But such historical truth hurts to consider, for it reminds us that the belief in the U.S.A.’s good intentions is a delusion. The war against Vietnam was immoral, but even that word fails to grasp it. Pure evil is truer. And to consider that war on military terms alone, one must accept the fact the U.S. lost the war despite all its military technology.
Time, that truly mysterious bird, forces us back to the past as it perpetually opens to the future – all in the meditative present. I look out the window and think how each of us lives in the time circles of our days, morning till night and then the same again and again as these small carousels carry us like arrows to the day time runs out for us. Time is a circle and an arrow within a circle and…pure mystery.
It encloses us. And when we are gone, as is dear David Harris, the circle game goes on and on as yesterday’s wars are resurrected today. An unbroken circle of human madness. Yet many carry on in hope because conscience calls. And now is all the time we have.
I am writing this on Ash Wednesday, the day Christians begin Lent and take ashes on our foreheads to remind us of our mortality – dust to dust. Six weeks later comes Easter, the Resurrection from the dead, the day of hope. Six circular weeks celebrated every spring within the circle of every year on a calendar that moves straight ahead with the clicking of the numbers.
Death, hope, and resurrection, even as history suggests it is hopeless to stop wars. That the vultures always triumph. Yet many carry it on in hope because conscience calls. And all time is now.
Yes, I look out and the vultures’ gaze reduces me to a cataleptic state for a few moments. Then the thought of David Harris and his book on the table transports me back to the past, while my vulture visitors mouth the words “Evermore, Evermore” to remind me that the same war vultures are here now and are eager for prey in the future. They devour the dead.
They have never left, just as the truth about the U.S. war against Vietnam has not, if one allows it to sink in. It is a lesson not too late for the learning, for the United States warfare state has continued to wage wars all around the world. None are mistakes. It would be a terrible mistake to think so.
Cuba, Iraq, Serbia, Nicaragua, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Chile, Indonesia, China, Afghanistan, Philippines, Yemen, Somalia, Russia via Ukraine, etc. – all intentional and all based on lies. It’s the American Way, just as it was for Vietnam.
Quoth the vultures “Evermore.”
Like David Harris, I refused to go to the war but the war came to me. When I became a conscientious objector from the Marines, I avoided killing Vietnamese but their killing by my countrymen has haunted me to this day. Unlike David, who was far more courageous than I, I didn’t go to prison, although I was prepared to do so. But I learned then, and have never forgotten, that my country is controlled by blood-thirsty vultures.
Flying back in time, I remember a conversation I had with a friend on the plane to Marine boot camp at Parris Island, that infamous torture chamber in South Carolina where boys are made into professional killers. I told him how confused I was since I hadn’t been raised to kill people. Actually the opposite. As a good Catholic boy, I was taught to love others, not to kill them. No one I knew ever said they saw a contradiction. Yet here I was going to do that. It was insane.
I kept conflating the slogan “The Marines Build Men: Body, Mind, and Spirit” with the advertising jingle I grew up hearing from the New York Yankees’ announcer, Mel Allen, who would intone the sponsor’s (Ballantine Beer) slogan: remember fans “The Three Ring Sign: Purity, Body, and Flavor – So Ask the Man for Ballantine.” Then there was the Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: let us pray; men built by the Marines; purity and impurity, body, God’s body, bodies denied and maimed, killing other bodies, “In the Name of the Father and the Son and… “ It all felt so bizarre and my mind was a confused whirligig of contradictions. What the hell was I doing on that plane, I thought. Whose life was it anyway?
October 6, 1966. Zippo Squads on CBS News, setting fire to peasant huts in Vietnam. When I was younger, a Zippo lighter seemed so cool and manly. Silvery and clicky, a cigarette in the corner of my mouth. A real tough guy. John Wayne or Humphrey Bogart.
These boys were on a flatbed truck with their plastic guns as they presented themselves at a Veterans Day Parade in Albany, Oregon in 1991.
This parade was a few months after the U.S. Military won Gulf War I, otherwise know as “Desert Storm.” The people at the parade were overwhelmed with joy that the US had “won” another war.
Little did they know that the war was a slaughter. Like Viet Nam, the U.S. War Machine went berserk with their systematic killing and destroying infrastructure. Every time you buy a boy a war toy, you trample his soul.
In the film “ All Quiet On The Western Front,” the key word in this title for me is the word, “Quiet.” Soldiers stayed quiet about the horrors of war, as they were too traumatized to talk about it. The truth is never passed down to the next generation.
When it comes their time to go to war, they are a patriotic blank slate. The entertainment of violence in the United States is a malignant disease. When boys come home from war, they stop growing emotionally.
PTSD is a state of being in which the emotions have failed to grow to the stature of the intellect. Without help, it is a slow death sentence.
Memories. That’s what vultures can do. One look and you are gone.
In the 1960s, things were simpler. Although there were many newspapers then, and people read much more, it was television with its few major networks that fixated people. Unlike today – when there is no military draft, the realities of U.S. wars are hidden from television viewers, and the internet is regularly scrubbed of the grizzly truth of our wars – in the 1960s, bloody images from Vietnam became a staple of the evening news shows.
Harris writes:
We must not forget: it was a more simpleminded age, the information superhighway was still a deer trail, and network television was taken as reality, giving the folks back home a vivid, utterly riveting look at what some of their boys were going through, a kind of visceral access available to no previous generation of Americans.
To accompany those sights and sounds, the folks back home were also given a running explanation of what was going on from their government. And the latter created the war’s second front. Unprecedented visibility ensured that in this war, the government fought one war in the paddies against its NLF and North Vietnamese adversaries and another over the U.S. airwaves, trying to put the appropriate spin on events and convince America that there really was some important reason for going through all this.
There wasn’t enough political support for the war to do otherwise, and television had too much impact. The obvious consequence was that Lyndon Johnson and then Richard Nixon spent a good deal of their energy playing to the cameras, just trying to make the war look like what America thought its wars should look like.
More simpleminded it may have been, but that so-called simplemindedness together with the visual imagery from Vietnam – despite all the government propaganda – did help turn many people against the war despite Nixon’s ruthless ability to keep it running so long.
Everything is different today, except for the propaganda and the wars. A look back to Vietnam is crucial for understanding what’s happening now, for it makes absolutely clear that the US government has no compunction about killing millions of innocent people for its evil ends, whatever they may be.
Then, it would destroy a village in order to save it; today, it will destroy the world in order to save it. It is the logic of madmen in the grip of evil beyond description. Yet most people repress the thought that nuclear war is very close.
All the mainstream media headlines about Ukraine echo the US propaganda about the American War against Vietnam. Just substitute the word Russian for National Liberation Front or Viet Cong. They are suffering extraordinary casualties. The tide is turning. “The enemy was being taught the hard way,” writes Harris, “that aggression does not pay. We were steadily destroying their capacity to fight…Victory was just around the corner.”
It’s easy to laugh at the parallels until a vulture comes calling. The seeming unreality of their visitation is only equaled by the delusional nature of what passes for news today.
Quoth the Vultures “Evermore.”
David Harris was right about the 1960s when he said, “All that craziness had compromised the nation’s epistemology, rendering our accustomed patterns of knowing dysfunctional.” This is true a thousand times over today. If the ‘60s were simpler times, the digital internet revolution and AI have scrambled many people’s minds into a morass perfectly suited for today’s government lies. “Not only was it hard to know what was really going on,” he writes of Vietnam, “but it was even hard to know how we would know what was really going on if we stumbled over it.”
Then came a shocking surprise: the Tet Offensive that began on January 31, 1968 when everything became quite clear. This massive attack by the NFL and VC was “the mother of all such epiphanies.” All official lies were exposed and any prominent dissenter to these lies about the war had to be eliminated, thus Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated in quick order by the government that would go on for seven more years to wage its genocidal war against the Vietnamese and neighboring Cambodia and Laos.
That was long ago and far away, but it’s worth contemplating. No one knows what exactly is around the corner in Ukraine. But then, I didn’t expect two vultures to visit me with their warning.
I’m just passing on their message. Epiphanies happen. But so do cataclysms.
All time is now.
Although David Harris has died, he and the many others, such as Randy Kehler, who were caged in federal prisons for resisting the draft and opposing the war against Vietnam, live on to inspire us to believe that if we resist the warmongers, someday all free birds might chant in unison “Nevermore.”
Here’s their story, a revelatory film about David and those who refused the siren song of evil: The Boys Who Said No
True patriots.
Edward Curtin is an independent writer whose work has appeared widely over many years. His website is edwardcurtin.com and his new book is Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies.
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did you know morgan freeman and jimmy hendrix are the same person?
Must have been rough being born twice (1937 & 1942) – first as a Gemini, then as a Sagittarius (opposite signs). But someone had to do it!
Their dicks are different lengths.
Shared memories … literally
(from ‘The Giver (2014)‘ )
My brother was flown out of McGuire AFB in New Jersey on Jan 29, 1968, Vietnam bound. The plane got held up in Okinawa for 24 hours due to the start of the Tet Offensive, and when it finally landed a mortar attack ensued as he and the others disembarked. Quite a year while he was there, neither i nor my parents were ever the same again.
They all told me to “get a pair of boots like these”, almost in unison. Nearly all of them were holding up a foot to show off their army surplus work boots known as “jungle boots”. They were canvas topped, green camouflaged, hard rubber soled, cleated, high top boots designed to prevent jungle rot of the foot. Something they were taught to fear. Number one rule was to take care of your feet in Nam. It was my first day of my summer job. Every morning the group congregated in the coffee shop before heading out to their respective routes. Much like a VFW hall except that they were drinking coffee and not beer. As I added cream and sugar to my coffee they shouted “PUSSY”. They all took their coffee black. Most of them were Viet Nam vets. Calm, controlled, muscular, confident and scary. I was a 17 year… Read more »
The 60s were a mistake — we spent the post war years almost idealistically nurturing a generation of children, We focused on their health and education with decent schools and great teachers (GI Bill / UK equivalent)** and what did they do for us? They not only flat out refused to fight en masse but were strongly advocating social and racial justice, anti-imperialist, anti-materialist and generally were starting to shake the very foundations of the country. So we had to take measures to right things. These didn’t take root overnight — the 70s into the 80s were still a bit of a free for all — but gradually as the screws were tightened people lost sight of global issues, turning in on themselves in ever more fragmented groups, becoming a nation of insecure debtors all scrabbling for the ever dwindling supply of crumbs. You can track this through the evolution… Read more »
I was born in the 70s all we worried about is whether we had enough food or if our dad would kill us all coming back from the pub.
There’s been gay people since time began. There’s never been I don’t know who am that’s another load of psychology and mental illness. I’m a woman I know who I am I can make babies, A man knows he can create those babies.By splitting and messing with nature and being stupid the world society will only get dumber.
We do need to drive down human fertility. But surely there must be more tasteful ways of doing it.
I don’t know. People have been doing what comes naturally for thousands of years – and it ain’t made the human race smarter yet. So maybe something other than gender needs to come into play.
The “little head” always thinks it is smarter than the “big head”.
Male to female is two genders female to male is two genders. Male and female is two genders.what you want to be is a unicorn mythical in-between weird hybrid creature so let’s just call them what they are creatures with disturbed minds.
You need to watch Matt Wash’s documentary, “What is a Woman”. He is affiliated with The Daily Wire. He is still doing speeches and showing the movie on college campuses (by invitation of conservative campus groups, I might add) with followup question and answer sessions. Leftist protests are significant. Mostly trannies. Colleges have become more reluctant about banning and censoring his message now that illegal first amendment violators are being outed. A good thing. I don’t know if the movie is available for free just yet. It might be on Rumble. Matt Wash and The Daily Wire have become somewhat of a sensation lately and largely due to Matt Walsh. I highly recommend going there if you haven’t yet. I subscribe. It is not cheap to be a full access subscriber. Better than a political donation by far. https://www.dailywire.com/
In 1945, before the unnecessary atomic bombing of Japan, the US had an entire island off of Japan used to store weapons and materiel for a 300 thousand-man land invasion of Japan. An order was made, half of that massive stockpile was sent to Korea and half was sent to Vietnam. The Cold War had not yet been declared, the USSR was still an ally. Yet the decision for the wars in Korea and Vietnam had already been made.
This bombshell information is from L. Fletcher Prouty’s book JFK: The CIA, Vietnam and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy.
japan was firebombed/napalmed, nuclear weapons do not exist
Can you provide a link to some evidence for that?
Neither do you.
And why do those war vultures keep returning? Humanity stands on the precipice of another world war, unable to stop it. This is despite all the facts we know about the destructiveness of nuclear war. All wars are fought to fill the void of powerlessness. But power is an illusion. No empire has ever held on to it permanently, yet convinced itself it could. Until power is seen for what it truly is – transitory – those birds of prey will keep coming back.
https://patternofhistory.wordpress.com/
In the ’60’s, the media hadn’t been corporatized to the point of irrelevancy as it is today. Daniel Ellsberg, heroic whistleblower and anti-war activist who is now dying, will be forever remembered for getting the Washington Post to publish the Pentagon Papers, which revealed the depth of lies behind that illegal war. The news brought the war into people’s living rooms every night, brought the protests for civil, labor, environmental, consumer safety, women’s rights, etc. The era was an explosion of social, ecological and spiritual renewal, much like the era that inspired the story of Jesus was a time when people were fighting for economic justice, to “forgive us our debts”, literally. A culture that pursues purpose, truth, justice and beauty invites new discoveries and that leads to unpredictability, which cannot be tolerated. So from the 70’s on, the pilfering class has done everything to stamp out diversity of thought,… Read more »
The Pentagon Papers was an internal history of the Vietnam War from 1945 to 1969. In it, it documents meetings regarding Vietnam war policy held a day before the assassination of JFK and a day after. Both entries refer to “the president.” But nowhere does the PP mention that the president was assassinated.
The documentary’s good (The Boys Who Said NO!). Spoilt only by the ending.
The implication of the ending seems to be that resistance for ANY cause is good (and particularly good for those Soros-funded causes the media conveniently highlights for you) – climate change, BLM, LGBQ etc.
Not all causes are created equal
Causes are not the problem – methods are. Every cause begins by being important to some who have genuinely felt the sting of unfair social treatment.
It’s when causes become results-oriented to the exclusion of every other consideration, which makes them ripe for management by those who may have hidden agendas, that they become a problem.
Accepted. The use of violence or non-violence in resisting being a key method choice.
From the documentary:
‘God created war so that Americans would learn geography.’ (Twain).
‘Only the dead have seen the end of war.’(Plato).
‘All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.’ (Orwell).
‘War does not determine who is right – only who is left.’ (Russell).
100% agree with these venerable men’s quotes and we ‘should’ all love and respect one another… However, what do we do about what happened over the past 3 years where millions have died from a bug that was (in one way or the other) created by the likes of Fauci with the support of the American politicians. The lies, deceit and murder, cannot go unpunished. Fix this and wars may just start to recede. Biden must not be honored he must be vilified by the very people who protested against Vietnam and all the other social injustices. Failure to do so, makes them complicit and what ever they did in the past irrelevant. China need to pay for preparations to all who were ‘injured’ by this fiasco. Big Pharma must be also be punished so they never ever wage war on us. The MSM and their proprietors, reporters who embedded… Read more »
Lock em up.
For keeps.
In your list, you omitted the most brutal and sadistic war: Korea.
And the all the Roman wars and… Condemn the profiteers and politicians, but some wars are fought (initially) for the right reasons. The Communists are the largely responsible for most of the wars and yet always get off without even a censure.
All wars are brutal.
I see the commies and pink wokes didn’t like my comment.
‘Rather than relying on a violent mass movement, death squads and even the occassional suspension of the social function and power of the bourgeoisie, contemporary authoritarianism in fact sits very comfortably within Western-style electoral democracies and a free market framework. In the absense of a radical, communist workers movement (the eradication of which was the task of Nazism), there was no longer any need to militarize the whole of society. militarization of the police seemed to be sufficient.’
Victorious Defeat:
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/victorious-defeat?pc=1501
It’s hard to explain the pure joy, when you know you are going to lose your job, and your girlfriend suddenly ends it, and your ex, sort of kind of laughs…
No job, No Girlfriend. No Prospects….
It was almost surreal. When we met we both blushed…
In fact she went cherry red.
“You’ve got me now”
Still here.
Still in Love.
We didn’t get jabbed.
Tony
I’m glad you were able to avoid going. Can you imagine if everyone refused to go? What kind of world we would live in. My dad was sent to Vietnam for two years. He was a helicopter search and rescue pilot after being trained as a fighter pilot. He was able to go as SARS because of his beliefs against killing. Still it destroyed him and my family. It was hard growing up on military bases during that time. In school especially as they announced the MIAs and POWs to us kids. My dad was shot down and listed as MIA. He survived but the trauma to my mom when they came to our house to tell us. If only parents didn’t teach their kids that going to war is honorable. What is honorable about that? And then the bumper stickers – Proud mom of a US Marine in Afghanistan.… Read more »
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus, and we petty men Walk under his huge legs and peep about To find ourselves dishonorable graves. Men at some time are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings. -Shakespeare —– I often refer to the 60s as simpler times. Admittedly, most of the time I’m just muttering to myself. Who wants to listen to this old fart, anyway? Especially when elders have been relegated to kill rooms of ‘caring’ homes. Yes, I’ve joined that stage of generational succession where one’s uselessness is echoed in the refrain ‘things used to be better’, as the bad gets buried to enjoy some fading memory. Yet it seems every generation lately just might be right when opining that ‘things are getting worse’, at least when measured by the death… Read more »
War is a Lie
Wars Are Not Fought Against Evil
Wars Are Not Launched in Defense
Wars Are Not Waged Out of Generosity
Wars Are Not Unavoidable
Warriors Are Not Heroes
War Makers Do Not Have Noble Motives
Wars Are Not Prolonged for the Good of Soldiers
Wars Are Not Fought on Battlefields
Wars Are Not Won, and Are Not Ended By Enlarging Them
War News Does Not Come From Disinterested Observers
War Does Not Bring Security and Is Not Sustainable
Wars Are Not Legal
Wars Cannot Be Both Planned and Avoided
War Is Over If You Want It
– David Swanson
And this is where it starts: “Every time you buy a boy a war toy, you trample his soul.” (Mike Hastie)
I was part of that generation, I too refused to go. I was a senior in college and I received a letter from the draft board. reclassifying me ending my student deferment. I appealed by draft status, Eventually I went before the draft board and by then I was in grad school. I went before about three or five really old white men who asked me questions then told me I was going to be drafted. In my mind I said, “No I’m not!” I went to the induction processing center at 401 N. Broad Street in Philly and took the physical; but because I knew I was not going to step forward, my blood pressure was elevated. The Army doctor asked me if I had high blood pressure? I responded “not to my knowledge”. He gave me an option either return to the induction center three consecutive to be… Read more »
Fine, except that at any time before ca. 2015 you would not have written “five really old white men” but now you seem to feel the need to tip your hat to BLM, the NYT, critical race theory, etc. Why is this?
Good point, I didn’t notice but too true! More 1984ish type crap going on.
I grew up during the final stages of state sanction US apartheid color and race caste in America. I suspect you are of the ilk who want’s to deny this history. My point is the conscription service was administered by white men, this is a fact whether you accept it or not. In 1969 I saw no Blacks at the induction center at all except for potential inductees; not even janitors or elevator operators! During that time Blacks were disproportionately drafted because we didn’t have the political clout or economic status to avoid conscription. From 1965-1970 my neighborhood experienced two major waves of draftees a few were even drafted by the Marines. The two I knew who were drafted by the Marines came back maimed or psychologically wasted as did my peers who were drafted by the Army. You don’t know a thing about me so don’t dare to suppose… Read more »
Instead of 4F, one got a lY, which was my first classification (for elevated blood pressure). Then I got a college deferment. Then I got drafted, but refused induction. Tried to get into Canada but I couldn’t. So I ended up going to trial; but I won on a technicality. Then President Nixon set up the Draft Lottery; my number was 96, which got me to my 26th birthday in February. The irony is that the lady who ran the local Draft Board was an acquaintance (because her daughter was a fellow student who I’d known since grade school). This lady said she felt personally hurt by my decision not to be drafted! How’s that for irony? My life could have been ruined or ended – and she felt hurt! Three students from my 1962 high school graduating class refused induction. One made it to Canada; the other I never… Read more »
Now that your mention it, I was classified 1Y also. I never saw any females anywhere not even as secretaries, not at my appeal “hearing” or the induction center, it was all men. The draft devastated my neighborhood a working class community in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. I lost a lot of peers from high school and college in that war, the ones who came back were really changed in a negative way; except for the guys I knew who went into the Air Force. They were mostly logistical support not combat pilots. They were rarely on the front lines. Four of my friends who signed up for the Army’s “buddy system” were sent to Germany and didn’t make it to Vietnam, they came back in better psychological shape than our peers who went to Southeast Asia.
Ha! My one and only older brother– also from Philadelphia– topped the draft lottery; his number was 1 (one).
He was away at college, but the Philadelphia Bulletin, IIRC, sent a reporter to our house to get a photo of him; they interviewed him by telephone, and we still have the yellowed clippings of his fifteen minutes of fame.
Fortunately, I think that by that time they’d suspended or reduced the draft to a point where he was never called.
Ali
The iconic photograph of Ali standing over a fallen Liston is the result of the latter being threatened and bribed into throwing the fight. Liston was unbeatable. Liston was once in an altercation with mobster Moe Dalitz. Dalitz used the N word in a death threat to Liston. Dalitz received an award from the ADL.
Joan Baez has been pushing the clot shot.
She’s also quite the Fauci sycophant; she painted his portrait:
Another middle class do gooder.
They don’t have a fucking clue.
The most enviable generation. They get to be rich and famous and fawned over AND gain reputations for being groovy rebels! (You think they may have noticed a bit of cognitive dissonance there but hey who cares when you’re raking in the dosh and posing for the photo shoots!)
$$$$$$$MUG, writ large George.
Enablers of Evil,
If you are looking for an adjective: Hypocrite.
Crap painting.
Well, it’s the thought that counts.
It’s not exactly the visual equivalent of “Diamonds and Rust”. 😉
You mean: It’s the delusion that counts…..
Is it possible Ms. Baez was making an ironic statement with her portrait of Fauci? It does give him a rather sinister look, wouldn’t you say?
I’m too lazy to hunt for it, but I’m pretty sure that I lifted the posted image of Joan and the portrait from an article featuring Joanie positively gushing about Fauci.
She definitely extols him as a hero and savior who selflessly toils to bring health and healing to the masses. I assume she painted the portrait from a photograph, although it’s possible that Fauci would sit for her.
Perhaps she thought that grim demeanor made Doctor Doom look suitably determined or resolute. 🤔
My step-father — huge Baez fan — texted a bunch of us a couple of months back, to the effect that “Fauci is the greatest public servant of my lifetime.”
Well if Ms Baez is being ironic she’s clearly turning irony into a career. Look at this lot:
https://joanbaezart.com/artist/1070
Perhaps the grins on the faces of Little Greta and Big Michael Moore are intended as some kind of sardonic undercutting? Nah I think the irony is elsewhere.
Yuck. But I think I like her more as a painter than as a singer.
Since you made me look, made me look:
I scrolled down in spite of myself, and finally found the Fauci portrait near the bottom, with the simple title or caption “Tony”.
Who knows, but it wouldn’t surprise me if this isn’t merely artistic license– i.e. perhaps they really are on a first-name basis.
It is hard to understand why she would support the government, especially after leading the anti government charge for all those years. The irony of hypocrisy.
And to think that these people were once our heroes.
I read somewhere that she is in denial after suffering severe side effects.
Useless
An antiwar movement is useless if it can be steered by the central bankers. The fact that the large 2003 antiwar movement vanished into a black hole means it is indeed controlled by the deep state.
Good point…
I have yet to see anything anti war when I visited the town or city on the weekends like I used to.
Nothing about U.K involvement in Ukraine.
TV in the hands of the psychopaths.
Don’t forget: the US was running the Iraq “Shock and Awe” abomination – and the antiwar protests were quite small here in the US. Nowhere near as large as in other countries.
But, basically, ALL movements are useless so long as money remains the primary social elixir.
Yep, and its in the hands of the chosen few and their delusional agendas which are a danger to us all.
Edward Curtin – you always remind me of a holy friend (its hard to explain)
“If the ‘60s were simpler times, the digital internet revolution and AI have scrambled many people’s minds into a morass perfectly suited for today’s government lies.”
It doesn’t work like that…
We can see the government lies, but not only that..they all seem incredibly stupid and gormless.
I always thought Kunstler was a c’nt…but now I have massive respect.
Didn’t agree about Peal Oil
I always thought Dmitry Orlov was exceedingly clever
I don’t usually listen to podcasts, I like to see faces too as we speak – preferably live with no time delay. You are actually there…These are Real People.
But this is really good
https://kunstler.com/podcast/kunstlercast-371-dmitry-orlov-on-russia-ukraine-and-the-swirl-of-events/
Tony
It’s a mistake to think that the US Governments War Against Vietnam was a mistake, or that any of its wars against other countries were mistakes. It’s a mistake to think the US Government lost because it didnt win. The wars create conditions in the victim countries for corporate investments. Corporations get to Build Back Better (BBB) the countries so that they can be economically exploited better. Think of how Iraq was carved up and flogged to global, though mostly US corporations. The US people bear the costs of the wars, the corporations reap all the benefits.
Touche! the whole of Africa (and South America) are littered with such examples. Also, gas-lighting and/or ‘false-flagging’ is a potent weapon in the armoury of the West.
There are so many ‘Pol Pots’ in full view in Western govts.
A “mistake” ? That’s an abuse of the English language.
This is exactly what we are seeing now in Europe with war in UA. The US (and willing European allies) are trying their damndest to destroy Europe. As you mentioned, this is part of the BBB plan, in conjunction with the Great Reset. Different time, same playbook. Unfortunately, so many here in the EU are caught up in the ‘Russia wants to takeover Europe’ narrative, that they are begging for their own destruction – and a new master. The only outcome of this war can be the destruction of Europe. No peace, no ceasefire. Only death, destruction and Build Back Better. And I blame all sides for this.
The Japanese went in there, followed the French, then the Americans.
The amazing thing is that the first motivations for war seem so removed from guts, blood and death. These are primarily economic considerations cooked up over expensive cigars and exquisite drinks within walls of richly furnished rooms in high class mansions.
“If money, according to Augier, ‘comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek,’ capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.” ~ Karl Marx, Capital Vol. I
Militarism to Americans is water to fish. The most prominent thing about our environment that – due to its ubiquity – we fail to see.
Conquered the wilderness, conquered the native people, conquered the English, conquered the Spanish, conquered the Mexicans, conquered the Germans, conquered the Nazis, conquered the Commies and on and on and on.
It’s in their fucking DNA.
Patriotism, jingoism and blood.
God help us from the U.S. of destruction.
Weapons of war is their main ‘industry’. How sick is that ?
Reality is about to erupt in the Western Elites world.
https://sonar21.com/the-fall-of-bakhmut-a-prelude-to-the-fall-of-ukraine/
I wonder why people who think American militarism is bad, consider Russian militarism as good.
Russia may win the war in Ukraine (at the begining it was predicted that it will occupy Kiev in a week, it seems it will take longer), but, like in Vietnam, millions of people suffer from this war. Why is this a good outcome?
And, after Russia will win in Ukraine, other countries can follow in the Russian aggression list. A war won by an aggresive regime is an incentive for future wars. Remember Georgia (caucasus) 2008.
Let’s try and establish a few facts. The US has staged coups/ invasions of over 54 countries since WW2, including Guatemala, Chile, Iran, Ukraine etc besides staging false flag incidents to justify attacking, invading and destroy counties. Ie Gulf of Tonkin ( Vietnam), Viagra rape ( Libya), 9/11 ( Afghanistan), WMD ( Iraq) etc. Moreover the US, the Russian Federation tried to mediate with the Ukraine ie Minsk agreements which Poroshenko, Merkel, Hollande have all confessed they had no intention of keeping but were to give Ukraine time to build its military to attack Russia. In addition last March, Zelensky was prepared to sign an agreement to give the Donbas autonomy and not to join NATO, which had spent 30 years expanding its borders to encircle the RF with bases plus missiles. However, the US/ U.K. City of London prevented him from doing this. You mention Georgia another example of… Read more »
You needn’t worry yourself about Russia setting a precedent.
When it comes to aggression and militarism, Russia is very much a second division player.
It can’t hold a candle to the real market leaders, America, Britain and Israel.
They waited nearly 10 years to invade Ukraine.
How pathetic is that?
“Russian aggression list” 😂 😂 😂 You watch too much TV.
The lesson Americans have to learn is that all their wars since 1948 have not been to spread democracy, they have been to guarantee a trillion dollars plus in arms sales from the US manufacturers to the US Federal Government. No other reasons, other than a need for a few psychologically deranged individuals to think that ‘being the world’s hegemon’ actually means something. The lesson Europeans have to learn now is that NATO is only about Europeans paying their tithes to the US Arms Manufacturers, nothing else. There is no economic benefit to Europe from the Ukraine war and the Nordstream II terrorist act shows Europe that the USA is their enemy, not their friend. Well, perhaps it shows Germany that more than anyone else, since Poland is still deluded that it’s new pipeline from Norway as a reward for being the chief US Prostitute the past several years will… Read more »
Rhys Jagger,
I haven’t the balls to write like you, and I try not to laugh.
I’m not jabbed – how about you?
They are too stupid and brainwashed to understand what you write…
“Lower Forty Eight”???? I had to google it…
“If they want to kill 150 million of their own citizens in a mad war, at least the rest of the world can watch on and let them get on with it.”
You maybe correct.
Tony
One needs to be cogniscent of the fact that most European countries are [still] occupied territories, i.e. the US has never left since 1945. Consequently, NATO is the umbrella-organisation for maintaining, and/or creating conflict, for the maintenance of arms-sales. The rest is pure kabuki, for the mugs who sacrifice their hard-earned via government theft, relabeled … taxation.
All their politicians/ media hacks are bought and paid for, bribed and blackmailed to the nth degree. Or just reminded that “we know where you live, shame if anything happened to your kids.” How many of them had starring roles on Epstein’s lost surveillance tapes?
Please don’t forget the objectives are also to maintain neo-colonialism, control monopolies over natural resources and “markets” and manipulate people’s minds so we acquiesce to the plutocrats’ agendas.
A bit much this:
There are many Americans who have spent more than half their lives in countries in Europe. They have mixed cultural families, mixed nationalities. They have contributed to European society and identify with it more than anywhere they came from in America.
Many Americans living abroad are just as angry and horrified as you about what the US is doing now, and has been doing, since virtually day one.
But shipping them all home is not going to solve the problem.
There are principalities beyond our recognition pure evil that start wars because they want to create chaos.This is a war on our souls,The LBGT movement was started by them,They BLM was started by them.All the heating and food crisis were started by them.You need to rethink we have been brainwashed. You and only you are looking thinking this world is what you make it.By hypnosis through radio TV they are distracting your inner you.You are more powerful than you think and I say think because you think there for I AM.The world still turns the seasons come and go don’t rap yourself in other human thoughts who want to destroy you and take your money you are fantastic you are meant to be.God bless love you all the truth seekers.
LGBTQ and BLM haven’t killed hundreds of millions of people over the past 70 years. To conflate them with America’s militarism post WW2 is ridiculous.
Albanese marched in a large LGBTQ parade. He also sent $700 million to neocon Ukraine.
The actions of Albanese, since he has been drafted, explains a lot about who ‘owns & controls’ Australia. He had to go and kiss-arse in Ukraine as a gesture of thanks to his ‘owners’ soon after induction.
It should be quite evident to all that these political gophers don’t WIN elections … they are inducted to do the bidding of their masters, irrespective of what the voters think. Even though Malcolm Turnbull assumed he was ‘part-of-the-club’ the DS showed him he wasn’t. They only use sufficiently ‘compromised’ arse-kissers. One wonders what Anthony did while he was climbing the greasy-pole, eh?
And which of those things will kill people? This is case in point of how westerners don’t have the first idea about the destruction of war. An article about the horrors of war, about Operation Phoenix, about capet bombing fucking children and you’re equating it with hijacked social justice movements? Turn off Tucker or Jordan Peterson.
There’s 2 genders if a female wants to be a male still two genders if a man wants to be a woman still two genders what gender do they want to be a unicorn??
You’ve fallen for a domestic pysop – gay people aren’t coming to kill you. Pure evil is Madeline Albright saying killing half a million children is worth it. Did either of you even read this piece ffs?
The Anti War Movement claims the credit for ending the Vietnam War, but this is not the case. The principled stand they took at the time is very commendable, but the war only came to an end when US elites realised that the war was a dead end that was going nowhere, and decided to cut their losses – just as they eventually did in Iraq and Afghanistan, and just as they soon will in Ukraine. They could see they were in a hole and decided to stop digging. It was costing too much money, it was absorbing all of America’s military and other resources, there was no prospect of “victory”, whatever that might look like, and they were facing far more important geopolitical challenges elsewhere. Nixon had to take the US off the gold standard in 1971 with the burgeoning costs of the war. He was determined to end… Read more »
Thank you for this, Mr. Curtin. I am going to research this movie.
I was in elementary and high-school during this time.
The images from Mr. Harris’ writing, and from that trailer, are so devastatingly haunting. The older I get the sicker I feel about what the military industrial complex and it’s minions did to other nations, and to its own.
This is all the proof I need when faced with “but our country would never…”
Enlightening.
This is a beautiful essay – I think the best I’ve ever read on the subject of war and what it really means.
Here’s another article, almost a companion piece; it’s specifically about conscription.
Conservative Mental Dichotomy on the Draft – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization
Never really accepted war either. Tend to take the view that the Commandment “Thou shalt not kill” applies as much to States as it does to individuals.
The best counter-argument seems to be the defence of the innocent and otherwise helpless (in reality, not just in pretext). Otherwise war has no justification. What father wouldn’t kill a man trying to to rape his daughter? Likewise, for states.
Vladimir Solovyov, the 19th century Russian philosopher, wrote quite a good meditation on war in his “War, Progress, and the End of History. Three Conversations“, especially the first of those conversations. It’s an imagined dialogue between a war-hungry General (or ‘vulture’ if you prefer), a pacifist Politician and a relgious Mr. Z, among others
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Solovyov_(philosopher)
Nowadays the father has the front door wide open offering them his daughter’s bed.
I remember when Howard Zinn made the definitive remark that absolutely none of the US wars were justified, without exception.
Why? Is the US an extension of the British empire – as the Bank of England became the financial basis for the American banking system?
In any case, while there are a number of interests involved, it’s clear that empire demands new frontiers, ever expanding Westward and out-ward. Killing the indigenous inhabitants and clearing the land and its resources for the empire’s conquest.
Evil is one way to describe the war machine, but with a purpose. It is also how a pseudo-republic/democracy manages the domestic crowd.
All wars have precedents in history. My only quibble with this article is that by laying it all at the US’s feet, it absolves a lot of blame for all the wars of conquest that led up to Vietnam. As is well known by now, the US initially “went in” to uphold a French colonial possession, at least that is the official narrative. That war was about resources as much as all the other wars. It did set a precedent in the US though. The draft was a very bad idea for our owners as it potentially involved everyone, although it is surely well known by now that the truly wealthy always have a way to avoid actually going to war. Now we have a “volunteer” military to do the dirty work. While many sit home and cheer on the latest war from the safety of their armchairs and computer… Read more »
“The truly wealthy always have a way to avoid actually going to war.”
According to historian Henri Guillemin, the French bourgeoisie got very upset with Napoleon Bonaparte because he waged so many wars that the usual supply of soldiers from the lower classes of society – economically speaking – was no longer enough, so much so that the sons of the bourgeois were called up to serve.
Before that time, in France at least, the bourgeois escaped military service by paying off the poor families to send their sons to die instead. Note, however, that during the French Revolution, after the bourgeois used up the poor as muscle, La Garde Nationale was set up: to be part of La Garde one must be wealthy enough to buy one’s uniform; that is, the GN was made up of bourgeois to avoid any counter-revolution.
Of course the US did not invent war. But I agree with MLK, Jr. when he stated (a year before he was murdered): “The greatest purveyor of violence in the world : My own Government, I can not be Silent.”
The system of war is deeply embedded in the American culture. That can’t be denied. The US empire dominates global culture, though to a somewhat lesser degree regarding war.
Vietnam is but one of countless other examples and the reason was never a “domino theory of Communism advancement in Southeast Asia).
What we have today is a stated doctrine by the US of Full Spectrum Dominance. What would such a doctrine ever be? This war has begun and the chickens have come home to roost. It’s as much domestic as foreign. And the weapons are in use here and everywhere. These are silent weapons of destruction, but very real.
Sorry off t.
The Mask Of Zero !
https://lockdownunder.substack.com/p/the-mad-mad-world-of-the-mask
The Phoenix Programme? Hardly worth looking at – Ken Burns said so. It got 8 minutes in his 16hr TV history (you know they’d have ignored it totally if there wasn’t a growing awareness from Douglas Valentine’s book). Sure, there were a few bad eggs but those Vietnamese were just as bad if not worse according to Ken. And the CIA had nothing to do with it – it was all that nasty DoD. Put on another record…. On the subject of the “soundtrack of a generation”, isn’t it funny how all those counterculture musicians avoided the draft? A bit like how if one searches for all those great anti-Vietnam songs, one can’t find very much. Buffalo Springfield’s ‘For what it’s worth’ wasn’t about Vitenam however much they constantly link the two. See Dave McGowan on Stephen Stills’ background (although unlike a lot of these “musicians” he does appear to… Read more »
They all had a greater calling:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_popular_than_Jesus
Guess you forgot this one, Ed … it’s by a little known group called “Country Joe and the Fish …
https://youtu.be/LxEyg61LC4g
Hell, even someone with more talent than Stephen Stills and probably more to your taste wrote a subtle anti-war song that became a huge hit, none other than Neil Diamond … as performed by The Monkees …
https://youtu.be/ZcXpKiY2MXE
Honest mistake, I think. I believe the song was written by Boyce and Hart?
Diamond wrote “I’m a Believer” which the Monkees recorded.
An even better anti-war song – also by the Monkees – was “Zor and Zam.” Nothing subtle about it though. It hits you right over the head with its message. And the music is outstanding.
The Monkees – Zor and Zam – YouTube
A funny song. If only all wars were like that
Almost as if they worked for Intelligence agencies.
Who was Sgt Pepper?
Sex, drugs, and music, how to distract a generation away from reality and actually doing something to better the world.
The CIA called it Project CHAOS.
Ironically, sex, drugs, and music did everything to help humanity resist a “better” world.
I’d call it “Project Get Fucked Up at Every Opportunity to Send a Clear Message”. You can google it “Project GFU EO SCM”.
“It’s easy to laugh at the parallels until a vulture comes calling.”
A moving commentary and an apt metaphor. Information does not burst upon us like the break of a dam. The realisation comes with observing whose flesh that buzzard is pecking.