"You Grow Up Wanting to be Luke Skywalker, Then Realize You've Become a Stormtrooper for the Empire"

[catbyte]

POWERFUL STORY: Read this shocking account of how U.S. Iraq War veterans had their 9/11 patriotism crushed & replaced with something far more alarming...

Someone asked:

How do you Americans as a people walk around head held high, knowing that every few months your country is committing a 9/11 size atrocity to other people. Imagine if the 9/11 terror attacks were happening in america every few months. Again and again, innocent people dying all around you. Your brothers and sisters. For no reason.

Daniel Crimmins from U.S. Army 3rd Infantry Division answered:

"Many of us are unable. Many of us watched 9/11, and accepted the government and media's definition of the attack as a act of war rather than a criminal action. A smaller portion, drifting along passively thought a major war was coming, that people we knew were going to fight and die. Some of us maybe worried about our younger brother being drafted, despite being in college. Now, it seems stupid, but in the 72 hours after 9/11, some Americans, maybe suffering from depression, certainly with a mind shaped by comic books and action movies, ate up the "us vs. them" good vs. evil rhetoric spouted by the cowboy in chief. After all, he was the president, and no matter how bright you might think yourself, you can still be swayed by passion and emotion, led to terrible decisions.

snip...

Then you go on leave, and realize that Ayn Rand has no idea what the fuck she's talking about. You realize that Fox News and Limbaugh and John McCain don't respect you or your buddies. They don't give a fuck if you get a parade or a box when you get home, you're nothing to them but a prop.

snip...

http://upriser.com/posts/you-grow-up-wanting-to-be-luke-skywalker-then-realize-you-ve-become-a-stormtrooper-for-the-empire
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I found this very powerful essay. It's definitely worth the read.

[CanSocDem]

1. Let there be light! (eom)

[A HERETIC I AM]

2. .....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026411143

[thucythucy]

3. In the PBS Series "Vietnam: A Television History"

There is an extremely powerful account by a soldier who served in Vietnam in the mid-60s.

At some point during this tour, he came to the realization that "I was a redcoat. In school I learned all about the evil redcoats who had come over from England to take away our freedoms, and did all these terrible things. One day I was out on patrol, and saw the faces of the villagers, and looked around at what we were doing in this country, and I suddenly realized: I was a redcoat."

That's not an exact quote, but the gist of what he said. It's a powerful moment.

I haven't seen that program aired in years, which is a shame, because it's so well done. It should be required viewing to all would-be policy makers and chicken-hawks.

[Fix The Stupid]

4. I have this on VHS...

And you are absolutely correct...

I can still see this guy saying those words...how the realization just him in the gut...

Powerful stuff.

[jwirr]

15. And that was exactly what it was. The Vietnamese had kicked the French colonists out and for

some reason our government decided we needed to go in. The Vietnamese wanted to get rid of colonial rule. We thought they needed it.

[duhneece]

22. I remember that exact moment on the PBS series

I watched it (on VCR, I think) from the public library...worth every moment. I even think I watched it twice. I'm a member of facebook's Vietnam Veterans Against the War, only as a supporter. I was affected 'by marriage.'
'Moral Injury' is a term often used when talking about (part of) suicide by soldier or veteran.

[zeemike]

5. "a mind shaped by comic books and action movies"

Yep...that is the truth.
It is not just a comic book or a movie.

[DeSwiss]

6. Evolving from being barbarians is a painful experience.

- And Unconditional Love is the hardest substance known to man. With it we can break down any barrier and defeat any foe........

K&R

''There are two ways: with nature or against nature. You have to choose one.'' ~Hisao Hanafusa

[Octafish]

7. + Infinity

More and more, every day, I appreciate what I've learned. Even more, I treasure the people I've met.

Thanks for the video, too, DeSwiss. Outstanding presentation on the Question.

[heaven05]

8. bout time

excellent exposure of the TRUTH. From Vietnam till Iraq/Afghanistan war has been prosecuted on lies and extreme deception.What a fucking disaster our 'foreign policy' has been and is. The bottom line? Profit for the entitled few from the suffering, killing, maiming and destroying. Anger is past but depression and extreme shame at my fellow human beings who perpetrate these lies that result in mass slaughter of innocents. Sad indeed what the human race deems important.

[riqster]

9. Kick and Rec.

Powerful.

[libodem]

10. K&R

Bookmarked.

[gregcrawford]

11. Too many...

... would carve their own eyes out with a rusty spoon before they'd EVER admit they were wrong about Darth Cheney's idiot puppet, Dubya, and their war to keep oil in the ground. The evil they perpetrated should have gotten them executed.

[Scrabbleddie]

12. Lately, Judeo-Christian Zionist warmongers have taken over.

Our lobbyist government invites corruption; and is
not pretty to many, including once Gung ho vets.

[LWolf]

13. .

[valerief]

14. There's always a new generation who'll swallow the Divide and Conquer propaganda,

the hero crap Hollywood movies, US TV, and US radio shits out. People aren't born stupid, but they're trained to be stupid real fast.

[tblue37]

19. Part of the problem is that we are animals more controlled by instinctive responses than by rational

thought. We evolved to exist in small bands, and in most cases other such bands were more likely to be resource competitors and antagonists than allies or trade partners. We certainly were *not* designed by nature to function in huge technologically based societies where we are exposed constantly to strangers at both close range and great distance.

We psychologically need the small social circle we were evolved to be part of, so we keep creating our own versions of such tribes, but without the actual connections that give tribal relations genuine meaning and survival value. Almost every social experience gets interpreted in tribal terms: our families--both nuclear and extended; the locality we grow up in, and then the one(s) we move to; the schools we attend; in college, the dorm or frat/sorority we live in; the major we choose in college; the profession we join; the religious and ideological groups we find ourselves a part of, usually by accident of birth; the racial or ethnic group we are identified with; the institution or company we work for, and the department or section within that larger institution if there are such smaller groupings; the political party we join as young people with little or no political understanding--usually the same one our parents belonged to, which is usually the one most commonly found in their family or community; the sports team(s) associated with our school(s) and locale(s)--etc.

Some of us manage to step outside our accidental false tribal attachments, but even among those who do, the result is all too often just a change of irrational tribal loyalty. That's why even among us liberals, we see so many who refuse to recognize or criticize when a representative of our own tribe says or does something that violates the principles we supposedly believe in. I think that on the whole--i. e., as a group, though not always as individuals--we liberals hold ourselves and our representatives to account more than do those who currently claim the label conservatives, but we still see far too often that tribal identification matters more than principle or than rational analysis of circumstances or consequences.

Fish don't know they're wet, and most people never understand the degree to which tribalism dictates their responses to, well, just about everything. They think they believe certain political stances and trust certain politicians because they have chosen them after considering their value.

But as I always tell my college students, most people hold their opinions not because they've thought about them, but because they never think about them at all. They are just an expression of tribal loyalty.

When we existed in small nomadic bands, or even once we settled into small communities, the mayhem we coould commit against other tribes was limited. But now that we give our tribal loyalty to huge social groupings that possess enormous power and incredibly destructive technologies, the instinctive, unthinking reaction against other tribes our group has designated "the enemy" leads to death and destruction on an unimaginable scale. Needless to say, the propaganda techniques and vehicles TPTB now have to arouse, manipulate, and aim those tribal reactions are incredibly powerful, but mostly available only to those with sufficient wealth, influence, and power to command them.

And no matter how we try to explain reality and persuade people to choose wsely and behave rationally, we make little, if any, progress, because people are not choosing what they believe and not acting on the basis of thought and consideration. They are expressing tribal loyalties that have been deliberately, cynically reinforced and manipulated to serve the interests of those already in power.

[joanbarnes]

16. ALL MUST READ AND SHARE

[Kablooie]

17. And the Americans who sent you out were Jabba the Hut.

They sit slug like on their sofas with their dancing girl in chains and laugh at what they did to you.

[raouldukelives]

18. Huge K&R Birth is painful.

It is the same across the board in America. Creating massive suffering today and most certainly for the future in return for short term profits for the shareholders, executives, lobbyists and politicians.
One can come to the realization of just how deeply sick & psychotic it is. Killing for money. Denying people democracy for money. Denying health care for money. Destroying our ecosystems and future for money. And really, not even money. It doesn't exist. Just digital decimal points on a screen.
You can dress it up with ideologies, you can insulate yourself from knowledge, you can shrug and say that is the way it is. But it doesn't change what one knows inside. What one will, at some point, grapple with if one ever tries to minimally expand ones viewpoint.
They are afraid and know no other way. The systems of our destruction were already in place. It is all they know. We are deep in the rabbit hole, high waters are coming and all they can do is dig deeper.

[mckara]

20. Adam Curtis Released a New BBC Documentary on this Topic

Bitter Lake

http://thoughtmaybe.com/bitter-lake/

[bvar22]

21. Storm Troopers?

At least there was some parity with the Storm Troopers.


I see the current conflict in the Middle East more like Skynet against the humans groveling in destroyed cities and firing up at the robot killers in the sky with primitive weapons like AK-47s.