facts we don't want to know.
the purpose of war is to kill humans.. .
which humans?.
Perhaps we can read the same books on Stalinism? Or you are more familiar than that?
Usually you are precise in your definitions, cofty. But it doesn’t follow that one who makes a valid criticism of government is guilty of moral posturing. If you disagree with a particular piece of information l have put out, say so. This is a lazy rejoinder from you.
facts we don't want to know.
the purpose of war is to kill humans.. .
which humans?.
Well said, TD.
A government that falls short of its moral principles is one thing. A government that has absolutely none is something else entirely.
What troubles me is that what l see plainly in Stalin’s psychotic system has echoes in my own country. I will gladly allow for human moral failures—any number of them really. But when evidence accrues of the state benefitting from a pattern of criminal behavior it inevitably infects the workings of government—and those who complain are in trouble — if not prison.
Edit: It is hard to speak ill of a country l love- l know a lot of great stories of it. But it’s true that there are great stories in so many countries but we don’t really listen to them. I love people —that’s why I hate to see these things happening that run contrary to the ideals and values the US is supposed to stand for. These failures are serious and creating bigger problems for a growing number of people —here and abroad.
facts we don't want to know.
the purpose of war is to kill humans.. .
which humans?.
Thanks for that link, Ruby. And to Bungi Bill—all true. The Americans sat at the knee of England in learning law, order and domination.
I see where some balk at the measuring moral equivalence in regimes and their methods and intentions. But as time goes on the disregard for the poor in the US mirrors the devaluation and vilification that will justify military actions and indeed most nations do this. But it is often done to wrongly dismiss valid claims of abuse by the US.
ln the state l live in, Arkansas, there is a growing problem that one can see easily if you trace the unbroken chain of human abuse that is rooted in the history of the convict lease system. This system became state gulags. Its human rights abuses are the stuff of nightmares.. and film. Ever see Robert Redford in Brubaker? I don’t want to hijack the thread by going any further into this here except to say last month l twice presented some aspects of the effects of our Arkansas “gulag” in “ A Child’s History of Arkansas Prisons “ using giant marionettes.
failing to face facts is a huge problem in my state and it has hit me personally.
facts we don't want to know.
the purpose of war is to kill humans.. .
which humans?.
Torture was taught by CIA; Declassified manual details the methods used in Honduras; Agency denials refuted
By Gary Cohn, Ginger Thompson, and mark Matthews, The Baltimore Sun, Monday 27 January 1997, Final Edition
WASHINGTON -- A newly declassified CIA training manual details torture methods used against suspected subversives in Central America during the 1980s, refuting claims by the agency that no such methods were taught there.
"Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual -- 1983" was released Friday in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by The Sun on May 26, 1994.
The CIA also declassified a Vietnam-era training manual called "KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation -- July 1963," which also taught torture and is believed by intelligence sources to have been a basis for the 1983 manual.
......The Sun's 1994 request for the manuals was made in connection with the newspaper's investigation of kidnapping, torture and murder committed by a CIA-trained Honduran military unit during the 1980s. The CIA turned over the documents -- with passages deleted -- only after The Sun threatened to sue the agency to obtain the documents.
Human rights abuses by the Honduran unit known as Battalion 316 were most intense in the early 1980s at the height of the Reagan administration's war against communism in Central America. They were documented by The Sun in a four-part series published from June 11 to 18, 1995.
....In The Sun's series, Jose Barrera, a former member of Battalion 316 who said he was taught interrogation methods by U.S. instructors in 1983, recalled using the technique:
"The first thing we would say is that we know your mother, your younger brother. And better you cooperate, because if you don't, we're going to bring them in and rape them and torture them and kill them," Barrera said.
...."These manuals confirm a truth we in Honduras have known for a long time: that the United States was involved in encouraging the abuses of the Honduran military," said Judge Roy Medina. "They were trying to stop communism. But the methods they used are not acceptable in civilized societies."
dear mouthy and other denounced ones,.
you may find this double standard $%^@#@*&!
"in 1975, knorr made a remarkable and candid statement to the governing body, which confirmed his growing disillusionment until his death two years later: ["]'"there are some things i know --- i know that jehovah is god, that christ jesus is his son, that he gave his life as a ransom for us, that there is a resurrection.
Right— pure and simple—they can change their teachings as they please but they kick us out if we even think they have misspoke.
Hey, CoCo, l hear Errol Flynn aged suddenly with all that wild high life. Watch out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj7ilnoxvu4.
she helped me.
sent me my first copy of crisis of conscience (free) grace has been featured on many talk shows, including sally jesse raphael, raising awareness of support for cult abuse survivors.
She was lovely. She often said as she got close to her end that she couldn’t find her “bucket”( as in wanting to “kick it”)
l miss her now. She was Mouthy but kind and true always.
facts we don't want to know.
the purpose of war is to kill humans.. .
which humans?.
Luhe- thanks- there is a difference between co-existing and cohabiting. There are debates about which offers a happier outlook for folks. If you like l will amend my remark to suit you- we will continue to co-exist.
Politics is often a choice between two or more options, and we have to work out which is the least evil ('lesser of the two evils').
To choose the lesser of the two evils, we have to work out if things are morally equivalent or not.-luhe
What you say is what l no longer accept as reasonable. The goal of many governments have become twisted somehow.The lesser of two evils isn’t “lesser” enough any more.
Was it you, luhe, or someone else who remarked that there is no difference between the two main parties in this country? That as far as war goes- they are the same? both indeed serve Big Money. So I can only choose between one black hat or another black hat?
No thanks.
I have to wonder if any creature on earth can survive if money has become the only “End” for which we strive instead of being only the means to that end.
The Rape of Nanking was a monumental evil. But read the Newsweek excerpt above—the aftermath of this massive crime must -MUST -make us wonder how people can be benefited by value systems in our governments that would rather do business with the Japanese perpetrators than acknowledge that hundreds of thousands of Chinese suffered wholesale rape, slaughter and torture.
Were I young again, I would never be a soldier. Human life is not valued enough. Not here, not abroad. Not in the highest levels of power. To much greed.
( I must be finishing my spoons for market tomorrow . Shouldn’t be here but yet should be too. Very glad there is conversation on this. Appreciate that very much.)
Edit: Vanderhoven 7- your assessment fits with many of our best definition of a just war but for many of us the “good guys” seem to be driven by many of the forces that drove “bad guys” to fight”
facts we don't want to know.
the purpose of war is to kill humans.. .
which humans?.
TD-
Moral equivalence is a close cousin to relativism. Both are forms of polemic.
A simple example of moral equivalence would be the claim (Regardless of whether it is made explicitly or implicitly) that U.S. use of nuclear weapons in WWII puts it on the same level of immorality as Nazi Germany.
I wasn’t sure whether l couldn’t understand because of lack of education or because l couldn’t see moral equivalency in this discussion being of much use. It does not seem useful for purposes of cohabiting on this earth to measure who has done the worst things ever. Also, it would seem needful that no one should be above reproach. That would get us right back into assigning white hats and black hats again. That said there are individual acts in war that may or may not be judged as moral or immoral(the fire bombing of Dresden or the A-bombs on Japan) but certainly the entire progrsm of Nazi aggression was immoral no matter any individual military action and the Allies were justified in general.
But I really am wondering if polemics serve us well in this discussion. Polemics are (patience please) folks arguing slightly adverse views, two opposing sides figuring out who is right and who is wrong? Good guys bad guys ? Blurring lines again?
You have trouble equating the destruction of lives by the US nuclear bombs vs. the lives destroyed through the immorality of Nazi Germany and I have trouble with the torture, the murders, the rapes in the Nanking Massacre vs.a world that reoffends those lives by a failure to acknowledge this evil event. I truly don’t see how we can improve our lot in this world by trying to figure out good guys vs. bad. Somehow we have to be careful in talking about these things. But be honest too.
What Chinese man or woman who felt the atrocities in 1937 believe in the moral good of governments (even their own!) that effectively erased the history of their unbelievable slaughter and sexual abuse for political reasons? We prosecute Holocaust deniers, right? But for political reasons these victims were “buried” alive. This is a crime too.
Is there any value in holding a minimal standard for human conduct if we will not be fair? If we call out egregious wrongs when they happen- regardless of the players in the matter- maybe we would have less politicking and have more productive governing?
facts we don't want to know.
the purpose of war is to kill humans.. .
which humans?.
TD- l don’t understand what you mean by saying “moral equivalency game”. Please explain it. I hate the evils done under any national authority—even the ones done by my own country.
Luhe—good point about Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize. What l like or don’t like about Obama’s is not based on race.
The blurring of distinction between the “good guys” and the “bad guys” is sometimes done through the governments themselves who manipulate history for economic reasons.
“....the Rape of Nanking remains an obscure incident. Although the death toll exceeds the immediate number of deaths from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (140,000 and 70,000 respectively, by the end of 1945) and even the total civilian casualties for several European countries during the entire war (Great Britain lost 61,000 civilians, France 108,000, Belgium 101,000, and the Netherlands 242,000), the horrors of the Nanking massacre remain virtually unknown to people outside Asia. The Rape of Nanking did not penetrate the world consciousness in the same manner as the Jewish Holocaust or Hiroshima because the victims themselves remained silent. The custodian of the curtain of silence was politics. The People's Republic of China, Taiwan, and even the United States all contributed to the historical neglect of this event for reasons deeply rooted in the cold war. After the 1949 Communist revolution in China, neither the People's Republic of China nor Taiwan demanded wartime reparations from Japan (as Israel had from Germany) because the two governments were competing for Japanese trade and political recognition. And even the United States, faced with the threat of communism in the Soviet Union and mainland China, sought to ensure the friendship and loyalty of its former enemy Japan. In this manner, cold-war tensions permitted Japan to escape much of the intense critical examination that its wartime ally was forced to undergo.”
Newsweek, Nov. 30, 1997
facts we don't want to know.
the purpose of war is to kill humans.. .
which humans?.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/511454/
Obama doesn’t get a pass, LUHE. If the link provided above is any good it is s thoughtful and damning criticism of his drone policy-a huge arrogation of killing authority.
It is hard to figure out the true and false of matters as so many have said. —l suspect that the powers of government are themselves governed by the vast power of multinational corporations. Look at the records billions of dollars made by more than the oil interests but also by the arms and military manufacturers . It is astounding. And they have no moral codes here of any sort: check out the sales of U.S manufactured weapons that go to nations with oppressive dictatorships. These corporations pay vast sums to lobby the U.S. Congress. Don’t take my word for it—check it out.
No, the people who are sent off to war don't commit crimes, it's the people that send them.
Some veterans who volunteer for service who returned from Iraq and refuse further deployments when they sense the actions are “illegal “—they discerned the calculated evil of what they were sent to do. And they do not say their governments “made a mistake”. No. They know that there was wrong and purposeful abuse of military force.
These huge corporations have no interest in peace.The US elections are virtually run by big money and then officials are lobbied day by day by these same“creditors”.
When Big Money owns a government it eventually won’t care about people. Not even loyal soldiers.
We must find a way to re-new governments to serve people’s welfare —honestly.
