Free is Dead

There are movies everywhere on what do do with the mess we've made of Iraq. What's it look like over there without corporate TV filtering? Like killing fields and homeless desert people; very Nazi-esque I'm afraid. Hey don't take it from me. Hear it right from the mouths of 19-year olds if you must, but in this flick the soldiers talk.


From the Ground Truth website:

Hailed as "powerful" and "quietly unflinching," Patricia Foulkrod's searing documentary feature includes exclusive footage that will stir audiences. The filmmaker's subjects are patriotic young Americans - ordinary men and women who heeded the call for military service in Iraq - as they experience recruitment and training, combat, homecoming, and the struggle to reintegrate with families and communities. The terrible conflict in Iraq, depicted with ferocious honesty in the film, is a prelude for the even more challenging battles fought by the soldiers returning home – with personal demons, an uncomprehending public, and an indifferent government. As these battles take shape, each soldier becomes a new kind of hero, bearing witness and giving support to other veterans, and learning to fearlessly wield the most powerful weapon of all - the truth.

What gets me is nobody remembers we went over there to look for weapons, which, evidently we had, because we sure dropped 'em everywhere all over the place once we got there. And just today the government announced it dropped lethal bombs that killed people on the ground not proven to be terrorists with an un-manned aircraft. A drone. Killed by nobody - real blood and real, splintered bone blown all over desert sand but such clean clean kill from so far away. Weapons? Hey! OVER HERE! We have them!

So OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM evidently means free is dead. Because since we went in there are a LOT more dead Iraqi citizens each day since Saddam was ousted holed and hanged. We even use his old mansions and prisons to torture the citizens (I'm sorry, suspected terrorists) with different masks on.

Still, the pleasure of the beast in killing. It ain't about the weapons as far as I can tell. I mean, we didn't find them. So can we go home now? I am sickened by the ultimate insult and mockery in the military recruiting language I pay for through taxes on my income: "An Army of One." Yep. That seem to be the trouble here -- terrorism is coming home all right. These killer kids are taking home a million wars, and we only sent them off to one.

No More Support: When Buildings Fall

Enough is enough. Now they're kicking out $20,000 per new recruit as a sign-up bonus to get new bodies to run guns and drop bombs. That's some people's entire annual salaries, and that can't be right. What's more -- that's your money and my money they're dangling Minty carrots with!!!

That's right. Rich corporate bastard overlords of the Military Industrial Complex are using the common man's money to get his neighbor's kids shot dead somewhere else in the world. And they just sit at conference tables and on yachts. Testing their tech toys out on human flesh and whole cities. And dangle, dangle with a paycheck while you foot the whole bill.

Then they have the NERVE to make you feel guilty too.

Yes, Middle Eastern countries and many others make it mandatory to serve in the military, though I don't know how you can remotely call yourself democratic if you do so as a State. So whenever I see a yellow ribbon magnet (pink, blue whichever really) I think -- "YOU KNOW WHAT? I DO SUPPORT THE TROOPS!" Here's how: I picture myself at the last public event I went to, and where a dullard person asked me that insipid question to break some form of ice destiny forgot to make rock.

I pulled my pockets inside-out to show destitution. "Every time I pay may taxes, good citizen."

I don't support the War because I have my own mind. I will not kill another human being for the government, you, or anyone else simply because you call him enemy. Not mine! Yours. You want him dead? You do it, and not on my dime! And hell, I don't even know what support the troops means! They have Congress shipping them money all the time. What else do they need?

Comfort while they do a dirty man's deed?

Liberty and Freedom are words. Ideas. Show me them in your front yard. Show me them in makeshift prisons. Show me them at your job. The grocery store. On your cell phone bill each month. You see Liberty there? Even her statue groans holding up a torch and a heavy book. Freedom anywhere? Do you REALLY do what you want? Concepts for which people die. That's religion! Not State!

Have you seen Why We Fight yet? I highly suggest it, because an Empire is who you really support. Even in Star Wars I think that was the bad side. Here's the trailer:



It's a very balanced film that looks at our Empire and its standing armies, not the usual sensational CON stuff I find so entertainingly revealing. All through the film they ask that question to citizens. They all answer "freedom" of course. At the end (no spoilers), they ask a military veteran who was there on 9/11 (no no no silly - at the Pentagon -- under the other cup!) and whose life has been changed profoundly as a result. The movie ends with this soldier's answer, and you will never stop hearing it in your head if you truly, truly listen.

Then, look at the burned bodies again. Women. Children. Attacked while they sleep. And the smiling soldiers driving the machines and shooting the guns for the corporate suppliers of death.

Lockup ladies!