American Militarism

[Tgace]

Whenever I hear the "hippyish" "I oppose the capitalistic, warmongering military and their bloodthirsty hordes who deserve no respect (since service and support are now bad things) yadda yadda..." especially from a guy. I always get the impression that there is a big chunck of "I didnt serve so Ill belittle the honor and sacrifice of those who did" right in the middle of it....:shrug:

Most of those types however seem to obsess over weapons (ancient or modern), how fit they are, how much they know about military history, how they ran the bulls at Pamplona and so on. Quite a few take martial arts too.

 

[AnimEdge]

Thought this was about Nasa, but yet the topic says American Militarism so i could be wrong

My 2 cents:

Nasa was great at one point when we had to get to the moon and we had to get to it now! view in the 60s But didnt they say that we havnt been to the moon sence like 1980? I think that Space will be taken over not by the governments but by compainys, like Virgin won the X-Prise (at lest i think they did) they did something that nasa couldnt, i think that the next big push in space is if we find that the Moon, or Mars, or some plant has some mineral or some item that is extreamly needed and or extreamly rare and expensive, i dont know about you but i dont see much of a achevment that we landed the rover on mars, whoo hoo

And i hope the majority of my Taxes go to the Military
I love Military Tech, Planes, Tanks, all that stuff is great, i woudl much rather have it go to that then to pay some bum who doesnt feel like working or old people

Now i was in ROTC at school, it was Army based mine was, i went in becouse of all the "extra credit" it gives you i have it in "" becouse they lied to me(it acts like certain credits, if you go for one semester it adds a Speech Credit, 2 is Gym credit, 3 is like gym 2 credit, 4 is like something else ect, but of course i had to take Speech anyways becouse they actually didnt do that, just like the militay actually doesnt give you a College Deploma and ect ect ). I was in it a year and became tired of power high kids thinking they ruled me so i left(i had the lowest rank becouse i did not come after school to there "drill teams" and "color guards") My squad infact was the first to ever fail the big army "Inspection" that happnes every 4 years sence well they started at the school (Man they wernt happy lol) Put man did i hate dressing out every week

any I find Military to be very Honarable, I was ready to go (I was approved to be a Air Force Military Programer hehe ) but with the way the war was and how the military was being ran everyone highly advised me not to (My Dad was a Air Force Rader Matinence at the Radar base in Alaska, his Dad was in WW2 i believe, his dad was in the service as well ect ect, My mom loved being on a Military Base) part of me still wants to join up manly to say i was in the military, but unless theres a draft i dont really see it happening but hey this rather off topic

 

[Makalakumu]

Whenever I hear the "hippyish" "I oppose the capitalistic, warmongering military and their bloodthirsty hordes who deserve no respect (since service and support are now bad things) yadda yadda..." especially from a guy. I always get the impression that there is a big chunck of "I didnt serve so Ill belittle the honor and sacrifice of those who did" right in the middle of it....:shrug:

Most of those types however seem to obsess over weapons (ancient or modern), how fit they are, how much they know about military history, how they ran the bulls at Pamplona and so on. Quite a few take martial arts too.

There are other, more efficiant and direct, ways to serve this country. In fact, I'm willing to bet that I have made more of a difference in my service career to the people of my country then the average soldier...

There is absolutely no reason why we should glorify being a soldier above those other ways.

Questioning my manhood and implying that there is this big gaping whole in my psyche that only being a soldier would have filled, only serves to further illustrate the subversive militarism in our culture.

In a post upthread, I made the point that self defense was neccessary for any civilization and that I thought we took it too far. I did a little reading last night. During the Cold War we increased our military to a size where we could fight 2.5 regional conflicts at the same time. This is akin to Germany invading Western Europe, Russia and aiding the Italians in North Africa AND winning all of those conflicts. The Soviets couldn't keep up and were bankrupted by the arms race.

After the Cold War, President Clinton made some huge waves by making some rather large cuts in military spending in order to balance the gaping deficit. By the end of his term, our military was able to only handle 1.5 regional conflicts. This was the military that President Bush inherited.

During the end of the Clinton term, a neoconservative think tank formed called the Project for the New American Century. In response to many of the decisions that President Clinton made they wrote a document called "Rebuilding America's Defenses." In it, they lay out a plan to double the size of the military that President Bush inherited in order to pursue a new and radical ideology. Discussion of this Plan and the associated ideology can be found here.

The bottom line is that our President and his administration are going to increase the size of the military so that we are able to fight a grand total of THREE major regional conflicts. This does not sound like self defense to me. It sounds like bankruptcy. It sounds like imperialism. If we were willing to work with the rest of the world there is absolutely no reason why we need to be able to fight three major regional conflicts by ourselves.

upnorthkyosa

 

[loki09789]

1. No, they do not. One nation tried and it was bankrupt in forty years.

2. Have you ever seen a John Wayne movie? We don't need big standing stones. In fact, those suckers are entirely inefficient. Instead, we have a standing screen and a film industry that reflects a culture of militarism.

3. We create a warrior mythos that has absolutely nothing to do with reality...and people buy into it.

4. One man I met had both arms and both legs blown off, he clung to those virtues listed above because that was all he had left. He also "clung" to a bottle of scotch and my grandfather "kindly" shared a shot with the man.

5. No, that is just more support for my position. People will overlook the Mai Lei's or the Abu Ghraibs because there sons are only "doing their duty". That is still tacit support of atrocity, is it not?

6. Sure we do. How much do you actually watch the evening news (propaganda)? How about the other "in depth" political conversations that are occuring in the media? This "bad news only" is just a right wing myth. The media has got to play in everyones ball park in order to be profitable. They are not going to leave out 49 or 50% of the view in the entire US! Now that is capitalism...

1. So....no current nation exists that doesn't fit your criteria because a nation that tried to do it differently failed? So the reality is that every nation is 'militaristic' in your opinion? But, we are the 'worst' even though we have the 'most' in terms of interests, geography, assests, population. I would think that proportions like that would matter to an objective mind. BTW, the nation that went bankrupt....Russia (Former Soviet union) did so because it was a Communist country that lost all it's satellites that were paying for it's structure...communism failed.

2. And the obilisk was erected by the government of it's day where the movie industry is privately run, correct? I have made the point in the past about the Cathartic affect of theater and story...this idea that the entertainment industry is creating a culture that glorifies war is similar to that argument that kids that listen to rap music are more likely to do drugs and violence.....

3. We certainly do when we promote codes like chivalry, Budo, .....because NEITHER of those codes were actually laid down and formally discussed or used for educating warriors until after these cultures reached a point of stability that wars were not being fought as much and young nobles were acting like punks and thugs....so they were fed a line of crap about how 'noble' their forefathers were and how 'ethical' a warrior acts in combat and brings glory on himself when he conducts himself within these rules...

War serves a purpose, political pressure. Period. Warriors have a job, to successfully gain objectives and destroy the enemies will to fight by destroying manpower, materials and the will to continue the fight. Period.

How is that ever going to be eliminated? When people, individually or as groups, stop feeling envy, fear, greed, terror, ambition, ......

Is the current "Laws of Land Warfare" or the "Geneva Convention" or the "Army/Marine Corps Values" structures or Leadership traits any less 'noble' a set of ethical practices than those laid down in Chivalry or Budo? Those are what are being taught to real soldiers/Marines/servicemen and women who actually face situations where those values are really tested.

4. So, automatically, because you disagree with his values, the fact that he was an alcoholic comes from his inability to agree with your values? That seems like a pretty big leap. Too bad his psych records are sealed, I wonder what connections and observations a trained psychologist that spent more than a few visits (at the impressionable age of 15 btw) with him would say about his 'clinging to those virtues.'

5. Not a single person I know, nor a single media presentation of either incident is saying that these people were just doing their duty. If your hearing such things from people, are they 'glorifying war' or are they expressing fear/apathy/self preservation......

6. I do watch the news, and I don't hear anything about the 'glorious victories' as much as the more negative/anti support spin of the number ambushes/American Casualties/Iraqi civilian and military casualties, hostage threats or abjuctions.....Is war and the warrior being glorified or is the horror and depression and futility being reinforced?

 

[loki09789]

After the Cold War, President Clinton made some huge waves by making some rather large cuts in military spending in order to balance the gaping deficit. By the end of his term, our military was able to only handle 1.5 regional conflicts. This was the military that President Bush inherited.

During the end of the Clinton term, a neoconservative think tank formed called the Project for the New American Century. In response to many of the decisions that President Clinton made they wrote a document called "Rebuilding America's Defenses." In it, they lay out a plan to double the size of the military that President Bush inherited in order to pursue a new and radical ideology. Discussion of this Plan and the associated ideology can be found here.

The bottom line is that our President and his administration are going to increase the size of the military so that we are able to fight a grand total of THREE major regional conflicts. This does not sound like self defense to me. It sounds like bankruptcy. It sounds like imperialism. If we were willing to work with the rest of the world there is absolutely no reason why we need to be able to fight three major regional conflicts by ourselves.

upnorthkyosa

It also sounds like a change in circumstances: Pres. Clinton's Kosovo and Somalia operations were questionable in success at best (Kosovo better than Somalia). If POTUS Clinton was facing the same terrorist attacks and such that Bush is facing, what would he do in response?

After downsizing the military to a point that we had/now have to activate and deploy and redeploy reserve/guard units to support 'pre-emptive' peacekeeping operations (which I had the joy of participating in - Thanks Tom ), let alone operations in Afg. and Iraq, what do you do?

How solid a plan would it be to simply sit and wait for another 9/11 to occur? How smart is it to be so understaffed that your soldiers are so overworked and overtasked that they are more likely to make a mistake in combat?

 

[rmcrobertson]

So I went to Oz, and I found my sense of humor.

It was because I found this quote, from Hizzoner, that I thought would be germane to the attempt to dismiss any and all opposition to the growth of what Eisenhower famously called the, "military-industrial complex," on the grounds that the opposers were pot-addled, aging hippies who lived a privileged life and avoided service:

"I wouldn't answer the marijuana question. You know why? Cause I don't want some little kid doing what I tried. You gotta understand -- I want to be president. I want to lead. Do you want your little kid to say, 'hey Daddy, President Bush tried marijuana, I think I will.'"

"I don't want any kid doing what I tried to do 30 years ago, and I mean that. It doesn't matter if it's LSD, cocaine, pot, any of those things, because if I answer one, then there will be another one. And I just am not going to answer those questions. And it may cost me the election."

Do keep in mind that this is the Mr. Bush who a) got into college because he was a legacy--didn't have the grades, and his dad pulled strings, b) avoided service in Vietnam because, again, his dad pulled strings, c) made money at taxpayers' expense because, well, his dad pulled strings.

Apparently the flip side of military adventurism is the deep sense that the sons of the privileged do not serve, and are not to be held accountable.