Film Review: WHAT I WANT YOU TO KNOW

Last night I attended a screening of the veterans' documentary WHAT I WANT YOU TO KNOW. After garnering the audience favorite award at last summer's Maine International Film Festival the film attracted sponsors including peace organizations I belong to that worked to bring the film to more audiences here in Maine. Attendance at the November 13 screening in Brunswick was sparse -- about 20 people -- but an engaging discussion after the film was facilitated by veterans' counselor Robyn Belcher.

Archival footage of the wars the U.S. waged in Afghanistan and Iraq following 9/11 was interspersed with contemporary interviews of multiple veterans of those wars. Organized loosely by chronology of the enlistees' journeys from private citizens to imperial cannon fodder, the narrative arrived at moral injury -- a final resting place where one veteran predicted he will still be dwelling decades from now.

The film's theme is futility and the sensation that all the limbs and lives lost, plus the civilians terrorized or slaughtered, was for nothing. Several clips of a succession of U.S. presidents speaking conveyed the lies that combat veterans now believe they were told in the course of their enlistment. 

This photo and the one at the top are stills from the film's website.

There was no clear mission and, once in country, soldiers literally drove around in circles waiting for their turn to be blasted by an IED. They arrested the wrong men, they shot blindly into crowds of civilians, and in their view absolutely nothing was gained.

Ostensible reasons for being there i.e. bringing "democracy" or advancing the rights of women were quickly exposed as fraudulent. Insurgents had the support and loyalty of the people, and woe betide those who threw in with the occupying forces as interpreters only to be cast aside as the U.S. military departed. These acts of disloyalty contributed to the moral suffering described by veterans, and to the moral decay in evidence as soldiers whoop and congratulate themselves on shooting down from helicopters onto unarmed civilians.

U.S. soldier Steven Green hung himself in prison after being among a group of soldiers convicted of rape and murder committed in Mahmoudiyah, Iraq in 2006.  Photograph: AP

The film has a tight focus but I thought there were some glaring omissions in the moral injury department. No discussion of rape except in the context of Afghan warlords and their exploitation of boys? Really? Who can forget the gang-rape and murder of 14 year old Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi by U.S. Army soldiers who then killed her entire family in order to eliminate the witnesses. 

And why was there no discussion of opium production in Afghanistan used to fund the war while driving an opioid epidemic in the West until the Taliban again eradicated it after the occupiers departed? Plenty of veterans have died of suicide by overdose in the intervening years.

Suicide was touched on as it's well known that more active duty soldiers die in "accidents" or by their own hand than die from enemy fire. Soldiers described feeling betrayed by their leaders and demoralized by the things they both saw and did while deployed, a potent combination that eroded their will to stay alive.

Most of the audience discussion focused on damaged vets and how to help them help themselves. I have to admit that was not my focus as an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure in situations like this. Why not celebrate the fact that largely because of their suffering the will to enlist in the U.S. military is at an all time low? Even military families, traditionally the best source of volunteers, are telling their younger generations not to enlist. Decades of war for profit with dishonor have gutted what was once a proud military that believed in its mission (however deluded that notion might have been). 

The U.S. imperial mission in Ukraine and now in Israel have been spectacular failures that the government and its obedient press are still lying about today. Those in the know understand that Ukraine could not beat or even weaken Russia, and that Israel cannot win against Hamas, Hezbollah, and Resistance coalitions coming together to fight them and their U.S. sponsor. Attacks on illegal U.S. military bases in Syria and Iraq are reported almost daily. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands in the U.S. and millions across the globe continue marching to demand an end to the genocide happening right now to Palestinians.

Palestinians flee to the southern Gaza Strip on Salah al-Din Street in Bureij, Gaza Strip, Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)

The long downfall in morale that began with the Vietnam War has proven far more enduring than freedom.

U.S. Army Tweet Backfires On Memorial Day

For Memorial Day I visited the family cemetery and removed the flags placed on my father's and brother's graves at the behest of the VFA (Veterans of Foreign Wars) in Skowhegan. I've asked them to stop doing this, but the cemetery manager says he has to do what the VFA says.

My brother never enlisted, but he bears a similar name to a Civil War vet ancestor of ours who died by his own hand. My father, who was in the Army in Korea post-combat, passed on what his WWI vet father taught him: "Don't believe them when they say the next war is a good one. There is no such thing." (My father enlisted after his father died of his war injuries, before I was born.) My little granddaughter wanted the flag because she loves the stars and stripes design.

It is marketing like this that keeps the Pentagon death cult churning out wars and victims.

But marketing can only take you so far into denying reality. Two of my favorite thinkers blogged about a now infamously ill-advised tweet by the U.S. Army last week, "How has serving impacted you?" The number of responses was only at 5,300+ when Bruce Gagnon, himself an Air Force veteran, weighed in with "Army: It's not a job, it's an adventure..."

• “My daughter was raped while in the army,” said one responder. “They took her to the hospital where an all male staff tried to convince her to give the guy a break because it would ruin his life. She persisted. Wouldn’t back down. Did a tour in Iraq. Now suffers from PTSD.”

• “I’ve had the same nightmare almost every night for the past 15 years,” said another.

• “Someone I loved joined right out of high school even though I begged him not to. Few months after his deployment ended, we reconnected. One night, he told me he loved me and then shot himself in the head. If you’re gonna prey on kids for imperialism, at least treat their PTSD.”

By now various authors have compiled some of the 10,ooo responses. Caitlin Johnstone all the way down in Australia posted "The US Army Asked Twitter How Service Has Impacted People. The Answers Were Gut Wrenching."

“My dad was drafted into war and was exposed to agent orange. I was born w multiple physical/neurological disabilities that are linked back to that chemical. And my dad became an alcoholic with ptsd and a side of bipolar disorder.” 

~ 

“i met this guy named christian who served in iraq. he was cool, had his own place with a pole in the living room. always had lit parties. my best friend at the time started dating him so we spent a weekend at his crib. after a party, 6am, he took out his laptop. he started showing us some pics of his time in the army. pics with a bunch of dudes. smiling, laughing. it was cool. i was drunk and didn’t care. he started showing us pics of some little kids. after a while, his eyes went completely fucking dark. i was like man, dude’s high af. he very calmly explained to us that all of those kids were dead ‘but that’s what war was. dead kids and nothing to show for it but a military discount’. christian killed himself 2 months later.”

George Marlowe writing for World Socialist Web Site, "Memorial Day 2019: US Army tweet prompts outpouring of antiwar sentiment," pointed out what I've been thinking since I saw the original thread on Twitter: "This outpouring of rage on Twitter highlights the latent but deep going antiwar sentiment in the American population[emphasis mine] that finds no expression in the current political system or the corporate media. "  

How can we antiwar activists do a better job of leveraging this?

I would love to hear your thoughts in comments.

Turning The Military Against The Regime

When George W. Bush received the Liberty Medal in Philadelphia on Armistice Day, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans shouted “SHAME!” during his speech. Source: AboutFaceVeterans.org  Photograph by Ryan Harvey

While preparing my Armistice Day post I stumbled across some encouraging news of military personnel who aren't buying the so-called war on terror. Following dissenter Brittany DeBarros on Twitter -- a little late, since her 14 day campaign to share some truth about U.S. military deployments was last summer -- led me to this evidence of the war criminal Bush being held accountable:

Happening now: Iraq & Afghanistan #veterans have blocked entrances to the National Constitution Center in #Philadelphia where @JoeBiden is awarding the "Liberty Medal" to @GeorgeWBush. Dozens of veterans of his wars are outside refusing to leave. #veteransday #vereransday2018 pic.twitter.com/Vodh6r8xbC

— Ryan Harvey (@ryanharveysongs) November 12, 2018

DeBarros articulates the rage of veterans who mourn the dead and maimed while the wealthy sweep past them in fur coats on their way into $1,000 a plate dinners like the one held for Bush.

That’s VETS saying it’s past time to sound the alarm that we continue to bomb 7 countries & lay the blame for millions of dead Iraqi & Afghan ppl, for thousands of killed/wounded Americans at the feet of corporations & politicians who warmonger for profit #DropTheMIC #MoMoreWar

— Brittany DeBarros (@BrittDeBarros) November 12, 2018

I was reminded of veteran-led dissent while attending a training for future action at General Dynamics' Bath Iron Works (BIW) shipyard. Our two fine nonviolent action trainers Jessica and David challenged us to think about the various audiences for action at BIW. This helped me realized my audience is school age children, who hold the keys to our collective future. This will inform my planning for messaging at the next warship christening[sic]. For example, using images of the animals harmed by the U.S. Navy could be a good tactic:

Bruce said that his target audience is the crew of the warship, who used to march down the sidewalk in dress uniforms before entering the gate where our actions take place. (Now they are hustled through a back entrance where they can't see us.) That's Bruce's preferred audience because he was once a conservative young man who enlisted in the Air Force during the Vietnam War. Seeing protests outside the base where he was stationed led to debates inside that changed his mind and heart about war forever.

The working class youth who sign up for the military have far more in common with the working class youth who don't than with the titans of industry like General Dynamics CEO Phebe Novakovic who makes millions every year on the backs of U.S. taxpayers.

Some of the workers realize this.

Historically, the ruling class has feared that the working class military would turn against their regimes.

The so-called Sepoy Mutiny saw Indian soldiers turn against their British masters. It is seen as the first battle in the Indian war for independence that ended successfully following widespread nonviolent actions led by Gandhi.

They should fear this, because once consent is withdrawn it is difficult to regain. I believe that's why U.S. wars are increasingly fought by robots.

What a hell of a way to die is a self-described socialist podcast series by two reservists who can make sad and infuriating things sound funny. In a Paste magazine review of the series, podcaster Francis Horton explained why he joined the military:

It’s a job better than anything you can get at the age of 18. 

There are good benefits for you and your family. For 18 years I’ve been doing this but I also hit a point where I believe that this is gross. But then you get a $10k signing bonus. My patriotism was third on the list of priorities when I first joined. It’s the post office with guns.

Once they've taken the bait, many veterans wind up injured, broke, even homeless. They're right back in the same lousy job pool they escaped by enlisting.

Speaking of jobs, many folks in the nonviolent action training talked about the audience mostly present at warship events: the shipyard workers and their families. In the context of a poor state like Maine, these are lucrative jobs unavailable elsewhere. 

But building weapons of mass destruction is a demonstrably bad jobs program.

Research by economist Heidi Garret-Pelletier at Brown University continues to find that investment in sectors that build sustainable solutions to climate change would produce millions more jobs. Education is another sector where investments produce far more jobs. Many at the next BIW action will call on the shipyard to convert to building for life rather than for death.

This history major cherishes the hope that working class people turn away from the racist wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria that have killed half a million people since 2001. Of those who died, 6,951 were U.S. military personnel. 

Honor the war dead: demand the truth.

Veterans Responsible For Recent Gun Massacres #ThousandOaks #TallahasseeShooting

Facebook photo posted by Scott Paul Beirle, the yoga class killer.

We already know that the face of mass violence in the gun-infested USA looks male and very, very white. This week, it's looking increasingly like a white male veteran of the empire's many wars.

Scott Paul Beierle, age 40, shot and killed two women and injured several other people at a yoga class in Tallahassee on November 2. Five months ago he was fired from his job as a substitute teacher on the grounds of "unprofessional conduct." Students complained that he would fixate on girl students and stare them down, describing him as giving off a "psychopath vibe." He had been arrested more than once for assault, and investigated for harassing women. He was resentful about being rejected by women, a self-styled "incel" who couldn't get a date. He made videos that included racist rants and praise for another gunman who killed women who wouldn't go out with him. After he shot up the yoga studio, he turned his weapon on himself.

In almost any other rich nation, Beierle would not have been allowed to own the gun he used to murder his victims before turning the weapon on himself.

Scott Bierle was a veteran. Little is known about his time in the Army during 2008-10. He joins the ranks of the 20 veterans who commit suicide each day in the USA.

Ian David Long was the 28 year old veteran who shot up a country music nightclub in Thousand Oaks, California on November 8. He killed 13 people -- if you include his own suicide --and wounded many others.

According to ABC News article, "Thousand Oaks shooter was part of 'new generation of veterans' psychologist says":

The U.S. Marine Corps confirmed Long served from 2008 to 2013, and was deployed to Afghanistan from November 16, 2010, to June 14, 2011...

"There's no front line. These wars have been fought primarily through improvised explosive devices," clinical psychologist Dr. Elena Klaw told ABC7 News. "So that means that every man, woman or child that you see could be an enemy."

Dr. Klaw is also the director of Veterans Embracing Transition at San Jose State University. She explained the combat experienced in the Iraq or Afghanistan wars could impact a veteran's transition to civilian life. 

"You can't tell who's an enemy, and who's a combatant and who isn't," she continued. "So that required an enormous amount of what we call hyper vigilance." 

"Veterans have told me that the hardest part of their service has been coming home," Klaw said.  

Long's neighbors told the media they suspect he suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD.

Another mental health care provider did not agree. From CNN's story about the tragedy:

Thomas Burke, a pastor who served with Long in the same US Marine Corps regiment, said Long's battalion arrived during intense fighting in Helmand province.But Burke warned against too quickly blaming Long's actions on trauma experienced during war. 

"PTSD doesn't create homicidal ideation," Burke said. "We train a generation to be as violent as possible, then we expect them to come home and be OK. It's not mental illness. It's that we're doing something to a generation, and we're not responding to the needs they have."

A meme that's making the rounds: in the last 50 years, more people in the U.S. have died from gunshot wounds than ALL the people in the U.S. who died in all our wars.

Another angle on this story: the migrant waves from Central America and Mexico are made up of desperate people fleeing both poverty and epidemic gun violence. TeleSUR news reports that 2,000 guns made in the U.S. enter Mexico EVERY DAY.

Our endless (largely ignored) wars against people all over the planet, our fatally lax gun control, and our culture of  "entertainment" like video games where children are trained to kill for wins, have converged to create a perfect storm of violence.

From the VA:

From 2005 to 2016, Veteran and non-Veteran adult suicide rates increased 25.9 percent and 20.6 percent, respectively...

Veterans who are in crisis or having thoughts of suicide – and those who know a Veteran in crisis – can call the Veterans Crisis Line for confidential support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. Call 800-273-8255 and press 1, chat online at VeteransCrisisLine.net/Chat, or text to 838255.

Happy veterans day.

Imperial Death Throes: Requiring Veterans To Swear They Won't Commit Suicide

By my own schedule I should be writing a post about closing the U.S. military bases right near North Korea's border with their southern region, partitioned by the U.S. and U.S.S.R. in 1945 and not yet reunited. (Such a post would be part of a series about the need to close bases left behind in other vanquished enemy's territories e.g. Germany and in Okinawa, Japan.)

This is a map of all the U.S. bases in South Korea, and all the North Korean and Russian bases near U.S. borders.
Source: U.S. Department of "Defense"

And the story of untapped mineral wealth in North Korea (and, incidentally, occupied Afghanistan) is also one probably worth telling.

Then there are the nuclear taunts by two lunatic demagogues with bad hair on opposite sides of planet -- alarming many of my normally complacent neighbors, some so badly that they have forgotten to use spellcheck.

 Waterville Morning Sentinel, Aug. 9, 2017

But I write this blog to keep my head from exploding, not yours.

The most explosive news I stumbled across in my research about U.S. military bases in Korea was an item from Stars and Stripes headlined "Plans to institute military oath against suicide could backfire, some experts say."

Source: stopsoldiersuicide.org

Most of us are aware by now that suicide is the leading cause of death among U.S. troops, either active duty or, especially, veterans. Since war is increasingly waged by flying killer robots the actual boots on the ground continue to diminish in number, bringing down the likelihood of dying in combat. 

The moral injuries that lead to suicidal thoughts and actions? Those roll ever onward.

There were 22 veteran suicides each day at last reckoning. That number counts completed suicides, and does not include those attempted but not completed. Some studies show 30% of veterans report having suicidal ideation.

I was surprised to learn that an ill-advised oath against suicide was included in the National "Defense" Authorization Act passed by the House of Representatives on July 14.

A legless veteran who is a Republican from Florida, Rep. Brian Mast, is the lead promoter of the "Oath of Exit" which reads:

“I, ________, recognizing that my oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, has involved me and my fellow members in experiences that few persons, other than our peers, can understand, do solemnly swear (or affirm) to continue to be the keeper of my brothers- and sisters-in-arms and protector of the United States and the Constitution; to preserve the values I have learned; to maintain my body and my mind; and to not bring harm to myself without speaking to my fellow veterans first. I take this oath freely and without purpose of evasion, so help me God.”

We'll leave aside the question of why a mandatory oath would include reference to a religious entity when we are alleged to have separation of church and state (a rapidly eroding concept as the current regime's cabinet holds weekly Bible study sessions on the taxpayers' dime). 

The bottom line is that mental health experts say suicide oaths, popular ten years ago, don't work.

In fact, they can be counterproductive because they deter folks with suicidal ideation from seeking help; they can't admit they want to end it all because they made a promise not to think like that.

I firmly believe that friends don't let friends enlist in the first place, but my heart aches for the youngsters that are lured into military life by means of billions in advertising and marketing schemes that pervade 21st century life in the USA. Even grown men and women succumb to their blandishments, because they want a new truck, or to take care of their aging mom, or to see the world, or to be able to afford college.

Very little information about what they are really signing up for is actually shared. Eight years of life killing and destroying other people's homes at the behest of commanders like the demagogue with bad hair in the White House, for a pittance.

"Hairswap" by Redditor GallowBoob 

There are many signs that we're nearing the end of the horrific age of American Empire.

Endless wars that no one else wants to even know about take their toll on the 1% of the population that actually wages them. Empty b.s. like "thank you for your service" just increases the mental anguish and feelings of isolation, according to many. The disillusionment that sets in as veterans struggle with feelings of guilt, futility and, in many cases, actual poverty don't seem to fulfill the shiny promise of serving their country that was hyped by the recruiters.

Requiring military personnel to swear they won't kill themselves seems like a sign of the death throes of an empire.

Militarized Children Are The Canaries In Our Coal Mine

I was appalled to receive a bulletin in my school inbox filled with exuberant plans to "celebrate the military child" in Maine schools. 

I find "military child" an oxymoron -- unless it means actual child soldiers -- and I think children in military families need to be supported and cared for rather than celebrated for their sacrifices.

Some excerpts from the DOE bulletin (full text here):

The Maine Department of Education along with the Military Interstate Children’s Compact Commission (MIC3), and Governor Paul R. LePage have declared April “The Month of the Military Child” as a month-long awareness and celebration of military children and the important role they play in the community. 

The declaration is part of a national movement celebrating The Month of the Military Child in April as a time to applaud military families and their children for the daily sacrifices they make and the challenges they overcome.

“We are aware of the struggles and sacrifices children make when they move in and out of different schools as part of the life-style of a military family,” said Maine Department of Education Commissioner Robert G. Hasson, Jr. “Great efforts are taken by MIC3 and local school officials to ensure that military children receive a quality, and comprehensive education throughout the school year, no matter where they live,” he added.

Maine's schools are full of children who live with adults suffering from PTSD; ours is a very poor state with a very high rate of military enlistment. Research has shown that family members of veterans with PTSD can develop it themselves, because it can be traumatically stressful to live with someone whose nervous system is captive to their memories of battlefield trauma. (I co-wrote a teen novel about this with another teacher a few years back, and you can read Buggy as a self-published Kindle ebook here.)

We used pseudonyms. You can probably guess why from reading the first chapter.

That is if the family members themselves survive. I'm reminded of the wife and four year old daughter of a veteran who shot them both before shooting himself. Komel and Raniya Crowley were not allowed to see her sister, the little girl's aunt, who drove all day to knock on their door out of fear for their safety. According to Alec Wilkinson reporting in the New Yorker, David Crowley was a veteran of U.S. imperial wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, one of the many victims of repeated redeployments ironically called "stop-loss" by the Pentagon. 

Crowley was also reportedly a pacifist after a change of heart following his battlefield experiences. 

The dystopian film he was trying to make, Grey State, has become something of a cult flick and many of its adherents believe the U.S. government executed the family. Whether directly or indirectly, his fans may be right about that. His own description of the film was that it depicted "a near future collapse of society under martial law."

Today all U.S. senators are summoned to the White House to receive a briefing on the alleged threat to national security posed by North Korea.

You can sign a petition here calling on the Senate not to go to war in East Asia.* 

If we do, will senate families experience having a parent in the military? Not bloody likely.

Meanwhile, Japan has been steadily remilitarizing under the Obama administration's "pivot to Asia" and famously has students at a right wing kindgergarten swearing loyalty to the emperor using a relic of their failed imperial project prior to WWII.




A video of Prime Minister Abe's wife beaming as they do so reportedly scandalized the nation; many Japanese remember how much their families suffered the last time their nation was militarized.  An element of the scandal is that the ultra-nationalist school was sold public land at a fraction of its market value. The school's deputy principal has also gone on record in a letter to parents stating that he hates Koreans and Chinese people; these were the principal victims of Japan's biological warfare experiments during WWII.

Did I mention that the scientists responsible for those experiments were scooped up by the U.S. and protected from prosecution as war criminals?

Or that the U.S. used biological weapons in the Korean War? A war that never ended, incidentally; the cease-fire only created a "demilitarized zone" along the Cold War-era partition line, separating children from their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins ever since.

What's to celebrate?



* I'm iffy on the claim that Russia is an ally of North Korea in this otherwise worthy petition.

On Armistice Day I Do Not Thank Veterans For Their "Service"

It is Armistice Day again, 11/11, the ceasefire that ended the imperial war that ushered in the death and destruction of the 20th century. The seeds of violence, industrialized killing, and wars for peace (or to end all wars, or to save the innocents of Belgium, or of your country here____) were sown.

Wikipedia: The Mosul–Haifa oil pipeline was a crude oil pipeline from the oil fields in Kirkuk, located in north Iraq, throughJordan to Haifa (now on the territory of Israel).

The activist Bernarda Shahn once told me that her mother returned home from a war resistance meeting in New York City prior to the outbreak of what would come to be known as World War I. As she hung up her coat her daughter heard her say, with furious tears springing from her eyes, "This whole thing is about nothing more than Mosul Oil."

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

My own grandfather went to the war fresh out of high school. He was a popular, good-looking boy who looked forward to getting right back to Maine to help his family run their ice business. He was injured on the last day before the Armistice, catching shrapnel in his leg and then being gassed as he lay wounded on the field.

It took his family over a year to locate him in a hospital in New York; eventually he returned home, went to college, and married a registered nurse. His leg was saved by fusing the knee so that all his life he was unable to bend it. His lungs and heart were permanently affected too, and he died of heart failure when his only child, my father, was 19.

"Don't believe them when they say the next war is a good war," my father reported his father told him. "There is no such thing."

Source: "The Korean Atrocity: Forgotten US War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity"
Global Research May 18, 2013 by Yves Engler

My own father believed the gung-ho propaganda hyping the "Good War" of his youth -- World War II, which grew directly from the bloody roots of WWI. He believed the recruiters, who told him Korea was a good war, too -- the front line in stopping the march of China and Communism. Because his father begged him to go to college and not enlist, he didn't make it to Seoul until after his father had died and combat had been ended by a ceasefire that perpetuates the war to this day.

My father went to Korea as an occupier and was profoundly affected by the poverty and suffering observable in the wake of a war that had killed more than 4.5 million people.

My dad taught me that wars are a way for the rich to get richer, and the poor to get poorer.

Every year I take the flag off his grave, and that of his father, and that of my brother -- a man who never went to war at all. The cemetery workers who take orders from the VFW don't know who was actually a veteran. I guess they figure that any man between the ages of 18 and death was some kind of a soldier.

Kind of like how the Obama administration considers any adult male living in certain regions of the planet to be a militant whom it is ok to kill with the weaponized drones that will render many veterans obsolete in the 21st century.

Now I teach about how the Holocaust sprang from the evil sown during WWI, and how the Nakba and ongoing brutal occupation of Palestine sprang from the Holocaust, and how rich corporations rake in the profits all along, extracting oil from Mosul or minerals from the Dead Sea. Feasting on the stolen resources of the dead children.

Israeli corporation SodaStream will tout its products in Superbowl commercials aimed at the somnolent conscience of the U.S. consumer. IBM and Ford have never been called to account for how they profited from business dealings with the Nazi regime, and what of it?

Let's just re-name Armistice Day, give everyone a bunch of flags to wave, and sweep all that nasty mess under the carpet. Who's in the playoffs? Boston Strong!

Source: Comic book on the struggle to save Jeju Island from naval base construction. Translation: The shark's teeth spell out "imperialism" while the land mass is labeled "Jeju Island."

Let's look away as the Samsung Corporation and the U.S. Navy entomb a soft coral reef in concrete to make a deep water port for warships on the coast of South Korea to threaten China.

On another border of China, let's lie about how much better life has gotten for women and girls in Afghanistan as NATO troops keep corrupt warlords in power who keep the country safe for contractors.

Natural resources exist to be bought and sold in our capitalist system. And the military exists to keep the boot on the neck of the indigenous resistance.

In the words of a veteran who woke up to reality, Major General Smedley Butler, speaking in 1933:

The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. 

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

Source: Wikipedia "Personifying the United States, Uncle Sam chases a bee. Two years after this cartoon's publication, at the end of the Philippine-American War, Aguinaldo would surrender to the United States."

Military Suicide Epidemic: 16 Veterans, Every Day

This morning I am looking at a disturbing effort by military wives to write words on their bare skin and then share photographs of themselves in order to remove the stigma of seeking help for PTSD. I saw it on a creepy website called iVillage that has a lot of Michelle Obama in your face -- as in, you cannot get her pop-up ad to stop obscuring the bottom of the page you are trying to view.

Another example of the creepiness: if you click on the photo of the bare backed woman hoping to see more ("Related Photos") it insists on taking you to a photo essay called "Hottest Military Dads." :-p

But Battling Bare is attempting to address a real problem that affects us all, not just veterans, and not just veterans' loved ones. Their facebook page led me to this poster, which I shared:

Also to Rachel Maddow's story on a Veterans Administration building in danger of collapsing from the weight of a backlog of 37,000 file folders pertaining to unprocessed claims by about a million veterans. Claims that have been waiting for months or even years to be addressed.

I very seldom share, or even view, programs that contain ads for corporate sponsors (and these on MSNBC are truly odious -- Bank of America's credit card, BP on how great the Gulf is now) but I will make an exception in this case because the story is so important:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Remember, a soldier who dies by suicide is a soldier whose family will no longer be receiving payments from the Pentagon. Unless the family sues alleging that the government failed to respond to legitimate claims for care that was never received. Good luck with that.

A woman stopped Sunday at our ongoing vigil on the bridge in Skowhegan, Maine. Her partner had hollered out the window as he drove by, wanting to know who were we: independent? I nodded yes and his face brightened. Not for Obama? Nope. Romney either? No again.

The woman told us she was newly a grandmother. Her two week-old grandson's daddy had been deployed four times to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Army had plans to send him back for the 5th deployment. "He doesn't want to go," she told me. "He used to be enthusiastic and he loved his country. But he doesn't believe in these wars anymore."

I'll end with an excellent Democracy Now! segment on the epidemic of soldier suicides -- more die by their own hand than are killed in combat, and that is the way of death for 16 veterans PER DAY. From suicide prevention educator Kevin Hines: "...sometimes you go to a base that has one psychiatrist per 5,000 to 10,000 servicemen and women."