a foolish hero

the 20th anniversary of the death of pat tillman is almost upon us. there's a feature article on ESPN's website about it. if that name doesn't ring a bell, google it. i'll sum up why it might here:

tillman was an elite athlete, a star professional american football player in his prime when 9/11 happened. he turned down a multimillion dollar contract offer from his football team to enlist in the military and be sent to afghanistan, where he was killed, as it turned out, by 'friendly fire'. the military honchos lied about the circumstances of his death to cover up the culpability of higher ups in the chain of command who made grossly incompetent and callous decisions which endangered the lives of their men, for which pat tillman paid the ultimate price.

the ESPN article featured an interview with tillman's mother on this 20th anniversary of her son's death. here's one question that was posed with her answer to it:

How would you describe the way the military handled this and the way it treated your family for the last 20 years?

Oh, it's horrific. It's shameless. Not only did they lie to us, they lied to the whole country about it. If someone this high-profile and his family can be treated this way, then what are they doing with other families that don't have the voice? Nobody expects their leaders to do this. And of course it speaks to what is so concerning to Pete, that not only did this harm our family, in more ways than I can express here, but it harmed many of these soldiers.

The chain of command just threw it downwards. And a lot of these guys [in the platoon] have been harmed with PTSD, with moral injury, moral trauma. It's because they've been betrayed. They've been betrayed by their leaders, who don't have the courage to admit they made a mistake. And of course people forgive mistakes. You may be angry at first. You may question. You may be upset. You may beat on their chest, "How did you make this happen?" But eventually you come to terms with it and you're grateful that they told you the truth. But we can't say that about them. I'm still angry about it. I mean, there's no contrition. They've never apologized to us. They've never apologized to the soldiers that they gaslighted basically into thinking that this was all their fault. It's just lies upon lies upon lies. And they did it so tactically, so strategically.

keep in mind that this is on ESPN, the reigning king of sports journalism in america. it's very high profile. this interview was probably read by millions of sheeple. it's corporate establishment media, the very same media i've repeatedly railed against in the past for it's duplicitous role in our dystopia, as a 'ministry of truth', to use an orwellian phrase. yet even here, for anyone who reads beyond the headlines, evidence is revealed of our extreme dystopia, in this case in the form of official corruption and callous disregard for the lives of a public they purportedly serve and selflessly lead.

in spite of this, that public remains largely indifferent towards or ignorant of this particular aspect of dystopia. they'll still salute the flag and answer the patriotic call to 'serve their country', if and when that call comes.

there's no understanding sheeple. one might think they'd eventually wise up. one might also wonder when 'eventually' will happen, since it hasn't yet, in spite of centuries or millennia of such abuse of 'authority', the world over.

tillman has been described by many as an authentic hero. if that be the case, and i'm in no position to dispute it, if that be the case then i must piss in his heroic wheaties by observing that anyone willing to kill and be killed for their country as a patriotic duty is a brainwashed fool. i, as an unpatriotic coward, may be just a plain fool for saying so, but it is what i think, so help me.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/39954768/nfl-cardinals-tillman-afghanistan-9-11

the war u don't see

in this excellent documentary, australian journalist john pilger exposes the role of governments and lamestream media, working together, in promoting/propagandizing war.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mDuxFnn2RY

"on God's business"

on this easter sunday i think it appropriate to point out one of the many atrocities that the roman catholic church has perpetrated  it has much blood on it's hands. it's various 'crusades' have in fact been genocides.

some will claim that such an assertion is biased against the church, but i think it's well documented and reflective of well informed and unbiased opinion.

at the bottom is a link to the best website i've discovered that covers a crusade. this particular one took place in the south of france in the early 13th century, and was precipitated by a rebellion against catholic doctrine and corruption. it involved wholesale slaughter of civilians (perhaps more than a million of them) by the crusaders,  which considering the much lower population back then, makes it an even more 'impressive' wholesale slaughter in terms of percent. here's a quote regarding this crusade from the first page of the website:

It was a formal crusade in the full sense of the word - preached and directed by the papacy, and offering participants the remission of sins and an assured place in heaven. The Crusaders regarded themselves as being "on God's business" and referred to themselves as "pilgrims".

below is a brief description of what this 'crusade' entailed from the same page:

Terror tactics included mass indiscriminate slaughter as at Béziers and Marmande (and planned for Toulouse), various attrocities as at Bram and Lavaur, and mass burnings as at Minerve, Lavaur, Les casses and Montsegur.

https://www.cathar.info/cathar_wars.htm

sex work

'sex work' is a distasteful term to me. it implies that what a 'sex worker' does is unpleasant, distasteful. i prefer to look at the practice of buying or selling sexual favors as something which when engaged in freely, not under duress, is mutually agreeable and rewarding. i also think it's natural and nothing to be ashamed of, no reason to be stigmatized or criminalized. quite the contrary.

getting paid or rewarded for providing sexual pleasure and fulfillment to another is good. paying or rewarding someone for providing sexual pleasure and fulfillment is good. at it's best, 'sex work' isn't work at all. there may be an imbalance of pleasure, an imbalance of passion, but just because the provider receives less pleasure and fulfillment, they can still derive pleasure and fulfillment in this 'work'. in that case it's literally and figuratively a labor of love.

shame and fear

certain terms for parts of female genitalia are derived from words ( in latin or some other ancient language? ) meaning basically 'parts to be ashamed of''.

i've become vehemently anti-christian as i've come to understand christianity's basic precepts or dogmas better, and what purpose might be served by them. for example, nothing is more central to christian 'faith' than the assertion of human 'sinfulness', with 'sin' being an offense to god. basically, this dogma is that humans are either inherently bad or we exercise our 'free will' so badly that we offend god. for this, we ought to be ashamed. if we aren't, there's something wrong with us. if we aren't, we can't truly repent or be forgiven. and that's a huge problem, because all talk aside of the christian god being 'loving', this is a god u don't want to be opposed to or alienated from. this is a judgmental and punitive god. this is a god to fear. eternal damnation is a fate infinitely worse than death. it's infinitely worse than anything we can imagine. christianity is a faith of ultimate shame and fear.

shame and fear aren't unique to christianity. they're probably a key component to all or most civilized religions, by design. better minds than mine have concluded that modern religion is a tool of social control, the 'opiate of the masses'. shame and fear diminish our sense of self, or self esteem. faith in the claims or decrees of  'authority' empower 'authority' and disempower us.

religion has long been a tool used by elites. religion and 'authority' go hand in hand.

in christianity the idea or definition of sin is often closely aligned with the idea that unfettered desire or passion is offensive to god, something to be ashamed of, something to be afraid of, something to be suppressed. this is why genitalia related terms like 'pudendum'  have shameful connotations. they represent body parts which arouse erotic passion. this induced dogmatic puritanical shame and fear are why we're so repressed. neurotic, hypocritical. confused. conflicted. and often pathologically destructive when it comes to 'romance'.

"Once you're a Catholic, you're always a Catholic—in terms of your feelings of guilt and remorse and whether you've sinned or not. Sometimes I'm wracked with guilt when I needn't be, and that, to me, is left over from my Catholic upbringing. Because in Catholicism you are born a sinner and you are a sinner all of your life. No matter how you try to get away from it, the sin is within you all the time."   -madonna

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Like_a_Prayer_(song)#Background_and_inspiration

social isolation in america

I'm not very serious about moving to a spanish speaking country like mexico or costa rica because if i was, i'd be trying to learn the language. I'm not because i don't have much aptitude for it and because therefore it seems like drudgery, plus i'm very uncertain re. whether i surreally want to leave the u.s.. 

i have been watching a few videos on youtube about expat life in costa rica and one of the things that's struck me is how friendly the natives apparently are there. To me, this is in marked contrast to my experience of america, but that's probably due in part to my own internal alienation.

the other night i watched part of a sensationalist true story, the kind that corporate lamestream tv seems to love, no doubt in part because sensational true stories are attention grabbers (also, the ones the tv networks like to showcase involve individuals behaving atrociously, criminally, involving the police, who by contrast appear to be the 'good guys', and one thing i've become hyper- aware of since becoming a 'conspiracy theorist' is that corporate media appears to bend over backwards to portray law enforcement in a positive light, while minimizing and rationalizing away their own atrocious abuses of power).

this story involved a very religious mormon mother who had gained an internet following for the videos she posted advocating 'tough love' parenting. Turns out she was horribly abusing her 2 youngest children, apparently in an attempt in her sick mind to keep them away from 'evil' or to discipline them. She was keeping them tied up, virtual prisoners in their own home, with inadequate food and water. Somehow her 12 year old son escaped and emaciated, went over and rang the doorbell of a neighbor.

this neighbor had surveillance camera by his door which recorded audio, so one could hear the interaction between him and the boy who sought his help. The boy meekly asked if he would do a couple of favors for him. After a brief pause, this neighbor, a grown man, replied with apparent annoyance 'what do u want'?.

to me, this exchange is rather emblematic of how socially isolated and consequently unempathetic americans, or at least many of us, have become towards one another. Here's this kid in rather obvious distress asking for help and his neighbor is not immediately sympathetic, but rather openly hostile.

i've become very used to being alone. in a way i like it because i've attained the view that my fellow americans (and probably, by extension, sheeple in general) are generally quite stupid and unrelatable to me, But in another deeper way, this way of life is pretty lonely and unsatisfying. This makes me wonder if i might fare better socially outside the u.s., but i'm also inclined to think that i probably won't, and that i would in fact miss this american culture where it's quite normal and ok to not know one's neighbors.

i'd love to know what's your take on this issue?

on motherhood and 'pro-life' religion

I've been thinking a bit about my troubled nephew. i'm pretty sure most if not all of his troubles stem from growing up a lone child in a single parent household in a society which doesn't promote communal childcare with a mother who didn't seem to know how to nurture, or to be more blunt, who didn't seem to love him.

i think the same applies to me somewhat, although i had 2 parents. neither of them seemed to take much interest in me. plus back in the 50s i guess parents in western societies or at least here in the u.s. were encouraged to be rather negligent regarding infant needs, as it was thought they'd spoil their child if they responded to it's cries too much. although i can't recall being an infant it's easy to imagine that i wasn't held or nurtured nearly enough, considering the way my parents treated me when i was older. i've read from multiple sources that infancy is a critical time of development and that it's especially important for infants to be held a lot and be given oodles of attention/love.

this is something 'pro-lifers' don't seem to get at all when they insist that women who get pregnant but don't want to carry the child to term for whatever reason be forced to. if a woman doesn't want to become a mother she's probably not going to be a good one. and the child is going to absorb her lack of attachment and suffer for it and probably be affected for the rest of it;s life, adversely.

similarly they don't seem to get that life itself can become burdensome or tortuous, especially for those with a terminal illness like cancer. this makes me hate and not understand them. i can only think of them as dogmatic, brainwashed. i especially hate the catholic church and other religious sects which promote the 'pro-life' view. i think of them as sick and evil, don't u?

also, regarding the catholic church and other puritanical religious sects, i've long reached the conclusion that with regards to human sexuality, their 'morality' is designed to minimize pleasure and maximize reproductive consequences, which i regard as just plain stupidcrazy, unless one takes into consideration the conspiratorial view that the church's function isn't to promote human well being, but rather to promote a sort of deadened human spirit which is more amenable to being controlled and exploited by 'authority'. and as u ought to well know by now, i am a 'conspiracy theorist'!