I walked by my local elementary school the other day and there's a big sign up above the door asking for donations for our troops. It's sort of odd that we would have to donate money for troops in a so-called war but I thought more and more about this.
The problem with just saying we should support our troops and leave it at that is that it implies we support the war itself. I mean, I support our troops, I support them not being there. Some of my friends have told me that they don't support the war but they support the troops but what does that mean? If it means supporting them continuing to kill and be killed in my name then I do not support this. This is not a just war, the one in Afghanistan or the one in Iraq.
I thought about what it means to have fundraisers at public elementary schools for "our troops" without any any right for those that don't support the war itself to explain their position to the children. It's a way of brainwashing our kids to be uncritical. In times of war there's to be no questioning, no criticism.
And I thought about this stuff with Pakistan. Our government sends in unmanned drones to Pakistan, about 20 in the last month, and we kill people that CNN and the White House tell us are our enemies who are out to get us. Maybe they are maybe they aren't out to get us; I'm sure they are after the bombings. But we also kill our allies like the Pakistani soldiers that were killed by US helicopters that flew in to their territory after supposed enemies. The Pakistanis have protested this, object to a foreign country, an ally at that, using it's airspace and bombing it's land and people. Our government doesn't give a damn and continues to do it. The Pakistanis have got mad and blocked supply lines that the US uses for the Afghanistan fiasco.
US drone attacks and other incursions have killed innocent people repeatedly, blowing up guests at weddings and other events. I was thinking about this. The US bombs and is occupying Afghanistan. The US regularly flies in to Pakistan, a supposed ally and bombs people. Imagine how we would react if this was happening here in the US, I thought to myself. We would go nuts. It wouldn't matter that they were bombing bad guys or anybody, we would be enraged about it and hatred would boil up in us towards the people doing this; we'd join any group that allowed us to fight back and they'd be calling me a terrorist then too. But this is the foreign policy of my government; it's insane.
I would want my kid to know that.
1 comment:
You're right, and they talk about the public schools controlling our kids' minds teaching them that being gay is Ok destroying what we're told is the "normal" family and such.
But it's Ok to deceive our children and give the impression that our government is killing hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of people to save us.
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