Slowing The Rush To War The Redneck Way

Watching American Sniper brought up a memory for me that I'd like to share. On the morning the trade towers went down my grandfather stopped me on the road outside my great-grandmother's house. He in his pic-up and me in mine. It was a cold, crisp morning with the feel of fall in the air. I was driving home from cutting firewood at my future mother-n-law's house. He on his way home from having coffee with his sister, some brothers, and cousins at ma's house they called it. We got our trucks stopped, our windows rolled down, and after the "did-ya-hear-what-happens?" he said, "Don't you go fight for them. It's not worth giving up your life." We went on with our usual what've-you-got planned-today coversation and went our separate ways.

That's the redneck way of slowing the rush to war. It wasn't cowardice or just another one of grandpa's directives to rebel against. He'd seen his uncles rush off to WWII, cousins to the Korea War, and younger brother to Vietnam. He didn't want to see his eldest grandson rush off to war. It was an older man loving a younger man. It was a grandfather loving his grandson.

The Warrior and American Sniper

I decided to take my 15 year old son to see American Sniper. I don't go to the theatre or watch movies at home very often, so I surprised myself. Movies in general just don't interest me, or maybe it's just I don't feel like I have the time for them. But after listening to a hour long discussion on NPR about the movie, some lines by James Hillman came to me: There is a love and beauty in war that many of us don't want to see. And if we want to oppose war we have to go to war ourselves in our hearts and minds. We must imagine into the hearts of our enemy (All paraphrased).

Then I started second guessing myself, so I thought I'd better consult one of my elders and mentors. I pulled Robert Bly's "Iron John" off the the shelf and opened up to the chapter on Warriorship. This quote sealed it:

"We can all add further details to the account I've given of the decline from warrior to soldier to murderer, but it is important to notice the result. The disciplined warrior, made irrelevant by mechanized war, disdained and abandoned by the high-tech culture, is fading in American men. The fading of the warrior contributes to the collapse of civilized society. A man who cannot defend his own space cannot defend women and children. The poisoned warriors called drug lords prey primarily on kingless, warriorless boys.

"And it all moves so swiftly. The massive butcheries of 1915 [World War I] finish off the disciplined or outward warrior, and then within thirty years, the warriors inside Western men begin to weaken. The double weakening makes us realize how connected the outer world and the inner world are, how serious the events of history are." (Pg. 156, Iron John)

It's an interesting thought that part of the reason civilization is collapsing is because there aren't many warriors around to protect women and children. It brings up the question, at least in our house, what does it mean to be a warrior? I look forward to going to the movie and the discussion afterwards.

 

The Willingness To Look

A brief reflection after looking at this page and map concerning Wisconsin's frac sand industry.

"The white man seeks to conquer nature, to bend it to his will and to use it wastefully until it is all gone and then he simply moves on, leaving the waste behind him and looking for new places to take. The whole white race is a monster who is always hungry and what he eats is land." ~Chiksika, (1760-1792), The eldest brother and mentor of Tecumseh

When discussing war and resistance, James Hillman once said that we must think ourselves into the heart of the enemy. We must go to war ourselves. Asking: What are there beliefs? What are there fears? Why do they do what they do? And If we don't, he warns we remain innocents. We remain children not wanting to know. Not willing to look.

Environment, Religion, and War

"Environmental battles are where the wars of religion are fought today, showing the old pagan nature Gods have not altogether been subdued by the world unification plans of god, the Economy."--James Hillman, pg.4, Kinds of Power

The Furies and Resistance

This brief excerpt about the Greek furies knocked me on my ass this morning. It's sort of dark. Then again I'm feeling dark so what can be expected.

"After a blood-crime the ancient Greek Furies (Erinyes) demand vengeance. They do not let go and they work by disturbing the mind. There is no escape from their pursuit. Heraclitus says that if the sun itself were to leave its ordered course, the Furies would find him. To forget a major wrong is to neglect the laws of the cosmos, which are also reflected in the order of the family."[James Hillman, Pg.157, A Terrible Love of War]

This is part of the reason why, I think, Derrick Jensen heavily criticizes the dogma of non-violent pacifism. We are destroying nonhuman life at such an alarming rate there isn't one of us that can wash the blood off from our hands by claiming the moral high ground of nonviolent pacifism. And besides, the furies (Erinyes) will find a way to torment us anwyay. I'm beginning to think the deaths cannot be transformed by love. Perhaps underground acts of resistance will be inevitable for some simply because of the torment.

The Reasons For War: Does The Land Demand Blood Sacrifice?

James Hillman on why the Civil War might have been fought:

"Suppose the entire American Civil War that has permanently marked the land and scarred the character of the American people was a sacrifice by a secular Christian society to a god or gods that had not been honestly remembered until the war, gods of the land, gods honored who had been there for centuries before the combatants donned the blue and the gray.

"Suppose the gods in this 'new world' soil were saying: 'You may not land here; you cannot claim this land by labor alone, nor by law or treaty, nor even by expulsion of others and the rights of victors. To claim this land you shall pay for it with your own blood, and until you have paid you have not truly landed; you remain colonists, attached still in soul to another mother as refugees from her, rebels against her, secretly fawning upon her, and have not let this land bring forth its birth in freedom.'"--Pg.103, A Terrible Love of War

Suppose this is why Derrick Jensen has often said that we must ask the land what it wants. It has its own wants and desires that we must pay attention to before we act to help it. I don't know. I do know that Heraclitus once said: "The true nature of things loves to hide and to stay hidden."

Citizenship and War

This quote by Machiavelli and James Hillman's commentary on it is stunning and inspiring.

"A prince...should have no other aim or thought, nor take up any other things for his study, but war; [he] ought...never let his thoughts stray from the exercise of war; and in peace he ought to practise it more than in war."

James Hillman goes onto say: "The prince, as generous metaphor for responsible citizen and concerned member of the polis, will keep a focused mind, a mind undistracted by the multiple diversions of peace, and a psyche neither numbed nor in denial. And he will maintain this clarity not merely by meditating or praying to benefit his own 'mental health,' but for the common good and the defense of the community. Hence, the prince 'ought never let his thoughts stray from...war.'" Pg. 36, A Terrible Love of War

I'm also beginning to see why Derrick Jensen titled one of his CD's: Now This War Has Two Sides.

Support our Troops?

Where I live you see a lot of people with the yellow ribbons on the back of there cars that read, Support our Troops. I've always understood this statement as Support our War. And most of the time, whenever I see a car sporting the yellow ribbon, I can't help but think about how horrible war really is. I always wonder if the person that stuck the ribbon on their car is thinking about this too. Things like: torture, bombings, rapes, Post Traumatice Stress Syndrome, death, murder, prison camps, and so on. It's just crazy.

Back to the yellow ribbons. Yesterday I ran across a really good explanation of why statements like Support our Troops are so deceptive. They're meaningless.

"The point of public relations slogans like 'Support our troops' is that they don't mean anything. That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and everybody's going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything. Its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something: Do you support our policy? That's the one you're not allowed to talk about." - Noam Chomsky -