The Passivism of Force

Pacifists facilitate peace where conflict is manifest.

I was listening to a liberal go on about guns and force and glorification of violence and how this all leads to war, and it occurred to me how right she was, although she may not have realized it.

Think of the people who join the military or law enforcement, and now increasingly, both.    Without thinking it through, they pledge their lives to an abstract, a state, and accept the narrative that they are taking risks to benefit others.

Now there is no doubt that the deaths and wounds and disabilities to our soldiers and cops are real, but 19 year olds also believe they are bulletproof.

19 year olds are not really in a position to weight the pros and cons of joining up.  The simply accept, unthinkingly, the narrative about the abstract.  This is the essential nature of passivism, to be passive in the face of evil, as opposed to pacifism, which is to be active in the face of evil.

Passivism is violent and leads to a downward spiral.  Pacifism is nonviolent and leads to an upward spiral, although participants get every bit as deaded as passivists.  But then, pacifists are answering to a higher calling, not an abstract.

Feel Free To Email This To Three Friends.

Chiba Sensei On the Development of Shiho Nage

Feel Free To Email This To Three Friends.

The Archbishop Wants Help, Not War

It's a fine line, asking for needed help without getting more of the violence that precipitated the need for help.

We are victims, and we suffer at the hands of fundamentalists coming from distant countries to fight against those whom they consider to be the infidels (us Christians), using as an excuse that their brothers are being persecuted in various countries. Their reaction is to kill others. Our reaction to persecution must be that of becoming more loving, more united, ever stronger in showing the world the true image of life, as taught us by Jesus Christ.

Obviously the fighters are coming in after the USA invasion, and picking on soft targets.  So the archbishop in essence is asking for reparations, but no more violence.  Give the article a read.

Feel Free To Email This To Three Friends.

Pacifica Radio and Drone Killings

When you make donations to Pacifica Radio and its show Democracy now, Amy Goodman earns millions.  For her part, she makes sure that all criticism of the regime remains cloudy and ineffectual.

She has a drone-operator killer on her show, and manages to conduct a content free discussion.

BRANDON BRYANT: Because there’s so much misinformation out there, that—so much speculation, and—and that’s wrong. The United States government hasn’t really done a good job of humanizing the people that do it. And everyone else thinks that the whole program or the people behind it are a joke, that we are video-game warriors, that we’re Nintendo warriors. And that’s—that’s really not the case. And these—the people that do the job are just as legit and just as combat-oriented as anyone else. And I’m not like their official spokesperson. In fact, I’m probably the most hated person in the entire community right now.

Well, there is noting in the interview that would support this fellow contention, in fact he comes across as a Nintendo killer.  Further, she gives him a pass on his claims to constitutional justification for his participation in over 1600 kills.

The take-away is the war is legal and just and he is the victim.  We need a Pacifica Radio for that?

Feel Free To Email This To Three Friends.

Russell Brand on the rEVOLution

Feel Free To Email This To Three Friends.

Aikido Practice

Note in this rediscovered video of O Sensei how he leans into the attackers and goes straight at the threat...  today in many dojos you get criticized for that...



It is hard to find this kind of practice today, which was common circa 1970.  1970 was 35 years after this film was made.  By 2005, another 35 years, it is almost gone.  Time to revive it.

Feel Free To Email This To Three Friends.

Declare Victory and Go Home

At what point do you declare victory and go home?  Our best recruits defect.

The USA attack on Afghanistan after Saudis attacked the USA was a very bad idea and over a decade later we are still losing.

"He sent some of his comrades on leave and paid others to go out sightseeing, and then escaped with up to 30 guns, night-vision goggles, binoculars and a Humvee," said Shuja ul-Mulkh Jalala, the governor of Kunar.
Zubair Sediqi, a spokesman for Hezb-e-Islami, confirmed that Khan had joined the group, saying he had brought 15 guns and high-tech equipment.
The NATO-led coalition is grappling with a rise in "insider attacks" by Afghan soldiers who turn on their allies, undermining trust and efficiency.
It has reported four lethal incidents over the past month taking the total number this year to 10, according to a Reuters tally.

Our trainees turn on us.  And those who were involved in the hit on Osama Bin Laden mostly died in Afghanistan not too long after.

Questions haunt the families of Extortion 17, the 2011 helicopter mission in Afghanistan that suffered the most U.S. military deaths in a single day in the war on terrorism.
Every day, Charlie Strange, the father of one of the 30 Americans who died Aug. 6, 2011, in the flash of a rocket-propelled grenade, asks himself whether his son, Michael, was set up by someone inside the Afghan government wanting revenge on Osama bin Laden’s killers — SEAL Team 6.

There must be something in a war manual that says "when we are losing this bad, declare victory and go home."  If not, this looks about time.


Feel Free To Email This To Three Friends.