B. (because there's no v in Japanese)

[rich]

My view is much more local I think--I'm only speaking of soldiers plunked
down in shitsville and how many of them cope--fighting for the guy next to
them which is pretty common with any army anywhere--I'm not talking
geopolitics, the brass bullshit of regime change and making the world
better for iraqis and afghanis--it's pretty obvious the level stupidity
gets heavier and heavier as u run up the chain of command. I'm also not
even talking about the inane way we treat returning soldiers from these
disastrous wars,patriotism reaching the level of a 7th inning stretch
recitation of god bless america.
the theatre of absurdity may be orchestrated but it doesnt much matter to
those at falluja helmand and other infernos.
who kills with dignity? no one. remorse maybe

On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 8:40 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:

> Rich, I may be overstating this because I have an obvious bias against the
> Americans and how they conduct their wars, glorify their heroes, such as
> Restrepo and  the American Sniper, the Special Forces...etc, but I think it
> is impossible to sustain the soldier brotherhood **On the American side" of
> these wars.**
>
> First, an inexperienced and naive soldier who goes to war has no real
> courage, his motives are not tested and so he or she is often shunned by
> the experienced combat soldier, and yet, in America, to counter the defeats
> in South East Asia, and the demoralized and abused soldiers and veterans of
> SEA, men and women in uniform are thanked for their service, made heroic,
> gathered into the family of the armed forces and told that they are part of
> a brotherhood, a band of fighters who are doing important and heroic work
> against terrorism, though they know, better than the American Citizen. that
> the muddled missions in Iraq and Afghanistan are imitations, are not a
> struggle for anything, not even for courage or brotherhood, the highest
> form of courage there is, but don't even rise to the level of the naive and
> inexperienced soldier's "courage" because the experienced ones know that
> the shunning of the virgins is a lie because the war the wage, are
> sometimes bloodied in, have friends die for, is a farce, a technologically
> orchestrated theatre of absurdity wherein the best equipped Americans
> simply use their superior machinery to kill without dignity or remorse.
>
> On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 12:40 PM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> but you said it's impossible to uphold the band of brothers myth. that
>> whole men free to love in the trenches bit in GR well thats the extreme but
>> part of the same continuum of feeling. why is that impossible, men (and now
>> women, too) seeking comfort from shared harsh sacrifices?
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 11:18 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> So did athletes and workers, slaves and gladiators...it's a cult, it
>>> needs a myth, a  creed, with rituals and so on. Btw, just happened to watch
>>> salt if the earth. The miners are not, according to the photographer,
>>> slaves, exploited workers, but men who want to get rich. I have a difficult
>>> time with this assertion, a cultural pathology in Brasil that romanticizes
>>> the plight of the people, the mythological struggle for paradise.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/movies/wim-wenders-on-sebastio-salgado-in-the-salt-of-the-earth.html?_r=0
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wednesday, September 2, 2015, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> whatever your rationale, I think guys in combat is a bit different than
>>>> working in a factory. throughout history soldiers bonded under
>>>> horrific/stressful conditions; those in law enforcement as well to a
>>>> certain extent. I dont believe its a myth
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 11:05 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> But the modern mechanical unit worker, so easily replaced with
>>>>> automation, robots, is not all that different from the office worker who
>>>>> sits in a cubical.  One of the most misread, or should I say, misused
>>>>> texts, since by definition a classic is not read but only misused, is Adam
>>>>> Smith's TWoN, a book that, ironically, is forever married to conservative
>>>>> politics, and is one of the greatest arguments against the exploitation
>>>>> of modern labor. In the book Smith describes work, pre-modern work. We
>>>>> crossed over to modern work, as we readers of M&D know, long before Ford
>>>>> and Vibe. In any event, it's impossible to uphold the band of brothers myth
>>>>> on the American side. Restrepo is not a documentary of brotherhood or
>>>>> courage, but a film, an imitation, pornography.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>
>
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