#Repost @imixwhatilike with @make_repost ・・・ Originally published in 2011 with Black Agenda Report.
#Repost @imixwhatilike with @make_repost ・・・ Originally published in 2011 with Black Agenda Report. I am officially a veteran. Like many I was conscripted by this country’s “poverty draft” and its associated judicial-military pipeline, the one that encourages military time over jail time, and then immediately pressed into service of this nation’s imperial projects. And while I recognize this reality and can still appreciate the position in which people like me have found themselves and the suffering some have endured for it, I prefer we praise another kind of veteran. On November 11th let us commemorate those who have fought, and still fight, those who have been exiled, assassinated or imprisoned as veterans of the many on-going wars against U.S. and Western imperialism. More than any they deserve our reflection and support. Veteran’s Day began as “Armistice Day,” commemorating the end of what we now call World War I, what was called then the “war to end all wars.” But rabid empires can only expand. There can never be an armistice. So after a second so-called World War they simply dropped the “Armistice” and made it about the oh-so-many veterans that would be created and re-created by the permanency of war. This permanence of the nation’s war machine is evident in the permanence of this nation’s thirst for war. Simply interlace lists of American wars against Europe between 1776 and the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890 which “settled” the matter of control over this land with lists of American invasions into every pocket of Latin America and the Caribbean from then until now. Then add the lists of repression of hundreds of African uprisings against enslavement and the domestic policing of internally-held colonies and suppression of labor organizers and you won’t find a 10 year period in this country’s history when it wasn’t at war. And all of this warfare creates veterans on all sides.“The permanence of the nation’s war machine is evident in the permanence of this nation’s thirst for war.” SEE THE REST AT IMIXWHATILIKE.ORG / FEATURES SECTION https://www.instagram.com/p/CWJMr9Qpnbo/?utm_medium=tumblr -- source link
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