Morning Joe segment: normalized warmongering.

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  • May 28, 2018 at 10:13 am #86686
    Avatar photoZooey
    Moderator

    Yeah. Memorial Day always presents a conundrum for me.

    Naturally, I get agitated when I hear people proclaim that they died to “defend our freedoms” and that kind of nonsense. As if every war is the Revolutionary War, a body of self-sacrificing patriots defending this country’s liberty against the imperialist forces of tyranny.

    At the same time, some of those war victims were motivated by a belief they were doing right, and a lot of them just innocently were thrust out there with no choice in the matter, and deserve our sympathy rather than our contempt. It’s a complicated holiday, one that I will never be able to fully embrace.

    May 28, 2018 at 10:34 am #86692
    Avatar photoBilly_T
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    Zooey wrote:

    Yeah. Memorial Day always presents a conundrum for me.

    Naturally, I get agitated when I hear people proclaim that they died to “defend our freedoms” and that kind of nonsense. As if every war is the Revolutionary War, a body of self-sacrificing patriots defending this country’s liberty against the imperialist forces of tyranny.

    At the same time, some of those war victims were motivated by a belief they were doing right, and a lot of them just innocently were thrust out there with no choice in the matter, and deserve our sympathy rather than our contempt. It’s a complicated holiday, one that I will never be able to fully embrace.

    Agreed.

    Was saying similar things on another forum. You make an important point, however, when you add the beliefs of the soldiers themselves.

    It is a day to feel conflicted about so many things. I still think about my trip to France in 2007, which included Normandy, and how the sight of the white crosses and the beaches shook me deeply.

    But stepping back from that . . . trying to be cold-eyed, etc. etc. . . . We haven’t been in danger of “losing our freedoms” since the War of 1812, really . . . so what IS the right way to talk about war, sacrifice, empire?

    I do know this: We’re not honoring the fallen when we go from war to war to war. We honor them by doing everything humanly possible to make their sacrifice the last one.

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