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If we really saw war, what war does to young minds and bodies, it would be impossible to embrace the myth of war. If we had to stand over the mangled corpses of schoolchildren killed in Afghanistan and listen to the wails of their parents, we would not be able to repeat clichés we use to justify war. This is why war is carefully sanitized. This is why we are given war’s perverse and dark thrill but are spared from seeing war’s consequences. The mythic visions of war keep it heroic and entertaining…


The wounded, the crippled, and the dead are, in this great charade, swiftly carted offstage. They are war’s refuse. We do not see them. We do not hear them. They are doomed, like wandering spirits, to float around the edges of our consciousness, ignored, even reviled. The message they tell is too painful for us to hear. We prefer to celebrate ourselves and our nation by imbibing the myths of glory, honor, patriotism, and heroism, words that in combat become empty and meaningless.

Chris Hedges (via theyoungradical)

(via alchemical-gold)

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The missile hits, and after the smoke clears there’s a crater there and you can see body parts from the people. [A] guy that was running from the rear to front, his left leg had been taken off above the knee, and I watched him bleed out.

These guys had no hostile intent. In Montana, everyone has a gun. These guys could have been local people that had to protect themselves. I think we jumped the gun.

Former drone operator Brandon Bryant, on his first drone strike.

Bryant quit the drone program after realizing its disregard for life and how numb strikes made him feel, saying he “couldn’t do it anymore.”

(via hipsterlibertarian) 

Do you think we might actually live in a free market and the vast majority of people are just too poor and stupid to be anything but slaves to the few?

The world or market among humans is free when it is not restrained.  However, currently there are thousands of different regulations and taxes between countries, states, cities, businesses, jobs, currencies, people, places, products, services, etc.  So no, we don’t actually live in a free market.  Our market system is extremely corporatist, to the point that some argue we are living in an international corporatocracy.  The wealthy 1%, the biggest governments, and the biggest corporations control almost everything.  The power structure of the elite has changed faces over the centuries but the fact remains the same:  a small class of leeches feeds off the labor and wealth of the rest of the world. 

A lot of people have an inaccurate view of the poor as stupid.  This is not true.  Many people holding important jobs or offices are no smarter, just more academically educated and apt to present themselves in a better way.  We have a vision of the poor as being lazy.  This is also not true.  We don’t see a lot of the work done by the poor because it’s done under the table, in one of the only avenues they can afford to start a business or provide for themselves.  There are huge economic and cultural roadblocks for the impoverished.  It is not their mental capacity that “keeps them down”.  These types of messages are often disseminated among the public to create enemies within the populace and keep us from joining together against the common enemy: the state.

That being said, while the poor are not uniquely stupid, humans in general are not clever enough to break the chains their own kind has placed on them, both visibly and invisibly.  We are dealing with the same power structures that have been in place since governments took hold of humanity and we are definitely no better off because of it.  But the situation is complex and many humans are now invested in maintaining an exploitative structure because the system itself has made many of them dependent on it for their wealth and security.  Fear is a strong factor maintaining this system.  Anyway, I’m rambling off the topic of your question.  

A free market is a not a way of thinking- it’s a physical realm where we are able to freely exchange with whoever and whatever we want.  That arguably exists in different levels around the world, but I actually consider America to be one of the worst off countries on many levels.  Our bread & circuses often hide that truth.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbp6umQT58A