@JuliusGoat@mastodon.social
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JuliusGoat

@JuliusGoat@mastodon.social

A.R. Moxon (he/him) is author of the novel THE REVISIONARIES and the upcoming essay book VERY FINE PEOPLE.

His newsletter is The Reframe: www.the-reframe.com
He can climb trees, but chooses not to, recognizing that trees do not attempt to climb him.

This is where he toots.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

JuliusGoat, to random
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Seven lessons learned from a quarter century in a war-oriented society.

It's 2001—the year the movies promised we'd make contact with aliens—and the United States has rather recently been attacked by terrorists who flew passenger planes into buildings.

https://www.the-reframe.com/war-or-nothing/

JuliusGoat,
@JuliusGoat@mastodon.social avatar

We were told that this war in Iraq would be over in a matter of days—months, maybe, not years—but it is 2007, and the war is somehow only getting bigger and more entrenched. We're now told that this means we need to deliver more death to more people, in the name of safety.

JuliusGoat,
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Millions of us think this is absolute bullshit. Those who brought the case for war have been exposed as terrible liars, and their rationale for the war has been exposed as a sham, and their operation of it has been an unmitigated corrupt cock-up on every level.

JuliusGoat,
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Many of us are dismayed by this betrayal of what we believed to be our nation's identity, and we don't want to be complicit in the killing of thousands of people who just wanted to live their lives, so we commit the great crime of opposing the war, and we oppose expanding it.

JuliusGoat,
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And we're still told, by the same people as before—the ones who insisted on opposing terrorists that wanted to make a world of death by making a world of death—that by opposing the war (and our new torture program!), we have proved that we love the terrorists and their cause.

JuliusGoat,
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These same people are eager to tell me that because I oppose bringing death to people I do not know, it means that I want to do nothing, because our options are war or nothing.

And our institutions of power and influence are aligned with this binary framing.

JuliusGoat,
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The people who were wrong about everything are presumed to be right and normal and interested in our security and safety. The millions of us who were right about what would happen are presumed to be wrong, not real Americans but dangerous traitors, a threat to safety.

JuliusGoat,
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The very people who created the danger, then failed to prevent the attack, then increased our danger, are still invited to opine as trusted sources on what we should do about future dangers, and their answers always involve more killing.

They are considered real Americans, extended an indestructible credulity by our institutions of influence and power not in spite of wanting to create a world of killing, but because of it.

JuliusGoat,
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The millions of us who were right about what would happen are extended an indestructible skepticism by our institutions of influence and power, not in spite of our opposition to killing, but because of it.

There are still ignorant fools among us, and they still receive the most attention, to cast us as ignorant and foolish, when set against the wisdom of those who know that the choices are war or nothing.

JuliusGoat,
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Lesson #6 of a war-oriented society:

Wanting to wage war makes you correct in a way that overcomes evidence or results or even coherence.

You don't have to have been correct about why you wanted to kill, and you don't have to have been correct about what the result of the killing would be—simply wanting to kill is right enough to make you perpetually right.

JuliusGoat,
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Most of all, you can act in fathomless bad faith in favor of killing, and use as rationale the exact opposite of the thing you are creating.

For example, you can send Americans into two standing wars of choice and opportunity, and say you want to do it to make Americans safe.

JuliusGoat,
@JuliusGoat@mastodon.social avatar

Or you can stand from a position of power and claim powerlessness, and claim that those with least power and influence have all power and influence, and are to blame for the reality you have created.

But never mind; now it is 2020, and the police are rioting—not for the first time.

JuliusGoat,
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I should explain the police to you. The police are our white supremacist standing army, accountable to nobody, who we use to wage war against our fellow civilians, neighbors who we treat as domestic enemies.

JuliusGoat,
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You can tell the police are an army because we give them military equipment to do their jobs. You can tell they are accountable to nobody because whenever those who are supposed to have the power to check them try to do so, they respond with threats and violence.

You can tell we use the police to wage war against our neighbors because we fund them, and the more violent they get, the more money we give them. They eat over half our city budgets in many places.

JuliusGoat,
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And if you want to know which of our neighbors we consider our domestic enemies, or understand why they are a white supremacist army, you just need to watch who the police menace and kill here in 2020.

JuliusGoat,
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On that subject, a police officer was recently waging war in one of our nations residential occupied zones—an area that just so happens to be predominantly Black—and while doing so, he murdered a Black man named George Floyd.

Floyd begged for his life as he was being killed, but the officer killed him all the same, using practices that were standard practice for cops, we all later learned, which is how you can tell that murdering Black people is sort of standard operating protocol for police.

JuliusGoat,
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Millions of us all over the country have found, almost to our surprise in some cases, that we are opposed to this, and thousands of us all over the country have taken to the streets and demonstrated for an end to police brutality.

The police have taken this questioning of their right to kill as an act of violence. In response, they are rioting and waging war all over the country against American citizens. All over the country, all summer long, they are brutalizing protesters.

JuliusGoat,
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It's been violent—as wars waged by the state against its own citizens tend to be. And millions of others have blamed not the police, but the protesters, for not protesting in a nonviolent enough fashion.

And the communities to whom we sent this standing army of police to wage war—who have no choice whether or not they are at war, because it is being waged against them in the name of safety—they are being blamed for all the violence that comes with the war we wage against them.

JuliusGoat,
@JuliusGoat@mastodon.social avatar

Millions of us are horrified by all this. And we are told by millions of others that this means we are aligned with crime and murder and death, for the crime of wanting to abolish this standing army of white supremacy and stop waging war against our neighbors.

JuliusGoat,
@JuliusGoat@mastodon.social avatar

We are told we want to create danger, even as we further empower the force that creates danger for us all. We are asked: what is our solution—nothing?

In the minds of millions, opposing the violence of the police justifies any violence the police might do against any of us.

JuliusGoat,
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Lesson #7 of a war-oriented society.

Killing is the only thing that will keep us safe from killing. Therefore, anyone who opposes killing represents a threat justifying further killing.

JuliusGoat,
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And millions of us, who have been watching since 2001 or even before, can see how framing the apparatus of killing as indistinguishable from safety helps the apparatus of killing, but not how it helps make us safe

JuliusGoat,
@JuliusGoat@mastodon.social avatar

We can see how framing a country as indistinguishable from its murderous government helps that government, but not how it helps the country. We see how framing its citizens as indistinguishable from its murderous government helps that government, but not how it helps the people.

JuliusGoat,
@JuliusGoat@mastodon.social avatar

And we can see clearly how framing killing as the only way to bring safety, and any act other than killing as nothing, favors those who want to create a world of death, but not how it helps honor the dead or keeps any of the living safe.

JuliusGoat,
@JuliusGoat@mastodon.social avatar

Millions of us think the bigger problem might be the killing.

It seems to us that framing war as our only option represents the greatest possible failure of human imagination there can be, and our wealth and resources and ingenuity seem to present many other options.

JuliusGoat,
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To millions of us, it seems that perhaps, if we all put our heads together, we might think of something else to do, that isn't nothing but isn't war, either.

And, even if some of us are foolish and ignorant about what that something might be, we think that seeking that something is better than not seeking it.

And even if some of us are foolish and ignorant, many of us are not.

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