Thursday, December 1, 2022

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #102, NOVEMBER 30, 2022.

102. WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #102, NOVEMBER 30, 2022.

WAR’S HORROR AND HOW TO STOP MINDLESS SLAUGHTER

Dick, “Then Conscription Began.”

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society.

Chris Hedges, The Greatest Evil Is War.

Chris Hedges. “Shadows of War,” War Photographs.

Dick, WWI Armistice.

Then Conscription Began

By Dick Bennett

The soldiers cheered “God and Country!

for victory over the enemy.

God with us. (Gott mit uns!)

Over five foot eight the volunteers came,
cheering right and honor.
They walked tall to kill the enemy,
led by kilted bagpipes,
into the wire, into the guns.

After the Battle of the Marne

over five foot six the volunteers came,

drank their rum to cheer their fear.

After the Battle of Ypres

five foot four the volunteers came

steeled by Cross or mother, wife, and kids,

by rum, comrades, fears and tears,

they crept toward wire and guns.

Back home conscription had begun.

(Ref. AFSC, Daily Kos Petition to Stop the Wars)

Lt Col. Dave Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. Amazon.com: On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill ...

OMNI ANTHOLOGY ON KILLING #1, January 9, 2011
Contents
Trained to Kill
Opposed to Killing by Dick Bennett
Misc. Books on Killing in War, Grossman and others
Killing Animals
Myths Justifying US Wars : Wood, Buccheit, Swanson
http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2011/01/killing-in-us-wars.html

Chris Hedges "The Greatest Evil is War", Oct. 29, 2022

Speaking at the Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy, New York.

“Chris Hedges returned to The Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy NY on October 21, 2022 to speak on the subject of his latest book, titled “The Greatest Evil is War” (Seven Stories P, 2022). This unflinching indictment of the horror and obscenity of war draws from experience and interviews for a book that looks at the hidden costs of war, what it does to individuals, families, communities, and nations.” www.mediasanctuary.org www.chrislhedges.com

Chris Hedges. “Shadows of War.” The Progressive (Oct.-Nov. 2022). “The true costs of war are hidden from the public because the reality is too horrific to accept.” One of Hedge’s main goals is “at least an attempt to unmask war’s savagery.” In this excerpt he discusses books of war photographs by Peter van Agtmael, 2^nd Tour, Hope I Don’t Die, and by Lori Grinker, Afterwar: Veterans from a World in Conflict. These books “begin to capture war’s reality,” but we seldom see even these “shadows of war” because “the state and the press, the handmaiden of the war makers, work hard to keep [the effects] hidden” (the “smells, noises, confusion, and most of all its overpowering fear,” the “terrible burns, blindness, amputation, and lifelong pain and trauma). (Excerpted from Hedges’ The Greatest Evil Is War, Seven Stories P, 2022). --Dick