Why we fight

I forget when it was that I wrote I wanted to try and lighten this journal a bit and mix the content a little. But I have failed to do that as yet. Part of it has to do with how unstable my living situation has been. Part of it has to do with the reason I started this journal in the first place. Why the fukk should I slash a smile into my face when I have a real, palpable fear that people of power will declare my existence illegal?

I know, it sounds completely insane. It sounds like something you would expect a Republithug shithead with an IQ lower than my boot size to proclaim. But it is as real as the rot in my teeth and the cancers in my skin.

I fukking hate the “Irish” band U2. Hate them to death. Their frontman needs an ego-check like this entire world needs a reexamination of its priorities. But one of the songs the radio shoved into our ears like a doctor’s fingers into my arsehole when I was younger contains a question that is very applicable to this situation. How long must we sing this song?

When I originally purchased a Blu-ray Disc boxed set of the HBO series Band Of Brothers, it was to satisfy the requirements of an offer where I could get two of HBO’s series on BD for a reduced price. It turned out to be the better of the two series I purchased in the deal. I only became aware of the production company called Home Box Office, or HBO, relatively recently, but their approach is certainly agreeable. In essence, they apply motion picture production values to making a multi-part television series. Band Of Brothers is probably the earliest example of this that I have seen to date.

Every episode in Band Of Brothers tells a story that is testament to the courage and power of the men who risked everything in the second World War. But the one that really drives the point home is the ninth and second-last episode in the series, titled Why We Fight. In it, the soldiers of Easy Company uncover one of the many death camps that were put together by the Nazis in the lead-up to the war. The beauty of this episode is not that it communicates the despair and loss of self-definition that the mostly Jewish prisoners experienced. In fact, it barely touches upon that, unlike most of the filmed material that touches upon this subject. Instead, it focuses upon the utter disbelief, rage, anger, and shock that the soldiers discovering the camp feel.

Any actor can say that they are angry to the point of being sick to the camera or another actor. A good actor can do it through the shedding of tears or wrenching of their face. An excellent actor can communicate that their character feels angry to the point where it makes them sick simply with a subtle change in how they look at things or the way they stand. The tribute to the men that gave their all in Europe that constitutes Band Of Brothers, and this scene in particular, is riddled with the best kind of acting.

What would I be thinking if I were walking into a camp and seeing a bunch of men starving and diseased to the point of near-death or worse, and being among the first to see this grisly sight? (I would ask what Kronisk would think. But let us be honest here. We are talking about the same person in this context.) I would be thinking so many things at once. Too many for me to speak properly. One thought would be what you might expect. You poor bastards, I want to drag the people who brought and held you here in front of you and make them beg you for forgiveness. And then there is the other thought that forms the majority of what I think when seeing the soldiers in these stories. Rise, you great men. You have survived a situation that would break me within a matter of seconds, and I salute you. Which kind of brings me to what I am thinking about the present day.

World War II is the last war before America became the dominant military and economic superpower in the world. I do not believe it a coincidence that it is also the last war in which any battles can be said to have been fought in a vaguely honourable manner. If the stories told in series like Band Of Brothers are anything to go by, men fought and died in ways that brought their mutual humanity to the forefront of their minds. If you watch enough films about the Vietnam war, one thing becomes very apparent if you study psychology enough. Dehumanising the Vietnamese seems to have been a very central part of the manner in which the Americans prosecuted the war.

I have met so few Vietnamese people that I could probably count them on a single hand. One of them was my doctor when I was admitted to hospital earlier this year. But to say that it is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile my impressions of these individuals with the manner in which the Vietnamese are portrayed in pretty much every film I have seen about the war is an understatement. The portrayals seem, much like the way American soldiers talked to one another about them, oriented towards the goal of making them seem less Human.

Openly declared wars are also very different from clandestine, hidden ones. Again, the Vietnam war provides an excellent example of this. Early in the piece, a Vietnamese leader told the American press that they, the Americans, would get tired of this war long before the Vietnamese would. Images of children running towards the camera whilst a village burns behind them, or word of atrocities committed by American soldiers, did more to lose the war for America than any acts by the Viet Cong.

So the procedure for winning a war is both complex and simple. Keep it hidden from those whose approval is most overwhelmingly required to prosecute it, and make the enemy as faceless as possible.

Being faceless, or thought of as faceless, is also a common theme in doom metal songs. Cruciform made an excellent example of this theme in the song Gutter, essentially a first-person narrative about a homeless man who reflects upon how nobody sees him before he dies. And if there is one thing that mainstream society has down to an art form, in fact the only thing that mainstream society has down to an art form, it is making people who vary from the expected norm feel as if they do not count.

This presents a unique problem. Forming a truly alternative society, not merely the kind that mainstream media presents to us and proclaims to be alternative, is hard work. Just gathering like-minded individuals and discerning how to utilise their talents to the fullest is an extremely difficult task. The fact that there is nowhere in the world left where large numbers of Humans can go without being monitored or seen is also problematic. When all of the newer societies in today’s world were formed, America and Australia being good examples, there was no satellite tracking or mass communicating. And the total number of Humans on the planet was around a seventh of what it is today. If that.

This brings us to the biggest problem for all concerned. The Human population is now so vast that the Earth will not be able to keep it alive by the end of this century. And when an entire species is fighting one another for survival, it is always the poorest and least mainstream folk that feel the bite first. Even now, as the situation is only faintly resembling what it will be in 2050, plans are being drawn up for the genocides of convenient scapegoats.

Convenient scapegoats have existed long before the Human overpopulation problem. When the authors of the New Testament needed to divert the Romans’ attention away from them, they chose to divert the Romans’ attention to the Jews. This was because the Jews were readily able to point out the catalogue of errors made in New Testament scriptures. For example, there is one prophecy that the New Testament authors proclaim Jesus to have fulfilled, but had it applied to him, he would have been named Immanuel rather than Jesus. So by going to every conceivable length to absolve the Romans of blame for the crucifixion and place the blame upon the Jews, the New Testament authors were basically killing two birds with one stone. One, they were appeasing an enemy who was too big for them to fight. Second, they were directing the too big enemy against an enemy that was small enough to fight in such a manner.

This again brings us to the difference between a genuine, that is social, minority, and a numerical minority. Curebies are, as far as anyone can see, a numerical minority. They are, however, a social majority. That is, they have access to untold amounts of money, they have access to the ears of governments and controllers of media, and they have access to the lawmakers of our world.

Our world has replaced heroes with cowards, and geniuses with idiots. And we are all paying the price for it. I know I am not the only autistic man who wishes we could just leave this world behind and pretend it never existed. But unfortunately, the practical limits of science and technology mean this is not an option. Which means that either we have to improve our world, or let it go to the dogs to such an extent that improving it ends up being the only feasible action. The time of heroes and wonder has long since come to an end, and the time of morons being in command has been happening for long enough that we are going to be experiencing its effects for a long time to come. Our world is dead, and all we can do is ask it to give us a little time to adjust to the fact that it is going to take us with it.

And that time is running out, too.