Anti-Conscription Movement

Subject: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST,Peace Matriot
Date: 28 May 02 - 07:12 PM

Women were among the earliest anti-conscriptionists, and founded two well known international peace organizations still in business today, the War Resisters International, and Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

THE ANTI-CONSCRIPTION MANIFESTO 1926 was signed among others by Henri Barbusse, Annie Besant, Martin Buber, Edward Carpenter, Miguel de Unamuno, Georges Duhamel, Albert Einstein, M K Gandhi, Kurt Hiller, Toyohiko Kagawa, George Lansbury, Arthur Ponsonby, Leonhard Ragaz, Romain Rolland, Bertrand Russell, Rabindranath Tagore, Fritz von Unruh, and H G Wells.

HERE IT IS:

'It is our belief that conscript armies, with their large corps of professional officers, are a grave menace to peace. Conscription involves the degradation of human personality, and the destruction of liberty. Barrack life, military drill, blind obedience to commands, however unjust and foolish they may be, and deliberate training for slaughter undermine respect for the individual, for democracy and human life. 'It is debasing human dignity to force men to give up their life, or to inflict death against their will or without conviction as to the justice of their action. The State which thinks itself entitled to force its citizens to go to war will never pay proper regard to the value and happiness of their lives in peace. Moreover, by conscription the militarist spirit of aggressiveness is implanted in the whole male population at the most impressionable age. By training for war men come to consider war as unavoidable and even desirable.'

Subject: RE: BS: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Noreen
Date: 28 May 02 - 07:32 PM

Er- are you in the right place, guest? This is a music site...

Subject: RE: BS: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST,Peace Matriot
Date: 28 May 02 - 07:37 PM

I posted this as a counter-balance to the military minded "Memorial Day, A Look Back" thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Bobert
Date: 28 May 02 - 08:03 PM

Guest: Don't be too concerned about posting a non-music thread. That's why there is a BS category to begin with. Some folks get real offended by it but, hey, they are reading them, aren't they.

I agree that conscription just adds to an allready insane cycle of human behavior and have been known, on occasion, to get a tad worked up on the issue. It surprises me not that Albert Einstien was one of the original signers since he spent his life dwelling on possibilities rather than improbabilities. Peace is possible only after mankind sheds the misconception that it is improbable. With an ever shrinking planet, limited resources and a global economy, peace is a concept that this generation should be teaching rather than taking a pass on the challenge. How selfish. Seems all we (not me...) learned from the 60's is that it's better to be on the winning side than the moral side...

End of Bobert's mini-rant... but offered with respect and in the memory of those who have given their lives in what they felt was right. We can not change those failed decisions and events.

Peace

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: michaelr
Date: 28 May 02 - 08:22 PM

Bobert, you're going to get into trouble again!

;-) Michael

Subject: ADD: C for Conscription
From: CarolC
Date: 28 May 02 - 09:39 PM

I did a search in the Mudcat and didn't find this anywhere (which could be my fault, but ah well)...

'C' FOR CONSCRIPTION

Well, it's 'C' for Conscription
And it's 'C' for Capitol Hill!
Well, it's 'C' for Conscription
And it's 'C' for Capitol Hill!
And it's 'C' for the Congress
That passed that goddamn bill!

[YODEL]

I'd rather be at home,
Even sleeping in a holler log,
I'd rather be here home,
Even sleeping in a holler log.
Than go to the army
Be treated like a dirty dog!

[YODEL]

'C' FOR CONSCRIPTION (PETE SEEGER/MILLARD LAMPELL) (1941)
(Tune: JIMMIE RODGERS, "Blue Yodel -- T For Texas")

Subject: RE: BS: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST,Peace Matriot
Date: 28 May 02 - 10:09 PM

Then there is Andy Irvine's song Gladiators too, about the anti-conscription movement in Australia:

http://andyirvine.com/lyrics/gladiators.html

I understand the Aussies had a considerable cache of conscription songs. They seem to be universal across Europe at least. In a quick check on google, I came across:

Song type known in Romanian as 'cãtãnie' (approximate translation 'conscription' -in the village before to go into the military service, and in the army);

Greek rebetika songs on conscription and war;

Moravian folk ensemble called after its home town Bøeclav. Breclav is situated in the south of Moravia, at the border with Austria and Slovakia. It is lovely flat country, near the confluence of the rivers Morava and Dyje, the country of the vine, which stimulates both the nostalgia of long slow songs and the hot temper of lively conscription songs.

Subject: RE: BS: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Bobert
Date: 28 May 02 - 10:22 PM

Michaelr: Thanks fir the warnin' there, Michael, but since I don't know any better, we both know I'll just wade right into the middle of the scrum. But, hey... peace.

Subject: RE: BS: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST,Peace Matriot
Date: 28 May 02 - 10:23 PM

And then this WWII folk song collector from the other side:

RINSHO KADEKARU 1920-1999- a biography Rinsho Kadekaru was born at Nakahara in Goeku Village in the centre of Okinawa on July 4th 1920. He began playing sanshin at the age of seven, and by the time he was 15 started to participate in his village's all night revelries known as mo-ashibi. These were outdoor parties that took place in open spaces on the outskirts of farming villages. Young people would sing, dance and drink, often until dawn, then do a full days hard labor in the fields, and party again the next night. The highest musical standards were maintained and Kadekaru soon gained a reputation for his sanshin playing and was often invited to perform at other village's jamborees.

Successive authorities attempted to ban the mo-ashibi, these unruly gatherings were thought to be immoral, but they flourished until just before the second world war. In the pre-war years there are stories of parents encouraging their children to take part in the mo-ashibi every night, in the hope they would fail the medical for military conscription due to exhaustion.

After the war, and the US occupation, the mo-ashibi was outlawed for good. Kadekaru stayed on the islands of Saipan and Tinian returning to Okinawa in 1949. His reputation had not been forgotten and he became one of the pivotal figures in the post-war Okinawa folk boom. He recorded nearly 250 songs for local record labels, more than any other musician.

Subject: RE: BS: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST,Peace Matriot
Date: 28 May 02 - 10:37 PM

And then there are the musical anti-conscriptionists:

Franz Schubert Composer, b. at Vienna, 31 January, 1797; d. there 19 November, 1829. He studied under his father, and subsequently under Holzer and Salieri, and in 1807, was first boy soprano in the Lichtenthal choir. In October, 1808, he entered the Imperial Choristers School, and soon gave evidence of extraordinary musical genius as a composer, his first effort being a pianoforte duet, early in 1810. During 1811 and 1812 he produced many instrumental pieces, also a "Salve Regina" and a "Kyrie". He left the Choir School in November, 1812, and took up work as a schoolmaster in order to avoid conscription.

And of course, there's the 16th cent. Scots anti-conscriptionists, mentioned at Dick Gaughan's website article on Thomas Muir and the song Scots Wha Hae:

http://www.dickalba.demon.co.uk/songs/texts/muirnote.html

Subject: RE: BS: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Big Mick
Date: 29 May 02 - 12:04 AM

This is exactly the place for this type of thread, Noreen. Mudcat is about the music and the issues that spawn it. I would think that other appropriate songs to include would be the various and sundry protest songs of the 60's.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: paddymac
Date: 29 May 02 - 04:52 AM

What happens when there are no more volunteers? Does victory go to the wealthiest "side" - the one able to buy the best or most mercenaries?

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Teribus
Date: 29 May 02 - 05:59 AM

Paddymac - what you state is pretty much what happens - that is how the Pope ended up with his Swiss Guard, retained to this day.

There used to be a couple of sayings applicable to most military organisations:

"NEVER VOLUNTEER"
and
"One volunteer is worth ten pressed men"

Conscription in this day and age does not have a great deal to offer either the individual or the military forces the conscripts are foisted upon. Having said that, those who are vehemently against anything military should be thankful that volunteers still exist to fill the ranks, as those who are not prepared to defend, protect and bear the cost of that effort, may well find that their stance condemns them to live in a set of rules imposed by others. Part and parcel of this is to remember those who went before and paid the ultimate price for the freedoms so many take for granted today.

Cheers,

Bill.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 29 May 02 - 07:42 AM

So, Mudcat looks pretty much like a pro-military music site. Lots of former military folk and war re-enactors, right?

Odd, for a folk music website. Not unheard of, but odd.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: artbrooks
Date: 29 May 02 - 08:56 AM

21th century warfare is highly technical, and requires skilled and well-trained soldiers. At the same time, I think that there is a great deal to be said for having a military that is largely comprised of people that are not professional soldiers and really don't want to be there in the first place.

I am personally in favor of universal national service, which you can call conscription if you wish, with military service being one of the voluntary options available for those serving.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 29 May 02 - 09:40 AM

GUEST - I don't know that we are "Pro-military" or not. But this forum does seem to respect those of us who went off to the craziness called war. And I've never asked anyone to respect the war - just respect for my choices. After all they were mine and I'm the one who lives with them - right?

And I can't speak for anyone but me - but I don't know of too many of the Vets here being pro-war. Read some of Big Mick's posts for confirmation of that. He is the most elequent of us - IMHO.

And this is the thread for it -

Steve

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 29 May 02 - 10:06 AM

Actually, Norton1, I don't have to respect your choice to go to war. Now, you'd be closer to gaining my respect if you intended to create mutual respect between yourself and anti-war activists, rather than coerce respect for your choice to be a soldier.

For me, none of this is about pacifism. To be an anti-war activist, one need not be a pacifist. The most famous of all pacifists, Gandhi, was much too ardent an Indian nationalist for his pacifism to be truly effective. It was his blind spot, albeit a perfectly understandable one, considering his intent was to overthrow British rule through non-violent non-cooperation.

I believe we can learn a lot from Gandhi because he was a wise man, not a saint. Here is a quotation from him about the predicament you find yourself in:

"A warrior lives on his wars, whether offensive or defensive. And he suffers a collapse if he finds that his warring capacity is unwanted."

Your warring capacity is unwanted by me, so you will have to find another avenue to cultivate my respect for your choices.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Big Mick
Date: 29 May 02 - 10:12 AM

Once again the GUEST creates a false predicate and feels smug about it. For your post to be valid, you would have to show that those of us who are, or have been, warriors are failing. I can speak for myself only, and let me assure you that I am not failing in most of the endeavors that I have chosen.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: artbrooks
Date: 29 May 02 - 10:17 AM

This is an interesting discussion, begun by a named Guest. Let's not let ANON.GUEST hijack it.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Big Mick
Date: 29 May 02 - 10:25 AM

I agree, Art. A debate about the conscription issue is within the parameters of the thread, I would think. Not a debate on GUEST trollers.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 29 May 02 - 10:39 AM

You know what Big Mick, threads about the military aren't about you, what you did or didn't do, and whether or not you feel like a failure. It just isn't.

Like I said, this seems to be a pretty gung-ho pro-military kind of place. Seems all some of you want vets here want to do is pick fights with anti-war activists voicing their opinions, in order to defend your personal choices to go soldiering.

I can agree to disagree, but I will not be coerced into respecting for the choice you made to become a soldier, or for what you did as a soldier. You and Norton1 seem to feel you have the right to bully people into respecting you because you were a soldier and know people who died in war. Very few human beings on this planet don't know someone who was killed in war, so that one doesn't automatically buy you respect. In fact, nothing in this life automatically buys a person respect. It gets earned. And believe me, neither of you have done a thing to earn mine.

Now, if you had come home from war and joined other anti-war veterans, I'd be more likely to listen to you. But your bullying tactics in this forum in the last 24 hours don't impress me in the least. You sound like a war apologist to me.

If you were, since the war, actively participating in the formation and maintenance of international peace organizations, development of non-violent methods to be used tactically in conjunction with non-cooperation and non-violent resistance tactics, or were involved in international diplomatic efforts or conflict resolution research--then I'd give your opinions some attention.

But as it is, from what I gather from some of you vet's and your supporter's posts here at Mudcat, all some of you seem to be doing is demanding respect you haven't earned because you think it is owed to you by everyone, just because you were a soldier. A lot of anti-war folks like me serve the international interests of humanity, not the petty nationalist interests of a single nation-state, especially the world's largest military superpower. So really, your demands for respect for "defending freedom" for the United States will continue to fall on deaf ears. Deal with it.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 29 May 02 - 11:11 AM

Laughing at comments - Too funny! Bullying? That is hilarious! Maybe you ought to go back and look at what I've done since the war. It's posted here. I am always assuming that since I may challenge, but generally respect, other's choices that my own would have the same attention paid. I forget who I am talking to. So whether or not you respect me is pretty much a non-issue. And I don't see your stance/participation on anti-war activities. Just some vague innuendos about having done something.

I don't know what a war apologist is so you lost me there. I'm not apologizing for anything. I do firmly believe that as long as people don't meet on common ground to end something so terrible as war then war will continue. Warriors know it first hand and activists have the incredible gift of naievity to fuel the fire of change. Between us we can do something.

I spent my time with the Viet Nam Veterans Against the War, I protected peace marchers (still a warrior so was that OK?), demanded an end to the craziness, drove people to Canada, and a lot of other things. It took both sides to effect change. So for me it is important to have some credibility about the experience of war. If you haven't participated it leaves a bit of a hollow ring to it.

So you certainly don't have to respect anything GUEST. But you are certainly able to do it from the safety of anonymity - most of the activists I worked with were more than willing to stand up and put their names and faces on the line with us.

What I do certainly respect is the inalienable right of dissention - and GUEST you certainly have earned my respect for your ability to encourage that. It's one of the things I believe I went off to war for. Whether it's true or not is a moot point - as I've already gone and returned.

So on the issue of conscription - I think it is something that is a reality here in the US. I also believe that I have a choice about whether or not I will be conscripted, or my children too for that matter, and am willing to do whatever is necessary to prevent any of my kids being sent off to do battle. But if they choose to go I'll respect their decision to do so. I've a daughter who is a Sgt. in the US Army, I'm very proud of her and her accomplishments, I've a daughter in the Peace Movement in Oregon, and I'm just as proud of her. I've a son who opted not to join the military and was willing to go to Australia to avoid service, and I'm proud of him also.

So I think you don't respect because you don't know - and are unwilling to research to learn. Maybe I'm wrong but you haven't shown me much except your willingness to exercise your right to dissent. And to point a finger at me and say I'm a war monger or a supporter of the militaristic approach is only a half truth. I support the military. I also support the rights of Americans, and anyone else, to question the validity of the use of the military. And that does not include demeaning names for officials making those decisions.

Well I've babbled enough here - I have a child sexual abuse case to go to work on - that's my contribution to helping the world today.

Steve

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Haruo
Date: 29 May 02 - 11:17 AM

Just a note to those doing searches for stuff on "Conscription" (songs or otherwise, here or elsewhere): Don't forget that (in the US anyway) we rarely called it "Conscription"; search for "Draft" (and be prepared to weed out the manuscripts, money orders, horses and beer), and the government outfit in charge was "Selective Service". Also a term worth searching for.

Liland

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 29 May 02 - 11:19 AM

And getting back to the subject of thread, does anyone have any good information on songs of the Australian anti-conscription movement? The web has a lot of information on the movement itself which refers to songs, but I'm not finding much in the way of lyrics themselves.

Also, here are a few interesting sites I stumbled across when I went out looking for anti-conscription songs. Most don't have music content, but I thought might be of interest here in the thread.

One on WWI British COs in prison, here is an interesting set of postcards issued to gain support for COs:

http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/prototype/redclyde/image017.htm

Many suffragettes were involved in British, Irish and Australian anti-conscription movements. Here are a few links related to them:

On Adela Pankhurst's British and Australian efforts:

http://www.wel.org.au/inkwel/ink964/964suffra.htm

Here is a fascinating page titled "Swarthmore College Peace Collection: Resources on Peace History" which among other fascinating details, has a link to a PBS documentary on WWII US pacifists and COs.

Swarthmore page is here:

http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/peace/peacehis.htm#co

PBS' "The Good War" page is here:

http://www.pbs.org/itvs/thegoodwar/

And UC Berkeley has this interesting page from Emma Goldman's "Emma Goldman, Living My Life Volume Two CHAPTER XLV" which is all about her involvement with the No Conscription League:

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Writings/MyLife/chapter45.html

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 29 May 02 - 11:35 AM

Sorry I also intended to mention the ZNet Creative Lyrics song database, which has 1,328 song lyrics related to progressive, anarchist, radical left themes.

Additionally, it has it's own "add a song lyric" page, where anyone can add song lyrics. It's pretty cool, and it might be of some help to those who are still lobbying for changes to the way the DT database is being maintained. It isn't a solution to adding mistakes to the database, of course. But it does suggest that a page can be devoted solely to adding lyrics to the database, and nothing else. If all additions were edited from a page like that, I would think making accurate, edited additions to the DT database could be done quite efficiently by volunteer Joe Clone types. But I digress.

Anyway, here is the very cool site:

http://zena.secureforum.com/interactive/creative/lyrics_frameset.cfm

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 29 May 02 - 12:00 PM

In the early years of the American Civil War, and particularly after First Manassas, the cause of the Union was not an overwhelmingly popular one. In fact, had Lincoln not instituted the draft, it is quite possible that the North would have lost the war, settling for an armistice in the face of numerous early defeats. I would state that, because conscription effectively ended and preserved the Union, that the Great Emancipator was justified in his use of it, and that in this case, it was a good thing.

Disagree?

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 29 May 02 - 12:07 PM

More song links:

The Radical Song Book by Peter Hicks:

http://www.trump.net.au/~glazfolk/archcat.htm

The Catbox Times' "People's Songs" Songs & Songbooks page:

http://aztec.lib.utk.edu/~pelton/music.htm

George Shrub/Dave Lippman song pages:

www.davelippman.com

"Non-violence requires more than the courage of the soldier of war."

-Gandhi

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 29 May 02 - 12:09 PM

The no/anti-conscription movement in the wake of WWI was worldwide. It really was the first international anti-conscription movement, and is therefore the most interesting to me personally, hence my interest in the Australian anti-conscription songs. My guess is they are songs that likely migrated throughout the anti-conscription, anti-war movement of the era.

Anyone have any knowledge of songs of that era's anti-conscription movement, whether Aussie or not?

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: DougR
Date: 29 May 02 - 12:11 PM

It came in pretty handy at the beginning of WW2, also, LEJ.

DougR

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 29 May 02 - 12:28 PM

Too much logic, Doug?

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 May 02 - 12:45 PM

(Sorry, I misread this as the Anti-Constipation Movement. Sounded redundant to me!)

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: DougR
Date: 29 May 02 - 01:43 PM

That's funny Mrrzy! :>)

I wonder, Guest who posted this thread, why you felt compelled to start a thread as a "counter-balance" to the Memorial Day thread? I suppose it has never occured to you that one of the reasons you can post such a thread as this one is because many men and women from many countries sacrificed their lives in wars in order that we might be free to say and write whatever we bloody well please. Or perhaps you feel a Nazi regime would have been more lenient on it's citizens than are the governments of free people.

I rarely reply to guests who post threads primarily to incite others but I couldn't resist this one.

DougR

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 29 May 02 - 06:35 PM

Actually, the historic anti-conscription movement is a fascinating subject. Too bad no one here can get beyond the fact that they are angry because someone had the audacity to speak their mind about Memorial Day and honoring veterans. It seems to be more important to members to shout down and silence the people they disagree with, rather than hold a conversation.

BTW, CarolC, it was the Almanac Singers who first became infamous for singing "C is for Conscription" and Pete kept it in his repetoire over the years--it has a pretty interesting story behind it. But it looks like Mudcat isn't a very welcoming place for discussing it.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 29 May 02 - 06:51 PM

Well, golly. I thought I made a legitimate post regarding Union Conscription during the Civil War as an example of a reasonable application of the draft. I'm neither angry, nor trying to shout someone down.

Sometimes, when you have an emotional investment in the Rightness of your Cause, any disagreement, logical or not, feels like you're being repressed, doesn't it? And if you state that you're being "shouted down" by pro-war neanderthals, it gives your cause even greater legitimacy and pathos.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 29 May 02 - 07:01 PM

Here's some legitimacy GUEST - go fuck yourself - you're a whining, cry baby, little asshole, who don't know shit. Probably got your little wimpy ass kicked enough that you are afraid to come and play with real people.

If the Nazi's were still recruiting you'd join to feel better about yourself. You had any sense at all you'd be Thanking some of the folks for helping keep your sorry ass in a position to speak openly. But you can't even do that can you? Climb off the cross ya jerk - someone else needs the space.

Steve

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: CarolC
Date: 29 May 02 - 07:24 PM

This is a pretty tricky subject, isn't it? On the one hand, it could be argued that conscription, and/or the draft, is necessary to protect us in situations like WWII. On the other hand, it could be argued that when governments have conscription and/or the draft available as an option, it becomes much easier for them to wage war for reasons that may not be very legitimate.

I don't have any answers except that I think it's necessary for there to always be a conscientious objector option available so that if individuals believe that a war is being waged for reasons that are not legitimate, they have a way to follow their conscience, just as those whose consciences tell them to fight have that option available to them.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: DougR
Date: 29 May 02 - 07:37 PM

I have no objection to one using their religious belief as a reason for not serving in one of the armed services. I do not believe one should be excused from the draft solely on the basis that they don't want to go to war. No sane person wants to go to war. Those who are deferred for religious reasons can serve in non-combatant positions, or serve their country in times of war in other capacities such as medics, etc.

Steve: Do you have any strong feelins on the subject? I don't think you should hold back :>)

DougR

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: CarolC
Date: 29 May 02 - 07:54 PM

The main thing I would take issue with about your wording, DougR, would be the use of the word "religion". I think people should be able to use the conscientious objector option for reasons of conscience even if what their conscience tells them is not a part of any particular established religious doctrine.

In other words, if someone believes that their country is requiring them to kill people for reasons such as protecting oil interests for instance, rather than to preserve liberties, I think the individual should have a right to follow their conscience and not kill people for oil. (This is just one example. I'm sure there are many different scenarios where this would apply.)

I have no problem with the concept of "alternative service" in such a case.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Big Mick
Date: 29 May 02 - 08:10 PM

Yeah, Carol, I think that is an important distinction. For too long we have linked morality and conscience to established religions. But as you so correctly point out, there are many that are just opposed on the basis of their own values whether religiously based or not.

And GUEST, there you go again. You build that phony crap. I didn't respond because you just aren't correct and you are just baiting. Furthermore I don't want to see this thread hijacked by a no name troublemaker. Got a new guitar yet, BTW?

Back to the subject at hand. It is true that I believe that in this imperfect world things like the draft/conscription are necessary tools to use to protect the freedoms that are often taken for granted. But the key to not allowing the powers that be abuse them is a well informed citizenry with diverse views and the ability to express them. The war in Vietnam was ended because people had the right to protest, question authority and influence opinion. To be sure there were other factors but the protesters were a huge factor. Something we learn in political activism is that it is always a fight for the middle. The strident folks on the fringe are the ones that ultimately, through their questions and consciousness raising tactics, cause the middle to examine their positions. The anti-conscription movement is vital to this argument in order that the abuses don't occur, or if they do attention will be called to them.

Mick

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 29 May 02 - 09:27 PM

Conscription has been a fact of life in most civilizations that have maintained the tradition of a "citizen army". In ancient Athens and Sparta, in the early Roman Republic, and in other countries who prided themselves on their status as Republics or Democracies, mandatory military service was a way of insuring that citizens were responsible for the preservation of their own freedoms. The alternative to this philosophy was exemplified by the paid professional armies of powers like Persia, and by the mercenary armies of the Roman Empire. These professional armies posed two threats to the State : They tended to be independent entities with loyalties to their own generals and as such were constant threats to the standing government, and they created a disconnection between on the one hand rights and freedoms, and on the other the duty to protect them. For these reasons, professional armies came to be associated with totalitarian states.

The notion of a citizen army was a strong tenet of the young United States of America, but the scale of ensuing conflicts meant that an army of volunteers was sufficient. At the onset of the Civil War, numbers among the standing Union army were insufficient to suppress the Confederate rebellion, but the cause was unpopular enough to prevent the needed influx of recruits. For Lincoln, the answer was a draft. The abuses were many, including the use of paid substitutes by the wealthy, but the end result was successful.

Conscription or required military service is not necessarily the hallmark of representational government, though. The Prussian Army, one of the most effective of the 18th and 19th Centuries was essentially a conscript force serving under a brutal, repressive government.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Bobert
Date: 29 May 02 - 10:03 PM

First of all, yo GUEST and Steve. Chill! Give peace a chance and all that. Think, "win-win".

Now as for the ol' Bobert's favorite song and dance routine. Military thinking is: "Logistics, logistics, logistics." Conscription is just one facit of the overall logistical plan and in the thinking of those who see military solutions as a means of solving problems, is no more than that. (Just as long as it ain't their sons or daighters...)

Yeah, I think that peace is a second step with anti-war being the first. We gotta quit blowing up other folks and our kids over differences of opinions. We gotta dtep to the plate, as partisally enlightened Earthlings and say, "Hey, this war stuff don't solve too many problems. Might of fact, the danged stuff just creates more of itself..."

Well, how is this done? Easy. Not really. But doable. The US is is the world's "WARRIER NATION" and not too many folks in the US, irregardless of their beliefs, have any control over the US's appitite for blowing up other folks and their stuff. So, we gotta get alternatives on the table. And these alternatives have to have some credibility. A good start would be for the Green Party to get 5% in the 2004 presidential election so that in 2008 a Greenie would be in the election debates. That would give an alternative voice some crdibility and then maybe we, as USA'ers would take time to think, "Hey, maybe this war crap ain't all it's cracked up to be...?"

After that happens then maybe the USA'ers might just get to the next step and say to themselves, "Hey, what's the next step?"

Think PEACE

Vote Green

Bobert

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: catspaw49
Date: 29 May 02 - 10:23 PM

Two quick notes here.....First, there was a handbook printed in the 60's that covered the religion and ethics issue quite well and I recall it being titled, "Ethics As Religion." It was a difficult road to get CO status using ethics but it could be done.   On the other hand, for many serious protesters, myself included, CO was not the point whereas removing public support toward the war was. Worth mentioning is that anti-war people were a mixed bag and included the requisite percentage of complete flakes and assholes just as you'd find in other groups. These were the jerks who couldn't resist yelling fuck the war/Johnson/Nixon/the pentagon at every chance they got and being the ones responsible for the spitting incidents and other sad acts. There was certainly also a group consisting of those who had been there, the anti-war vets, and those who were actively standing against the government through civil disobedience. It did not seem them and does not seem now that these two groups made "strange bedfellows," but rather were a natural alliance.

In any case, the issue of ethics was a hot topic then and I was surprised not to be able to find that book or a reference to it on the net. And just for the record, I'm all for some kind of mandated service........Let them choose the options. Military of course, but then bring back the WPA and the CCC (still around actually) as well as VISTA and other newer programs....I can think of a few service areas! Frankly, I'd like to see a situation where no one could enter college til their service was up. I think you'd find a lot more serious minded students at our universities.

AND MICK......LMAO here! "And GUEST, there you go again. You build that phony crap. I didn't respond because you just aren't correct and you are just baiting. Furthermore I don't want to see this thread hijacked by a no name troublemaker. Got a new guitar yet, BTW?".....Not so oddly, I was having that conversation with another 'Catter concerning our Guest! (:<))

Spaw

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 29 May 02 - 10:25 PM

And of course, we all know what a favor Nader and the Green Party did for the country in the last election. That went well, didn't it?

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: DougR
Date: 30 May 02 - 01:52 AM

Yep, LEJ, I think it went very well! :>)

Carol C: "reasons of conscience." The problem with you reasoning, in my opinon, is that leaves a pretty wide door to go through. One could refuse conscription for almost any reason one could come up with. "I ain't going because I got to pick cotton." "I ain't going because I don't look good in olive drab." "I aint going because I hear the food is terrible." Religion, as a reason, has been a long established reason for refusing to serve in the military (ask Larry)and I think it makes sense to stick with that.

DougR

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 May 02 - 02:18 AM

So, Doug, are you saying that since I don't belong to an established "religion" I shouldn't be allowed to refuse to go based on my own sense of spirituality and sanctity of life, or even on my own deeply held convictions about same? Your argument about picking cotton, etc. is a bit facetious. I am sure there would be a lot more screening before any reason would just be accepted.

PLus, so much klling has been done in the name of the "established religions" it seems kind of ironic that some should be able to use that as a reason, while others who oppose both war and shun "religions" should be excluded.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: CarolC
Date: 30 May 02 - 02:59 AM

How about "I ain't fighting in this war because it is against my spiritual and ethical beliefs. But I will serve in your hospitals because it isn't against my spiritual beliefs to do that."

So I have to disagree with you DougR, and pretty vehemently, too. There are many, many people in the world now who have very strong spiritual and/or ethical beliefs, but who do not belong to any particular organized religion. I'm one of them. It would be no less wrong to expect me to violate my spiritual and ethical beliefs by making me kill people (especially if it's for any reasons other than the protection of liberties), than to expect me to violate religious beliefs for those reasons.

And I will take any challenge to my right to hold and honor my spiritual and ethical beliefs in the same way that a member of any organized religion would take a challenge to their right to practice and observe their religion. And by that I mean that I would not take such a challenge lying down.

The only difference between spiritual beliefs and religious beliefs in this context is the presence (or the lack of it) of a larger body that is built upon the shared spiritual beliefs of the group, and in some cases, the reliance upon a book or document of some kind as "proof" of the validity of the spiritual beliefs of the group.

Conversely, it could be argued that governments have a pretty wide door to go through when determining what constitutes a valid reason to send the citizens of their countries to fight in wars. I think it could be argued that the Vietnam War was entered into by the US on some pretty shaky moral and ethical grounds. The Gulf War also.

As much as I hate to say this, sometimes it's our own government that is the biggest threat to our liberties and to our democracy. And at those times, it's the ones who refuse to cooperate who are fighting in the front lines in the battle to preserve and protect the very qualities (freedom, liberty, democracy, etc.) that we say make our country great. At those times, it's the resisters who are defending our country and everything it supposedly stands for.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 30 May 02 - 03:29 AM

Chuck all the little fuckers that like to hang out in gangs and shoot people into a war zone. When they get tired of violence, have them clear land mines for a living. Sometimes ya just gotta fight, there's no other solution. Human condition that wont go away.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: PeteBoom
Date: 30 May 02 - 07:50 AM

Tried to post this last night - kept throwing errors - so, going to try again...

Just to be troublesome - I find it interesting that there was nary a word of protest over the threads on ANZAC Day or the various discussion on Eric Bogle's "No Man's Land."

Could it be that folks are upset specifically because Memorial Day was originally set aside to honor the War Dead of the US? That General Logan's (by the way, Logan Avenue in Lansing, Michigan was named for him) General Order whatever to the Grand Army of the Republic to set aside May 30, 1868 to place flowers on the graves of the dead marked the day indelibly.

I wonder if there will be a similar protest over Armistice Day/Veterans Day/Remembrance Day in November.

Conscription is rarely viewed as a good thing, particularly by those conscripted nation-states. Right? Conscription practiced by war-lords is kidnapping.

Invariably, in a free society that practices conscription, there will be change. The blood-bath that was the Gallipoli campaign resulted in the decline of the Colonial mind-set in Australia and New Zealand and a rise in the self-identity - national identity if you will - of those far-flung branches of the empire.

The conscription of WWI led to social changes in the UK following that war - which set up an entire series of changes that were accelerated by MORE conscription in WWII, which set much of Britain's class-structure on its ear. (Think its bad now? Try living in your great-grandparent's time... ick.)

Similar things happened in the States following both World Wars. Draftees returned home having seen amazing things. Some were terrible, others were amazing. They had walked through buildings hundreds of years old when the oldest building in their home town was maybe 75 years old. They were changed not only by combat, but what they sensed and felt. Many folks in the States on this board grew-up living in the society that resulted from those changes.

Returning Viet Nam Vets, who were conscripted, marched alongside anti-war protesters and eventually helped bring an end to that war. This also brought an end to the all-powerful view many had of the government. People began asking questions for the first time in generations. Some were hard to take and resulted in all sorts of amazing things.

Combined with the Civil Rights Movement, the anti-war/anti-draft movement shook the center of the nation to its very soul.

Do I criticize those who answered the "birthday present" of the Viet Nam era? No. Nor do I criticize those of the 1940's and 50's. Most (not all) went because it was a dirty job and felt that if they did it, maybe their kids would not need to. That is something that is not in vogue these days among the elite intellectuals - Duty, Honor. They are powerful words. Don't despise them because people have mis-used them to their own ends. They symbolize high ideals - among the highest there are among humanity.

My oldest grandson in 8 years old. I will do everything I can to see that he does not need to "study war" and that he might study mathematics and geography - so that his children might study philosophy.

Set rant bit off <_>

Pete

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: InOBU
Date: 30 May 02 - 08:30 AM

Hiya guys...
I am a little out of it today, had a wee biopsy on my right little finger, big crater, annoying when typing... but to the point... Religion and faith are two different things, as is faith and spirituality. One of my best friends who I used to teach (HA!) Quaker first day school, gave the following quote to a Quaker adult ed. course for new Quakers... "Universalist? Well... I'd like to call myself a Universalist, but in reallity, ... I don't believe anything!" he went on to say "but something in meeting makes it all clear to me, I have to live with reguard for others..."
So, what do we make of that in reguards to religious objection. There are things we can't describe, but we know we must not kill.
As to human nature, in the history of humankind, when one includes prehistory, war is a very recent development, tied to planting. In my openion, when India, Pakistan, Isreal, a mess like the former USSR, (and yes, even the us that is the US) has the ability to end life on earth, it is time to evolve - where is Tom Lehr when ya need him.
Peace (ouch) friends,
Larry

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Hrothgar
Date: 30 May 02 - 08:38 AM

"...a free society that practises conscription..."

Um, no. Oxymoron warning!

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: PeteBoom
Date: 30 May 02 - 08:57 AM

OK Hrothgar, I'll concede your point.

Please substitute "western style democratic republic with representative governmental processes to exercise the will of the electorate or, depending on organizational structure, act on the behalf of the electorate as opposed to totalitarian/oligarchical/absolute-monarchy based authoritarian regime held in place by military power over its own people" in place of "free society".

Thanks so much -

Pete

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 30 May 02 - 09:43 AM

Let me clear here, once again, about where I stand on war and all it stands for. I oppose it. I have spent my life after my tour in Viet Nam being very active in opposing it.

But I will not "chill" when some whiney ass hole denigrates those who made different choices. I have stated, and will state again, that I respect those fought against the war as much as those who fought in it.

So I will say what I feel. And I'll do my best not to hold back *BG*. Spaw, Bobert, DougR, CarolC, Katlaughing, Justa Picker, and many others have different views on how this subject can be approached. I respect those views, and Spaw you are SOOOOO right - it does take both sides to change this craziness, and expect the same respect for my views and choices.

I love this place and the people in it - it has helped more than any of you will ever know to be able to come to a table and discuss, and cuss, the bent up pieces of my life that evolved from serving in Viet Nam.

I choose to be proud of my service - I'll be damned if I'll be ashamed of the ideology I took to the war and my participation in it under those same auspices.

Bless you all on this Memorial Day -

Say a prayer for those who are far away

And most likely in harm's way

Right or wrong they go believing their service will help others.

Steve

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: leprechaun
Date: 30 May 02 - 09:58 AM

I notice that when I see the word Guest, by itself, if I just click rapidly on the right mouse button a few times it makes this thread much more coherent.

I think there are a few things worth dying for, but I'm only speculating because I haven't actually died yet. I think there are even fewer things worth killing for. But they exist.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 30 May 02 - 10:34 AM

if peace is the goal, war & violence can never be the means to attain that goal, it will never work. That means people need to take responsibility for their own government and its policies, that means reading, studying, researching, thinking, talking and deciding for oneself what is in the best interests of one's country and the world. Conscription should be resisted whenever possible.

There is no 'honor' in just going along with the herd, not bucking the trend, entering the service and then getting killed somewhere.

There is no 'honor' in accepting whatever story the news is feeding you about the 'enemy' and going off to kill them, and then being killed yourself.

There is no 'honor', in and of itself, in just being killed in a war for any reason, combatant or non-combatant.

There IS 'honor' in having examined the issues and deciding to join in a cause one believes in and being willing to fight for it.

There IS 'honor' in behaving honorably in wartime situations, combatant and non-combatant.

AND

There IS 'honor', in and of itself, in refusing to join, refusing to fight, refusing to support, refusing to work in any role that supports war, and suffering the consequences, because that requires a decision.

The largest most powerful conscripted army in the history of the world could not beat a small nation of volunteers who were defending their own country against an outside agressor allied to one side of a civil war.

IMHO the reasons for our being in Vietnam were wrong, the reasons for our being in Kuwait were wrong, the reasons for our being in Afghanistan are wrong, the reasons for our being in Grenada, and Panama, and as 'advisors' in Colombia and the rest of Latin and South America are wrong.

And though I have great respect for the people who sincerely believed in our 'cause' in any of these places, and felt that they had a duty to go, and then performed that duty well, there is nothing honorable to me about the cause in support of which they served and/or died. By saying that, I mean that whatever side you are on, pro-war or anti-war, just being on that side is not enough to warrant my respect and friendship.

One quick aside - the comment about the anti-war people who always had to shout fuck/Nixon/war/etc. and generally acted the fool during those demonstrations were probably FBI plants who were trying to incite violence that they could later prosecute. (not that there weren't some just plain general assholes around, as I know there were in the services as well)

Just my opinion of course, but -

Mothers and fathers, do not give your children to a government to use and dispose of.

Children, teach yourselves before you go marching off, with or without your parent's blessings.

People, get involved in your government.

I often wonder if there would be wars if more women, and elder women at that, were in charge, but women can be warmongering idiots too, I guess, so it will always be up to each individual to take a stand. If you are for peace, you cannot be for war.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 30 May 02 - 11:59 AM

As the loathed guest (along with Peace Matriot) in this thread, I just wanted to jump back in to say Pete Boom and Bill Kennedy have expressed their values through their writing here very well. I share those values, and in the context of these Memorial Day threads, I especially agree with Bill's statement:

"And though I have great respect for the people who sincerely believed in our 'cause' in any of these places, and felt that they had a duty to go, and then performed that duty well, there is nothing honorable to me about the cause in support of which they served and/or died. By saying that, I mean that whatever side you are on, pro-war or anti-war, just being on that side is not enough to warrant my respect and friendship".

I quote it in it's entirety, because I think it bears repeating.

I also agree strongly with Pete's suggestion that the vociferous reaction by Mudcat member US veterans and their Mudcat friends is firmly rooted in the American tradition of honoring of *US* military dead exclusively. I think that Bush made an effort to counter that perception among the Europeans (his trip to Europe over US Memorial Day is the first time a US president has ever been outside the US on the day). But the United States has never done much to memorialize people killed in war and armed conflict beyond it's own borders, except it's own soldiers. There are some rare exceptions, most notably the Holocaust memorials (but is that because of the power and influence of the Diasporan Jews and the Israeli lobby? I dunno.

Despite that, other communities of US citizens and residents descended from "old country" folk do memorialize their ancestors in US celebrations. But there is only the begrudging and patronizing "multi-culti" support given to those efforts. I'm thinking of one--Cinco de Mayo--which is gaining in popularity here in the US because of the increased Latino population. But there isn't much else.

I'm pretty cynical about Bush going to Normandy on US Memorial Day (and really, it still came off to me looking like he was there to honor American war dead, not really to honor all the war dead). I think it was done because of those sorts of mounting criticisms of the way most involved (at any point in their lives) in the US military industrial establishment views our US military as the only war dead worthy of being "honored". I suppose Armistice Day could be viewed as an attempt to honor all the war dead, but really, in the US the military/families of military both present and former, don't seem to like to share the podium with anyone who mentions that it is millions of civilians, not millions of soldiers, which are routinely slaughtered in war.

I think of US Memorial Day as the military's holiday. I include the entire military family, which includes many people who have never seen combat or lived abroad. I'd like to believe that US military personnel and their families who have lived and served abroad had a more cosmopolitan and internationalized view of the world, but in my experience they don't. They are often hostile about the natives of the countries they get stationed in, and feel isolated (because they are, of course) and often persecuted by the locals. You see almost identical mentalites on US bases towards the locals.

All just my opinion, of course, which hasn't been terribly welcome here.

And about forced conscription being a thing of the past in most Western nations (it isn't, and a quick web search makes that clear), it is easy to dispense with conscription in peace time. But when (not if, when) the Western democratic republics decide to go to war again, conscription/the draft will be reinstituted in a heartbeat.

I am, however, quite heartened to see the United Nations' movement against the use of child soldiers in armed conflict, forced conscription and sexual slavery that goes with it, making so much headway in recent years. When combined with the United Nations and other human rights organizations' work to end all conscription and forced volunteerism, and international human rights treaties being forced to the top of the international agenda as we have seen in the past decade, including the War Crimes Tribunals treaty the US has refused to sign, I have a tremendous amount of hope for the future.

I really do believe we are on the eve of a global transformation, and that a global, just, enforceable peace without the use of military and paramilitary violence, is what our future holds. Too many people have suffered too much, for too long. Anti-war work is some of the most important work a person can do to effective those changes practically, on the ground, today. Over 25 million people, mostly civilians, have been killed in war and armed conflicts worldwide since WWII ended.

I believe that the smaller the world becomes, and the harder we fight ALL the institutions of war funded by global capitalism, the sooner we will see that future become our present day reality. The anti-war movements around the world have made tremendous progress in the past 100 years.

The people who have been involved in those movements, while highly deserving of our society's highest honors (as someone previously mentioned), receive about the same reception that Peace Matriot and myself have received here. The anti-war and peace activists are mostly reviled by those currently or formerly involved with wars, as the statements we have seen in these threads reflect, IMO. Statements like "you are the type of people who spit on returning war veterans" or "anti-war people shouting fuck Nixon/war" shows how little experience those people have had with the anti-war and peace movements of our time. Those are tired, stale stereotypes, and inaccurate ones at that.

We all make choices about the sorts of people we choose to formally and informally "honor and respect". I choose not to honor or respect the choice people make to serve in the military. Rather, I choose to honor those who refuse to serve, who work to end war, armed conflict, and the use of violence to rule instead.

Just like the Native Americans who view US Thanksgiving Day as a day of national shame, I view US Memorial Day as a day of national shame. I know that will set off the vets and their friends here, but that's the way it goes. But I can suggest we all come together to honor ALL the war dead, and do all we can, including engaging in antimilitarist activism, to honor the declaration of War Resisters' International:

"War is a crime against humanity. I am therefore determined not to support any kind of war, and to strive for the removal of all causes of war".

War Resisters' International exists to promote nonviolent action against the causes of war, and to support and connect people around the world who refuse to take part in war or the preparation of war. On this basis, WRI works for a world without war.

I honor all peoples' human right to refuse to kill.

I honor and participate in 15 May - International Conscientious Objectors' Day activities. I honor and participate in 1 December - Prisoners for Peace Day. I honor and respect people going to jail for engaging in civil disobedience at the School of the Americas, who hammered swords into plowshares at GE, Vietnam draft resisters who went to Canada and/or jail.

The Triennial Conference of War Resisters' International will be held this year in Dublin in August. For anyone who might be interested in attending, or learning more about it, here is the website for the "Stories And Strategies Nonviolent Resistance And Social Change" conference:

http://www.wri-irg.org/tri/2002/index.htm

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: folk1234
Date: 30 May 02 - 12:09 PM

Just a few thoughts re the issue of conscription. Thank you ,Guest Peace Matriot for putting this issue on the table. It is important for posterity that well meaning people on both sides of the issue exchange views.
A famous person (was it Churchill?) said, ".. war is diplomacy by other means." When our, and our adversaries', elected and appointed leaders fail in diplomacy, we send our young people to fight and die. When one or both sides has suffered enough, the diplomats find common ground upon which to make peace.
Whether the young sacrificial lambs are conscripts or volunteers makes little difference to society or the loved ones left behind.
As a young Marine 2ndLt in Vietnam, I had a number of draftees in my platoon. They were a little older and better educated than the 'volunteers', but no less willing to do what they they were asked to do (many times much more) in order to accomplish the mission, survive, and help their comrades survive. They suffered and bled the same red blood as did us 'volunteers/professionals'.
A person who has experienced the true horror of combat becomes forever 'anti-war'. Nevertheless, if called upon to serve again, most will, rather than send someone else.
Those of us who have different opinions, for example Guest and I, must work within our own realm to both strive for peace, while preparing for war, and most importantly preserving our liberties. To do anything else is pure folly.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 30 May 02 - 12:16 PM

"Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh... the Viet Cong are going to win!"

Now there is a stupid phrase from a 1969 march I participated in. There were also many shouts of "Fuck Nixon" and I can guarantee you there was at least one non-FBI plant participating in the chanting and the shouts. I mean me. And it was wrong and stupid, but I won't deny it. It was a betrayal of people like Steve and Mick, and I won't deny that either.

I will not justify my actions at the time by claiming some high and noble belief. I enjoyed my free unfettered life, sleeping with my girlfriend, playing frisbee in the park, all-night rap sessions about the war and the meaning of life,etc. Sure, I celebrated the sanctity of life...don't most 19 year olds? There was a song popular at the time that said "I got this need, the need to stay alive/ Not ashamed of my creed...I want to survive/ Leave all your loving, your long blonde hair/Don't let them take me cause I'm easily scared". It was only partly tongue in cheek when we all sang along.

Should I have been excused from the War because I disagreed with the government's policy? Or because of my concept of the "sanctity of life"? I don't think so. I eventually got out because I showed high blood pressure on my draft physical.

My point is this : in the full shadow of conflict, when to serve may very well mean to die, it is easy to come up with high ideals to justify the fact that you just plain don't want to risk it. For the thousands who were like me in the day, it's just plain bullshit. For those who were like Spaw and had a true and abiding belief in the rightness of their action, the refusal to participate is justified.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 30 May 02 - 12:33 PM

So Lonesome EJ, did you somehow disagree with the "Fuck Nixon" sentiments?

I certainly didn't. In fact, the night Richard Nixon resigned (now there was a day to celebrate!), I was at a concert given by the band War (you know--that great band nobody has ever heard of anymore who did classic pop songs like "All Day Music"), the audience went INSANE!!! It was well over an hour of dancing and screaming and carrying on--the band just put on their pre-concert tape and came out onstage dancing and carrying on with audience--it was one of the best celebrations I ever attended!

But you know what Lonesome EJ? IMO, you sound much too cynical to have ever been authentic and sincere about anti-war activism, if your last post is anything to go by. We saw a lot of so-called "peace activists" like that in the 60s and 70s. Mostly looking to party and get laid, as I recall.

Folk1234, you totally don't get where I, and other war resisters are coming from. We are opposed to the institutions of war, especially the institutions of war which are perpetually preparing for waging war. You can't, as many people (including Gandhi) have repeatedly pointed out, simultaneously oppose and prepare for/wage war.

War resisters oppose the soldiers choice to go to war--or aren't you understanding that difference? We don't support soldiers choices. That is exactly the point of what we do in the most positive sense. We support the people who refuse to become soldiers. We support the people who are trying to education the next generation to become war resisters, and to refuse to serve in and support the military IN ANY WAY.

I'm beginning to think some of you really don't get this... :)

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 30 May 02 - 12:49 PM

You mean those of us who are actually identifying ourselves, Guest?

I thought I said I wasn't a sincere anti-war activist in my previous post? Was it too subtle for you? I'm not sure what you think you might accomplish by accusing me of something I've already freely admitted.

Sure, I could carry on a charade of saying I did the right thing back then. Many people do. The fact is, I was young and dedicated to having fun. That became my philosophy. I had not discovered anything that I believed in strongly enough to die for it, and could not even grasp that concept.

Fuck Nixon? Sure. I still disagree with many of his policies, and the fact that he was a paranoid was obvious to even his supporters. That doesn't give me some kind of holy dispensation for the basic self-gratification philosophy I held.

I'm sure there were some of you who were selflessly dedicated to the anti-draft and anti-war causes at the time. I remember all the dogmatic, humorless statements fed to the hoi palloi at those campus rallies. I suppose even then you suspected we couldn't be relied on when the actual Revolution broke out.

You will find, however, that many of us now have the strength of character to stand up, identify ourselves, and speak the truth as we see it.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 30 May 02 - 12:57 PM

And some of us, Lonesome EJ, are still dedicated to the same convictions we held then. Why are you so bitter towards us?

I fail to see how someone yelling "Fuck Nixon and the war!" was a betrayal of the soldiers fighting the war.

Unless you were never sincere about your "objections" to the war, and you've come to believe the government was right, and the anti-war movement was wrong, of course. Then I can understand you do feel you betrayed the men who fought. I would too, if I only was involved in the anti-war movement because the draft and the war interfered with my partying. You are correct, you didn't do much to proud of in the anti-war effort.

But some of us did to something authentic and genuine in our involvment in anti-war efforts. Just like some of our life-long friends and family members did. And continue to do today. And raise our children to follow in our footsteps, not yours or the soldiers'.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: folk1234
Date: 30 May 02 - 01:00 PM

I get it, I get, I get it! Please continue your noble efforts. At the same time, let others continue their's. Educate, but don't demand absolute obedience to your doctrine. If your message is believable, others will follow. In your intense fervor, don't eliminate others' freedom of choice, that's fascism. Soldiers are people like EJ, Norton1, Mick, S'paw, you and me.

Happy chords,

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 30 May 02 - 01:08 PM

just to interject - this seems like a quibble you two could do privately, but I must say, Guests should be able to post to any thread unafraid of being called names and vilified as cowardds for not posting otherwise. I can see valid reasons for someone not using thier name, say if many of you knew them personally and would have to deal with them in the future. Disagreement with statements made shouldn't devolve into ad guestinem attacks (could't say ad hominem, cause it might be ad feminem!).

On a related track, however, to this non-musical, but to me worthwhile thread, I found it rather disheartening to hear Mr. Ambrose describe his new book, now that he is dying of cancer and hasn't long to live, as an attempt to set matters right, especially in respect to his opposition to the war in Vietnam. How can he actually think, now that even McNamara acknowledges his mistake (barely, but an acknowledgement of sorts), that the US was right in that conflict? Or that he and others was wrong in its criticism of the government? I would love to hear his explanation. It makes as little sense to me as the much offered chestnut, that is just a lie, gussied up to be passed of as some self-evident truth, that 'If your young and not a liberal you have no heart, and if your old and not a conservative you have ne head.' Bullshit. If you are a conservative, at any age, you are by definition a hypocrite. You want to be allowed to do anything you want and restrict others from doing whatever they want. You have no heart nor no head, no sense nor no soul. I feel a somg coming on! May have to write another!

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 30 May 02 - 01:12 PM

Well, this a bit trickier than "I agree to disagree" now, Folk1234. On the one hand, we have a long human history of warfare and forced conscription of soldiers. As we've discussed elsewhere in the past few days, the idea of "voluntary" soldiering is very modern. Sure, there have always been mercenaries for hire, but there haven't ever been that many of them to tip the balance of power.

Now then. We have a global situation where the militaries and the paramilitaries of the world are holding a gun to everyone's head, and saying "agree to disagree", and "respect our choice for deciding to hold a gun to your head".

We all know that soldiers are human. But just because they are human doesn't mean we have to allow them to get away with killing other people in our name.

There is nothing fascist about not compromising one's ideals and principles. And that is exactly what some here are demanding I do. Compromise my ideals, to accomodate the feelings of military people and their supporters who don't want us troubling their consciences.

Sorry, but I won't do that. But that IS NOT fascism.

Now, you insisting that war resisters respect the choice of soldiers to kill people--that is pretty bizarre. Let's remember Folk1234, it is a solider's job to kill. Just like the purpose of a weapon is to kill. That's what they do. I don't respect their choice to kill people in war.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 30 May 02 - 01:12 PM

I'm not bitter against those who really believed in their cause. And I don't think the war was justified in retrospect. My problem with you stems mainly from the fact that you are afraid of what people might think of you if you identify yourself. I have a feeling that you are someone known on the Forum under a member name, but are hiding it because of fear. There's nothing to be afraid of, is there?

Chanting that the Viet Cong were going to win does strike me, looking back, as disloyal and a cheap attempt to provoke bystanders and/or police. It's the kind of thing kids do for attention. I think I've grown beyond that. Am I ashamed of efforts I made to end the war? No, just ashamed of a lot of the tactics I used in that effort. And of the fact that I often viewed those who served in the army as unlucky dupes.

We were discussing reasonable views that would justify the status of a Conscientous Objector, and that is why I told my story. I don't think I qualified. I also don't think that a lot of others I knew qualified.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: catspaw49
Date: 30 May 02 - 01:14 PM

You can't carry on a private conversation (Personal Messages) with a non-member.

This one is so far out that I don't even want to try to start.....maybe later, maybe not.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 30 May 02 - 01:21 PM

Not going there on the "guest" thing--and thanks Bill K for your support.

Lonesome EJ, I don't know that you and I have much left to say to one another, so I'm happy to let my conversation with you drop out of the thread.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 30 May 02 - 01:46 PM

Hey Larry--here's one for you--the Seoul Friends--enjoy the photo, and the COs everywhere!

http://www2.gol.com/users/quakers/korea_quakers.htm

And here is a somewhat chilling read, about what people of conscience are having to face, from the same Korean Quaker website:

http://www2.gol.com/users/quakers/suppress_anticonscription_system.htm

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: InOBU
Date: 30 May 02 - 09:33 PM

Hey Guest... thanks for the web page, very interested in that the Korean Quakes look, (at very brief glance) like Hicksites like myself! This is a rather American expression of Quakerism, most African Quakes are more along the English model (though there are liberal Quaker meetings in England). I have to go back and spend a little time reading this, it is possible that US involement in Korea is the sourse of American style Quakerism in Korea. Cheers Larry

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Hrothgar
Date: 31 May 02 - 04:39 AM

PeteBoom, you've been watching "Yes Minister" again!

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: DougR
Date: 31 May 02 - 04:50 PM

When one becomes wedded to a single point of view, there isn't much room for discussion. Preaching, yes, discussion, no.

DougR

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: artbrooks
Date: 31 May 02 - 05:51 PM

"Fuck Nixon"? No thanks...he's not my type, even when he was alive...and I don't swing that way.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Bobert
Date: 31 May 02 - 08:40 PM

Well, whoever it was that pointed out that there was failed logic in the National Liberation Federation actually winning, well, the NLF did win and the US and its allies lost. But the NLF also lost because there are no real winners in war. Just victors.

Someone else said that we strive for peace, while preparing for war. Anything else would be folly. Hmmmmm? There's something inherently wrong with this thinking because, bottom line, if those are your thoughts, you cannot be working toward peaceful settlement of conflict.

As the WARRIOR NATION, the US can kick anyone's butt it wants to so, hey, with that a given anytime the US cannot impose the necessary circumstances for folks to not blow each other up, it has failed miserably. I mean, you give my 101 year old senile grandmother the US's might, and she would figure a way to create situations where folks don't go blowing each other up. Duhhhhh! Why is this such a difficult concept for folks to get?

The reason that the US continues to blow folks up and allow other folks to blow folks up is because of greed by the ruling class, lazines, shortsightedness, pride, heathens in sheep clothing and an absolute indifference to human life. There are no other ways to look at this. There are no logical rationales. If the US wants peace (or no war... since peace is harder to achieve...) then the US gets no war. Period.

But, no, my ol' buddy DougR etal, will say that the ol' Bobert just lives in a dream world. Why? 'Cause the DougR's of the world have been so programed over sych a long period of time that they are no capable of seeing that the world has changed so dramatically that war, as we know it, has to go. It certainly won't happen under the "Last Harrah" Warrior, George WWWWWWWWW Bush but he is a dinosaur and doesn't know it. It will happen because it has to. Period.

Now, for all of you who think that blowing folks up is inevitable, and have thousands of hours of tapes running through your heads that prove that blowin folks up is inevitable, it's your turn to run your tapes. Fire away. Ol' Bobert has made himself a big ol' target. Yeah, knock yourselves out...

End of rant.

Thank God

Peace

Bobert

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Bobert
Date: 31 May 02 - 08:53 PM

Ahhhh, make that the Natinal Liberation FRONT, thank you...

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 May 02 - 09:57 PM

Bobert, an analogy to the 'striving for peace while preparing for war: When I finally knew I was going to quit smoking, for the first time I didn't make sure I had a closed pack on hand "just in case". All those times before, when I had tried to quit , obviously I knew, deep down, that I wasn't going to make it. Talk about lack of motivation!

My point is that if we know that war is unacceptable, totally out of the question, we will not go to war.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 31 May 02 - 10:13 PM

I like that analogy Ebbie. Quitting smoking was, for me, incredibly hard, and even the "last time" I smoked, I didn't really believe I was going to quit. I got up one day, and didn't smoke anymore. In fact, as I type this, I'm laughing because I can't even remember my last smoke--not a thing about it! I can't even remember how many years I've been smoke free! Around 10 years maybe?

People have asked me how I did it. What I did was quit doing the things I associated with smoking. I quit coffee, recreational drugs, and alcohol. I knew if I did any of those things, my will power would be shot, and I'd smoke. I didn't tell myself I could never have those things again. I just told myself I couldn't do them and stay off cigarettes. I still don't drink coffee, and I haven't done recreational drugs since. I probably went 2 or 3 years before I drank. And I didn't miss any of it Of course, food tasted so damn good I ate enough to gain 50 lbs! But eventually I lost that too.

Anyway, the analogy is a good one for any sort of behavior that has to change. Justifying not changing the behavior results in one thing, and one thing only--continuing the behavior. Maybe we should start with not recruiting/enlisting/drafting any more folks into military service. If we just did that--declared a moratorium on new blood coming in, we could also quit buying and building new weapons. Eventually you'll run out of soldiers and weapons.

And then what will we do?

Pax to you too Bobert. :)

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Bobert
Date: 31 May 02 - 10:46 PM

Thanks for the assist, Ebbie and GUEST. Going on 16 years without smokin' myself and I did it the same way. It's not an acceptable behavior for my future. Like thinking of alternatives to war. Nah, we've done that and that didn't do a thing but perpetuate the stupidity. It's going to take just a sliver of credibility. Once that occurs then a lot of folks around the world are going to all figure it out like a light bulb coming on and DARE to change human behavior forever. Like not smoking. WE DON'T DO THAT ANY MORE, thank you. If we get enought folks thinking that we don't do that any more, then guess what, mankinds future is changed forever.

IT IS POSSIBLE. AND INEVITABLE. Sure would be nice to happen under our watch....

Peace

Bobert

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: DougR
Date: 31 May 02 - 11:43 PM

Bobert! I can't belive it! We agree on something! I do agree you live in a dream world!

DougR

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: CarolC
Date: 31 May 02 - 11:51 PM

We are the Music-Makers

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

-- Arthur O'Shaughnessy

Only those who can see the invisible can do the impossible...

-- Machaelle Wright

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: DougR
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 01:15 AM

Mebbe so, Carol C, but when did Arthur O'Shaughnessy write that? Have things changed in that direction since he did?

The world needs dreamers, though, and I'm glad both you and Bobert are around to do it. :>)

DougR

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 01:26 AM

I don't know when it was written, but he lived from 1844–1881.

Have things changed in that direction since he did?

I'd say yes, many times over.

The world needs dreamers, though, and I'm glad both you and Bobert are around to do it. :>)

Thanks. Without the dreamers, nothing would ever happen. Everything that humans do starts out as an idea in someone's head.

It's a beautiful poem, isn't it?

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: InOBU
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 06:44 AM

Hi DougR:
We anti war folkies, well, as to living in a dream world, once India and Pakistan begin hurling nukes at each other, dream worlds may be the only world we have... Cheers larry

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: leprechaun
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 07:51 AM

I'm striving for health while preparing for disease. Is that hypocritical of me? Should I just assume that as long as I don't want a disease I won't get one? Perhaps we should get rid of all the doctors, pharmacists, medicines and herbal remedies, and then nobody will ever get sick. After all, isn't medicine just a war on germs? Perhaps we should learn to live with germs, reason with them, be their friends.

Sure. Yeah. That's the ticket. Be nice to the germs and then they won't hurt us.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 09:31 AM

I'm striving for good health too, but I'm not preparing to get sick as I do it.

That analogy doesn't work for me.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: InOBU
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 10:57 AM

Germs ain't people... but if you saw the PBS program about viruses, well, you raise an interesting point. When we treat with antibotics we create untreatable viruses, but there is a new experiment to encourage less viralent versions of viruses (what illiteration!!!) in that viruses that need their host, water borne viruses tend to be less deadly than insect born viruses (to paraphrase to the point of lossing the sence of the study completely!) But, the fact is we are in an arms race with germs and loosing... begining to get the point????
We have me the enamy and they is us... Larry
who is touched by the outpouring of concern over my biopsy!)

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 11:08 AM

Actually, InObu, I was wondering about your biopsy. I don't suppose it's common to have a malignancy on one's finger but a biopsy implies the possibility... Do you have the test results yet?

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: InOBU
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 11:15 AM

Thanks Ebbie, just a wee moment of feeling a tad pissy... Will know in a few days... the Doc was pretty perplexed as well, and being late in the day, didn't do a very good job of closing the wound, so now three days later it is still bleeding, hence my being a tad out of sorts... sorry for lapse, I will let ya know, likely it is nothing... Cheers Larry

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: DougR
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 12:06 PM

Hmm. Larry: "We Anti-War folkies." I would consider everyone who has posted to this thread anti-war.

Just because some of us believe that the only solution to some major disputes is going to war, does not brand us as being pro-war. Comprendo?

DougR

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 12:10 PM

I truly do wish the key to ending war was just to think peace, to change our attitudes. I think of Neville Chamberlain, a kind and intelligent man, landing in his plane in England with Hitler's Treaty in his hand and declaring "we shall have Peace in our time". Now if Neville and Adolph had been of the same mind, it would have been quite possible, but instead, what you had was a Prime Minister who thought every difference could be settled through peaceful negotiation, and another who thought he would see what he could gain through peaceful negotiation before launching all-out war. The German people were not simply a bunch of fanatics led into war by a raving maniac. They were a country who had been defeated in a previous war, who had territory removed from them, whose economy had suffered complete collapse, and who were crippled by War Reparation Payments. They had legitimate (to them) complaints. Coupled with Hitler's ambition for a single German-dominated European Empire, the stage was set for what followed. PEACE was not even a desirable option for them! Peace is like love...before you can have it, you must have two people who want it. Otherwise somebody gets hurt. This seems so simple to me, I cannot comprehend the failure to appreciate it.

Bobert said As the WARRIOR NATION, the US can kick anyone's butt it wants to so, hey, with that a given anytime the US cannot impose the necessary circumstances for folks to not blow each other up, it has failed miserably. I mean, you give my 101 year old senile grandmother the US's might, and she would figure a way to create situations where folks don't go blowing each other up. Duhhhhh! Why is this such a difficult concept for folks to get?

Does he mean that the US should impose terms on the rest of the World so that Peace is mandatory? I guess, in terms of my previous statement, what he's saying is that if the two parties are not of one mind regarding Peace, then the party with the most nukes gets to declare peace on his terms. How in hell is that a new approach?

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 12:15 PM

They had legitimate (to them) complaints. LEJ, that's part of the key, I think. Attention to and redress of injuries is essential.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 12:30 PM

Ebbie, they wanted Prussia back, the Sudetenland, the German-speaking parts of Poland, and Austria. There were people living there who didn't want to become part of Greater Germany! In fact, Chamberlain gave them most of those things in an attempt to pacify Hitler. Hitler just continued to up the ante. Britain stood by and watched the blitzkreig roll over its own ally, Poland, in hopes that Germany would be satisfied.

In a relationship where one nation seeks peace and the other seeks domination, the continuing effort by the peaceful nation becomes appeasement.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: DougR
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 12:59 PM

Well said, LEJ. I just returned from my two mile walk in 90 degree weather and had decided to bring Mr. Chamberlain into this conversation, but you did it so eloquently, there is no need to repeat it.

DougR

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: InOBU
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 01:09 PM

Fact is, Chamberlan was not the power behind fascist move forward, they could not have gone anywhere without the help of US corporations and mogals, who, Like Rockafeller and Morgan, dealt with them throughout the war. Morganthau wanted badly to charge them with treating with the enamy, (I actually read his hand written notes in the National Archive) after the war. Cheers Larry

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 01:55 PM

Larry, there is no doubt that the Arms Industry rejoiced at Hitler's military buildup just as they are now licking their chops over the India/Pakistan confrontation. The lust for obscene profit generated by killing is only one of the factors that contribute to war, though. Certainly the Pacific theatre in World War 2 was generated by Japan's perception that the West was dominating Asian Markets and exploiting Asian resources. Their declared goal of liberating Asia for the Asians was belied by such actions as the Slaughter of Shanghai, and the ensuing treatment of conquered peoples as slave laborers and worse. Their goal was Japanese domination of the Asian markets and resources, just as Hitler's goal was German domination.

My question remains....how do you achieve Peace in the face of such motivating factors on the side of powerful aggressive states? How do you propose achieving Peace between India and Pakistan, when the hostility is motivated by a thousand years of religion-based hatred? If we dissolve the nation-states and corporations, will mankind, returned to a tribal level, be less likely to make war? Studies of primitive cultures certainly don't indicate that.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: InOBU
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 02:28 PM

Well... it is not an easy process, in order to bring about peace, once also has to bring about a wee bit of fairness. We can't keep accepting extreem poverty as the cost of our wealth. Further, there is not a single monolithic primitive culture, there are many different cultures warlike and peaceful in the past and present, I tend to think of large industrial states which don't have the intelectual advancement to figure out a better way of dealing with conflict than war as being primitive, but that is a term I use with some caution.
Cheers, Larry

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 03:22 PM

The problem lies in this : In a world at peace, there must be either a balance of power that holds antagonistic forces in mutual respect and paasivity, or a single leadership. If the single leadership option is chosen, that leadership must be acceptable to the Great Powers, and there's the rub : The League of Nations and the Untied Nations were created as a form of world governing body, but are only effective when the Great Powers agree on laws and actions.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: InOBU
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 03:30 PM

Lonesome!!! Why only two option? The world is not only either or! There is at least one other option, likely loads of options, the oppotion of cooperation and mutual respect! Cheers Larry

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: DougR
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 03:42 PM

Larry, Larry, Larry ...:>)

DougR

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 04:17 PM

How's it going to work, Larry? I need a process. Dreams are great, but how to turn them into reality?

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 04:47 PM

I think we're talking about a beginning, a mindset. In a world that has always (?) thought in terms of war as a means of domination, peaceful change is not an easy concept.

My precepts:

1. Most people are normal people who mainly want the chance to birth their babies, pursue their own version of happiness and see the future as being a limitless expanse of opportunity and challenge.

2. Most people do not want to suffer loss nor deliver loss to others.

3. Most people do not want to hate anyone to the point of demonization of others; given a chance they see other people pretty much the same as themselves.

4. The occasional madman or megalomaniac will be given short shrift in a world that sees no viable future in attacking others.

**In reading the history of Nazism in the German culture, it becomes quite clear that the administration made a number of tentative moves from time to time to ascertain the mood of the German people and how much they would stand for and at what speed. If the German people ( read that as us in a similar situation) had spoken at those points of intervention, history would have developed differently.

5. Education and exposure to other cultures are important, overwhelmingly important. In modern times not many leaders who have traveled extensively have waged war.

6. A world that recognizes the common humanity of man and the right of every person to access to enough food, shelter and a safe environment will be a very different world from this one where we deem it sad but acceptable to view millions of children wasting away of hunger and disease in front of our easy chairs.

There are many, many other 'givens' one could list. I just don't see that, in a world of tremendous and ever-growing danger, we must continue to think in the same old, same old, kneejerk fashion we've been doing for millenia. Shouldn't time and experience count for something?

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: InOBU
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 05:05 PM

Ebbie did such a good job, I can go out and do my concert at Artquake now, confident that we are on the road to peace. So, DougR, Lonsome, now that your questions are answered, do the right thing. Be good for now, and listen for the sound of distant appaluse. I am going on tonight, without band, without pipes, singing just me, as me old dad used to do, as me old hand is not working yet. Gud nite all... Cheers Larry

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: DougR
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 05:59 PM

Ebbie: Do you honestly believe that the leadership of the terrorists that are causing the problems world-wide gives a you-know-what what the "people" think? This enemy is unlike any the free world has ever had to deal with before. All of your points are good ones, and were this a perfect world, perhaps there would be hope for your POV. It appears to me, though, that you, Bobbert, Larry and others are simply not seeing the world the way it is. The terrorists do not operate their war against us and other free nations based on polls.

DougR

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST,sophocleese
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 06:53 PM

No Doug I don't think Bush gives a fuck what I think. But he is basing his terrorism on the polls of an American people continually harassed and subjected to a mind numbing campaign that says that war is normal and the only way to do things.

I am anti-war and have been for all of my adult life. It has been noted that among nations that those that spend above a certain percentage (which I cannot remember exactly at the moment) of their GNP on their military inevitably end up fighting a war somewhere. Those nations are considered 'Supra-critical'. America has been a supra-critical nation now for many years and this site contains a partial listing of American military interventions in the last century. For one hundred years the list gives 130 interventions. Make no mistake War is Buisness and America's Business is War not peace.

If you want to use the old chestnut "If you want peace prepare for war." Don't forget if you prepare for war you inevitably end up with it.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 09:17 PM

Good work Ebbie, Larry Guest, sopholeese and others. DougR and LEJ still can;t get it because of the miles and miles of tapes that the ruling class/masters of war have stuck in their heads. They are hopelessly stuck with their attention firmly afixed to the rear view mirror. Where we see unprecidented opportunity and potential for changing the manner inwhich earthing conduct business their tapes scream, No, No and thousand times NO!

Yaeh, the USA is the WORLDS POWER and can have things the way they want 'em if they will get behind them and SELL them the way they market Air Jordons in Third World countries. Yeah, they can SELL peace. They can SELL anti-war. But the ruling class is too lazy, greedy and anti-human to tell their boys to do it.

Well, it will get done because it has to. And when it does, Dougie, don't fret and wring your hands for your beloved ruling class/ masters of war because they will end up on their feet selling stuff that benefits mankind rather than the junk they sell now for folks to blow up each other...

Peace

Bobert

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 02:58 AM

Thanks for straightening that out for me, Bobert. Now that I realize I'm an unwitting dupe who just can't understand the incisive logic of your position, I'm sure I'll re-examine the issue and come to see it your way. It's also a nice change from the "aw shucks ol Bobert" personna. You should really consider the legal profession, you know.

Oh...and thanks Ebbie for actually outlining your position. I find little in your list with which I could disagree, except perhaps the statement In reading the history of Nazism in the German culture, it becomes quite clear that the administration made a number of tentative moves from time to time to ascertain the mood of the German people and how much they would stand for and at what speed. If the German people ( read that as us in a similar situation) had spoken at those points of intervention, history would have developed differently. For some reason I don't see Hitler as a man trying to win a popularity contest. I think at a certain point he had lost his grip to a point that he believed his will was Germany's. I also feel that the key word in your manifesto is "most". "Most" people do want the things you speak of, but many are willing to settle for a lot less than to "see the future as being a limitless expanse of opportunity and challenge." And as long as there are enough others who subordinate the will of these people to their own needs, the cycle continues. I may see those oppressors as regimes like China, Iraq, North Korea and Cuba. You may see them as the US, Britain and Japan. One man's hero is another man's villain. One man's Napoleon is another's George Washington, and we point our fingers at each other. There are even some who, while proclaiming peace through understanding will oppose those with differing views as people who "just can't get it", unable to offer legitimate solutions, but coyly hinting that they are, depite all outward appearances, enlightened.

Until we formulate a true vision for a world at peace, and create a process for implementing it, taking into consideration and thoughtfully compromising different views and needs...until we begin that process, hoping that good thoughts will somehow make peace materialize is like hoping the lottery will make you rich. Sometimes, you need to actually DO something to achieve your goals.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 03:45 AM

Until we formulate a true vision for a world at peace, and create a process for implementing it, taking into consideration and thoughtfully compromising different views and needs...until we begin that process, hoping that good thoughts will somehow make peace materialize is like hoping the lottery will make you rich. Sometimes, you need to actually DO something to achieve your goals.

What it looks like to me, rather than people (us) shaping the future in the kind of proactive way that you seem to be describing, using a fullly formed "vision" of what that future is going to look like and then imposing that vision on reality, is that there is a somewhat more organic process that is already underway.

What it looks like to me is that humanity (the world) has experienced a paradigmatic shift as a result of advances in technology, and that this paradigmatic shift requires us to adapt. It looks like this adaptation is happening in increments.

To the extent that "vision" enters into the equation, it looks to me like it is the vision of many, many people, all creatively coming up with new ways to do things, new approaches and solutions to problems, that will create a cumulative effect, and will produce the necessary changes in our way of thinking and looking at the question of how we live together in the world as partners rather than as competitors.

Clearly, we still have a long way to go with this, but it looks to me like we're making some progress.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 09:53 AM

DougR and Lonesome EJ are demonstrating a textbook case of circular logic:.

We can't have peace until we don't have war, therefore we must endure war, because we don't have peace.

As to the argument that no one is "really" working on ending war--nothing could be further from the truth. Here is the UN link on conscription:

http://hri.ca/fortherecord1997/documentation/commission/e-cn4-1997-99.htm

We can also find our way to many websites of international bodies that may or may not be considered legitimate by DougR and Lonesome EJ (something tells me, they may not consider the UN a legitimate organization because they don't have nukes!), that demonstrates international momentum at the highest levels to end war. Arms treaties. Landmine bans. No nukes, from organizations like the Union of Concerned Scientists. The work to end forced conscription of children. The international conscientious objector movement. Its all there. Social change never happens with "a well laid plan, agreed to by all" as Lonesome EJ and DougR suggest.

The work is going ahead with or without you, DougR and Lonesome EJ. The fact that you two don't believe in it doesn't even matter. You are perfectly entitled to continue living your lives with your heads in the sand, and spouting off your empty rhetoric on internet discussion forums. But the world isn't listening to men like you anymore.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 10:47 AM

LeeJdarlin'...one thing that would help to bring about such a dream is for the American people to get off their arses and VOTE, esp. if they will vote for someone who does NOT use the negative rhetoric of the Shrub. Sophocleese nailed that one. We hear nothing but fear-mongering from him. As far as he is concerned there is nothing to his presidency but feeding the public a daily dose of FEAR, which is what a bully does to bring about submission. I know you know this and I don't for a minute believe that you, of all people, do all you can to work for war! How absurd!:-)

As far as quote attribution goes, it was Einstein who said:

A country cannot simultaneously prepare for and prevent war; and,

The pioneers of a warless world are the youth that refuse military service; but, I really like the way Ben Franklin put it:

Never has there been a good war or a bad peace.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 11:16 AM

LEJ said:

The problem lies in this : In a world at peace, there must be either a balance of power that holds antagonistic forces in mutual respect and paasivity, or a single leadership. If the single leadership option is chosen, that leadership must be acceptable to the Great Powers, and there's the rub : The League of Nations and the Untied Nations were created as a form of world governing body, but are only effective when the Great Powers agree on laws and actions.

This is true as far as it goes, but there are multiple vectors at work. The balance of power is not just between nations, but comprises m,illions of lesser contracts and balances. The two major shifts in large that make the possibility of future peace a little more realistic are the rise of multi-national corporations and the rise of instant planetary communication.

Multinationals, because they are threatened by market loss if two of their national markets go for each others' throats. Rapid communication accelerates responses and makes it harder to build hidden war machines and commit atrocities in secret, although it is still possible.

But what kind of a process, legal framework or international court could bring about a planet-wide policy that war was anathema? The UN certainly tries hard, but it is operating in the face of conditions which promote war -- rampant nationalism, economic disparity, people being pushed around without let. People who are building and winning at their lives, as a rule, and getting enough to eat, don't usually do the war thing.

If the core conditions shift, through economic and technical advancement, then gradually the warmongers look like the psychos they are rather than possible solutions. Ya gotta be nuts to go to war, but being nuts beats watching your children starve to death, doncha think?

But until then, don't be dissin' LEJ prematurely here -- wait until he says something that ain't so!

A

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 01:36 PM

Amos, I think your "capitalism will bring peace" idea rather absurd. Capitalism is the engine that drives the war machine.

The UN may not be the organization which ultimtely is able to transcend nationalism, war mongering, economic disparity, etc. but it is the major transitional body that will give birth to the institutions which WILL allow humanity to transcend the corporate/capitalist state and the nation state, and all the war mongerers who are clinging to their life raft.

The world will change because the majority of human beings on the planet are already demanding it, and more and more human beings are dedicating their lives to working on transforming the world on precisely that level.

I'm not saying it will happen in our life times, but it easily could happen in our children's life times.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 02:24 PM

Guest, I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but "transform" to what? Are you suggesting Communism as a replacement for the "corporate/capitalist" model? And what sort of governmental entity will implement it? Or is the answer good-natured anarchism?

Regarding the United Nations, I believe that as a forum for discussion of differences and as a vehicle for such things as disaster relief, it is of great value. What I am saying is that it has never achieved the level of an independent world government able to intervene objectively in wars and crises, or to make laws that it is able to enforce. Its involvement in situations like the Balkan Genocides in Croatia and Kosovo are impowered by massive US support. And I will not deny that if the US objects to a ruling, it will simply ignore it and do as it wishes. This is your model for a unifying world government? Not without major overhaul.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: DougR
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 02:58 PM

Yep, LEJ, I think you said it all, "dead horse."

DougR

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 03:10 PM

Why is the horse dead? Five hundred or a thousand years ago, no one had any concept of the "corporate/capitalist model", but that didn't stop it from coming into being.

I don't know why we should expect to be able to see what comes after the "corporate/capitalist model" at this point in time. But I hardly think it's realistic to expect that this model is what we're stuck with forever. It's been a useful model to get us to where we are now. But it's got a lot of limitations, and its got the seeds of its own destruction built right into it.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 04:55 PM

Capitalism is the engine that drives the war machine.

What a crock -- talk about dead horse shit. Oh, anonymous and somewhat pusillanimous, but quite articulate Guest, the war machine is not "driven" by an economic model. Do you think there is a big difference between Papa Joe Stalin's Red war machine, Uncle Adolf's National Socialist war machine, Ho Chi Minh's Commnist war machine, or the Roman Empire's plutocratic one? Don't be redickledockle.

War is driven by individuals in the throes of psychosis, or it is driven by physical threat and self-defense.

It is not capitalism I was speaking of per se, anyway, but the notion that transnational commerce is a good way to avoid war, because it investsa lot of interest in the preservation of open transactions across spaces which would have to be cut off from each other in order for war to be conceivable.

If you are talking about the merchants of chaos and military weapons, well, I concur -- but they are their own brand of psycho, not a product of capitalism.

A

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: leprechaun
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 07:20 PM

As a capitalist of course I realize that the more people who are dead, the more of them will be able to buy my products. No, wait, um, let me see. The more people who are starving to death, the more I can sell... Just a minute. As long as I am lazy and treat people horribly, I'll be a Power That Bees. Oh, heck. The only way I can be a capitalist is to be dishonest and evil, like George W. Bush, and then I'll get "C's," and I can steal the election.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 08:31 PM

Industrial capitalists created the modern weapons industry, and have, with few exceptions, controlled it all along--including in communist countries. Sure the reds controlled some weapons production here and there rather than the capitalists. But in industry terms, and in the sheer numbers of weapons in which our world is awash, the overwhelming majority of them are, and always have been, controlled by industrial capitalists.

Try visiting here, to begin to explore "economic conversion" of war based economics to the economics of human and environmental needs:

http://prop1.org/prop1/prop1.htm

In the global weapons industry, a slowdown in buying has left companies with an excessive manufacturing capacity and management structure. By merging, they can eliminate some of the overhead and combine the income of the two companies. The American defense industry has seen a dramatic consolidation from dozens of military contractors down to just a few primary ones.

The problem with giant transnational companies is that they usurp power from communities and democratically-elected governments, replacing a process by which policy can be made by community input, with policy made by corporate executives.

DougR and Lonesome EJ--ever hear of Halliburton? None of the war on terrorism is about honor and patriotism, or keeping the world safe. It is about money. Follow the money, and money mongers and they will lead straight to the defense department, the White House and the military industrial war mongerers.

From the Arms Trade Resource Center at the World Policy Institiute:

"Last but not least, the fall of communism in East and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union ushered in a period of "free market fundamentalism" in which free trade and deregulation of financial markets were the unquestioned order of the day...(T)he triumph of free market approaches to global trade and finance have had serious unintended consequences in facilitating self-perpetuating economies of war and plunder, particularly in the most impoverished regions of the global south."

http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/bh1000.htm

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 10:47 PM

This is really more about bad capitalists rather than capiatalism itself. We've had the same bunch for way too long and they have become lazy and reactionary and can't think beyond the tried and true formula. Build stuff that blows up and if folks get blown up with it, hey, not our problem.

The sad thing is that they could be building and selling things like windmills which would produce all the power needed for the Earth without burning one danged thing. Or they could build irrication systems which turns deserts into farm land. Or mass trsansit systems. Heck, they could do a lot of things but they refuse. Instead, we get the same old worn out, anti-human and Godless products that blow folks up. Real bright, boys!

And as for their "boys" who occupy the White House and most of Congress? These folks are just a guilty. Hey, the revisionist historians aren't going to find enough makeup to make these greedy, lazy folks look too good.

Vote Green

Peace

Bobert

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 01:12 PM

Bobert, you're getting dangerously close to actually discussing the solutions when you say The sad thing is that they could be building and selling things like windmills which would produce all the power needed for the Earth without burning one danged thing. Or they could build irrication systems which turns deserts into farm land. Or mass trsansit systems. Heck, they could do a lot of things but they refuse. Instead, we get the same old worn out, anti-human and Godless products that blow folks up. Real bright, boys! Here's a shocker for you....I think you're right! Where we disagree is their motive for not doing these things. I don't think they refuse because weapons are evil and they enjoy doing evil. I think they produce weapons because there is a ready market for them, and they have the production and distribution down pat. If feeding people could be made as profitable as helping them kill one another, General Dynamics, Dupont, Lockheed-Martin, etc would be lining up to fill the bill. Unfortunately, the largest customers for weapons are the governments of nations, and the popular revolutionary movements that oppose them. If these people were more interested in feeding their own people than in subjugating them and maintaining power, your market for items to improve the quality of life would be ready made.

In a Capitalist World (sorry...that's pretty much what it is) consumers usually dictate the direction that manufacturers take. By denying supply, you don't kill demand. And you cannot create, even with the best advertising, a demand where none exists.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 01:45 PM

The problem with capitalism, in my view, is that it is driven by cynicism. 'Collateral damage', whether it is the fallout from the old greedy-banker-foreclosing-on-the-widow's-family-farm syndrome to the children put at risk by invading forces putting things right to sailors being unknowing guinea pigs for toxic products to the literal fallout from nuclear tests onto innocent farmers and their crops which make their way into the citizens' bodies and into the food chain, is somehow acceptable, mostly because it is 'free enterprise'.

I can see the logistical value in sacrificing 1,000 people for the sake of 100,000 but I question the value of sacrificing today what will prove of ominous importance in all of our tomorrows. And so many times we know better.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 02:05 PM

Ebbie, I have a friend who is a specialist in the water department of the EPA. Throughout the 90s, he has been employed as a consultant to various former Eastern Block countries in an attempt to undo the damage done by 50 years of Soviet control. If you think that collateral damage, abuse of people, hidden waste toxicity, and destruction of environment is a Capitalist innovation, you need to talk to him. What is apparent is that unregulated power in any governmental or corporate entity leads to damage and abuse.

What needs to happen is that the capitalists need to be coerced into the service of what you and Bobert and Carolc and others here have described as a new world view that transcends war and starvation. You won't be able to force them to do it by showing them the error of their ways. And if you destroy them you must envision a plan for something better that will replace the existing paradigm. Better, I think, to use the mule who is already in the harness to draw the wagon in a new direction. And we know the carrot-and-stick trick works pretty well for even the most stubborn mule.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 02:15 PM

Since you included my name in your 03-Jun-02 - 02:05 PM post, Lonesome EJ, I guess I need to refer you to my 02-Jun-02 - 03:45 AM post, in which I address the issue of how I think things are evolving. Coercion doesn't enter into the picture at all from the perspective I'm using.

But, to simplify things even further, I think that what will finally change the way people do business will be enlightened self interest. People will change when they see that they don't have any other choice. (And I do believe that this will happen in the not to distant future.) What the system will look like when that happens is the only thing that is in question (from my perspective).

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 02:20 PM

This may bear posting, again, from a thread about peace, last year. Some ideas on how we can work for change. I have not checked the links for updates. I'll fix any that may not work. Thanks:

I would turn first to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama and also Sir John Templeton odd as that may seem. Another one would be Robert Fulghum. You may remember he advocated dropping "bombs" of colouring books and crayons in an essay on the healing of creativity and fun in one of his books.

I would also put the people at Peace Pilgrim at the top of the list of advisors and enactors.

Also, Women Waging Peace;

Women Building Peace;

Canadian Voice of Women for Peace;

People for Peace with lots of good links, esp. for kids;

And, not to be sexist: Men's International Peace Exchange;

Yamoussoukro Declaration of Peace in the Minds of Men UNESCO;

Men for Peace;

Interesting article and link to Pave for Peace;

Musicians4Peace takes a bit to load;

Musicians for Peace at PEACEZINE not for the faint at heart activism (warning, disturbing photo of war ravaged child);

RHYTHM WEB - Peace Through World Music.

If one enters "musicians for peace" in google, many smaller, individual orgs. come up.

There are a lot of people out there thinking the same thing and trying to pull it together, despite the politicians and big money fellahs.

In Peace Profound,

kat

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: DougR
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 04:55 PM

You're up at 3:45 A.M. posting to the Cat, Carol C? No wonder I think your thinking is cloudy on the evils of capitalism! You are suffering from sleep deprivation! :>)

DougR

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 05:06 PM

No, I've actually been getting a little bit too much sleep lately, DougR. Just not at the normal times.

If my reasoning appears clouded to you, it's because you've got the lense of your perceptions focused at a different setting than me. Just because you don't understand my thinking, doesn't mean it lacks clarity ;-)

Anyway, I never said it was evil. I said it has a lot of limitations and it's got a self-destruct setting built into it.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: DougR
Date: 04 Jun 02 - 01:38 PM

Okie dokie, Carol C.

DougR

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Jun 02 - 09:45 PM

LonesomeEJ: We are making some progress here. Now bare with me for just a couple more laps. You think that the market drives the supplier. Hmmmmmmm? Depends on just how limited the supplier is in his offerings. It also depends on how well his admen sell his crap. 99% of folks who own SUV's don't need them!!! But they have had it drummed into their feeble busy minds that if they want to portray success they had better danged well own own or fear that late knock on the door from the status monitors who inform them that, hey, this is Brookshire and in BROOKSHIRE, we drive SU-friggin-V's, pal. If all you produce is crap then it'll get bought. Now, here's an idea. WHAT IF (poor ol' Douggie going, "Danged, here we go with another of Bobert's endless list of what if's".) one capiatlist broke ranks and said, "Hey, I'm not making bombs no more. I'm making winfmills". And what if they spend a few bucks with the same folks who convince folks to buy the SUV's they don't need to sell the idea of telling the Middle East keep their oil 'cause we don't need it because we can meet all our energy need with wind power. And what if renigade capitalist were to sell power directly to the consumer at a price that was competitive with the power produced by burning stuff up? Now this is do-able. Now, the consumer says, "Hey, this is refreshing. And it is responsible and it doesn't mess up the environment and, hey, I can look mu grandkids in the eye because my generation didn't pass the buck." This is what I'm talking about. Don't believe for one minute that folks are inherently evil. They just haven't been given any choices by the lazy, evil folks who think they know what's best for you, me and the rest of the world when all they are really interested in is the easiest way to keep what they have. And screw everyone else....

End of Bobert's latest rant.

Vote Green

Bobert