24 April 2021
Guest commentarie from correspondent Otmia Unogsy: “You know what’s awkward? Being dubbed an American but loathing everything about its military. I’m civil to militarists, because they’re human and they’re at least 90% or more of Americans, and I’m not the hating kind anyway. I actually like humans and their stellar potential. But evangelical militarism is everywhere in the U.S. It’s a fucking religion. And I’m militarily atheist. It’s AWKWARD to the point I’m not comfortable here. And I have to shut my mouth for fear of who knows what would be done to me if I say how US militarism makes me vomit.”
I don’t fully relate to Otmia’s frustration, but I share it a lot. Still, it sounds like it’s more comfortable being me. Either I’m not as concerned with feeling awkward myself, or I’m less empathetic toward others’ awkwardness, or I get more of a pass from my reformed terrorist status (Strategic Air Command, ca. 1980), allowing me to talk candid shit about the Occupation.
Otmia continues: “I just passed a billboard going into town earlier, that was advocating seductively, targeting youth, to join the marines. Puke. Recruiters in the schools!! They target elementary kids. Principles are former military, they have all the military worshipping regalia in their offices. Half the staff in government schools are former military, and they preach militarism to the kids. It’s sick. Militarism is in half the TV shows. PUKE.”
I still have a hard time disputing it, and I share many of Otmia’s concerns as well, but I think I’m generally less alarmed. A little anyway. Still… the worship of the state, and not just the enforcement branch of that vast criminal enterprise, is just as worrisome, and I would be considerably less alarmed if equal time were given to anarchists and peaceniks as is given to statist orthodoxy. Meanwhile, I thank Otmia for her vigilance and attention to these matters, and hope she finds as comfortable an emotional accommodation to the real world as have I.
Otmia concludes: “OK, I’m [removing] this post. Too many people [at this venue] take offense. Apologies.”
I hope no part of that apology is for me because I not only was never offended in the first place, but I also don’t blame her for ducking the additional heat. The venue in which the comments first appeared is indeed aswarm with blood-soaked leftists who’ll seize immediate offense at any sort of anti-state or a-martial heresy.
Vaya con Carne & Sic Semper Shalom!