April 6, 1909
Hon. Joseph M. Dickinson,
Secretary of War,
Washington, D. C.
Sir: ---
After thinking the matter over for some time I have decided to
send back this trinket1
to your Department, having no further use
for such baubles, and enable you to give it to some one who will
appreciate it more than I do.
It speaks to me of faithful service, of duty well done, of friend-
ships inseparable, friendships cemented by dangers and hardships
and sufferings shared in common in camp and in the field. But, sir,
it also speaks to me of bloodshed --- possibly some of it unavoidably
innocent --- in defence of loved ones, of homes; homes in many cases
but huts of grass, yet cherished none the less.
It speaks of raids and burnings, of many prisoners taken and,
like vile beasts, thrown in the foulest of prisons. And for what? For
fighting for their homes and loved ones.
March '03
January to September '03, Retort Moratorium
January '03
May, '02
"To be governed is to be watched over, inspected, spied upon, directed, legislated over, regulated, penned in, indoctrinated, preached at, supervised, estimated, evaluated, censured, and commanded by creatures who posses neither the credentials nor the expertise nor the virtue. To be governed is to be, in every operation, in every transaction, in every movement, noted, registered, recorded, catalogued, stamped, weighed up, subscribed, patented, licensed, authorized, annotated, admonished, thwarted, reformed, rectified, and corrected. It is, under the pretext of public usefulness and in the name of the general interest, to be taxed, tried, held to ransom, exploited, monopolized, embezzled, pressurized, bamboozled, and robbed: then, at the merest suggestion of resistance, at the first murmur of complaint, repressed, fined, vilified, vexed, tracked, harassed, battered, disarmed, garroted, imprisoned, shot, riddled, judged, convicted, deported, sacriced, sold out, betrayed, and to top it all, toyed with, played for a fool, outraged and dishonoured," says Proudhon.
March '02
Bush is right: we will win. He just happens to be playing on the losing team. America is about class warfare, a war in which an elite 0.5% of the population violently maintains its control over the poorest 90% 1, 2.
The day we remember our power we will leave guns and hunger behind forever.
February '02, Everyone's favorite military expansionist
November '01
We are fighting to...
End terrorism - The US is indisputably the most brutal terrorist in the world today. Any terrorists not directly on "our" payroll are, like Osama bin Laden, US-trained. Furthermore, are we bombing terrorists? The people of Afghanistan are not terrorists. The government of Afghanistan is not terrorist. Where are the terrorists are we fighting? What country's civilians are being bombed? Let the obvious be said: bombing war-ravaged countries "back to the stone age" might not spawn a generation of pacifists. Finally, dropping wildly inaccurate cluster bombs on cities is hardly self-defense.Educate Afghani women - Forget "fundamentalist Islam" and try setting up a school for women under a rain of cluster bombs. To imagine for an instant that the US power elite wants to emancipate anyone is ludicrous--a year from now the Afghani women that survive the bombing and needless starvation will be slave laborers for Nike or The Gap, or perhaps share the fate of the grateful Iraqi people who have been saved by US bombs for over ten years, in addition to a merciless embargo that restricts food, medical, and educational supplies.
Even better, protect freedom -
What savage irony to use "counterterrorism" as the pretext to eliminate our few
remaining freedoms, for the FBI to openly torture
prisoners, to wiretap
almost any type of communication without any legal proceedings, including
lawyer-client conversations, turn the Justice Department to the task of
unravelling its own decisions on civil rights, and so on. This type of
behavior pales Stalin's war against counterrevolution. Hitler could only dream
of having hired the Pentagon's new P.R. contractor, the Rendon Group.
Their motto?
"Information As An Element of Power"
Boost the economy - As usual, the US economy appeared to be entering a recession immediately before 9/11 and the fortuitous war that followed. Now that any sticky legal obstacles are gone most of the major corporations have been "bailed out," read "given enormous subsidies by not having to pay billions in back taxes--money that laborers have been providing in their place."
Fill Bush's pockets - Wars are big business, and are almost always motivated by economic concerns. Ask your friends about the proposed Unocal pipeline from the Caspian Sea, through Afghanistan. Notice that the Bush family's money comes entirely from oil interests. Who was the president during the last publicly announced war in the Middle East?
The Old Bathouse
July '01, Genoa
March '01
February '01
February '01, Idolatry
February '01
This site is dedicated to the elimination of oppression and capital, analysis of existing and historic social patterns, and the eventual (imminent?) restructuring of society that must take place as capitalism is destroyed. As such, our initial goals are to collect relevant social theory, history, and art to provide the background of and context for present conditions and offer alternatives to our competition-motivated and dehumanizing social structures. All submissions will be posted or linked to (barring size constraints).
Dogs of War
