The Official Blog of PCPB

Why is peace so reviled these days? Why is the very notion of peace enough to have the rabid, wingnut right froth at the mouth with self-righteous anger? I had blogged about how peace is now even being equated with Satan as a homeowner’s association in Colorado had ordered a wreath in the shape of the international peace sign taken down. Some members had claimed it was a Satanic symbol, even Nero’s Cross supposedly even though the evidence that Nero used it was rather thin. It is the absurd claims that we rightfully laugh at and roll our eyes at that are the very tactics of demagogues who seek to rile up our basest emotions. It is these absurd claims that could turn around a noble word like peace and make it into something to be rejected, because it is a left-wing or even Satanic conspiracy to bring our country down. Is peace considered a feminine trait by those who follow the hyper-masculinity ethos? Must everything be settled with fists and bombs?

Our National Litterbox, (I refuse to just call him president) says Jesus is his favorite philosopher. Yet, like the GodMen of Tennessee who want a more masculine Christianity, Bush must have only read the part where Jesus drives the moneychangers from the temple in a not so peaceful display of power. Bush who is so concerned about national security that he does not investigate his administration’s outing of a COVERT CIA agent who was tracking the movement of weapons of mass destruction, whose Covert front company uncovered evidence that the WMDs were being moved into Iraq from Turkey likely so that the Litterbox could claim that WMD HAD been found in Iraq. This is no better than Hitler dressing up prisoners in Polish uniforms and shooting them, leaving their bodies in German territory so that he could claim that Poland invaded Germany. Yes, I made the comparison and rightfully so. No man of peace, no Man of God as his administration and the countless numbers of mindless uncritically-thinking Bush supporters claim Bush to be would start a war on false pretenses and then plant the evidence to fool the American people into believing that Saddam was about to nuke New York City.

Must everything be a war? We have conjurations of faux and real wars designed to appeal to the men in us. Is this why the military is so afraid of having gay men and women serve in the military openly, because they supposedly go counter against the image of a masculine army trained in the arts of war? Even the media, mainly Faux made up a fictional War on Christmas so that Christian men could claim to be fighting on the sidelines safe in America against the godless Liberals who sought to infect our country with atheism and secular humanism…

Does this administration even care that our wounded veterans had to suffer through urine-soaked mattresses, belly-up cockroaches, mice droppings in their living quarters? Could this administration not spend money to fund treatment for our wounded vets coming home? Of course not, this is considered to be nurturing and caring, traits traditionally considered feminine in nature. The hyper-masculine ethos states that money should not be going into social programs designed to give a hand up to those stuck in poverty but to huge weapons, nuclear bombs, bunker-busters, new fighter jets, etc.

We have money to spend on new weapons that are not needed in this new so-called “War on TERROR” yet we cannot spend money to fund VA hospitals and to provide psychological treatment to the wounded. We cannot deal with Post-traumatic stress Disorder as the military brass with the consent of this administration wants to send our troops back into combat without any treatment. After all, a MAN should suck it up and ignore his wounds so that he could fight for the freedom of his country. Those who are expressing concerns about PTSD and their families are being unpatriotic and un-American. It is more of the cult of hyper-masculinity that Glenn Greenwald depicts in this excellent article. After all, if our Litterbox can land a fighter jet at 150 mph on an airplane carrier, then these men should seek to emulate the masculinity of our “Fearless leader.”

Peace should not be a masculine or feminine value...it should be one we hold common whether we are male or female. By assigning it a gender, we cheapen its value and risk having our society which tends to prefer "masculine traits" over "feminine traits" glorify the death and carnage of war. Indeed, the GodMen video from ABCNews talks about how men love blowing things up. While that may be fine in Monster Truck rallies, let us not make blowing things up in war a spectacle much like the ones held in ancient Rome, where even naumachiae or mock naval battles produced casualties.

Labels: anti-war, Glenn Greenwald, hypermasculinity ethos, Iraq, Litterbox Administration, peace

// posted by catsagainstbush @ 1:18 PM