Memes by Themes #8: War & Peace

Nov 12, 2023

∙ Paid

“All war must be just the killing of strangers against whom you feel no personal animosity; strangers whom, in other circumstances, you would help if you found them in trouble, and who would help you if you needed it.”
—Mark Twain, The Private History of the Campaign That Failed (Kindle, paperback, audiobook)

For Veterans Day (or the last few minutes of it, anyway), I am publishing the ultimate compendium of memes on war and peace, clocking in at 118 plus media.

If you’re wondering where I stand (or don’t), I gave a nutshell summary in this Note:

“… the road I have traveled down is the opposite of tribalism. I am not ‘taking sides’ but rather critically examining the evidence as I do with every topic I approach. I condone neither the brutality of terrorists nor the genocidal war crimes of governments.
“Those forcing us to choose between a false dichotomy of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ are following Goering’s playbook for bringing people to the ‘bidding of the leaders’ by ‘tell[ing] them they are being attacked and denounc[ing] the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.’
“I am for innocent people [who are] being victimized by powerful entities and against the psychological manipulation tactics and emotionally triggering propaganda being used to divide-and-conquer us so we forget the puppeteer strings and allow them to drag us to war for their profit, power, and democidal aspirations.
“Conflating ordinary people trying to live their simple lives with violent fundamentalists is playing into the genocidal practice of dehumanization known as ‘defining the enemy’ I have exposed in multiple posts (e.g., [here]). This is how governments trick the people into murdering one another while they abscond with the spoils, never soiling their own hands with the blood their puppets so eagerly spill on their behalf.”

It should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with my values that I advocate for peace and diplomacy over senseless violence, war, and genocide, no matter how skillfully the propagandists try to dupe us into murdering and being murdered. Somehow, not wanting to murder or be murdered has become a controversial stance, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised since Göring’s timeless formula of “denounc[ing] the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger” never wears out:

Oh, and the State isn’t the people, and the people aren’t the State. So I can criticize the US government, Canada, Israel, or Hamas, for example, while simultaneously celebrating Americans, Canadians, Israelis, and Palestinians. Indeed, it is because I care for human beings that I am critical of the abstract entity known as the State, which is used to make theft, force, and “murder respectable,” as Orwell says.