Thank You For Your Service

No one can dispute your courage or disparage your self-sacrifice as you offer yourself up for months of gruelling training, and then on directly into the firing line wherever it might be on the surface of the globe. No one can remain unmoved as you return, often with shattered limbs and minds distorted by your horrendous experiences. We cannot but live on in shame to watch as you are often abandoned by our government at this, your time of greatest need, when the debt owed to you comes due for some recompense.

True, in many cases, serving in the military is the only viable option for many young people as they contemplate a world where jobs are few, payment is minimal, and even decent housing is beyond the reach of so many basic incomes. But nevertheless, your courage in stepping up to protect our interests abroad cannot be underestimated.

My problem is this.

I don’t have any interests abroad.

And nor, I’m guessing, do you.

So whose interests abroad are you (through your sacrifice) and I (through my taxes) actually protecting?

A little bit of thought and even the most minimal research will show that we are protecting the interests of global corporations and their major shareholders.

The celebrated Marine General SD Butler (see link below) stated, in his small booklet “War Is A Racket”, that he finally realised that what he and his colleagues were actually doing was protecting the investments of the world’s very rich against the frustration and anger of the world’s very poor.

And that this was being funded by the Western taxpayer – which, as it happens, rarely includes either the corporations or their major shareholders because they all have offshore accounts and massive teams of accountants to help them avoid any taxation.

This means, effectively, that the American and UK poor are paying – with their taxes and their very lives – for the protection of the investments of the very rich by shooting and bombing the rest of the world’s very poor.

This was also the basis of the “British Empire”. Britain’s very poor were press-ganged, at tax-payer expense, into protecting the interests of Britain’s very rich who were busy plundering the natural wealth of the world’s very poor. And as England struggles to maintain its pathetic facade on “the world stage” by throwing its greatly diminished weight around, it is England’s poor who pay, with their taxes and lives, for this grotesque fantasy.

But please don’t let this tarnish your perception of the high regard in which we, the average tax-payer, hold you as you face life-threatening situations. We understand and celebrate your sacrifice and courage, however abused, and we mourn your injuries and your passing.

But those situations were not in the interests of “us” – we “the many”. They were in the interests of “them” – “the few”.

Over time, you may gradually have realised that you were completely misinformed about what you were getting into and why. But, whether you realise it or not, it was not your fault that you were systematically lied to by your government and the corporate media preceding and throughout your entire recruitment process.

Very best wishes.

• Guidance for Government – a Constitutional Guard
  Democracy is a fragile institution. As has been seen time and time again, it is very very easy to destabilise. This is even more the case where mass media and sources of information are in the hands of fewer and fewer corporate entities. Spain in the 1930s was a classic example of a democratically elected government being ousted and murdered by its own military. This was followed by the systematic massacre of tens of thousands civilians. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Civil_War )

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© 2024 Deacon Martin