Accounts of a Local Veterans Day Assembly

Aside from the numerous articles and testimonials in local newspapers, I happened to overhear a conversation in which two grandparents were discussing the Veterans Day assembly at the local school. As to be expected they were quite proud of their grandchild's participation in it.

My wife and I agree that we were both saturated with heavy amounts of flag-waving propaganda growing up in the 1970's and 1980's but this has reached new levels in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Apparently, the veterans are all placed up on a stage in the school auditorium (or gymnasium) and after a speech by the school principal, members of each military branch were encouraged to stand in order to be recognized. At this juncture the school students were compelled to sing that particular service's song – the Halls of Montezuma for the Marines and so forth. Veterans from these services were then able to speak and relate their war mythology – once again undoubtedly tied to a false narrative about freedom and what America supposedly represents. The grandparents found it moving. I thought it disgusting and it only reinforced the fact that Christian children have no business in the public school. You could pull your kids out of such events but I have to imagine they will face a backlash – perhaps even more severe than refusing to participate in Sodomitical education and indoctrination.

In the Saturday edition, one local paper ran a ridiculous piece alongside the weekend 'worship directory' that argued – when we cast a ballot in an election or worship on a Sunday we must remember that we owe a debt to the sacrifices of veterans who made these activities possible. Aside from being a complete (and ridiculous) fabrication, it is also offensive. Americans voting and worshipping were never under threat from the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Serbia, Bosnia, Grenada, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Angola, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Panama, Mexico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Italy, or even Germany for that matter. These are all countries that America has waged war against, bombed, and/or supported proxy forces within. And this list is far from comprehensive. At least another dozen nations in Africa should be listed and this also leaves out the hybrid and asymmetrical warfare waged by the US throughout the rest of Latin America and other sections of Asia. The US has also at different times waged indirect war against China and Russia – activities continuing to the present. And this list also leaves out the myriad indigenous nations the US warred against as it built its continental empire from its time as a British colony, right up into the early twentieth century. Many (even most) nations enjoy freedom of speech and worship without having to slaughter millions of people like the United States has done.

The last time 'voting' was perhaps under threat was from the United Kingdom over two hundred years ago – a war which was the result and sequel to a sinful and unjustifiable rebellion a generation earlier.

These are myths and it's startling to witness (as one commentator observed) the manner in which death, killing, and war have been literally sanctified by the American state and incorporated into the liturgy of its bestial civil religion. And of course the apostate Church not only goes along with this but leads the way, trumpeting these lies and glorying in these evils.

While the Christian Right is going into fits over the largely fictitious programme to teach 'Critical Race Theory' to school kids, they are eager to support this nationalist filth that is little more than idolatry and for that matter glosses over and yes, sanctifies the many evils this nation has committed over its history – not a few related to race as is the case with all empires. But once again the real drive for this evil is not even race but mammon, the principle of which Christ contrasted with service to the Kingdom of God. America is clearly positioned in opposition to that Kingdom and Christians who venerate the symbols of the American Empire and its values are traitors to Christ's Kingdom and need to repent.

The same could be said of the Christians who fall prey to similar evils in places like the United Kingdom and elsewhere.

These displays would generate great consternation if they took place in North Korea. Americans would shake their head and take great umbrage at the way and manner the state propagandizes its youth. But when it's their beast – they love to have it so.