Promoting Militarism While Hiding Bloodshed - Sirota

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/promoting_militarism_while_hiding_bloodshed_20110617/?ln

In a breathless story somehow presented as a groundbreaking revelation, The New York Times recently reported that the Pentagon is—shocker!—using all sorts of media channels to market itself to the nation’s children. Though the Times presents this as a brand-new development, it is nothing of the sort. The armed forces have spent the last three decades carefully constructing a child-focused Military-Entertainment Complex, which has long had the Pentagon subsidizing everything from video games to movies—most of which glorify militarism to kids.

That said, the Times piece did include one important (if buried) piece of genuine news. It concerns a subtle-yet-insidious shift in martial propaganda—one that opens the military up to charges of rank hypocrisy.

You may recall that in recent years the Military-Entertainment Complex has been selling kids on the idea that military service is a gloriously fun adventure. In one famous ad, the Marines pretended that being a soldier is the equivalent of being a “Lord of the Rings” hero who slays fiery monsters. In another series of ads aired as previews in movie theaters, the Air Force portrayed dangerous front-line missions as exciting video games, telling kids: “It’s not science fiction—it’s what we do every day.”

Deceptive as these spots were, they at least held out the (unstated) possibility that military service can be dangerous, and that joining the Army doesn’t give an enlistee death-defying superpowers. The same, though, cannot be said for the new ad campaign covered by the Times—a campaign that both visually and literally suggests that joining the military gives one superpowers.

More at the link --

fire rockets at civilians thousands of miles away .......... just like a video game
except the bodies do not get up and get to play again

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder. Albert Einstein

Sorry Phil; we didn't do your powerful words any justice at all.