war (n., obs.) - a peculiarly violent group mental illness that our 21st century ancestors...

[samvimes]

Good people in evil situations may become evil. (Thanks to bohemianrapsody for the link, and to memegarden for pointing me to her postI must ask: What happens when an entire country, or an entire world, is placed in an evil situation

Comments

[hopeevey]

I just wish I knew what to actually do on this quest.

[samvimes]

Spread the word. Combat the lies and propaganda with simple honesty. Teach children the truth; they'll be running the country someday.

Encourage people to vote.

Set a positive example. Live a life of love and respect, rather than hatred and greed.

Join forces with like-minded people, such as MoveOn.Org and TrueMajority.Org. Give money and/or time.

If you're religious, pray for peace.

Ask others to do the same.

[cpk]

Men like Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld like war.

See, that's what conservatives will never understand. No sane person disputes that Saddam was an animal. Few reasonable people suggest that Iraqis are worse off now than they were before the war. No, we are angry at Bush & Co. because they are fighting war for war's sake, and for no other reason. They are glorifying war as a primary good--good for the world, good for America, good for you and me. And next year--the draft.

[sine]

remembering that you have choices is a great start, and so is remembering to question the options available. the people in milgram's experiments were given rules, and most of them never stopped to question the rightness of the rules. "i am in this situation, i have accepted the authority of this person, and this person has told me to do these things and others like them." we forget that refusal to act, refusal to choose, is also a choice. we get stuck in a paradigm and don't see that rejecting its basic assumptions can be the most basic choice of all.

all i can do is think and educate and try to appeal to people to give up the easy answers and strt working on figuring out what they really want.

sigh. enough blathering.

[samvimes]

Yes, I remember learning about the Milgram experiments. For those who are unfamiliar, there's a brief intro here. They proved that people have a tendency to forget they have a choice to stop obeying an authority figure--even when that authority figure tells them to do things they would normally never do. This is something that ought to be taught in every school; forewarned is forearmed.

[sine]

the thing that made me think of them was that the soldiers involved are all saying that they were following orders.

it's interesting to me that under the uniform code of military justice, "i was just following orders" isn't considered a sufficient defense for anything. at the same time, *not* following legal orders is also a violation of the ucmj and punishable. i don't thinkt he military really explains this sufficiently to people -- they emphasize the whole "must follow orders" bit but leave out the "must not follow illegal orders, and here's how to tell the difference" part.