Thank you, Cindy, for your efforts against perpetual war. This is the best Memorial Day post I've ever read. I'm sending you love and healing for your grief.
The Gold Star Mothers organization was established upon the pious patriotic premise that "the honor and glory accorded the person for his supreme sacrifice in offering for his country" should be extended to recognize the "sacrifice" of the mothers who bore them. "Sacrifice" is one way of putting it, and in any case I suppose that back then, the term "trauma" wasn't generally known or considered appropriate to the spirit of the honor.
In sports-crazed modern Amerika, I think it's apt enough to say that the dubious honor of being a Gold Star Mother is the warmongering state's idea of comforting the afflicted by regarding them as "team players", or even "good sports". Profound grief is, of course, expected and nominally validated-- as long as the grieving parent doesn't exhibit a bad attitude towards the circumstances-- er, "noble cause"-- that precipitated the glorious death. 😡
________________________________________
Here's a "recycled" comment of my own, written in 2019, about the reason for the season:
It's worth mentioning that the USA's overclass has successfully deracinated, sanitized and "repurposed" national holidays that originally had meanings inimical to the exceptionalist knee-jerk patriotism said overclass wishes to inculcate in We the People.
For instance, May 1st was the original "Labor Day": a working-class celebration of worker solidarity; in the US, "May Day" was officially ignored and frowned upon, then eventually replaced with the phony, synthetic September "Labor Day" holiday-- a bland, banal "tip of the hat" to the Amerikan workforce "consecrated" by the usual pious lip service and anodyne recreational activities.
"Decoration Day", as the name implies, began as a formal recognition of the practice of decorating soldiers' graves. Originally, this practice honored the fallen "warriors" but implicitly deplored or at least regretted the warmongering that made burying war casualties a growth industry. It was about remembering, and lamenting, the tragically and needlessly slain on all "sides".
Put slightly differently, "Decoration Day" evolved as a unifying, international, bottom-up mass recognition of the evils of war; despite the general, popular conviction that war was tragically necessary or inevitable, the US Decoration Day and parallel European observances were tacitly or implicitly pacifistic in nature.
But even remote or oblique antiwar sentiments were unacceptable to the warmongering civil and military ruling class. So Decoration Day was accordingly "repurposed".
The implicit anti-war, anti-militarization, then anti-imperialist elements were purged in favor of an explicitly pro-military "Memorial Day" that transmogrified the formalized grief and mourning into a jingoistic celebration of Amerikan armed forces and their tradition of fighting ostensibly righteous incessant wars to preserve and expand "freedom", etc.
Of course, the common denominator, and message, of all present-day Amerikan holidays is "shop until you drop". Thus, I will bring this tenebrous musing to a close, and hop on the 'net to check out the fabulous Memorial Day Sale deals! 💨
In different cities, different years Veterans For Peace chapters have been denied permission to march in the local memorial day parade because the VFP mission was not in accord with the parade theme...
God bless you
Thank you, Cindy, for your efforts against perpetual war. This is the best Memorial Day post I've ever read. I'm sending you love and healing for your grief.
Condolences again. 🖤
The Gold Star Mothers organization was established upon the pious patriotic premise that "the honor and glory accorded the person for his supreme sacrifice in offering for his country" should be extended to recognize the "sacrifice" of the mothers who bore them. "Sacrifice" is one way of putting it, and in any case I suppose that back then, the term "trauma" wasn't generally known or considered appropriate to the spirit of the honor.
In sports-crazed modern Amerika, I think it's apt enough to say that the dubious honor of being a Gold Star Mother is the warmongering state's idea of comforting the afflicted by regarding them as "team players", or even "good sports". Profound grief is, of course, expected and nominally validated-- as long as the grieving parent doesn't exhibit a bad attitude towards the circumstances-- er, "noble cause"-- that precipitated the glorious death. 😡
________________________________________
Here's a "recycled" comment of my own, written in 2019, about the reason for the season:
It's worth mentioning that the USA's overclass has successfully deracinated, sanitized and "repurposed" national holidays that originally had meanings inimical to the exceptionalist knee-jerk patriotism said overclass wishes to inculcate in We the People.
For instance, May 1st was the original "Labor Day": a working-class celebration of worker solidarity; in the US, "May Day" was officially ignored and frowned upon, then eventually replaced with the phony, synthetic September "Labor Day" holiday-- a bland, banal "tip of the hat" to the Amerikan workforce "consecrated" by the usual pious lip service and anodyne recreational activities.
"Decoration Day", as the name implies, began as a formal recognition of the practice of decorating soldiers' graves. Originally, this practice honored the fallen "warriors" but implicitly deplored or at least regretted the warmongering that made burying war casualties a growth industry. It was about remembering, and lamenting, the tragically and needlessly slain on all "sides".
Put slightly differently, "Decoration Day" evolved as a unifying, international, bottom-up mass recognition of the evils of war; despite the general, popular conviction that war was tragically necessary or inevitable, the US Decoration Day and parallel European observances were tacitly or implicitly pacifistic in nature.
But even remote or oblique antiwar sentiments were unacceptable to the warmongering civil and military ruling class. So Decoration Day was accordingly "repurposed".
The implicit anti-war, anti-militarization, then anti-imperialist elements were purged in favor of an explicitly pro-military "Memorial Day" that transmogrified the formalized grief and mourning into a jingoistic celebration of Amerikan armed forces and their tradition of fighting ostensibly righteous incessant wars to preserve and expand "freedom", etc.
Of course, the common denominator, and message, of all present-day Amerikan holidays is "shop until you drop". Thus, I will bring this tenebrous musing to a close, and hop on the 'net to check out the fabulous Memorial Day Sale deals! 💨
Hugs Cindy. Why we need to have NO MORE WARS. NONE. EVER AGAIN. Smedley Butler was right. He needs to be read and taught in schools. HUGS and love.
Like it was planned from the start - one nation, under grief.
In different cities, different years Veterans For Peace chapters have been denied permission to march in the local memorial day parade because the VFP mission was not in accord with the parade theme...
doG bless ameryucka
Thank you for true reflections. Best.