[Xmca-l] Re: Armistice/Veterans, what's in a name?

[David Preiss]

People is smiling because people forgot that war means people dying. For
many countries now (USA, France, Russia, the UK) involvement in war has
became an everyday matter and just a risk for a few professionally trained
soldiers which do that as one does other job. On the other hand it can be
carried out from home using drones from your office space after which you
do your grocery shopping or sending superb planes which bomb villages using
video-game like screens. Would a drone operator qualify as a war veteran in
the same way than a WW2 veteran? Both suffer incredible damage but the
former never "engaged physically" or immediately with its victims or put
his physical life at stake. People smile in those countries because they
are at war and they don't know it.

On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 3:49 AM, Tonyan, Holli A <Holli.Tonyan@csun.edu>
wrote:

> I contribute seldom to this list and am a bit more of an observer, but
> Mike, your statements and questions prompted a contribution.  You reminded
> me of my time in Australia when the history of 11/11 was so present in so
> many towns and cities and memorialized in many neighborhoods of Melbourne
> where I lived.  The formal city memorial held a lovely ceremony and the
> city stopped to honor the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.  I
> understood the meaning of the day so much more clearly from just a few
> short years there than I had from all of my life in the US before those
> years.  That may have been more true because I was an outsider there.  Yet,
> I am struck at how the renaming you point to so erases the history of the
> day as also illustrated by the Google image and the many advertising
> campaigns that now so mark the holiday here in the US.  NPR did a nice
> story about veterans' responses to the green light campaign Walmart has
> begun and the yellow ribbon campaigns.  Many Veterans said they did not
> want to be memorialized, but wanted opportunities to provide leadership,
> support for the healing and grieving and opportunity for those who are not.
>
> So, you ask why are the Google vet faces smiling and we can also ask why
> there is so little memory of the grief and support for the grieving.
>
> Best wishes,
> Holli
>
> ________________________________________
> From: xmca-l-bounces+holli.tonyan=csun.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <xmca-l-bounces+holli.tonyan=csun.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of mike
> cole <mcole@ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2015 8:41 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l]  Armistice/Veterans, what's in a name?
>
> A few days ago I commented on the names given to a national holiday on Nov
> 11 which, in the US, have changed during my life time from armistice day to
> memorial day to veterans day. I noted that the BBC has a big spread on
> Armistice day.... images of death, commemoration, grieving. On google, when
> I log in, there are pictures of a rainbow coalition of young adults in
> uniform, smiling.... at what? at how wonderful it will be to become a
> veteran?
> Why are they smiling, have they forgotten to anticipate the grieving?
>
> mike
>
>
> --
>
> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an
> object that creates history. Ernst Boesch
>
>