Authority is Atrocity

Unsurprisingly, we have received even more proof of capitalist society’s complete sickness and decay. There have been two recent incidents that perfectly illustrate just how rotten this system is and what it does to both adults and children.

>>> Soldiers Remain Psycho Fascists

The first example concerns a soldier deployed out of Fort Lewis. He had served three tours in Iraq, ensuring that he would be a psychopathic and faithful servant of the army by the time he arrived for his first tour in Afghanistan. For reasons that will never be made clear, this man intentionally left his base at three in the morning, walked into a village on the western outskirts of Kandahar and proceeded to massacre nine children and seven adults. He piled all of the bodies together and set them on fire inside the houses where they lived. This sick man wiped out an entire generation of two families and it will be no surprise to us at Tides of Flame when the people of the city rise up against the US Army and the puppet government that obeys its wishes.


The government and the army are scrambling to minimize the damage this atrocity will inflict on their project of domination. Earlier this year, riots broke out across the country when burnt copies of the Koran were found at a US military base. Dozens of Aghan civilians were shot and killed by the local military during these riots and several US soldiers were blown to pieces. Things are not looking so hot for the capitalist army and their departure from Afghanistan will be much sooner than 2014.

Another one of the most horrifying atrocities committed in Afghanistan had its genesis in Fort Lewis. In 2010, members of a Stryker brigade executed three civilians and removed pieces of their bodies as keepsakes. It is unclear why the soldiers from the base to our south are particularly prone to murderously totalitarian behavior. We can only guess that it has to do with the immensely nationalistic and fascistic mindset that permeates the poor towns that surround the base. This guess is informed by this author having lived in the area for seven years and also participating in the resistance to the outbound and inbound shipments of Stryker brigades through Puget Sound ports.

The wind has long since left the sails of the remnants of the anti-war movement. The movement as a whole had been neutralized almost immediately by the Democratic Party and by 2005 it was firmly in their control, acting as tool used to put pressure on the schemes of their Republican rivals. But amidst all of this there was a small group of people who began causing chaos around the Port of Olympia in 2006. The first steps involved tearing down fences, getting pepper sprayed, beaten, arrested, etc. By 2007 there was an all-night blockade around the two entrances of the port and a large clash with the police that saw dozens of people throwing rocks at the soldiers driving past in their Strykers, en route to either Iraq or Afghanistan. Some of these psychopaths would go on to cut the fingers off of the civilians they executed.

In order to save money, military doctors at Fort Lewis have not diagnosed soldiers who are clearly suffering from some form of PTSD. This effort at saving money has not only caused a media controversy, it has also contributed to the massacres perpetrated by soldiers, reported or unreported. We can scarcely imagine the amount of terror that has been sown in Iraq and Afghanistan from these deranged and rabid maniacs. The soldier who recently killed 16 people suffered from a traumatic brain injury, had a chaotic and undoubtedly abusive life with his family, and was somehow found fit for duty as part of NATO’s “village stability program,” a counter-insurgency operation aimed at integrating armed US soldiers into the Afghan tribal structure, making them beholden to the village elders. Clearly, this program is failing.

The Bush administration’s extremist rhetoric left a lasting imprint on the traditionally poor and working class towns of the Puget Sound area. Now, with the passing of yet another atrocity, we cannot help but remember how insane and terrible reality was in 2003 when the seeds that bore such rotten fruit were first planted. This massacre is simply the latest in a long string of atrocities committed by US soldiers since the offensive was first initiated by the Bush administration. Fallujah was a massacre that no one remembers, and if you think this statement is incorrect prove so by describing to yourself what happened there. This lack of memory serves as a testament to the level of willful ignorance everyone has had to reach in order to forget what has been taking place since 2001. Without memory there can be no true resistance. The proof is in the pudding.

>>> Cop Son Kills Cop Daughter,Cop Now On Paid Leave

Marysville - As if these past weeks were not brutal enough, the daughter of a Marysville police officer was shot by her brother while the two were waiting in the officer’s civilian vehicle. The officer had left his gun in the glove compartment while he and his wife were out. The son started playing with the gun and before he knew it his sister was dead. The media quickly swooped in and began bemoaning the tragedy. At the time of this writing the officer has been placed on paid administrative leave, the standard procedure whenever a police officer murders someone. In this case, he murdered his daughter.

Some of you will undoubtedly respond that this was an accident, a tragedy even, and that the man is in no way responsible for what happened to his daughter. If this is what you believe, we find this to be completely inaccurate. The MPD officer chose to become a person who drove around in a police cruiser with a gun on his belt. His job is to display his power to the people he detains, tickets, and apprehends. His gun is his assurance that he will be obeyed. This man chose to become the living embodiment of authoritarianism. Without his gun he would be nothing, and for this reason, he felt the need to travel with a pistol in his civilian car. We do not know how much contemporary television or cinema his children watched, but had they watched even the slightest amount they would have been familiar with the image of the cop as a heroic, gun-wielding figure who can choose to only wound a “bad guy” and haul him off to jail to meet a fair and honest dispensation of justice. With or without the media, these children were probably forced to believe that what their father did for work was an honest, honorable profession. In his attempt to emulate his father, the son ended up killing his sister, perfectly recreating the purest microcosm of police behavior.

The children of authoritarians are perhaps the greatest victims of this sick society. They are forced to be brought up in a world where capitalist law reigns and cannot be questioned. The logic of the world outside is mirrored in their domestic life, where a man or woman used to getting their way because of their badge and gun inflict the same type control over their progeny. This psychological abuse can sometimes permanently warp the children of cops into authoritarians themselves. A minority of these children are able to escape this logic and mindset over years of healing in anti-authoritarian communities. The majority grow to reinforce the sickness of capitalist society, where big money is defended by a publicly-funded army that wears both blue and camouflage uniforms.

We extend our support only to the son of this Marysville pig. He alone is still capable of escaping the path set out before him. We offer no support to the mother or the father. They caused the death of their own daughter and should be accorded nothing but the scorn they deserve. It is important oppose the authoritarian world at every step and do whatever is possible to help others escape this suicidal system that aims only at the destruction of the earth and its children.


From Tides of Flame (PDF)
http://tidesofflame.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/tof17read.pdf