A Memorial Day Reflection: Ron Kovic’s Memory of War

VietnamWar Memorial, Statues of Vietnam War soldiers
By Angelskiss31,  Flickr 

A majority of young Americans have never served in the Armed Forces. Their understanding of military service and war comes from how the news media reports our wars. Television, movies, and the playing of video war games further distort their view of war. Unlike previous wars, restrictions on publishing certain images of war and inadequate media coverage sanitize war in a way that creates ignorance of the horrors of war, and what face combat veterans when they return home.

The Greatest Casualty of War Is Our future

Memorial Day serves as a reminder that “beneath the beauty of the lilies lies the ugliness of war.” This James Carroll metaphor perfectly captures the most profound meaning of war, and of all the things lost because of it.

June 8th, 2007, was a beautiful sunny Friday morning. Yellow ribbons and the “Red, White, and Blue” adorned buildings, tree trunks, poles, and the hands and clothing of men, women, and children. Families and friends, members of the U.S. Military, the Patriot Guard Riders, and politicians lined the streets for as far as one could see waiting for the hearse carrying Matthew Bean to his final resting place.

A Future without Work and Money

Automated and autonomous systems are becoming more prevalent and capable of doing more things. These systems have and will continue to change the way we produce products, how we provide services, and how they are distributed.

 Automation also has the potential of creating a workless society. In a world of automation, complete with robots with artificial intelligence, no one will have a job to earn the money to pay for products/services, even professional occupations, CEOs, and those who own corporations and small businesses will be out of work. 

This means there’s a need to begin transforming society to be ready to accept a world absent of work, wealth, and other norms that today we associate with life. Transformation unavoidably will lead to a moneyless economy that will solve the problem of unemployment and most, if not all, of our world’s problems.

No one should take the position that it’s not possible. In light of technological advances in automation, it should be evident that eventually automated and autonomous systems one day will force everyone out of work.

An article in TVP magazine (page 66) clearly shows how a workless society can potentially meet its needs for products, services, and all those other things we have been accustom to with money as a means of acquiring them.

Copyright © 2015 Horatio Green

Chicago Got Their Comeuppance — the First Time a U.S. City Found Culpable Of Police Torture

Jonathan Jackson (center left) stands with Atty. G. Flynt Taylor (center right) during a press conference on torture and wrongful convictions outside the Chicago federal courthouse where former Chicago Police Department Lt. Cmdr. Jon Burge was indicted in 2008. Burge was later convicted of torturing suspects in his custody.

Credit: Adrian Burrows

Chicago’s City Council approved “an unprecedented reparations package [last] Wednesday that will pay $5.5 million and provide other benefits to torture victims of notorious former police commander Jon Burge.”

If The System Will Not Change the Rules, We Are Going To Have To Change the System

Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources.With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That's the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.

Martin Luther King, Jr.