I say, lets have us some more war. Sending more troops and war materials around the world will swing everything in our favor. Or is it that we will be able to dominate the world and make everyone do our bidding out of fear?
My goodness, we have tried this for decades now with little, if any, success and perhaps with as many negative results as anything.
Perhaps it is about something besides winning or changing hearts and minds, perhaps it is about profits. "Oh my", you say, "how could anyone think that the U.S. could be that cold and calculating"?
First we must remember that the U.S. is no longer a collective "We the people" but instead is an exclusive "We, the Financial Elite" and their creations, corporations, who now dominate our decision-making and institutions and who have mostly withdrawn themselves from the tax-paying support of this society but have devised incredibly exquisite schemes to drain all the income from the productivity of we ordinary folk into their reservoirs of accumulated wealth.
Let me see, we have the Military-Industrial Complex, now the Military-Industrial-Security Complex, that is given whatever it wants under the guise of "supporting the troops" in their wars of choice and foreign adventures. This is not even to mention the gun lobby and the entire "Nation Building/Rebuild What We Just Destroyed Complex." They all have a vested interest in a continuing war footing and have a fiduciary responsibility to their stockholders to provide a good return on investment.
ADVERTISEMENT
The sweetest part of it all is that we, the ordinary folk, get to pay for it all with our taxes. They only pay a small rate compared to 50 years ago and large corporations often pay nothing and they have this wonderful income stream funded by us, with our stagnant wages and dwindling savings. They even make money, lending money to pay for the mounting debt. Their investors, mostly themselves, are ecstatic.
Meanwhile we continue to send our young people to be pawns in this profit scheme in the name of patriotism.
Why not give something else, like diplomacy, a try? Oh, I forgot, we cannot trust anyone else since they are jealous of us and our way of life, (i.e., unfettered free-market capitalism) and besides they are probably evil and respond only to force and should be destroyed or, at least, bludgeoned into submission. We are really the only true and pure human beings on this planet.
The media are complicit in keeping the drumbeat of fear and threat alive, making it appear that war against the rest of the world is the only way we can possibly survive. It is really only a cover for yet another profit-making scheme to shift the few remaining resources of the ordinary citizens of this society into the hands of the rich and powerful and their corporate proxies.
Yes, I would like another helping of war, maybe some more Iraq and Syria, with a side of Ukraine, and then just surprise me for dessert. It is not very nourishing, but I am told I will really benefit from swallowing it.
BOB PASSI is retired and is a resident of Baxter.
