It was with a somber expression that our president announced today's choice for "Enemy of the moment".
His expression was serious, the good father reluctant to punish, woefully aware of the bloodshed being performed far away, yet determined to do right; viewing with alarm, yet pointing with pride, Uncle Sam's own ass kicking, coming your way, yeah! You-Ess-Ay! You-Ess-Ay! We’re number one! At least in military spending!
As for you and me, we get to go along with it. We have no choice in the matter, except for that quaint custom called ‘voting’, and whether it’s Obama, Clinton, or any other candidate that we ‘vote’ for, the Military-Industrial complex dictates their actions, and obviously without war it doesn’t make BUCKS, ya know? It’s the United States’ economic engine, so education, infrastructure, veteran’s rights, civilized health care, climate change, all those small and unimportant things that make a country worth living in have to take a back seat to this monster that, like Godzilla, rampages through wrecking everything and contributing nothing, except maybe wealth to a few, such as our ex-vice-president, whose name, like Voldemort’s, cannot be spoken.
Once, there was a way to stop the insanity. Once, for a few golden years, we really did have hope that the people’s voice would be heard. Oh, you don’t remember? let me tell you the story.
In the 60s, In response to the (Useless but profitable) Vietnam War there was a strong peace movement. Many people joined together; mainly ordinary people, but also celebrities, folk singers, hippies, so many people that we actually managed to change the direction that our government wanted to go in. It took years; it’s not easy to change the direction of the ship of state, especially when there is money to be made in war, but it can be done.
Remember the Case – Church amendment? Most of us don't. It's been very well hidden away, because if people here in the United States remembered it, they would realize their immediate power to affect the way our government works.
The Case-Church amendment defunded the Vietnam war and effectively ended it. However, if you go to the Wikipedia page, you will find that one key sentence, perhaps the most important sentence on the whole page, has been removed.
It has been removed to keep us in the dark about our own power to affect the way our government works.
The sentence on the Wikipedia page that has been removed said:
"The Case – Church amendment was passed in response to POPULAR DEMAND.”
What that means is that we, the people, made enough noise, enough fuss, enough trouble that the politicians realized that to go against our will might endanger their cushy jobs.
It wasn't people voting that passed the amendment. It was not done through the polls; it was done by millions of us going into the street, in huge demonstrations, in civil disobedience, in songs, in ideas, in all those things that the government wishes it could resist and can't.
Fast forward to the present. The Iraq war and the incredible disruption that it created in our lives, in the world, in our economic situation, and in our standing among civilized nations has been felt in all levels of society. The rich, especially those involved with the MIC, have gotten much richer. The poor and the middle class have gotten poorer. We have sacrificed so many things, so many goods, so much infrastructure in the name of war, and it seems that we haven't learned anything.
Certainly we have not learned that the politicians in Washington, left and right, are vastly enriched by the military-industrial complex which also enriches itself without putting itself at risk.. This does not make them amenable to the idea of spending that money on we, the people. It's gotten so that the bribes that they receive from lobbyists and ultra – rich people make them more money than what they are already paid as a very substantial salary.
They are not going to hear us unless we make them really uncomfortable.
It’s what we had to do in the 60s, and it’s what we have really not done with quite such spirit since.
Maybe we’re too comfortable. Too complacent. Maybe this situation hasn’t gotten bad enough, maybe we're just not angry enough, motivated enough to stand up for ourselves.
It's going to take more of us getting angry, getting motivated, it's going to take a critical mass rocking the boat for those people in Washington to actually not only hear us, but to MAKE THEM do what we tell them.
It's almost too late. We have been so lulled to sleep that the ideals on which this country was founded have almost turned to ashes.
I had hoped that Obama would be different, that Hillary Clinton would be different, but I can see that it's going to take radical action to get the message through and tell them that we don't want their expensive war. We just had one, thank you. We're recovering warholics, we're just having a "Recovery" now, why on earth would we want to go into another war now? Are you nuts? Are you talking about going to war over THERE? In the Seventh Most Corrupt Country On Earth?
Wait a second... Aren't the Saudi's real close, basically next door? Isn’t ISIL threatening their position as “Guardians Of The Two Mosques (tm)”? Oh, I see, we just CAN’T ask them... they’re still recovering from bringing us those wonderful people who BROUGHT us 9-11, and it would be INSENSITIVE to ask them to spend some of their hard-earned (At our expense) money to take care of a threat that A- is right next to them, and B- they spawned, with their Wahhabist doctrines and their madrassas, just like they spawned Osama Bin Laden.
You know what this all feels like?
It really sort of feels like the lead-up to Vietnam. And I don't like it.
And the only way it’s going to stop is with the kind of effort that we put out back in the 60’s and 70’s; a true anti-war movement.
Are you ready? I am. It was intense, back in the 60s, being an activist. Look at the city of Ferguson and multiply it a thousand-fold. Demonstrations, tear gas, arrests, all the things that the state can do to stop public resistance at being screwed AGAIN. And it had its share of good and bad on all sides. But one thing all that action did is to force ‘The Lawmakers’ to get off their butts and pass the Case-Church amendment, out of fear that if they continued going against the desire of the people to have a country that was not at war all the time ‘The People’ might actually wake up and throw them out. Oh, they heard us loud and clear, although they don’t want to be reminded of that.
I'm 72 years old now, but I'm ready to dust off my peace sign. It's been gathering dust; I can see that it needs another coat of gold paint.