I have a little bit of hope today.
I have hope that people here and everywhere in the United States are waking up.
I've diaried about this so many times, and yet I realize that I have to go back into the fray. I can't give up. Even if I am only one person who sees the insanity and wants to stop it, even if it's become so glaringly obvious and yet the American electorate is too ignorant to see it, I have to fight on.
Maybe some more people are getting the message; I hope so. I'm not going to bother pimping my earlier diaries that said the same thing in such a coherent way; it seems that well written diaries don't count as much as some cool headline. Please follow me below the fold. Now I have proof.
Yesterday, an unarmed flotilla defeated Israel, one of the most powerful armed forces in the world.
This should prove my point but I guess I have to make it simple so you all can understand it.
You can't stop an idea.
You can stop an army very easily; a guy with a rag on his head and an AK-47 that cost him $250 has the United States Army stopped in Afghanistan.
The United States, who prides itself on being such a great country, with such a great military, is stopped cold. A trillion dollars spent uselessly.
If we had dropped pallet loads of money in Afghanistan, and followed that with catalogs of American goods, by now we would own Afghanistan. They would be jumping all over themselves to become as American as possible. The Taliban would be laughed at, and Afghanistan would be the most modern country in the world, had we spent even a third of that trillion on peaceful pursuits in that country, on things that really build democracy. Instead, we listen to people like George Bush.
It's truly an idiocracy when we elect people like that to lead us. And it's also an idiocracy when we expect anyone, yes, even Obama, to lead us out of the mess that we're in, when they're so well paid to continue the insanity.
This site is supposed to elect Democrats; I'm beginning to think that most Democrats are just as bad, are just as much in the pay of the military-industrial complex as Republicans are.
Oh, there are rare exceptions, Grayson being one, and the much-maligned Kucinich being another. But they are successfully painted by the media, our true overlords, as being strange, as being kooks. And so we lose the effectiveness of the very few who see the insanity for what it is.
But Israel's attack on the flotilla yesterday changed all that; it showed that war is really all about controlling the media, because the flotilla won hands down and Israel now looks like shit. people in the world are starting to see what has been obvious for a long time:
there is nobody 'out there'; we're all in this together. The terrorists are us. The Israelis are us. BP is us. fighting each other only enriches the arms barons and the tame, paid-off politicians who enable them.
a long time ago I talked to some students at Bir Zeit University in Palestine. I horrified them by saying that no matter how many bullets they had, Israel would have more, and therefore armed struggle was doomed to fail. I told them that there is another way, and that by using the media, the most powerful weapon we have, in an intelligent way, they would advance from boxing to aikido, from an old way of conflict that is a losing proposition for both sides to a new way of resolving conflict that is a winning proposition for both sides. Now I say that to the American people, and to the readers of this blog.
No matter how many bullets we've got, we are doomed to fail unless the idea behind the bullet is right. The idea behind Israel's bullets is wrong. And that is why they failed, and why they will continue to fail until they come to realize that the more they arm themselves the less secure they're going to be. and the idea behind our bullets, idealistic though it is, is wrong too; in fact, it's insane.
And we, here in the United States, have to realize that. Unless you have a coherent, positive idea to start with, no amount of bombs, no amount of bullets, no amount of shock and awe will work to accomplish what we want to accomplish. If we want to export democracy, the easiest way is just to give people a peaceful, viable, alternative to whatever regime they've got. If we had rebuilt Iraq instead of destroying it, they would be Democratic by now.
It's time to stop the insanity; it's time to work together to change a system that seems corrupt all the way to the top. It really is time to get off our butts and start taking coherent action, action that will have the results that we want, and part of that action is to control the media, as the people who ran that so-called flotilla did so effectively. One trillion spent on war is one trillion spent uselessly, and that money is never going to come where it should have come in the first place, in education, infrastructure, alternative energy, healthcare, and all the other social programs that would make us the country we really want to be. and it's our fault. It's our fault for thinking that we can fight a disease bearing mosquito with a tank. That kind of insanity has to stop, and a sane way to get out of the mess we're in has be found.
And it can be found. I know this, and this is what still gives me hope. This is what still makes me believe in the human spirit.
Peace.