The Old Philosopher's Perception of What’s Going On.
See the new America, shrinking behind ever growing walls of brick, wire and hate. Spending trillions of dollars on useless protection against imagined enemies. Creating enemies out of thin air, never asking questions about “How did this all start?” or “Where does this all end?”
A nation that can’t look at itself as others see it, is doomed to death from hubris. The United States of America (USA) deserts its friends and enrages its enemies. Now it builds fences, to no avail. Ocean and sky fences don’t work, they don’t work on land either
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The president of the USA has tried to break down fences, from his first days in office. His speech in Cairo, Egypt on the benefits of peace and harmony was extraordinarily well received around the world. He apologized, owning up to all the harm America had done around the world, contributing to wars, genocide, famine, torture and global warming. The world thanked the president for his efforts by awarding him the Nobel Peace Prize. One would think that the citizens of the USA would be proud of their president. Oh, no! He was castigated in the Congress, by the media and by a large group of loud citizens as a weak, groveling president, who shouldn’t represent the USA in world affairs. He had no right to apologize!
The military/industrial complex had to fight this man tooth and nail, before he ruined their business. They fought and won. The shrinking America still spends more on its military than the next ten (10) nations do cumulatively. The USA spends 3 times as much as China and 10 times as much as Russia. The country is asked by its Republican elite to build useless walls instead of building much needed roads, bridges and updating an outmoded electrical grid. By succumbing to fear, created by the propaganda of the military/industrial complex and abetted by the US Congress and the media, the country has lost its resolve to be the shining light on the hill. It just wants to protect itself from the invisible enemy.
To be sure, the world wants a strong USA. Russia, Europe, China and Israel want a strong America. It makes it easier and safer for them to thrive and prosper in world trade, but they don’t want America to be continually meddling in their affairs. One results of a meddling USA is Russia, taking over the Crimea and parts of the Ukraine because the USA and its CIA are threatening the integrity of the Russian border by trying to integrate the Ukraine into NATO. Another result of USA meddling is China starting to fiddle with atolls in the South China Sea as a reaction to America sending Marines to Australia. The results of the USA meddling in the mid-east are well documented, and sorry results they are. Then Israel gives America some of its own medicine. Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, wangles an invitation from the Republican controlled congress to speak to them about the upcoming Iranian nuclear weapons treaty. Why is he against the treaty? He worries that once the treaty is signed, the USA, his supreme ally, will leave him since Iran will no longer a threat.
Iran is the boogieman, set up by Israel and the military/industrial complex to further their aims. If Iran was such a big problem, why isn’t Turkey worried? Why worry? Iran has never declared war on anyone and has no plans to. They threaten Israel because it’s good politics but Israel has atomic weapons (although they haven’t admitted they do, they do. A US Dept. of Defense 1987 paper (388 pages) released in Feb. 2015 talks about Israel’s atomic weapons program), so what’s Iran to do? Nothing, just talk. Pakistan and India have atomic weapons, one doesn’t hear them worrying about Iran. As I indicated earlier, Iran is being used to keep the American war machine up to date. Bottom line the Iranians want peace. They want it bad enough to weigh in on ISIS. Another reason for the Iranians to want peace is that they lost a million of their citizens, defending themselves from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, who, by the way, was supported by the good old meddling USA. Iraq was an ally who became an enemy and is now half an ally. Afghanistan was also an ally, (vs Russia) that became an enemy and is now half an ally. “And the beat goes on”. Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia all worry about the USA living up to its NATO commitment. The USA has shown itself to be an undependable ally. America has weakened itself so severely with unnecessary wars and tax cuts, that it finds itself in the predicament of not being able meet all its obligations at once.
President Obama realized that with the great recession and two wars, the USA was not prepared to meet it world obligations. Thus he started his presidency trying to sue for peace in the world, which would take some of the pressure off America’s citizenry. Again the American people have been led down the primrose path by their congress, the media and the military/industrial complex. They have been led to believe that America can do whatever it wants to do; despite all evidence pointing to the contrary (Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen). Where are the victories? Where is the peace? Where has democracy been accepted? The USA is quite good at killing; kill, kill, kill, but apparently that doesn’t win wars or men’s hearts. The USA won WWII with over whelming force. We put 12 million soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen in the field, backed up with thousands of tanks, ships and aircraft. Wars are not fought that way anymore and I’m sorry to say, the USA seems to be very inept at fighting the new wars. What’s the alternative? Fight for peace, which means taking on the military/industrial complex and all their money.
America’s friends see the country building walls. Isolating itself from the rest of the world. They worry, and rightly so, that America will start to isolate itself in order to protect its borders. Its military services will do the heavy lifting, patrolling 5,000 miles of border. How absurd, but never the less, America’s current right wing propaganda is pushing for this outcome. All of the above signals the end of the American Empire. The last vestige of empire will be the US Navy, which will patrol the high seas in order to protect the commerce of the large international corporations, which will not even be American based. By this time the US Navy may have been privatized in order to pay down debt.
America is shrinking and on top of that it is shirking its responsibilities to its citizens and the world.
That’s how The Old Philosopher sees the world today.
9/9/2015