Every war has had its losers….and every war has had its winners….
If you command the largest military machine on the planet, if you think you can isolate your nation, your “territory” from the destruction of a world war…if you think you can come out of a major war with your cities and infrastructure unscathed and only a few hundred thousand or a million or two or so from your country dead….you’d be likely to consider yourself a winner….
It might take a “ballistic missile defense shield” or weaponizing space with military satellites and weapons platforms, employing trade sanctions and illegal tariffs to intimidate and coerce your “allies”, but hey… if that’s the cost of keeping your nation and your people “safe” while you (America) with more nuclear missiles and more money invested in weaponry than any other nation of this little orb prosecute a massive war in the name of securing the wealth of the planet for the wealthiest 1% of your nations people, then that’s the strategy you will apply.
America the champion of individual freedoms and rights (for whites and the wealthy) needed to implement a strategy of oath-taking (pledge of allegiance) because it hasn’t ever been interested in the notion of membership in the community of mankind….but regards itself as exclusive, special and distinct from everyone else inhabiting this planet.
America has been at war with itself since it parted company with the world back in 1776.
It’s second amendment to the Constitution, originally intended as group response to a potential threat of invasion/reprisal by Britain has been morphed (by the NRA and others) into a statement of independent individual “right”…..
“It’s my RIGHT as an American under the Constitution to bear arms and the idea that I should have limits place on that right is evidence of a communist conspiracy to take-over-the-world!”
This is the essence of American unwillingness to recognize that their lives and behaviour is occurring within the larger context of an entire planet of beings with dreams hopes and loved ones just like Americans!
Individual freedoms and the pursuit of wealth and power as individual is antithetical to the concept of common interests and community.
The freedom and independence of personal mobility as served by the automobile represents a seminal component of the under-girding to the military industrial complex that sits as concept at the very apex of America’s dysfunctional dichotomized self-perception. A vast mixed variety of goods and services offered by competing companies (very often subsumed within larger corporate umbrellas to escape being recognized as the same company as the “competitor”) has been manipulated to convince America (and Canadians) that consumption = freedom.
What comes first for America is “business”, and no one should ever make the mistake of believing that altruism or a preparedness to participate as ideological or philosophical “equal” with any other nation on earth represents the life-blood and well-spring of the American ethos. It’s make a buck first then we can chew over these airy-fairy concepts of rights and freedoms…. This is the attitude that permits supplying weapons to the world…profit taking/making…not ideological assessment and reason, but making money. America has supplied weapons and weapons technology to its sworn enemies ..Iran and then of course Iraq…because this is an easy and efficient way to keep the carnage out of “my-backyard” while facilitating the theft of these nations natural resources from a people made tired from war and having reduced numbers as the outcome of years of war. America has applied this moral legerdemain everywhere from Indonesia to Chile to Africa to South and Central America…wherever the “people” could secure oil or sugar or political influence to keep American businesses profitable.
This is the attitude that encourages denial of the impact on global climate change by burning fossil fuels…in the name of preserving the myth of independence and freedom through unbridled consumption.
That a few war mongers in the American administration who’ve perhaps already made plans for discreet hideaways located some distance from where the major blood-letting would occur during an international conflict push for more troops and more weapons and more security and more money invested into the war machinery (there’s profits to be made boy!) while media “dumbs-down” the great unwashed masses with meaningless drivel for entertainment and individual perceptions and abilities to differentiate truth from lies is attacked by attacking the thought process itself is the American Way!
Like many participating here on Canadian Content, it’s “sizzle” that convinces the weak-minded that Israel “ought” to be funded supported and armed at the expense of the American taxpayer….so the petroleum cartels can “manage” various hostilities in the greater mosaic of human nations and commerce. It’s got absolutely nothing to do with “protecting the only bastion of democracy in the Middle East”, how anyone with a straight face can claim Israel is a democracy invites raspberries and inquires regarding these peoples capacity for self-delusion….
It’s entirely about buying votes at home (America and Canada) during elections and maintaining a “presence” a “foothold” in that region of the world where the American and Canadian appetite for “freedom” as defined by driving half-a-block to the drive-through bank teller or fast-food eatery meets the requirement of affordable gasoline.
All else is sizzle, and there’s never been any steak involved of any kind!
It’s easy to point a finger at George Bush the man is a moron….
What’s far less comfortable for our “friends” to the south is acknowledging that they’re interest in money and “prosperity” as defined through consumption supercedes all else…including survival as a species.
It’s too late though and all the Israeli supporters and the anti-tree-hugger crowd, the “nuke-the-whales” proponents and the somnambulists anaesthetized into obesity by fats and sugars sitting in front of the tube watching “Homer Simpson” and “Survivor” embrace their shortsightedness with enthusiasm.
As long as American’s are happy with their investment returns, the fact that their children won’t have water to drink or air to breathe doesn’t pose any moral or ethical difficulty.
America is more than prepared to let every non-American be sacrificed to their greed, including not just the lives of millions the world over, but the very land and oceans of this planet itself.
