Empire and Its Consequences

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/10/11



Ever notice the way certain basic human values quietly transform into their opposite on their way to becoming national policy?

At the human level, the immorality of murder is fundamental, and most people understand the insanity of armed hatred. Keeping these dark forces under wraps is essential to the existence of human society. So why is it, then, that at the abstract level of nationalism, those forces are honored, worshiped, saluted, extolled as glorious, and given command of an enormous budget?

Why is it that their perpetuation via increasingly sophisticated technology is equated with national security and no one talks about the completely predictable negative consequences of basing security on murder and hatred?

And why does it feel so naïve to be asking such questions?

It’s as though the arrangement was settled four or five millennia ago. Killing is wrong, but we have to kill one another, you know, in self-defense, in order to survive. And hating people is wrong — mocking them, dehumanizing them — but some people ask for it. They do it to us, so we have no choice but to do it back. Hate, dehumanize, eliminate our enemies and . . . voila, we’re safe, at least for the time being. What don’t you get about that?

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1. Good Read

Thanks for the powerful and honest words of Robert C. Koehler. Also, refer to his new book "Courage Grows Strong at the Wound." It is so difficult to express what we know about the folly of war and violence without seeming to condemn our dear children who have been told for so long that the military are the true heroes and who proudly go to war to defend us and our country when we send them. Rachel Maddow's book "Drift" and Krakauer's book "Where Men Win Glory, the Odyssey of Pat Tillman" are also good reads. We need to do more than hope (and pray) for peace; we need to change the way we educate our children, especially through our religious beliefs and values, from the time they are born.

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2. It IS naive to ask this question

For the material wealth that war provides the few corporate profiteers and hate mongers is well known. The human wreckage, much of whom is dead, much of whom is destroyed, is THE human tragedy of the 21st century.

American citizens complicity, or tacit agreement is the moral equivalent of a blank check of approval. AND, our grandchildren will pay the bill in terms of debt, and human dysfunction.

The hope and vision of progressive movement is being ground down and ridiculed. Belittled and marginalized to the point of quackery.

I hold out some hope that future citizens will see beyond their pocketbooks, but thorough control of economic factors, as well as the destruction of the social safety net, practically ensures that personal economic crisis will remain at the forefront of many Americans voting priorities.