"Bang! Bang! You're Dead!" Has Replaced "Let Freedom Ring" as the Motto of U.S. Domestic and Foreign Policy
The Awful Costs of Imperial Wars
"Bang! Bang! You're dead!" has replaced "Let freedom ring" as the motto of U.S. domestic and foreign policy. The self-styled “arsenal of democracy” of World War II fame is now merely an arsenal, not only abroad, where the U.S. leads the world in weapons sales, but at home, where there’s more than one gun for every American.
How much is enough? How many weapons does it take to make us feel safe? How many trillions of dollars must be wasted on wars until we smarten up?
How much is enough--for what, exactly? That's the crux of the matter. Does the U.S. seek to continue to enlarge its global empire, insisting on dominance everywhere, or does the U.S. want to focus on true national defense? The former suggests an open-ended Pentagon budget. The latter suggests a smaller, leaner, laser-focused, budget.
Naturally, the military-industrial-congressional complex favors the largest possible budget for the most belligerent and grandiose purposes. That's what President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about in 1961. Only alert and knowledgeable citizens can insist that we sharpen and limit our focus to true national defense rather than funding endless imperial aggression globally.
Military Keynesianism, meanwhile, is the least efficient way to create jobs here at home. If we wish to invest in America, building more and more weapons, at highly inflated prices, is the worst job-creation strategy we could follow as a country.
Sadly, it is so much easier to destroy than to create. Even as we destroy ourselves.
Today in imperial news, Bibi Netanyahu addresses Congress on why he must continue to receive massive amounts of U.S. weapons and munitions so he can prosecute a genocide in Gaza. Warmongering with Iran is also on the menu. Look for Congress to applaud madly in agreement.
Tonight, America’s faltering imperial warlord, Joe Biden, reads a speech prepared for him by others on why he can no longer lead the empire. The machinery of that empire has already embraced a new figurehead, Kamala Harris, as an acceptable replacement in his stead, else that same machinery will readily pivot and embrace Donald Trump should he win a second term in November.
What the imperial machinery will not tolerate is any leader who’s committed to peace, the American republic, and the downsizing of empire.
And so Bang! Bang! You’re dead! will likely remain our approach to most everything, here and abroad.
As King said in his speech on Vietnam, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
We have arrived. We are spiritually dead and more self-righteous than ever. Our sense of justice so thoroughly perverted it is hard to see a way forward. The remnant of lovers of justice seems minuscule, and yet love cannot die. The light of love burns on.
Just ask the indigenous peoples of America how the "bells of freedom" rang for them.