The Heretics
Global Dominance at Any Price
American foreign policy remains in the grip of heretics. They believe that the Prince of Peace is actually a god of war. They believe America is strengthened by entangling alliances (think here of our so-called alliance with Israel). They believe in constant war as a recipe both for dominant power and greater freedom and democracy throughout the world. They believe that spending roughly a trillion dollars each year on weapons and war is a wise “investment.” And they believe they are the toughest and truest of patriots, the ones who see further, the ones with the guts to get things done, no matter how poorly America’s wars have gone from Korea and Vietnam through Afghanistan, Iraq, and today’s proxy wars.
There used to be a different America, a much less militaristic and bellicose one. The American tradition is rich and complex; it contains multitudes, as Walt Whitman might say. Why are we so stuck on warmongers, thieves, and vainglorious simps of empire?
As an American, I’m very much a part of my country’s complexity and richness. And the America that speaks to me contains elements and lessons such as these:
George Washington’s prescient warning about the dangers of entangling alliances with foreign powers.
James Madison’s warning that constant warfare is the direst of enemies of liberty, freedom, and democracy in America.
General Smedley Butler’s confession that “war is a racket” and that he had often served as a “gangster for capitalism.”
The Nye Commission in the U.S. Senate that investigated arms manufacturers and weapons makers as “Merchants of Death” that profited greatly from war.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “cross of iron” speech and his warning about the growing power and insidious nature of the military-industrial complex.
President John F. Kennedy’s powerful peace speech in which he extended an olive branch to the Soviet Union.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s powerful speech against the Vietnam War and the perils of militarism, racism, and materialism in America.
Of course, America has always had its dark side, with slavery and the genocidal treatment of Native Americans being at the top of the list. Yet America also has had its triumphs of wisdom and goodness. That is the America we should be embracing and celebrating. I believe it’s captured in the words of Washington, Madison, JFK, MLK, and so many others who’ve fought for peace and sanity, people like Dorothy Day, the Catholic activist who fought against war and all its awful excesses.
All that said, sometimes cartoons can express truths in ways that are as powerful as they are simple. In the cartoon below, the heretics of U.S. foreign policy are so many Calvins, spreading destruction and employing nukes in the name of manly seriousness. They are wrong. They are heretics. And if we continue to allow them to rule, they will surely lead America (as they already are in Gaza) to mass graves.
Re.: "Why are we so stuck on warmongers, thieves, and vainglorious simps of empire?"
- I know this is a purely rhetorical question , whose answer we know; but it's a hard-to-accept, potentially discouraging truth especially for those of us who still choose to retain some seeds of hope for humanity.
That answer being, of course, that the most aggressively self-serving, greedy and predatory of humans seem to be inexorably attracted to positions of power where they can follow those instincts and capitalize on them. The political-economic system has itself (d)evolved to one which self-selects for that type, as they came to dominate it and change it to reflect their drives.
Aided by the 'Siamese twin' that is capitalistic commerce conjoined with technology, they have lulled the rest of the population (whom I suspect to be the vast majority) into accepting their leadership under the illusion that they are fulfilling their responsibilities in a democratic republic.
Most people I know seem to recognize that something has not only gone wrong in their society, but also that they continue to get worse.
And yet they seem content nonetheless. There seems to be far too few asking just why this sense persists, why they're expected (and likely will soon choose) to select between two of the most horribly unfit characters to 'lead' their nation- two men who will merely continue the downward trajectory towards collapse of the nation and very possibly global human civilization as we know it.
There have likely always been soulless predators among us; but humanity has (at least in places like the U.S.) gradually allowed them to rule and to reshape the world in their own inhumane image and for their benefit at the cost to all the rest.
Those who understand this are of course, refusing to further play along with at least the political games they've rigged; but will enough step back from their comfortably simplistic and narrow partisan perspectives to look squarely at the deeper system, and challenge it?
On the subject of power.
Amos Oz was a gifted Israeli writer. In his autobiographical book "A Tale of Love and Darkness" that I highly recommend, he describes a scene where he is picking apples on a kibbutz with another resident. They are talking about Menachem Begin, a fanatical Zionist, long before he became an Israeli Prime Minister. The coworker says to Oz...
"They, Begin and his chums, talk from morning to evening about power, but they haven't the first idea what power is, what it's made of, what the weaknesses of power are. After all, power has an element of terrible danger for those that wield it. Didn't that bastard Stalin once say that religion is the opiate of the masses? Well, just listen to little old me. I tell you power is the opium of the ruling classes. And not only the ruling classes. Power is the opium of the whole of humanity."
A clarification is needed. Stalin was referring to the opium of the masses as a sedative to keep them compliant with the wishes of the powerful. For the powerful, the reference to opium is as an addiction with a craving for more of it, always for more. We see it again and again in history. The downtrodden rise up and overthrow the rulers and before long those formerly without power are abusing the power they have gained.
In the US we see the power of money and how those who hold astronomical amounts of money want more and are obsessed with their place on the Fortune 500 list, a competition that drags all of us along. The opium of the American people is entertainment and distractions for one and all, custom tailored via smartphones and big flat screens.
In the trenchant movie, "Network" the crazy anchorman has the public shouting from the windows - "We've had enough and we're not going to take it any more!" But what do they want? Their wish is to be left alone in their living rooms and with their steel belted radial tires (that is, unlimited consumption).
That's the American dilemma - we see the corruption, we see power running wild, but we have the opiate of unlimited and cheap things to sedate any desire to get out in the streets. I see no end to this situation regardless of which of the two repulsive candidates wins the election in November. We are locked in to the comfort of consumption and our spending on it directly feeds the wealth of the powerful who dominate us.
P.S. I heard that Hillary is being pushed as a replacement for Kamala Harris. OMG!