By some accounting, the U.S. has been involved in conflicts or wars for a minimum of 210 of its 250 years. As a colonial / settler society (it's difficult to accept and recognize that), conquest is in the very bones of our culture and national psyche.
Most of the national symbols relate to conquest or heroic military action (e.g., Iwo Jim flag raising). Popular culture reinforces it - except during brief periods when some truths are leaked out; now made worse by active participation (and required approval) of the DOD (screw Hegseth, that's its real name).
I recall the controversy over the Vietnam Veterans Memorial - which was derided as a hole in the ground as it didn't properly celebrate the U.S. fighting the commies in a 'noble cause'. But it's the most important monument, as those names staring back at you - some you know - shows what war really is.
I'd like to be optimistic and hope that over a generation (that's how long it would take), education in the real history of the U.S., as an ongoing struggle to overcome the many mistakes and crimes, could be taught and understood by everyone. But we are so divided and stratified, with the ruling class only interested in keeping everyone deluded, it's difficult to believe that any such history would be possible - and likely that would be fine with a plurality of the populace.
That is a great answer, Bill. I truly believe that propaganda and fear play huge roles in most people's understanding of the world. Yet, most North Americans don't want to believe that they have been told lies about their nation for their entire lives. When I look at my own journey, I remember the fear I felt when I first learned (and believed ) that the US are not the "good guys." Yet, the fear quickly turned to anger at the power that the ruling elite hold over everyday folks. We everyday people have the force of numbers, but we are plaqued by the fear instilled in us since birth by our capitalist system.
I can't add much more than a footnote, a nuance, an inflection, WJA, not much to mention beyond your perception, insight, awareness of history, sweep... and your prognosis. I'd just proffer a couple of things, related. "War" as metaphor in American discourse - I've mentioned this before - as in "War on Terrorism," "War on Crime," "War on Drugs," "War on Poverty," "War on Cancer," you name it. Some I kinda agree with, such as on poverty and cancer, others leave me suspicious and unsettled, as they connote a full mobilization and preoccupation of society in order to defeat an amorphous enemy - how do you do that? - and in many cases an enemy which is actually bred from within, as Pogo once famously said, ""We have met the enemy and he is us."
World War II is still a centerpiece of American identity and example of how to relate to the world. Eighty-one years after the event we still see major reference to it, Tom Hanks' (rather good) series being the latest example. Generally the message is that it was "the last good war" fought and won by "the greatest generation (ours)" and we defeated the fascists, Germany, Japan, and Italy. Well, yes and no. As Stalin said, "The war was won with American equipment, American money, and Soviet soldiers' lives," it was far from us. Do a simple "World War II deaths by country" to get an accurate idea as to who suffered, how much.
The point in all this is to say that the world lay in ruin in 1945, we were unscathed, producing more than 50% of the world's output yet having only 6% of the world's population. George Kennan initially believed we should maintain that state of affairs for as long as possible, and devised his "Containment Policy," but it was fundamentally political and psychological in nature, not military.
This did not keep with the Wall St. figures in the State Dept. at the time, such as Acheson and especially Nitze who, as perhaps a counterpart to Orwell's book-within-a-book, came up with NSC-68, a rather loopy, conceited assessment of the supposed threat the United States faced in the world, with this line early in the article, "the Soviet Union, unlike previous aspirants to hegemony, is animated by a new fanatic faith, anti-thetical to our own, and seeks to impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world." As if we weren't attempting to do the same?
The point here is that Acheson displaced Kennan, Nitze took his place, and the great arms race began, with its concomitant military-industrial complex up to today's obscene $1+ trillion per year being thrown at the Pentagon and the MICIMATT-SH becoming ever more malignant, consuming the rest of the body politic, materially, psychically.
Yes, we will proudly go down fighting, needlessly, senselessly, erroneously, wastefully, delusively.
Why? Read "War is a Racket" by General Smedley Butler, The United States most decorated soldier.
In War Is A Racket, Butler points to a variety of examples, mostly from World War I, where industrialists whose operations were subsidized by public funding were able to generate substantial profits essentially from mass human suffering.
I would refer everyone I know to Sagans "A Pale Blue Dot" Speech--his Magnum Opus Lecture @ Cornell Univ. in Ithaca, N.Y. you can see on You Tube... When Voyager 1 was on the outer fringes of our Star System and looked back @ Earth a tiny pale blue pixel among bands of sunlight. Earth was not the only world Voyager 1 imaged either. The spacecraft/ probe also captured views of Venus, Jupiter, Earths "Middle-Linebacker", Saturn, Uranus & Neptune. I am not that politically active being apolitical due to my USAF Service experiences, and Firefighting as well where political discourse was not encouraged in the firehouse also Religion for that matter, but I do believe we should encourage space/ science study's in our Schools classrooms, also human rights as well for our planetary wellbeing. Philosophy should also be important, teaching also the theory of "Nuclear Winter"in the event of Nuclear War. Life I believe is rare in this Universe and should be celebrated not diminished by weaponry designed for only one purpose! So I call for the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction.
One time army Colonel, later international relations professor, Andrew Bacevich has written several books about this subject. His conclusion, we Americans are seduced by war, and we are so woefully ignorant about foreign countries, we have zero success trying to use our military to solve intractable economic, social, and political problems in foreign lands. We have a tough time addressing our own problems, forget about trying to solve other countries' massive problems through military means.
I now live in the EU, and my peers here are perplexed by my US education.
We are indoctrinated to ‘patriotism’ from nursery school. Little children know the pledge of allegiance before they know their ABCs. I was a girl scout, so I knew flag code before knew my times tables. I can sing every patriotic hymn, having learned them all by 4th grade. We were told we were a chosen people, the best people - God provided a manifest destiny and anyone who criticized the US was a traitor.
I am the last generation to have civics education in school - this was eradicated along with most humanities classes in jr and sr high schools. Teaching history in the US has always been fraught; through the 60s-80s, history teachers (at all levels) were made to sign a pledge that they would not teach in any way that was ‘libelous’ to the good name of the US.
While history, literature, civics, and arts were rapidly defunded through the 80s, team sports were seen as necessary-the most aggressive students were also the most popular, while those who excelled in intellectual pursuits were nerds and losers.
In the late 80s, early 90s, Bill Clinton served Ronald Reagan’s third and fourth terms; he completed the work of eliminating the unions - thus depriving citizens of the knowledge they needed for organizing and the ethos of solidarity. He also signed the media deregulation act, assuring all information would be in the hands of the very few. This was the nail in the coffin of any idea of an informed electorate and closed the Overton window entirely.
Americans are finally catching on, but it’s too late. Speech is criminalized, protest is sedition, and we now live in a technological surveillance cage. People could fight back - but they can no longer afford to. For most people, paying rent and buying groceries has robbed them of any free time in which to rebel (almost all successful rebellions came at the hands of the disaffected bourgeois- people with some education, resources, and spare time.)
But, in better news, at least Lindsey Graham has met his maker and is hopefully roasting in a vat of boiling blood.
A few quotes; when enough people grasp the concepts, we avoid the iceberg. If we remain in the dark, we continue circling the drain. The capitalists do a superb job in creating the fear of anything other than capitalism.
“It is the heart of U.S. policy to use fascism to preserve capitalism while claiming to save democracy from communism.” — Michael Parenti
+ Eugene Debs: “I’d rather vote for something I want and don’t get it, than vote for something I don’t want and get it.”
“The dominant culture of the world teaches us that The Other is a threat, that our fellow human beings are a danger. We will all continue to be exiles in one form or another as long as we continue to accept the paradigm that the world is a racetrack or a battlefield.”– Eduardo Galeano
It will take a new Enlightenment, a spiritual reawakening, for us to realize all of the harm that governments and corporations are doing to this world and her people. Until we internalize the truth that liberty is inseparable from humanity and human rights are either endowed to all - or none. I know which side I will choose.
Watching from CanaDa's National Capital District listening to you wondering what Trump is planning for the midterm and 2028?
In the waning days of his 1st term some whistle blower made this Public: LEAKED US MILITARY MANUAL FOR POLICING HOMELAND INTERNMENT CAMPS FOR POLITICAL DISSIDENTS.
What can be seen in Today' World?
When dark forces manifest, they build physical infrastructure to protect their dominance. The blueprints are not hidden.
The U.S. Army’s FM 3-39.40 manual details internment and resettlement operations — complete with multi-layered barbed wire, guard towers, interrogation centers, and psychological operations designed to break resistance.
Complementing this is the 2012 NDAA, which legalized indefinite detention without due process when the US government invokes it.
Today, we see massive warehouses paramilitary ICE is quietly converted into potential detention centers. These are the modern Gitmo-Gulags prepared for the "Publicans" — the ordinary working people whose withheld wages cry out in James 5.
The principalities know that if the people ever awaken to who they truly are, the empire will crumble. So they build the cages in advance.
These "social democrats" Trump has now branded as "Communists" are the last of those who have deluded themselves into believing there is still time to "REFORM" The System. And they ask the rest of us to accept this twaddle! The USA I grew up in is dead, extinct. We should peg its final exhalation of breath to January 20, 2025 when Donald J. Trump boasted he was assuming dictatorial powers. And that's exactly what he has done with no opposition capable of stopping him. So our country's grave marker should read "The Republic of the United States of America. Born 4 July 1776, died 20 January 2025. Rest in Peace."
Oil & Arms Industries with high tech complicit with Congress in addition to everyone appeasing Trump more than Chamberlain appeased Hitler.
The Biblical Writing on the Wall record in Daniel 5 tells of the King of ancient Babylon now called Iraq, put on a feast for 1000 of the nobles/elites of the kingdom. They praised the gods of gold, silver, brass, iron, wood and stone. That's when the writing on the wall appeared.
From the economy 2500 years ago to today, it's still The Economy Stupid!
Trump thinks he's the best for everything in history and he's repeating it, wanting a ballroom to seat 1000 for Today's nobles and elites
By some accounting, the U.S. has been involved in conflicts or wars for a minimum of 210 of its 250 years. As a colonial / settler society (it's difficult to accept and recognize that), conquest is in the very bones of our culture and national psyche.
Most of the national symbols relate to conquest or heroic military action (e.g., Iwo Jim flag raising). Popular culture reinforces it - except during brief periods when some truths are leaked out; now made worse by active participation (and required approval) of the DOD (screw Hegseth, that's its real name).
I recall the controversy over the Vietnam Veterans Memorial - which was derided as a hole in the ground as it didn't properly celebrate the U.S. fighting the commies in a 'noble cause'. But it's the most important monument, as those names staring back at you - some you know - shows what war really is.
I'd like to be optimistic and hope that over a generation (that's how long it would take), education in the real history of the U.S., as an ongoing struggle to overcome the many mistakes and crimes, could be taught and understood by everyone. But we are so divided and stratified, with the ruling class only interested in keeping everyone deluded, it's difficult to believe that any such history would be possible - and likely that would be fine with a plurality of the populace.
That is a great answer, Bill. I truly believe that propaganda and fear play huge roles in most people's understanding of the world. Yet, most North Americans don't want to believe that they have been told lies about their nation for their entire lives. When I look at my own journey, I remember the fear I felt when I first learned (and believed ) that the US are not the "good guys." Yet, the fear quickly turned to anger at the power that the ruling elite hold over everyday folks. We everyday people have the force of numbers, but we are plaqued by the fear instilled in us since birth by our capitalist system.
"Readers, what do you think?"
I can't add much more than a footnote, a nuance, an inflection, WJA, not much to mention beyond your perception, insight, awareness of history, sweep... and your prognosis. I'd just proffer a couple of things, related. "War" as metaphor in American discourse - I've mentioned this before - as in "War on Terrorism," "War on Crime," "War on Drugs," "War on Poverty," "War on Cancer," you name it. Some I kinda agree with, such as on poverty and cancer, others leave me suspicious and unsettled, as they connote a full mobilization and preoccupation of society in order to defeat an amorphous enemy - how do you do that? - and in many cases an enemy which is actually bred from within, as Pogo once famously said, ""We have met the enemy and he is us."
World War II is still a centerpiece of American identity and example of how to relate to the world. Eighty-one years after the event we still see major reference to it, Tom Hanks' (rather good) series being the latest example. Generally the message is that it was "the last good war" fought and won by "the greatest generation (ours)" and we defeated the fascists, Germany, Japan, and Italy. Well, yes and no. As Stalin said, "The war was won with American equipment, American money, and Soviet soldiers' lives," it was far from us. Do a simple "World War II deaths by country" to get an accurate idea as to who suffered, how much.
The point in all this is to say that the world lay in ruin in 1945, we were unscathed, producing more than 50% of the world's output yet having only 6% of the world's population. George Kennan initially believed we should maintain that state of affairs for as long as possible, and devised his "Containment Policy," but it was fundamentally political and psychological in nature, not military.
This did not keep with the Wall St. figures in the State Dept. at the time, such as Acheson and especially Nitze who, as perhaps a counterpart to Orwell's book-within-a-book, came up with NSC-68, a rather loopy, conceited assessment of the supposed threat the United States faced in the world, with this line early in the article, "the Soviet Union, unlike previous aspirants to hegemony, is animated by a new fanatic faith, anti-thetical to our own, and seeks to impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world." As if we weren't attempting to do the same?
The point here is that Acheson displaced Kennan, Nitze took his place, and the great arms race began, with its concomitant military-industrial complex up to today's obscene $1+ trillion per year being thrown at the Pentagon and the MICIMATT-SH becoming ever more malignant, consuming the rest of the body politic, materially, psychically.
Yes, we will proudly go down fighting, needlessly, senselessly, erroneously, wastefully, delusively.
Why? Read "War is a Racket" by General Smedley Butler, The United States most decorated soldier.
In War Is A Racket, Butler points to a variety of examples, mostly from World War I, where industrialists whose operations were subsidized by public funding were able to generate substantial profits essentially from mass human suffering.
Yes. Butler is essential reading.
I would refer everyone I know to Sagans "A Pale Blue Dot" Speech--his Magnum Opus Lecture @ Cornell Univ. in Ithaca, N.Y. you can see on You Tube... When Voyager 1 was on the outer fringes of our Star System and looked back @ Earth a tiny pale blue pixel among bands of sunlight. Earth was not the only world Voyager 1 imaged either. The spacecraft/ probe also captured views of Venus, Jupiter, Earths "Middle-Linebacker", Saturn, Uranus & Neptune. I am not that politically active being apolitical due to my USAF Service experiences, and Firefighting as well where political discourse was not encouraged in the firehouse also Religion for that matter, but I do believe we should encourage space/ science study's in our Schools classrooms, also human rights as well for our planetary wellbeing. Philosophy should also be important, teaching also the theory of "Nuclear Winter"in the event of Nuclear War. Life I believe is rare in this Universe and should be celebrated not diminished by weaponry designed for only one purpose! So I call for the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction.
Forever wars will make corpses of us all.
One time army Colonel, later international relations professor, Andrew Bacevich has written several books about this subject. His conclusion, we Americans are seduced by war, and we are so woefully ignorant about foreign countries, we have zero success trying to use our military to solve intractable economic, social, and political problems in foreign lands. We have a tough time addressing our own problems, forget about trying to solve other countries' massive problems through military means.
Yes, Bacevich is excellent on these questions.
Like the Bible says, where your treasure is there your heart will be also.
I now live in the EU, and my peers here are perplexed by my US education.
We are indoctrinated to ‘patriotism’ from nursery school. Little children know the pledge of allegiance before they know their ABCs. I was a girl scout, so I knew flag code before knew my times tables. I can sing every patriotic hymn, having learned them all by 4th grade. We were told we were a chosen people, the best people - God provided a manifest destiny and anyone who criticized the US was a traitor.
I am the last generation to have civics education in school - this was eradicated along with most humanities classes in jr and sr high schools. Teaching history in the US has always been fraught; through the 60s-80s, history teachers (at all levels) were made to sign a pledge that they would not teach in any way that was ‘libelous’ to the good name of the US.
While history, literature, civics, and arts were rapidly defunded through the 80s, team sports were seen as necessary-the most aggressive students were also the most popular, while those who excelled in intellectual pursuits were nerds and losers.
In the late 80s, early 90s, Bill Clinton served Ronald Reagan’s third and fourth terms; he completed the work of eliminating the unions - thus depriving citizens of the knowledge they needed for organizing and the ethos of solidarity. He also signed the media deregulation act, assuring all information would be in the hands of the very few. This was the nail in the coffin of any idea of an informed electorate and closed the Overton window entirely.
Americans are finally catching on, but it’s too late. Speech is criminalized, protest is sedition, and we now live in a technological surveillance cage. People could fight back - but they can no longer afford to. For most people, paying rent and buying groceries has robbed them of any free time in which to rebel (almost all successful rebellions came at the hands of the disaffected bourgeois- people with some education, resources, and spare time.)
But, in better news, at least Lindsey Graham has met his maker and is hopefully roasting in a vat of boiling blood.
A few quotes; when enough people grasp the concepts, we avoid the iceberg. If we remain in the dark, we continue circling the drain. The capitalists do a superb job in creating the fear of anything other than capitalism.
“It is the heart of U.S. policy to use fascism to preserve capitalism while claiming to save democracy from communism.” — Michael Parenti
+ Eugene Debs: “I’d rather vote for something I want and don’t get it, than vote for something I don’t want and get it.”
“The dominant culture of the world teaches us that The Other is a threat, that our fellow human beings are a danger. We will all continue to be exiles in one form or another as long as we continue to accept the paradigm that the world is a racetrack or a battlefield.”– Eduardo Galeano
It will take a new Enlightenment, a spiritual reawakening, for us to realize all of the harm that governments and corporations are doing to this world and her people. Until we internalize the truth that liberty is inseparable from humanity and human rights are either endowed to all - or none. I know which side I will choose.
Hello Bill, please help keep Alex on the Air and your hair thick and colorful...Great gift for a spouse...
https://substack.com/@captainlancewaters2026/note/c-292746671?r=8oy6az
Do you need help in contacting Thomas Massie for an appearance in your good show?
Ray Joseph Cormier @RayJC_Com
@RepAdamSmith @jaketapper
Watching from CanaDa's National Capital District listening to you wondering what Trump is planning for the midterm and 2028?
In the waning days of his 1st term some whistle blower made this Public: LEAKED US MILITARY MANUAL FOR POLICING HOMELAND INTERNMENT CAMPS FOR POLITICAL DISSIDENTS.
What can be seen in Today' World?
When dark forces manifest, they build physical infrastructure to protect their dominance. The blueprints are not hidden.
The U.S. Army’s FM 3-39.40 manual details internment and resettlement operations — complete with multi-layered barbed wire, guard towers, interrogation centers, and psychological operations designed to break resistance.
Complementing this is the 2012 NDAA, which legalized indefinite detention without due process when the US government invokes it.
Today, we see massive warehouses paramilitary ICE is quietly converted into potential detention centers. These are the modern Gitmo-Gulags prepared for the "Publicans" — the ordinary working people whose withheld wages cry out in James 5.
The principalities know that if the people ever awaken to who they truly are, the empire will crumble. So they build the cages in advance.
https://rayjc.com/2019/10/17/leaked-us-military-manual-for-policing-homeland-internment-camps-for-political-dissidents/
THIS is America: https://kathleenmccroskey.substack.com/p/vile-treachery-with-patina-of-goodness
These "social democrats" Trump has now branded as "Communists" are the last of those who have deluded themselves into believing there is still time to "REFORM" The System. And they ask the rest of us to accept this twaddle! The USA I grew up in is dead, extinct. We should peg its final exhalation of breath to January 20, 2025 when Donald J. Trump boasted he was assuming dictatorial powers. And that's exactly what he has done with no opposition capable of stopping him. So our country's grave marker should read "The Republic of the United States of America. Born 4 July 1776, died 20 January 2025. Rest in Peace."
this is why: https://rayjc.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/economicratrace.jpg
https://rayjc.com/2012/10/27/love-of-money-is-the-root-of-all-evil/
Oil & Arms Industries with high tech complicit with Congress in addition to everyone appeasing Trump more than Chamberlain appeased Hitler.
The Biblical Writing on the Wall record in Daniel 5 tells of the King of ancient Babylon now called Iraq, put on a feast for 1000 of the nobles/elites of the kingdom. They praised the gods of gold, silver, brass, iron, wood and stone. That's when the writing on the wall appeared.
From the economy 2500 years ago to today, it's still The Economy Stupid!
Trump thinks he's the best for everything in history and he's repeating it, wanting a ballroom to seat 1000 for Today's nobles and elites