The primary cost of permanent war is a permanent active military whose function is to defeat all threats and protect our national sovereignty. However, since 9/11 all three spheres of government, along with the media, military and markets, have united in an ever shrinking cabal ruled by a global elite that own our country, dictate our policies, silence dissent, and enslave us into a no-exit debt economy complete with increasing government repression. The military is under the command of those who own us, our real sovereign: "moneyed interests." We are descending rapidly into a darkened age, into the initial stages of a new military-plutocracy that is seizing power without checks and balances and without limits. This is the result of allowing our nation to become a permanent war economy. We no longer have a functioning representative government. Whether the jackasses remain in power, or the elephants come crashing back is, I think, a sideshow. Neither party will dismantle the culture of permanent war. And neither will hold those more loyal to currency than the Constitution accountable for looting our national treasure. We are no longer free of foreign influences that govern our national policies and priorities. The economy, for example, is not a matter for us to decide anymore. If it were we would have a manufacturing base, universal health care, and a strong relational social security safety net. But these are not options because our economic sovereignty belongs to private interests, leaving no room for public goods.
We've written a script that is locking us into a time of increasing sorrows. If I were to offer political hope it would be in the capacity of the American people to reclaim the idealism of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, particularly the Bill of Rights, and the symbolism of Lady Liberty who says, "Give me your tired, your poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free." But our capacity for imaginative idealism, the capacity for courage that risks comfort today for a better tomorrow, has atrophied. As a nation we no longer really believe in anything but saving our own skins: this is a profound moral and spiritual consequence of trusting in a culture of permanent war.
We need to awaken to the truth that our country is under assault. We need to resist with the same vigor as Europeans who are desperately trying to reclaim human dignity and basic civil rights. We need to move beyond the lame repetitions of '60s protests and begin to reimagine a moral political revolution, a revolt and rebellion against those powers that are dismantling our country and turning us into a nation of cannibals who feast on each other: a military technique perfected in countless countries these last 100 years. Such re-imagined activism is necessary if we are to have any hope for our future.
It's time to begin again. Send me your thoughts.