I cannot get it right. This is my fourth attempt. I do not yet possess the skills necessary to adequately transcribe my gut feelings and deep sadness of spirit into the proper and respectful message of hope that I wish them to be.
I love our country. Yet, perhaps paradoxically, I AM ASHAMED OF ITS GOVERNMENT. The obvious fact that today as we prepare to celebrate our freedom, democracy and greatness, at the gravestones of those who died for its self-evident truths, we are neither free, a democracy nor anywhere near great.
We have become slaves to the totalitarian capitalistic model that runs our lives. The POTUS is in Japan today giving speeches and awarding wresting trophies instead of visiting a cemetery in Virginia where true Americans rest for perpetuity under gravestones citing their bravery. Worse, the run-up to war, this time in Iran, has every indication of being the same horrific tactic taken by two Bushes before him (when both were facing diminishing approval numbers).
War is not about democracy, freedom and truth, and has not been since 1944, it is about protecting our business interests in foreign markets. It is about money. It is about oil and about opium. It is, as predicted by Dwight D. Eisenhower, about the military-industrial complex. They have taken over and they are in charge. Casualties are collateral damage. The same way the blood of innocent school kids is collateral damage at the hands of, and the the frozen souls of, the NRA and the bigots who turn a blind eye to line their pockets with gold.
America is an oil company with an army. Patriotism is pure propaganda to keep people from turning what should be a ferocious affront against the politicians who have sold their ideals to the companies who do nothing but profit from war into a rioting mob en route to their fortified and protected doors. Their nefarious goals are not to win the war but to sustain it. This is sick, twisted and by the terms and conditions of our very Constitution, illegal, immoral and punishable by law. The guys in power are now saying very loudly that they are above the law and that the Constitution is not a practical guidebook for control, power and obscene profits. So a few people get killed along the way. Heroes they say. Sacrificing in an eternal way for Democracy. Bullshit.
I could go on. Maybe with another 500 words I might be able to talk myself off this ledge. Until then I will suggest that we all start paying more attention to what is taking pace. This is on our watch folks.
My pair of suggestions for today are:
1) Let’s start to make ourselves more worthy of their sacrifices. Let us ensure that their lives were not given in vain.
2) Let’s vote for leaders who encompass the values of peace and progress over profit.
Happy Memorial Day.
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