After the election, one thing I have heard alot is, "I hope things will settle back down to normal now….
Actually, that is absolutely the last thing I want…
Just what is normal?
First, this is an interesting picture, and it speaks alot of just what is normal in America, or at least what has become normal. This was a poster produced for Westinghouse Co. to boost the moral of workers for the war effort. I think we should remember what that effort was- to completely annihilate Germany and Japan. For an interesting look at the other side of the war in Germany, check the link here. We all know what happened to Japan. It says something deeper though. It is a graphical representation of the women of our country subjugating their roles as nurturers and prime instillers of our societies values in the next generation to the task of assisting in the killing of the next generation of our partners on this planet.
Clearly what has become normal is war… for all practial purposes, the US has been at war nearly non-stop for nearly 100 years… you can see the list here if some have slipped your mind
And now have selected a new leader, the lesser of evils? the great white hope? the outsider to drain the swamp? the puppet of Putin…. I have heard a miriad of opinions. Personally, I just want to know if anything will change or are we going back to normal? There is one thing that stands out head and shoulders about the rest and that is to rethink it's foreign policy and cease to act like the world police and the armed thugs of regime change for multinational corporations. One book that everyone should read is "War is a Racket" by Smedley Butler. Written by one of America's greatest generals that came to understand the nature of war and what it meant to us.
The question is how America's foreign policy disrupts our communities. Out of sight, out of mind keeps that very thing off the vast majority's radar but disrupts and destroys our communiites it does.
- It sweeps our youth away and trains them to kill, not to build, not to nurture and not to be good fathers and mothers which is what we need more desperately than anything.
- Over half of the discretionary expenditures that congress approves are military. Imagine if half of your taxes were not looted to pay for this war profiteering.
- Did you know that there are nearly 800 US bases occupying more than 70 nations worldwide?
- Do you realize that the US is responsible for 20 million deaths in 37 victim nations in the last half century?
- Do really think that people immigrating from the middle east are not carrying grudges from the numbers of family members slaughtered with the tax dollars you gave hoping to help kids and repair roads?
- Do you realize that our government supported Neo Nazis in the Ukraine in order to destablilize that country in order to weaken Russias position?
- Is there anything strange about a country insisting that we control weapons in order to make our country safer while being the worlds number one arms dealer? Just how many weapons did our new president promise to sell Saudi Arabia? $110 Billion…
- And don't forget the previous president's GIFT of $38 Billion in arms to Israel….
- You do know that the former president dropped more than 100,000 bombs on mostly muslims during his tenure, right?
- A final conjecture… do you think that there may possibly be a benefit to the war machine to keep large amounts of the population in poverty to serve as fodder for the military?
This is not a partisan issue and that should be coming clear after honestly comparing the rhetoric of the last two seeming diametrically opposed administrations and the staggering amount of carnage and human displacement that they were responsible for.
Here at Kozmoz, we can pass out box lunches in the park, help out at orphanages and displaced worker centers as we do every week, but if things stay 'normal', the future looks quite dismal for our children. There is a better way. There is a better way to organize our societies. Take the time to participate in a Kozmoz Internship in Kyoto Japan to find out how.
