A Year of Peace
I saw a tweet the other day that has stuck with me. I stay away from Twitter, as I see it as the ‘Thunderdome’ of social media, and I prefer not to enter that arena; however, this tweet showed up on Facebook, on a friend’s page.
It pointed out that in the 21st century, those of us who are openly anti-war are ostracised. That is unfortunately a fact. It has been made abundantly clear, that we who do not support the war machine, are simply un-American. When we question the reasoning behind the destruction, we are accused of sleeping with the enemy. To express empathy for ALL the victims of war, no matter in what part of the world, as opposed to the current enemy the state has chosen for us, is incomprehensible. To question if there is a value of one life over another, is insane.
Perspective - USA has been at war for 227 of its 245 years of existence as a nation. That is 18 years of Peace. Eighteen years! I understand that it is difficult for a population who has been spoon fed on war, victory, Manifest Destiny, and unearned foundational wealth; all floating in on fluffy clouds of hope, goodness, godliness and moral authority; might find it difficult if not impossible to envision life in any other manner. There must after all be an enemy to slay, just to keep the truth away. They must resent our freedom (to go into debt buying necessities like medicine, housing and food; and the distractions that make that debt a little easier to bear). They are jealous of our way of life, (because they don’t have museums or universities or music or libraries or shops or parks or public transportation). They are taking our jobs/resources/potential clients away from us because… well, that’s a bit more complex.
Jobs - because so many Americans lept to go to California to pick fruit and vegetables when the migrant worker shortage popped up last year, or volunteered to work in rubbish removal or to work as a maid, or any of the other things immigrants and migrant workers do. Resources - because the Chinese have no right to plunder Africa. Those minerals belong to USA! They are ours for the taking! We have Africom there. Potential clients - because how DARE anyone try to sell gas and oil to our ‘special friends’ in Europe! USA must be the only vendor; even if it means being in bed with a regime which regularly beheads people.
I see the difficulty. I also see that if we cannot ‘fight’ our way clear of a permanent war mentality, we are doomed. How long do you think people can continue to live with the threat of a nuclear disaster on a scale that cannot be imagined? How long can this game of deterrence be played? Is it fair to have to live holding one’s breath, waiting for the inevitable, the proverbial ‘wrong finger on the button’?
Yet, every time we allow, accept, and cheer it on; war makes itself more comfortable among us. More at home, desensitising and dehumanising those whom we are directed to dehumanise, which makes it easier to ignore their innocence and their deaths and assasinations. To come up with reasons to justify our consent, and to make ourselves believe them, which is necessary unless we are truly a nation of sociopaths; we MUST believe in these reasons and to refuse to look at the rea$oning behind it.
I will not go into reasons or defences or any of the logical things that one looks for when choosing to support military action. Those choices have already been made and accepted, no matter the full history of the matter, no matter the country with which we are engaging, in person or by proxy.
I question in the essay, how do we collectively view ourselves as people. Are we a nation of war addicts? Are Americans happy and content with the progress on how the nation treats its Native population? Its POC? Do you remember that Native populations have to continually deal with not being allowed to vote? The latest and most egregious episode happened in 2020. When Rona rules encouraged people to submit mail-in ballots. Cool. No problem, except that many states stipulated that mail-in ballots using a Post Office Box number as an address were not allowed. They would only accept regular street addresses. There is one tiny problem with that. Most ‘reservations’ and rural locations don’t have street addresses.
Native communities have been fighting for the right to vote since forever. As the laws change state by state, instead of by Federal mandate; Natives in Arizona could not participate fully in the system, until 1970! They continue to have to fight for the right to participate in what passes for the democratic process in the USA. Having to deal with new laws that either directly target them, looking to suppress their vote; or blithely playing to situations which will make it more difficult if not impossible for them to participate.
The Voting Rights Act, was supposed to guarantee Black people the right to vote. Unless you’ve been living on Mars, you know that that is a battle which continues to this day. Again, depending on the individual laws of the individual state. Oregon or New York being very different places than Texas or Georgia. Jim Crow is still alive and kicking.
2020. That was the big ‘Chicken Little’ moment. That “You MUST vote for XYZ or the sky will fall!” “If ABC wins and you ‘wasted your vote’, then it’s all going to be YOUR fault!” When the highest goal, the most important thing, the ONLY thing that mattered, was getting rid of Cheetolini. Any and Everything else was irrelevant. Except for Rona of course. Yet, in effect blocking a section of the population from voting; a population which almost certainly would have supported the effort to dump Trump; and in allowing that suppression to happen, tells me a lot.
2020. There were almost 21,000 polling places closed in the USA during this ‘most important election ever’. Most of those closings took place in black and brown and Native communities. Again, making it difficult if not impossible for people who have to work, and need to be able to run out and vote locally if at all. Often with 2-3 jobs, or picking up from daycare/school, etc., how on a freaking Tuesday, a work day; is someone supposed to handle work, family obligations, errands, AND manage to get a ride, take public transport, to a polling station several miles from where they live?
I recall reading a little noise about these incidents, but now I hear crickets. Obviously, now, with the Empire approved democrat in the oval office, we can go back to the halcyon pre-Cheetolini days of forever war, its ensuing inflation, the laughable national feeling of moral superiority and authority; and continue to bring democracy to the world. Aside from the Rona, all is back to normal.
Americans are still being reamed out to pay for healthcare. The student loan system is highway robbery where the bank often collects 3 to 4 times the amount of the original loan. The infrastructure of many places is frighteningly dangerously in need of repair/replacement. Does Flint, MI have decent drinking water yet? Though the availability of good clean organic food seems to have improved, it is also RIDICULOUSLY expensive for many people; again, available to the relatively wealthy.
So, help me here. All of those issues were present well before Cheetolini, during Cheetolini, while the ‘most important election ever’ was going on; and after Cheetolini and are STILL going on. We have however made sure that the defence industry is back in business! I guess that it the most important thing. Until 2024. when Biden will be 82.
What would happen, what would we do if we actually had just ONE YEAR of PEACE? No country is at war with the U.S. It is we who are at war with them. What on Earth would we do, if we just stopped for ONE YEAR.
Maybe we could spend some time figuring out how to repair ourselves. A nation that can sit still and watch, while the government finds clever ways to completely disenfranchise huge swaths of the population, removing them from the process of choosing a leader…
What great political mind can explain to me, how can America bring ‘democracy’ to the ROTW, when it blatantly denies access to the democratic process to it’s own citizens, today, in the 21st century? Sanctions violence against non-violent protests? Uses water hoses on protestors in sub-zero temperatures, and then sends in attack dogs, against it’s own citizens?
How it is possible to accept an 813 Billion dollar defence budget; when we have not been attacked, but are instead the aggressors?
Closer to home, why can’t a family with 2 working parents afford to buy organic food? Why is arable farmland being scooped up by an American oligarch, thousands of acres at a time, instead of being returned to Native people? Why are Black people still being killed by the Police with impunity? Why are innocent school children, commuters in train stations or holiday makers in Vegas, still the victims of mass shootings? Why are the banks still ripping people off for the pleasure of gambling with their money? Why is there No Real Progress on dealing with Climate change, as we continue to see the reality of it play out before our very eyes?
Ohhh yes, now I remember. It is the Great Sleep. The two and a half years long siesta. That brief period before the campaigning starts again, and along with it, the fund raising. The non-stop barrage of messaging and promoting. That time when all the potential candidates arrive flying in on unicorns, whose horns trumpet the precious words some of us are hoping to hear. When they are ALL ‘Working hard for the American People’. They know what you want. The ‘maintenance of the American way of life’ is always a theme, though depending on the party or the speaker, that way of life may be completely different.
The Donkey party will then shower us with their desire for inclusivity; with their deep empathy for the wrongs done to the country’s populations of colour and the need to ‘bring them to the table’. They will tear up as they talk about the poor residents of Flint, MI. They will tell us that we ‘must fight Climate change’ as future generations… are depending on us. They will cry that it is past time that a woman sat in the Oval Office. Any woman. The important thing is that that box is ticked off, on the list of things a country must achieve in order to wield the button of moral authority.
The Elephant party will inflame the feelings of fear and rouse their rabble. They will invoke god and the bible, and tell us who the ‘real Americans’ are. They will rally and shout and wave their flags, and stamp their feet. They will deny Climate change and evolution and the history of man in general. Jesus rode a dinosaur don’t you know?
Then the great crush, and much chatter about ALL the issues listed above, plus the list I do not have room to list here, and the bullying and being told who to vote for by such keen political minds as Beyoncé, Sara Silverman, Brett Farve, L’il Pump, Lizzo, Stephen Baldwin, Julia Louis Dreyfus, etc.
Then the chosen one arrives, is anointed, and a new reign begins. What is missing, is ANY action on ANY of the issues any of these people campaigned on. What REALLY blows my mind, is how easily these very real issues, which hamper and hinder the lives of very real people, fellow citizens; how easily these issues are forgotten in the new reign of the chosen one.
Will we have any movement on voter suppression in the 2024 election? Will we have at least made it so that police canNOT turn off their body cam just seconds before they shoot a suspect in the head? What will be done to help Flint before 2024? What if we succeed in winning the current war, averting WWWIII and ensuring Europe’s dependency on procuring gas and oil from the USA? More fracking perhaps? What if the country’s Natives and population of colour is continuing to be legally disenfranchised from participating in the process? What if healthcare continues to be out of reach for many more just as the next pandemic arrives? What happens when a major highway becomes impassable and trucks can no longer deliver those perfect looking (though relatively tasteless) red tomatoes to New England in the middle of January? What happens when the first school shooting occurs one month after our new fearless leader is chosen and installed; and the crying, memorials and outrage are over? Apparently, NOTHING.
I believe that if we had a moment… Just One Year… without being stoked for, propagandised into, giving literal or tacit consent for war; we MIGHT be able to take a freaking baby step forward. We might be able to take a breath, and see the true lay of the land. To get a grip on how far we have allowed things to slide. To understand that whether we choose to accept it or not; whether we like our neighbour, or even understand them, is irrelevant. There is NO escaping the collective effect. There is no wall that can keep the reasons South Africa is flooding or the Polar ice caps melting, or the plagues of locusts which are destroying crops, or the fact that there are around 1,340 Superfund sites created by U.S. military bases in the continental USA. Considering that we have an additional 800 or so military bases all around the world; WE are responsible for turning great areas of the planet into poisonous contaminated places, which the military budget seems to have no consideration for. These things will all touch us, no matter where we live.
To see that the continued racism both personal, political, international and legislative in the USA, makes a joke of any moral authority it claims on the world stage, which means that we are international hypocrites.
Inflation and War. The two twins of the Empire. You can’t have war without inflation, and inflation arrives on the carpet of war. They are inseparable. We see leaders come in and go out, yet we sit in the mire, waiting for the next saviour…
I am not the most optimistic person, yet, I WANT to be. I WANT to believe, that if the people had just a moment, to breathe and to collect their thoughts; we could see that all of the issues in this essay COULD be dealt with By The People; if we so chose. If we thought it important enough. If we were interested in true morality. If we didn’t have feet of clay.
Yet, I and others like me, are indeed ostracised for being peaceniks. For believing in and preferring diplomacy, and for keeping one’s promises, and abiding by treaties and agreements. USA definitely needs work in the areas of diplomacy, and abiding by agreements and treaties, that’s for SURE!
If you were gifted, (say by Aliens) a year of peace, what would you do? Sigh a breath of relief and hibernate for the year? Lobby your reps to change unjust and unfair voter suppression legislation? Make some major changes in your personal life that would benefit the Climate? Protest against the ridiculous ability of the nation’s police to do pretty much whatever it wants including murder? Push via demonstration, work stoppage or other means; for the basic things that other countries (including countries we don’t like) have, like socialised medicine and free to low cost higher education, dentistry and prescription drugs? Not to mention childcare. Might we manage to finally slay the beast that is Jim Crow in every state of the union? Maybe take a look at what can be learned from other places and trying to understand why different people live differently, and why that way of life is no threat to you?
What would YOU do with a year of PEACE? The Donkey and the Elephant party will not have a clue.