For generations schoolchildren have been taught the folk tale of Henny Penny AKA Chicken Little running around declaring that “The sky is falling”. The sky never was falling and Chicken Little was made a fool… until the sky indeed did begin falling… and no one believed Chicken Little… until of course it was too late. Such is the case in our current state of affairs here in Amerika 2016. For years many astute writers have warned us about this Military Industrial Empire… and only a minority of Americans would listen. Ever wonder why?
Let me just mention a mere handful of authors and their books from my library that have been the ‘Chicken Littles’ of our times: Morris Berman’s Dark Ages America ( 2006 ) , Gore Vidal’s Dreaming War ( 2002 ) , William Blum’s Rogue State ( 2000) and Naomi Wolf’s The End of America ( 2007 )all attack this issue from various directions. Bottom line: We are in the last stages of empire and so few of our neighbors realize it. The proverbial ‘sky’ is falling! Corporate greed, phony wars, racist rants to divide working stiffs, union busting, the hijacking of Jesus, and American Exceptionalism through a well-controlled media shape our mass consciousness as a people. Not all of us, mind you, but to rearrange a quote from Nixon’s crooked VP Spiro Agnew, the ‘ not so silent majority ‘ allow this deception to continue.
Just look at the current presidential horserace for a minute. The far right wing of the 2 Party con job has such a bunch of phony characters standing at the podium, especially Mr. ‘Neo Fascist Populist’ Donald Trump. How is it that he is actually leading in this clown show? Of course, any social scientist will tell you that Trump’s well-devised strategy is to play upon the fact that he is the ‘NonPolitician’ who tells it like it is. Of course, his so called candid remarks are always on hot button’ non-threatening to empire’ issues. The minions who support and love his antics disregard the fact that while he ‘gives it’ to the Wall Street banksters, Trump spent (and spends) his entire career being in bed with these jokers. On the ‘center right’ Democratic side of the horserace we have Ms. Hillary vs. Bernie and, oh yes, the Jack Lemmon lookalike Governor O’Malley. Hillary, as those who study recent history should know, is as ‘ right wing ‘ as any Republican on foreign policy AKA making wars and occupations. As for Bernie, who actually means well, he has joined himself to the hip of Mr. Obama too many times for this writer, and refuses to bring up the Military Industrial Empire in his rants. He may be spot on regarding domestic issues and our need for economic equality for working stiffs who he and other ‘progressives’ love to call the Middle Class. Yet he shies away from connecting the dots’ as to how Uncle Sam can easily fund these changes by simply making major cuts to the military spending. Why won’t he hammer this home? Well, now Bernie is a Democrat and his party won’t end all the occupations and close our nearly 1000 foreign military bases.
Is it too late for our America to stop being Amerika? Perhaps (and sadly) we need the ‘floor to fall out completely’ from our economy to wake up the sleeping. Isn’t that a sad testimony about human nature? Take this tidbit of info to digest regarding the Flint Michigan poison water situation. The officials there decided that they had a financial crisis and needed to cut expenses. So, why not get the water from a cheaper source? They did, when this all could have been avoided if Uncle Sam was able to give back tax revenues in Federal Block Grants to cities like Flint to help get better drinking water. The deteriorated lead filled pipes could have been replaced while the former, more expensive water source could have continued to be used. Did you know that it cost we taxpayers over one million dollars to keep a soldier in Afghanistan. One soldier! Imagine how many Michigan soldiers could have stayed home and that money could have been used to help Michigan’s cities. Does anyone out there get it? The ‘Chicken Littles’ do!
COMMENTS