Let's Face It: The Warfare State Is Part of Us

Let's Face It: The Warfare State Is Part of Us
by Norman Solomon | Aug 22 2007 - 9:19am


The USA's military spending is now close to $2 billion a day. This fall, the country will begin its seventh year of continuous war, with no end in sight. On the horizon is the very real threat of a massive air assault on Iran. And few in Congress seem willing or able to articulate a rejection of the warfare state.

While the Bush-Cheney administration is the most dangerous of our lifetimes -- and ousting Republicans from the White House is imperative -- such truths are apt to smooth the way for progressive evasions. We hear that "the people must take back the government," but how can "the people" take back what they never really had? And when rhetoric calls for "returning to a foreign policy based on human rights and democracy," we're encouraged to be nostalgic for good old days that never existed.

The warfare state didn't suddenly arrive in 2001, and it won't disappear when the current lunatic in the Oval Office moves on.

Born 50 years before George W. Bush became president, I have always lived in a warfare state. Each man in the Oval Office has presided over an arsenal of weapons designed to destroy human life en masse. In recent decades, our self-proclaimed protectors have been able -- and willing -- to destroy all of humanity.

We've accommodated ourselves to this insanity. And I do mean "we" -- including those of us who fret aloud that the impact of our peace-loving wisdom is circumscribed because our voices don't carry much farther than the choir. We may carry around an inflated sense of our own resistance to a system that is poised to incinerate and irradiate the planet.

Maybe it's too unpleasant to acknowledge that we've been living in a warfare state for so long. And maybe it's even more unpleasant to acknowledge that the warfare state is not just "out there." It's also internalized; at least to the extent that we pass up countless opportunities to resist it.

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on edit to fix links

And how, exactly, does one (or "the choir") resist?

actions similar to Buddhists resisting the old south Vietnamese government.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

You've got an extra colon in there, should be:
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/9478

There have been something like 73 of them. If you want to know why portions of the world hate the US, all you have to do is read the list.

economic damage we've done, the number is much higher. We are addicted to war.

sigh.....:(