How did we ever get here?
Our current status in the world is a combination of many events over decades of an ever changing international landscape.
Our obsession with "Wars on (fill in major political topic du jour)" started in the 60s. Johnson declared a, "War on Poverty," followed by sweeping legislation originally designed to help some of those with the least ability to improve their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Nixon gave us the "War on Drugs," and Reagan helped popularize the term, "Just say No." Now we have a "War on Terror," which is supposed to be to stop global terrorism, especially that part which reaches our shores. But what can we really say about the results of these wars?
There
are more people below the poverty line today than when President
Johnson first coined the phrase. The War on Poverty has
done practically nothing to improve life for the nations poorest and
most needy. Homelessness has steadily risen and their newest growing
segment - veterans from our two latest wars - demonstrates just how out
of touch the citizens are with what is really going on. I find it
unconscionable for any nation to ask its citizenry to go and fight in a
distant land, then turn its collective back on those same persons when
they return home. For all the "support the troops" rhetoric out there,
I see very little that addresses this horrific outcome. As prisons
everywhere are a physical portrayal of their society's most defenseless
and most discriminated against, we find drug offenders and minorities,
especially African-Americans and Latinos, in greater percentage behind
bars.
The War
on Drugs has been a similar disaster. The only difference between
today's drug war and that of Nixon's, is the fact that he started
out investing our tax dollars in treatment of the worst drug addicts,
today we merely incarcerate them for years and then release them back
into society where they are no longer able to look for a regular job,
due to their incarceration, but still have the same, craving mindset to pursue their drug addiction. We've just added more people to
the ranks of criminals, nothing more. Not everyone from any group
returns to a life of crime, but the more you have of any group behind
bars, the greater number will do so.
The War on Terror is by far the worst, however. Since September 11, 2001, the US has ensured that the eradicated opium fields of Afghanistan, the ones the Taliban destroyed, are all back up and running at full steam. Afghanistan kept doubling its opium/heroin output for years under Bush and only recently has it slowed down its growth rate. The US has also ensured that the worldwide sympathy we garnered right after those tragic events was quickly removed from every corner on the globe. By 2003, the world, in numbers never before seen, was marching against the US military aggression and new wars.But Americans didn't seem to care. Now, seven years later, the world has stopped protesting and just accepted the fact that the US will strike anyone, anywhere, anytime and for any lie that happens to be convenient. And given that Americans now overwhelmingly concede that they were lied to, yet refuse to hold anyone responsible for the lies, demonstrates to the rest of the world that Americans just don't seem to care if they start illegal military operations anywhere in the world. Americans just don't care about killing others around the world for any trumped up reason that's at hand, regardless of its veracity or lack thereof.
But even before this latest debacle, the US was known as the most belligerent nation on the planet. We invaded Somalia in 1993, Panama in 1989, Grenada in 1983, Cambodia in 1969-75, Vietnam 1964-75, Cuba 1961, and the list goes on. We've overthrown democratically elected governments in Iran, Guatemala, Indonesia, Chile, Haiti (twice), and elsewhere. We have helped terrorists in Honduras in the 1980s (called "freedom-fighting Contras" by Reagan at the time) attack and kill peasants and farmers in neighboring Nicaragua. We backed the death squads in El Salvador during the same period. There is no other nation on planet Earth that even comes close to the amount of US military intervention since the end of WWII. We have backed some of the worst dictators and on many occasions, we actually removed the democratically elected head of state in order to replace him with our ruthless, but every so Americanized, dictator puppet.
Sheeple Factor
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
