Fw: As patriotic Americans, we must make amends for our outrageous consumer selfishness, and control our leaders' obsession with war as a means to peace.

[Guest guest]

Thursday, September 09, 2004 7:26 PM

As patriotic Americans, we must make amends for our outrageous consumer

selfishness, and control our leaders' obsession with war as a means to peace.

 

 

As patriotic Americans, we must make amends for our outrageous consumer

selfishness, and control our leaders' obsession with war as a means to peace.

By Joseph Smigelski

 

" Real patriots ask questions. "

-- Carl Sagan

 

I don't know how you feel about the present world situation, but I'm quite

nervous and despondent.

 

Just the other day, I read on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle that

the detonation of a " dirty bomb " in one of our large cities is " all but

inevitable. "

 

I've also read that the federal government has been funneling an inordinate

amount of money into the Selective Service System, even though we've been

assured a number of times by Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney that no plans are

afoot to re-institute a military draft.

 

Some have come to the conclusion that our Republican leaders are lying and that

they plan to put a draft into effect in mid 2005, the year my son will turn 18

years of age.

 

I've heard it said that people get the government they deserve. Do we deserve a

government that lies to us and has alienated half the world to the point where

someone would want to detonate a nuclear device on our soil? Do we deserve a

government that is sending our beloved boys and girls to kill and die and be

maimed in another Vietnam?

 

I sincerely hope not, but let's take a brief look at some of our history. This

great and prosperous nation was built on, and has always been maintained by,

atrocities:

 

--- the almost total extermination of our Native American population

--- slavery

--- robber baron economics

--- the exploitation of Latin America (United Fruit Company, for instance)

--- the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan (competent historians debate

whether or not doing this was necessary to defeat Japan in WWII)

--- our current use of Weapons of Mass Destruction (what else would you call

bombs and bullets coated with deadly, radioactive depleted uranium?)

 

The list could go on and on, but I'll spare you the pain.

 

A man I admire greatly is Thomas Jefferson. If he were somehow to appear in our

world today, I am sure that his first question would be, " Have you abolished

slavery? " After we answered in the affirmative, he would be very happy and

relieved and proud of us. But then after we briefed him on what else has

happened in the past 200 years, our third president would probably turn ghostly

pale and, with a tremor in his voice, repeat what he had written in Notes on the

State of Virginia: " I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just....

In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of

corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover and wickedness insensibly

open, cultivate, and improve. Every government degenerates when trusted to the

rulers of the people alone. "

 

I am an English teacher who also admires William Shakespeare as the greatest

writer who ever lived. As it turns out, old Will has been adopted by this

country. Every year, there are more Shakespeare festivals in America than you

can ... well ... shake a spear at. And every one of this great man's plays is

partly a cautionary tale against the evils of war and the manipulation of

society by unscrupulous politicians.

 

Almost all Americans would agree with my glowing estimations of these two men.

So then why do we have leaders now like George Bush, Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft,

and a whole crew of neo-conservatives who apparently do not care to learn the

lessons of Jefferson and Shakespeare, but believe in hijacking our government

and waging perpetual war? Something is deeply wrong in the heart of America that

all the upbeat talk of politicians cannot eradicate. Lies can whitewash our

greed, our arrogance, and our continued willingness to exploit the rest of the

world as if we own it. But the paint is way too thin, and we had better start

realizing that.

 

An old saying goes, " The truth will out. " Can America change before it's too

late?

 

The world is getting more dangerous by the minute. Unstable countries like North

Korea and Iran are building nuclear weapons. According to some, other countries

may start doing the same. By the way, who is responsible more than anyone else

for the proliferation of nuclear technology? We and the Russians, and they are

having their own serious problems with terrorists now too.

 

How far can this madness go? Is this the world we deserve? Maybe so. We seem to

care more about our TVs, our DVD players, and our cars than we do about our

precious environment. Hey, I include myself in this indictment. We seem dead set

on languishing in our materialistic lifestyles with little concern for others.

We don't seem to care how many people we have to kill, maim, and exploit to

maintain our society the way we like it. Or maybe we just don't think about

these things. And it's quite easy not to think about them. But we must.

 

The alternative may be that we deserve this crazy world, that we deserve to

decline and fall the way the ancient Romans did. But I sincerely hope that

America can change and become a country that the rest of the world sees as a

friend instead of an enemy, a partner instead of an exploiter, a country that

Thomas Jefferson would be proud of.

 

Joseph Smigelski teaches English in the California community college system.

 

Posted Wednesday, September 8, 2004

 

http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload & name=News & file=article\

& sid=873