Princes of peace?

[mqbush]

Was it on Good Friday that I saw it, the placard advocating domination through militarism, humiliation through empire, the placard that read “Peace through Strength”?
Maybe it’s to be expected that we believe the US keeps the peace, that the world would be in chaos without us. It’s the self-serving myth of every empire in the history of mankind. As long as it’s we who are the top dogs, then surely those under us must feel protected and grateful and loving, so the joke goes. So long as it’s we who blast arms and legs off shopkeepers and car mechanics and greengrocers, women and children, then we are nobly doing God’s work by bringing peace to the mangled masses. If a handful of underdogs ungratefully nip at our heels, we huff and puff in outrage, and whine that the world is picking on us out of pure evil spite. We can’t seem to be satisfied that we have enough advantage in military and economic power, so we resort to torture and political prisons and police-state spying, for that extra little edge. The richest and mightiest nation on the planet is reduced to these tactics of desperation.

Of course I can’t say “How pathetic.” That would be over the top, extremist rhetoric, unpatriotic.

Well, damned straight I’m not going to be proud of a government that behaves this way. Nor proud of a population that allows its government to behave this way.

A nation that reveres its soldiers, where people stand and cheer when a soldier enters the room, is a militaristic nation, and its people are no more patriotic than the people of an agrarian nation who value their farmers, or the people of an industrial nation who value their factory workers. Militarism is not patriotism and all else self-indulgence. It is militarism that is the self-indulgence of an elite. It is a game of “gotcha” imposed on millions of people, at their cost, by depraved megalomaniacs. Agriculture and industry, meanwhile, allow civilization to flower and bear the fruits of art and wisdom. If ours is not a nation of people, if it is, instead, a nation of armies, then, yes, I am not only unpatriotic, I am its enemy, proudly.

[sam sarrha]

1. so far i have found only the Buddhists say peace and mean it.. only after many suffer torture and

death at the hands of oppressors while everyone else ignores it do they resort to 'self emulation' to try to get someone to notice.

all the religions have some method of placating judgment for wrong doing.. Buddhists are personally responsible even in future lifetimes for their actions.. no do overs, no get out of jail free cards.. total personal responsibility.

[cliffordu]

2. Uh, I think you mean 'self immolation'......

[sinkingfeeling]

3. Add the Amish to your list.

[OwnedByFerrets]

4. I appreciate you taking a stance

that is wildly unpopular. I despair that this country's population will never get it.