A Thought from a Thinking American

We hate to win wars. The more wars ongoing here, spreading there, and developing anywhere – the better for our industrial economy. In fact, the spread of terrorism, ( it used to be called communism ) the better for American capitalism. The exception of course is Chinese communism. China has introduced to the world a better economic system that works without violence and war – the merger of capitalism with communism. Unlike American capitalism the way we make wealth and the way we make war are profitably related and inextricably connected. In the meantime, we continue to ask our soldiers ( our very own sons and daughters ) to be shot at and for many to be killed. To have the courage to die in battle, but not to have the courage to question the insane policies of our government of the industrialists, by the militarists, and for the elitists. The historical scandal in America is not what is immoral or illegal; but what is moral and legal. Super financial fortunes in America have been built not on “free enterprise” but on the infectious greed of crony capitalism. In this connection, in America, by and large, there is hardly such a thing as “national interests.” There is only the - “corporate interests.” In the meantime, how can there be Americans in the great cities of America who are hungry, homeless, and living under stress not knowing where the next meal will come from to feed their children and still pay their rent? It is time for a radical change. It is time to retool our industrial capacity from war economy to peace economy. It is time to focus on the whole of humanity, especially at human poverty. War as a way to enrich the few and to keep ourselves strong with our “Industrial-Military-University-Complex” superpower of the world has become obsolete. Through the increasing power of knowledge, it is time to manufacture more engines for construction rather than engines of destruction. Defense spending creates jobs only for the military but not for society. It does not even buy national security. Military spending causes unemployment, inflation, and resource depletion, not to mention the accumulation of sophisticated military weapons that grow to such a complexity that approach national insanity. Indeed, if the lethal capacity of the nuclear arsenals of America and its allies were broken down into tons of TNT, each man, woman, and child alive in the world today would be represented by something like 4 tons of explosive power. Some of our individual H-Bombs represent so much destructive power that they each total more tons of dynamite power than all the bombs dropped by all sides during World War Two. There are, however, only two things that can be done with military weapons – use it for destruction; or, store them until they become obsolete and then eventually scrapped while American school buildings and the images of America as the land of the free and home of the brave are rotting away. The party is over. It is time to clean up the mess. The days of military lies and deceptions are over. It is time to achieve success not as Republicans or Democrats or Westerners or Southerners or Easterners or Asians, Latinos, or African Americans, but simply as - united Americans. It is time for America to be a genuine super power. A super power that has no demons to kill, or villains to destroy. Indeed, it is time for America to have more real friends around the world by having no more enemies. If we must fight enemies, let us fight them not on the battlefield, but with the power of ideas. Love is always better than hate because in love there is peace and unity. In hate, there is only disharmony. Our national interests should be wholly in harmony with those of humanity. The Media is no longer our media. It is no longer the media that promotes the power of knowledge. The US government in cahoots with the Industrial-Military-University Complex now owns and controls the media. The media like the advertising industry does not persuade. They manipulate. Look how the media succeeds in reducing American citizens to idiots. Watching TV five hours a day can only be the way of life of idiots. From corporate advertisers to political punditry, from boards of education to the entertainment programmers, their goal is to keep us American citizens thoughtless, if not frightened. Forget freedom of the press. It belongs to him who owns one. Indeed, we have yet to pierce through the untruths being cast by the mainstream media that benefits not the nation, but only the corrupt corporations. What is the use of the freedom of expression to people who have been frightened of the future? So that they may only prefer the comforts of political lies or prefer the promises of religious deceits from the powers-that-be? Our problems, in fact, the world’s problems, are no longer local. It is global. Everything in this world is interrelated with everything else in a delicate balance and complex web of interrelationship. We are all -- each and every one of us, actors and spectators in the drama of life on this small blue planet whose continued existence is in doubt. We are often told that America has the best system of education in the world. Well, it is time to prove it. Let us install educated American leaders to run our government. A government that puts greater value on higher education above everything else. Education that explores deeper the world of nature and discovers higher the nature of our world. It is incredible how the “educated” US Congressmen would entertain the impeachment of a US president on matters of sexual behavior, but would not impeach him for endangering the lives of American children by welfare reform, or by neglecting its senior citizens, or for violating international law in bombing foreign countries, or for allowing hundreds of thousands of children to die as a result of economic sanctions. In the meantime, poverty, disease, illiteracy, and overpopulation in the world cannot be redressed until America and her allies re-direct its resources toward constructive humanitarian aims. It is time to beat swords into plowshares. In his great book THE THIRD WAVE published in 1980, author Alvin Toffler concluded: “The responsibility for change, therefore, lies with us. We must begin with ourselves, teaching ourselves not to close our minds prematurely to the novel, the surprising, the seemingly radical. This means fighting off the idea-assassins who rush forward to kill any new suggestion on grounds of its impracticality, while defending whatever now exists as practical, no matter how absurd, oppressive, or unworkable it may be. It means fighting for freedom of expression – the right of people to voice their ideas, even if heretical. Above all, it means starting this process of reconstruction now, before further disintegration of existing political systems sends the forces of tyranny jackbooting through the streets, and makes impossible a peaceful transition in the twenty-first century Democracy. If we begin now, we and our children can take part in the exciting reconstitution not merely of our obsolete political structures, but of civilization itself. Like the generation of the revolutionary dead, we have a destiny to create.”