This morning, a federal appeals court in Boston ruled that the 1996 law that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman – the Defense of Marriage Act, is unconstitutional because it deprives gay couples of the rights and privileges granted to heterosexual couples. Oh, how I do enjoy the culture wars where victories mean we don’t have to kill people – like in actual wars – we just get to kill knuckle dragging, regressive ideas.
Imagine a spectrum running from left to right. On the extreme left you’ve got Gandhi. On the extreme right imagine some cartoonish fascistic leader ripped from the latest dystopian novella turned Hollywood blockbuster. Now label that spectrum “Commander in Chief for the Global War on Terror.”
Now, in your minds eye place two more people, Barrack Obama and George W. Bush on that spectrum. Well surprise surprise. Dubya is closer to Gandhi and Obama is closer to the being president of Dystopia-land.
Is this change we can believe in?
Think of it another way:
Imagine if John McCain had won the 2008 election and a New York Times article revealed that McCain was sitting in the oval office lording over collection of mug shots and bios, not unlike a baseball card collection or a high school yearbook, that amounted to a kill list? A list of targets, among them teenagers and several American citizens, that the president was personally signing off and ordering their execution. These subjects have been charged with no crime, and would never receive a day in court, but with the stroke of a pen from the President, the most powerful military in the world would now draw a bull’s-eye on your back where it would remain until you were pulverized and rendered food for worms.
If those actions could be attributed to a President McCain, Nancy Pelosi would be bum rushing every MSNBC show she could get herself on apoplectic with indignation, Mike Meyers would host Saturday Night Live and do a rendition of McCain as Dr. Evil and Moveon.org would have the entire slacktivist universe signing e-petition after e-petition. A few people might even take to the streets.
President McCain, however, is guilty of no such crime, but President Barack Obama is. Even the stunning May 29th New York Times report by Jo Becker and Scott Shane would surely have taken a more condemning tone had the president been a Republican. Instead the report seems to credit Obama for finding grey areas and legal loopholes wherein he can twist rhetorical knots that both please the moveon.org crowd and leave room for him to act like gang lord whose silent nod would send hit men out into the night to snuff out a rival.
A popular refrain that one hears when talking about the troops is that they fight, kill, and get killed, maim and get maimed so that we can enjoy our freedom here at home. The troops make the ultimate sacrifice so that we can be free.
Does anyone with even a partially functioning frontal lobe and a sliver of conscience believe this bunk?
Let’s reframe that question: Are we fighting the global war on terror because 3000 people got killed on September 11th- or were 3000 people killed on September 11 because the US has been swinging its nuclear tipped disco stick (figuratively, and sometimes literally) all over the world for the past 70 years not in pursuit of securing our freedom, but in pursuit of profit.
Don’t take it from me, take it from a decorated veteran, Marine General Smedly Butler who said, “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”
And Smedley died in 1940. Wars were always fought for the 1%, and the super rich have usually been smart enough to let enough of the spoils trickle down to keep the rest of our consciences in check.
We are told, repeatedly, that all of this violence is to secure the peace, to protect our freedom.
Fill in your own killing for peace is like verbing for noun here.
We tolerate these lies, I think, because we don’t want to dishonor the dead, or sometimes worse the walking wounded by implying that they kill and get killed for a lie. So we keep fighting.
I’m starting to think that when people say that US soldiers die to protect our freedom, that freedom is some sort of euphemism that we all understand to mean our very comfortable way of life. I mean, lets admit it, even with Wall St criminals like Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein stealing and raping us blind, most of the 99% are still fairly well off when compared with the rest of the world. So really, all of these wars that serve to expand and protect US interests boil down to money, right? Can we just be honest about that? We don’t fight for freedom, or democracy, or liberty, or to stand on the right side of justice, we fight to get richer, because greed is American as Baseball, Apple pie, and stuffing your face with pig innards while enjoying a baton twirling contest at the county fair.
So, now that we are being honest with ourselves are you cool with your tax dollars propping up the greatest purveyor of violence in the world just so your lawn can be green, and your clothes can be had on the cheap and your cars can run on oil harvested where… over there?
Many of us, if we are honest with ourselves, really are perfectly fine with it.
music for this trailer is “Greed”, by Fugazi (Dischord Records)
used with permission
American Autum: an Occudoc
will premiere in June of 2012.
To schedule a screening, or for more information, visit Occudoc.org
Written, Directed and Produced by Dennis Trainor, Jr.
Camera: Kevin Egan, Asher Platts, & Dennis Trainor, Jr.
Editing: Aj Russo & Dennis Trainor, Jr
Original music: Mike Lawrence-Yannicelli, Goldishack Guerillas
Graphics and Color correction: Aj Russo
Post Production sound: James Russo
Executive Producers: Peggy Kimball & Dennis Trainor, Jr
My appearance on the Alyona Show, where I was asked to debate a GOP strategist on the success of May Day actions and the effect of images of vandalism.
