Isn't it perfectly obvious what's really wrong with us Americans? We're addicts. We're powerless to control the demon that possesses us. We will do anything to have it. We will lie, steal, and cheat to get our war fix.The United States has become war-addicted. Since the Korean War, it has been permanently at war, with the Communists in Southeast Asia, with Balkan aggressors, with Central American leftists, with Colombian drug growers, with Saddam Hussein (twice), with radical Islamists everywhere. I leave out Panama and Grenada.
War has become part of the national identity, as well as the national economy, which turns out more weapons and more military high technology than all the rest of the world combined.
At present, our newest war has hardly begun. We are sponsoring the Pakistan army’s drive to push the Taliban out of territory they have occupied in the northwest of their own country.
The push is on in Washington to send into Pakistan a shadow government of Americans, to show them how to run their country and their struggle with Islamic radicals. Under Barack Obama, we are also going to expand our civil presence in Afghanistan and, according to the press, we have in mind a replacement leader for Afghanistan. The U.S. clearly intends to be there for a long time.
Back in Iraq, sectarian rivalry is getting out of hand since the U.S. stopped paying the Sunni tribes to keep the peace. We’ll apparently be staying there for quite a while, too.
This entire frigging country, starting with the president, every war-mongering politician and pastor, and going all the way down to the pimply-faced 17-year-old who can't wait to join the Marines so he can prove he's a "man," needs to get on a lifetime twelve-step program. Now.Because they're all hopeless addicts.
I've truly come to believe that only some massive spiritual force will be powerful enough to save this country from itself. Not only are we intent on self-destruction, but we're also intent on taking everybody else down with us.
(Thanks to William Pfaff in "Truthdig" for the scoop of truth above.)
5 comments:
It's hard to tell anymore where metaphor ends and reality takes over. But if the addict metaphor is real, and it is addict reality, then we have to hit rock bottom, as you know...as we've said over and over, frightened by what we know is coming.
The spiritual power can only take over after we let go of the power our drugs have over us.
What we really need is a post-addiction plan for living.
I can guarantee you that we won't just change overnight.
So how will we live? I never thought about it before.
Hey!
Do you see a parallel between addict behavior and Bush Administration behavior in the lead up to Iraq?
In particular, the lies the addicts tell to their enablers.
Problem is, Montag, will hitting rock bottom convince the country that it is indeed addicted? I'm not sanguine. This addiction is terminal, because it will destroy us before we hit bottom--which would be defined how, do you think? What is bottom? When we have American troops in 170 countries? We're already there. When we spend 57 percent of the national budget on the military? We're already there. When our politicians and president can still say with a straight face that the US is a moral force in the world? We're already there.
Actually, the parallel with Iraq war lies doesn't work that well for me. I see that as lies the addict tells to himself, since it's the entire population that's addicted, not just the leaders. Those people simply reflect us and make public the disease.
I don't think the American people are addicted; it is the American government that is addicted and the people seem to go along with it without much protest.
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