For all you out there reading this who already reject our current ‘Two Party, One Party‘ political con job, and understand that our nation is a Military Industrial Empire, the title above is not about YOU. However, this small (too small) group of us still has many friends and loved ones who are lost with no moral compass. We have associates, acquaintances, employers, coworkers and people we run into at the store or gas station who not only have no moral compass, but many are passionate defenders of this empire. The Why to this is most interesting and frightening.
A week or two ago a story broke about a high school football team hazing syndrome that regressed into sexual assaults by upperclassmen upon freshman players. Anal penetration was involved as many in the locker room (unsupervised by the way) cheered it on. When the news got out, the school board called an emergency meeting and immediately cancelled the rest of the season. Despite knowing of what transpired, there were parents of team members at that meeting who protested the action of the board. Some said the assaults did not warrant having the whole team suffer ‘no more football’. Of course, these parents were not given sodium pentothal and asked what they would do if it were their kid who was raped — because that is what it was — rape of a 14 year old by 17 and 18 year olds.
What the media failed (as usual) to discuss and dissect was what affect and effect did our overly militaristic society now play in such behavior by our young men. We have propaganda, second to only the Nazi machine, that has taught our young kids that the Muslim world is filled with rag heads and jihadists who wish to destroy our Judeo-Christian civilization. We have the primitive mindset of chants of ‘USA USA‘ as we conducted our Shock and Awe campaign on Iraq… and now parts of Syria and Iraq again. Our Drones shoot missiles that, like our WMDs in 2003, do terrible collateral damage destroying children in and out of the womb. Where are the Pro Life anti abortion folks to protest the taking of those lives? Yet, our Christian Warriors love the fact that we are ‘Fighting them there so they don’t come here’. (Of course, the 2003 group called Al-Qaeda at that time had maybe a few hundred in their ranks). After 10+ years of our jackboots on their necks, many inhabitants of that region joined up with this fanatical ISIS, who, by the way, our nation actually gave arms and support to when we needed them to overturn Assad of Syria. Whew!!
Let’s get back to the overly militaristic nature of our American society. We honor soldiers as heroes when, in reality, they are being used as invaders and occupiers in places they should never have been sent to! As with the Vietnam debacle, the real heroes are the young men and women who refused to be sent to the Middle East under these auspices. The real heroes are those of us who love this country enough to go out and stand in public to protest our nation’s actions. Yet, our kids, from the youngest of ages, are taught that obedience and discipline means never to question orders. Thus, as in the fine film A Few Good Men, how many football teams out there have coaches who encourage hazing and harassment as a way to make the weak strong? Violence has now been accepted by our leaders as the primary way to settle major diplomatic differences between nations, so why should our kids not emulate that?
What this writer has noticed these past few years is a new phenomenon: The Boot Camp! It started out to get troubled kids into a discipline by having them go through daily workouts echoing those done at Army or Marine boot camp. Then, they started to advertise this routine as a great way for kids to do physical exercise, while teaching them mental discipline. Then, it got so popular that aerobics professionals had the parents and any adult interested pay to be yelled out while working out. All in the name of obedience! What better way to introduce a police state than to get the public in line? How many cars with license plates saluting the military, or sporting events beginning with honor guards and huge flags before more of you out there realize that we are a nation that has completely lost its moral compass? Study the history of Germany, circa 1933-45 and see how the mirror is now looking back.
• First published in Nation of Change