Ascendio!

I've been thinking about it for a long time and I think everybody's ready for a dose of real, homegrown, disgruntled American citizen reality:

Damn are we ever in a tight spot.


For close to 200 years, the United States set the example for empire building. Right at the beginning, we flipped England the bird and fought for the chance to do it our way, right away. We tripled our territory in less than a hundred years after that. We flipped England the bird again in 1812 while the White House was burning and then did it to 500,000 of our fathers and brothers 50 years later. At the dawn of the 20th century, we were setting ourselves up to be what many consider us today: The big bully holding all the guns and forcing dissenters to embrace freedom. In the Great War (World War I) we came in late, emerging from an overlong period of dealing with the fallout from the Civil War, and cleaned up a raging European battle in a single year. We lost more people to the flu than we did to combat. 23 years later, we were compelled into another conflict by a devastatingly bold attack on our sovereignty in the Pacific theater: Pearl Harbor. World War II marked the second highest American death toll in combat ever.

But something happened after that. Things got worse.


In the 50's we got involved in Korea and in the 60's Vietnam. Sometime in the 70's, we became focused on the Middle East and we haven't stopped fussing about it since. Maybe somebody put out a report that American oil reserves were lower than previously realized, which led to rapid inflation of gas prices and consumer outcry. Fertile petroleum deposits were available in the ME, and we began a campaign to secure them. All kinds of weird things happened over there in the eighties: the Iran Contra Affair, American CIA training Al Qaida operatives to counter the Russian incursion in Afghanistan, Desert Storm. Suddenly in the 90's we were up in arms about Rwanda and Kosovo, but the 2001 attacks on American soil got our attention again and we have since been engaged in continuous military efforts to democratize the region and eliminate criminal insurgents.

And now Iran is in the picture. Again.


Before I continue, let me explain a few personal things. Firstly, I refuse to refer to Al Qaida as a 'terrorist' organization. It's a misnomer designed to freak people out. Terror-this, terror-that. The word has lost almost all of it's meaning. The leadership here will certainly find a new word in the next decade to describe the same things. Terrorism is the use of violence against non-combatants to inspire fear within a region. plain and simple. So, Al Qaida has many terrorist tactics, but don't we all? Playground bullies beat up children so the other kids on the playground keep their distance and acquiesce to their whims. Parents tell their kids to eat there vegetables or the won't get any desert. The American upbringing is an acclimation of terrorist and extortionist policies. No wonder we have so many mental disorders and the highest ratio of inmates in our prisons per capita.

Secondly, I completely and wholly understand that while I may not be wholly aware of the impact the American colonization had on the indigenous populations of native tribal peoples, I want to try my best to sympathize with my readers. I acknowledge the empire-building on this continent has had a tragic and jaw-dropping impact on their culture, history, and genetics. I myself claim blood from three separate tribes. Sometimes I like to think that Columbus had failed to survive the trip or that the natives hadn't listened to tribal leaders that told them not to attack European regimes. But this post focuses on the American lifestyle and interventionist policies in the world today. If I get enough feedback about how poorly I portray the treatment of the First Nations, I'll go into what Andrew Jackson really did. But that's later.

So, terrorism. The use of violence against non-combatants, which is another term for civilians. Michael Walzer responded to a reply to his 2002 essay titled "After 9/11: Five Questions About Terrorism" that
"(t)here is also state terrorism, commonly used by authoritarian and totalitarian governments against their own people, to spread fear and make political opposition impossible[.]"


Occupy Wall Street, anyone?


There's a movement in the United States, seen or not seen but definitely intentional, to reduce opposition and create confusion, misdirection, and spread stupidity. It's a collusion between our representatives in Congress, the media, and corporations.

They want us dumb and submissive.


Welcome to the New Democratic Fascist Republic.


[If you happen to see a few white bars above, just highlight and scroll over them. Methinks I'm being censored somehow...]