“Greatness”

I keep hoping this national passion for “greatness” will begin to re-focus their world-leading (by a massive margin), world record $648 billion warfare budget on something more useful and productive like saving the quality of the thin layer of protective and nurturing atmosphere we share with each other each day — or — like birth control (if given leave by the Pope and his colleagues). I’m just hoping we can find a kinder, less destructive way to lessen the impact of human overpopulation on our small and interconnected world.

After all, the basic problem is that the top predator has been many times too successful and has put the balance of nature completely out-of-whack. Something will have to stop this runaway overproduction of human beings and voluntary but supported birth control seems a rather enticing alternative to starvation, genocide or warfare. And if we can’t do it that way, there’s the possibility of worldwide nuclear devastation, which will (aside from the obliteration of all major cities and areas of military significance) leave several millennia of fast-tracked mutations that will make the Covid-19 pandemic seem insignificant.

At what point are we willing to accept the “equality” we so loudly proclaimed to the world in 1776? At what point do we concede our “superpower” status, our veto power in the United Nations, and our unique authority to decide which nations cannot have nuclear weapons and which nations are free to spread them across the oceans, seas, and continents of our fragile planet?

At what point are we willing to accept the reality of equality in the substance of our foreign policies? When do we stop ourselves from violating Third World Sovereignty? We’ve never invaded Russia despite their clear violations of Hungary’s sovereignty and independence in 1956. Since China got powerful, we’ve tiptoed around China despite her hostile takeover of Tibet and attempt (just subsequent to ours) to take over Vietnam. So clearly our ACTUAL reasons for our aggressions in the Third World are quite different from our STATED reasons. When we do intervene, it is to install kings or dictators. And, when democracy takes over a country such as the duly-elected Nicaraguan government, our leaders have gone rogue (Iran Contra) to subvert democracy when it doesn’t conform to their preferences.

While we state that democracy is our goal, the entire right wing in the United States is trying to further subvert a system already weighted against the will of the majority. After all, Hillary won the popular vote by a good 3 million votes and Biden won by 7 million! Whatever the right wing is in favor of, it isn’t the will of the majority; it isn’t empowering voters; and it isn’t “making the world safe…” for democracy or any other form of legitimate governance. Our government has been consistently lessening our safety since they invented the atomic bomb and used it to try and terrify the rest of the world.

And, lest you think I’m advocating less government, the power behind these actions is big business and their control of media and massive influence in funding campaigns and Political Action Committees that buy congressmen and senators lock, stock and barrel.

The most effective, the most culpable act of terrorism in all of written history was the secret creation of the atomic bomb and the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima! NATO is, for the most part, an alliance of colonizers for the purpose of supporting each others’ colonial acquisitions. And its predecessors, both Axis and Alliance, were similar multi-nation treaties created for supporting colonial expansion. The Louisiana Purchase was also an agreement about colonial rights within the North American continent — as was the Alaskan Purchase, “Seward’s Folly.”