White Noise

“Well, the devil’s in the alley/mule’s in the stall

say anything you wanna/I have heard it all”   Bob Dylan

I paid my tithe to the American war machine this week, ahead of the April 15 deadline. According to a report I read, in 2014 an astonishing 27% of tax payments in this failing empire went to the military. Let that figure settle for a moment. Twelve years since the US invaded Iraq on false pretenses and set off a chain reaction of events that have led to a new enemy in the Middle East: ISIS or ISIL, the bad guys, the evil ones. Our policy – if our ad hoc actions can be called a policy – is to support Israel and Saudi Arabia and Egypt at all costs and in any context, and to find common cause with Iran, when it suits our strategic purposes, but to reserve the right to turn around and accuse Iran of being the gravest threat to world peace since Nazi Germany.

Schizophrenia?

Martin Luther King warned back in 1967 that America’s militarism was a threat to the American soul. Any doubters? As our hold on world power weakens we become more belligerent, ever prepared to seek solutions by brute force – and to hell with the consequences and casualties. How many Iraqis perished during our invasion and occupation? A million people? Two million? Was an accurate count even made? How many innocent Afghans has the US killed during the past fourteen years? I know, who cares about Afghans? Mothers, grandmothers, aunts, babies, toddlers, children – their desire for life, liberty and the pursuit of peace is somehow inferior to ours, because we are the exceptional nation, the indispensible nation, the nation with the biggest stick and the means to use it. We exempt ourselves from those laws and standards we find burdensome.

Despite our dismal experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan, some members of Congress agitate and advocate for a US strike against Iran. The same members of Congress allow Bibi Netanyahu to use their chamber as a bully pulpit for his political and strategic purposes; they stand and cheer, whistle and stomp, as if Bibi were the second coming of George Washington.

And the Obama Administration continues to arm the world with the latest hardware. War is good business, sales are booming, and as surely as the seasons, some of these weapons will one day be turned against us or our “partners.”

Riverside Church, 1967, the unmistakable voice of Dr. King reverberates and rolls down the canyon of decades, and our leaders and commentators and wise men pay no more attention now than they did then.