Well, once again we have Veterans Day upon us. With it comes the preponderance of overt militarism and military propaganda. Tune into any sporting event on the boob tube and you get the camouflaged soldiers and ROTC students (if a college game) staring into the camera. After all, aren’t we at war, and have been for so long that the late great Gore Vidal named it ‘Perpetual War’?
What in the hell reason can the Pentagon and our War Economy have for making them dress in camouflage!? Isn’t that for when they are in the battle zones? Or perhaps they are getting us all ready, we the suckers… sorry, we the voters, for when the **** becomes too toxic and they declare martial law? Am I just a cynic or conspiracy nut, or is that not too far on the horizon? They already want to clamp down, legislatively, on street protest, which, in case you Neo Cons out there forgot, was what Ben Franklin labeled dissent as “The lifeblood of democracy”.
It is bad enough that the Neo Cons and what should be labeled the real Deep State did when they came up with the term Homeland after 9/11. They most likely wanted to use the term Fatherland but Joey boy Goebbels already patented it to give Hitler’s suckers.. sorry, voters, something to rally behind. It worked… in spades!
So, the Bush/Cheney Cabal and their handlers needed to get us in line, replete with a sea of flags hanging from our garages and lapels, as they did their Shock and Awe destruction of Iraq. Don’t forget John Yoo and Jay Bybee’s authorship, with Fredo Gonzales’s sign off, on the legitimatizing of torture, with their ‘End Run’ of the Geneva Accords. Just as with the carpet bombing of Iraq and the illegal occupations of both Iraq and Afghanistan, the ‘Colors of camouflage’ spontaneously generate throughout the world. Doesn’t matter if it’s a Bush , an Obama or now a Trump in the White House… Perpetual War continues at taxpayer and innocent civilians’ expense!
Is that the only purpose of this column? No, it just helps to explain why the precious ‘Safety Net’ that was stronger for so many generations is now shredded each and every day. Take the news stories about the homeless tent cities that ‘color in gray’ the landscapes of major metropolitan cities, and even smaller towns nationwide. Recently the city of Las Vegas, with a Democratic mayor and city council, passed an ordinance banning those tent cities of the homeless. Now, only a moron would disagree that many of those folks are in need of mental health aid. The remainder are either too broke to afford the higher costs of housing, and or are substance abusers in need of rehabilitation and counseling. Can’t happen folks! No funding! Yet, many of we suckers… sorry, voters, keep supporting the increases in those camouflaged uniforms. Perhaps Uncle Sam could sign up the lot of them and put them in camouflage. At least then they would have great medical care and psychological counseling, three squares a day and a clean bed to sleep in… all on your dime!
Isn’t Perpetual War great? Jay Bybee became a US Circuit court judge: John Yoo teaches at the U. of California at Berkeley; Fredo Gonzales is the Dean of Belmont University College of Law and teaches Constitutional law. Where is the outrage!? Or is Amerika some Woody Allen film?
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Philip A Farruggio is a son and grandson of Brooklyn , NYC longshoremen. He has been a free lance columnist since 2001, with over 400 of his work posted on sites like Global Research, Greanville Post, Off Guardian, Consortium News, Information Clearing House, Nation of Change, World News Trust, Op Ed News, Dissident Voice, Activist Post, Sleuth Journal, Truthout and many others. His blog can be read in full on World News Trust, whereupon he writes a great deal on the need to cut military spending drastically and send the savings back to save our cities. Philip has a internet interview show, ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid’ with producer Chuck Gregory, and can be reached at [email protected].
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