Mike Sauers December 19, 2022
Recently, I attended a Jerry Seinfeld Show. He was funny without being crude or vulgar. He let us know that, at this point in his life, he is fed up with everything. On reflection, I can see his point. We, as individuals and collectively, are virtually powerless to bring about meaningful and significant change in a timely fashion. I’m going to use the “baby boomers” as an example but we are all in this together.
I am a boomer. Boomers have perspective. We are old. We have witnessed significant events. We have attempted to bring about change. We have put dents in the armor of the critical mass intellect that controls our collective journey but largely we have been steamrolled.
The war mongers have prevailed. Our history is replete with conflict. We have protested, organized, voted, and got ourselves elected but we have failed. Perhaps it is just the nature of sapiens to thrive on conflict. We have a tendency toward violence and greed. We simply have not been able to bring about a world of peace where there is no war, poverty, environmental destruction, sexism, racism, speciesism, etc. Is it naive to entertain the notion of world peace? Can we not envision a non competitive economic system that encourages viable population numbers, eliminates starvation, ends homelessness, treads lightly on nature, celebrates human civility and cooperation and views war as a cruel curse against our children?
We have elected representatives who have swallowed and perpetuate the military/industrial/congressional view of never ending war. They couch it in assertions of national security, world order and conflict deterrence. “Capitalism versus communism” is their mantra. They do not even consider alternatives. For them it is all about control. Military/defense/intelligence expenditures are obscene. Politicians openly refer to our weapons industries as “jobs” programs. I believe it was Calvin Coolidge who said, and I paraphrase, “The business of America is business.” It is what we are about. Virtually all presidents have followed that thinking. At the end of his presidency, Dwight Eisenhower, a celebrated military man, warned us about the military/industrial complex. John Kennedy spoke openly about world peace that makes a life worth living and is not driven by American weapons of war. Of course, we know he was assassinated. Scholars speculate that his stance on world peace and his reluctance to follow military advisors regarding nuclear strikes and Vietnam contributed to his death. No one believes the Warren Commission Report. After 60 years the US government has still not released ALL of the records regarding the assassination of JFK. Why? I’ll leave that for you to ponder.
The war industry and corporate welfare are detrimental to human advancement. They steal money from education, arts, community, nature and quality of life endeavors.They stifle human progress. We have tried but we have failed. Younger generations now must take up the fight. Somehow, somewhere, someday sanity may rule the day. Perhaps a technological or genetic fix will right the ship? We should not resign ourselves to running around with our hair on fire. We boomers are slowly exiting the stage. We leave a legacy of attempts to rein in the beast of war. Younger generations should talk to us before we die. We are scarred by trauma. Assassinations, most notably, JFK but also MLK, RFK, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and others have cut us deep. Wars, most notably Vietnam but also Iraq and Afghanistan have singed us. We have endured climate destruction, mass shootings, environmental degradation, overpopulation, political crimes, regime change wars, etc. We have caught the US government lying/denying/obfuscating about all of the above. They refuse to release information. Sometimes the information is given to us by whistleblowers (a term re-coined by Ralph Nader). Folks like Daniel Ellsberg, Chelsea Manning, Frank Serpico, Ernest Fitzgerald, Karen Silkwood, Edward Snowden and scores of other individuals who were morally compelled to tell what they knew. Wow!
All food for thought. Much more could be said but the point is made. Do some research.