Strange Days Indeed!
By Timothy V. Gatto
20 October, 2014
Countercurrents.org
"Nobody told me there would be days like this, nobody told me there would be days like this, Nobody told me there would be days like this, strange days indeed! Most peculiar Momma...whoa!" (John Lennon)
The United States of America is in crisis. This is not opinion, this is a cold hard fact. Some may say that this nation is an "Exceptional" nation and it is the "Indispensable Nation" in regard to the rest of the world. I myself take "exception" to that. I would like to remind President Obama that claiming these things does nothing but irritate the rest of the planet.
No nation is exceptional. No nation is indispensable. All nations are exceptional in their own ways and all nations are indispensable as the human race now lives in a world that has a global economy that is interconnected more now than at any other time in history. The fact is, we are all connected and not just through the mainstream media. We talk to people from other nations through Skype, Facebook, Twitter and other social media. We read each others articles on the internet and those fortunate enough to take advantage of the information revolution happening throughout the World are also smart enough to see through Washington's propaganda.
Many Americans can see right through the current vilification of Russia and the indirect vilification of The People's Republic of China. Some of us do understand the reasons behind this and believe me when I say this, but the American public interest is not being served by this evil and pointless charade. There are those in his country that understand the concept of "full spectrum dominance" and the majority of people that do understand this have no desire to become part of an "American Empire".
At this point in time, at this juncture of history, it is becoming apparent that America's plan for controlling the planet for the interests of its military industrial banking complex is falling apart, and falling apart quickly. The schemes that have led to the partition of Iraq, Syria and Ukraine have backfired and the US is simply not equipped to deal with the blowback.
When you destroyed Yugoslavia as an independent nation and succeed in establishing your client state of Kosovo (which most nations do not recognize) and established one of the largest military bases in the World (Camp Bondsteel), I imagine that your military planners believed that this could be a blueprint for future operations. I think that you people in Washington are having doubts about that approach in the wake of what is happening on the global front.
What is pitiful is that most Americans have no memory of what you did in the former Yugoslavia. Most have little memory of the lies told about Iraq that led to the deaths of over 4,000 US servicemen and the loss of upwards of 17 Trillion dollars of taxpayer money. This was our money that could have been spent in our country for the betterment of our citizens, but no, military planners and the military defense contractors had to fill their pockets at our expense. We accomplished absolutely nothing.
The Obama administration can blame the Bush administration for the situation in the Middle East but in reality, the Obama Administration is just as culpable, maybe even more so. The drone strikes in Yemen and Somalia and God knows where else have led and contributed to the unrest in the Middle East and ISIS or ISIL or whatever you want to call it is just a symptom of this irrational foreign policy.
The domestic side of the equation is equally horrible. The fear mongering of the American people is getting quite old. We are constantly under threat we are told, ranging from Al Qaida to Gaddafi to Al Nusra and now Russia and IS. There is no wonder that this has spawned thousands of "survivalists" and home-grown militias. The old maxim is that nations use an outside threat to keep their people's minds off of their own problems internally. The real story is that the infrastructure of this nation is falling apart.
While we spend trillions facing outside threats and paying trillions more to our "allies" like the despotic regimes in Saudi Arabia and Israel and Egypt, Detroit goes bankrupt and the mainstream media totally ignores it. When an American city goes bankrupt, isn't that proof that there is a problem? How is it that the Federal Government ignores this?
Let's talk about the majority of citizen's in this so-called "Exceptional" nation. Why is it that our high school graduates are functionally illiterate? I worked at two community colleges for years and saw their papers and the blackboards in the classrooms. I was appalled! I've seen better work from six graders! We have fallen so far behind the rest of the World it is absolutely unconscionable! This is nothing compared to the larger problem we face in this nation.
We all realize that for the richest nation on Earth, we have an amazingly high number of people are jobless or are working crappy jobs with no benefits and are having a hard time making ends meet. The head of the Fed, Janet Yellen said that the disparity of wealth in the United States is at its worst level in 100 years! The bottom 80% of "We the people" have only 7% of the total wealth! Many of us work two lousy jobs just to feed our families and pay our rent or mortgage and utilities. (Which by the way, are not falling with the price of gas).
"Today the top 1 percent of Americans control 43 percent of the financial wealth (see the pie chart below) while the bottom 80 percent control only 7 percent of the wealth. Incredibly, the wealthiest 400 Americans have the same combined wealth as the poorest half of Americans — over 150 million people." http://currydemocrats.org/american-pie/
We imprison our people and outsource these prisons to private corporations so that they can make a profit off of incarcerated inmates. This is capitalism at its finest. We have more of a percentage of our people in prison than any other nation on Earth! Are we such a bad society that we must jail our people? Is it this the "Exceptional" Obama talks about?
Look, I know that most people won't read this, they are too busy working their asses off and watching corporate propaganda on TV. All I know is that my government has no idea what it is doing. I have heard no direction coming from either corporately controlled political party. I have heard no direction from the present administration except more violence against people that are of little threat to most Americans. The things they threaten are the hegemonic interests of the United States and its corporate benefactors that put these people in office.
I wrote in an article that "discontent is cumulative". I am trying to warn our government that unless it starts working for the American people instead of trying to be the "greatest superpower the world has ever seen", people will understandably come to a watershed moment where they just won't put up with the status quo anymore. Most people I talk to are really sick and tired of both Democrats and Republicans. Congress has a 4% approval rating and the Executive branch is hovering around 30%. This in itself should be illuminating. Still, the government just doesn't get it.
More war, bombing campaigns, eventual "boots on the ground" and an ineffectual CDC allowing Ebola "mistakes" leading to more infections are on the short list of what is to come. Eventually we will show just how "exceptional" and "indispensable" we are by pushing either Russia or China into a corner and starting World War III. This is the path you people in Washington are leading us too. The sad part is that most people in America aren't really aware enough to notice.
Strange days Indeed! Most peculiar Mama, Whoa!
Tim Gatto is former Chairman of the Liberal Party of America, Tim is a retired Army Sergeant. He currently lives in South Carolina. He is the author of "Complicity to Contempt" and "Kimchee Days" available at Oliver Arts and Open Press. Tim Gatto's new book "Contempt to Outrage" will be available soon from Oliver Arts and Open
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