Inspired outrage:: How can Trump be denied the Nobel Peace Prize for honestly renaming the Dept of Defense the Departmen of War.
And have we forgotten the one member of Congress out of 435 who voted against the War on Afghanistan, Barbara Lee, now the mayor of Oakland. She had promoted a proposal first announced by Dennis Kucinich as an aspirational signal renaming the Dept of Defense and naming it the Dept of Peace. She should have been the Secretary of Peace, but the patriarchy had a different tune to play....and now Trump known for lying is speaking the truth: the US military exists not to defend us but to wage war.
"She had proposed as an aspirational signal renaming the Dept of Defense and naming it the Dept of Peace." I'm glad that didn't happen. It would have been much too 1984 in which the Ministry of Peace administers perpetual war.
Look up the word aspirational; she was talking about a change in course, from war to peace. As Secretary of Peace, she would not have administered perpetual war. Since you were too lazy to consider how I labeled her proposal, I will help you out:
"Aspirational” generally means relating to a strong desire to achieve something high or ideal, or aiming toward a higher standard" That was her goal, and sadly, you have totally missed it.
Yes, the male -dominated system that has kept women out of positions of high power....often, as in the Trump cabinet, women chosen are chosen for their loyalty to the patriarchy.
So: when women are kept away from power, the patriarchy is to blame. When they are in power, it's the patriarchy that put them there. The patriarchy is always the culprit, whereas women are never to blame in first person, because if and when they do some evil thing, it's the patriarchy that made them do it. Correct?
It's kind of like Zionism, Trump could refuse to obey Netanyahu and the mossad. JFK did. You do as the boss (Aipac)says or you're fired. Typical hierarchial tyranny.
that sums it up: so long as people like Bondi and Noem are under the thumb of Trump, this will continue. For the last 12,000 yrs, after patriarchy replaced egalitarian nomadic communities, that has been the story. Your conclusion that this means women are never to blame in first person mislocates the focus from a system ruled by men (do you honestly deny that has been the case oveer 90% of the time?) to personal accountability. There have been powerful women such as Katherine the great and Margaret Thatcher but they are rare. Currently 167 countries are ruled by men, 27 by women.
Women leaders usually rule in a government dominated by men, for example: only about 25% of legislators in the world are women, 75% men. And for specifics:
Mexico: President Claudia Sheinbaum is female, but as of 2025, only about 36% of deputies in the Chamber of Deputies are women.
Iceland: Halla Tómasdóttir is president, yet the Althing still has a male majority (~55–60%).
Out of 200 nations, only two have a majority of women: Rwanda and Cuba (53%) in the legislative branch, which makes the laws, with 99% of the world's legislators dominated by men. The key feature of patriarchy is: "Male Leadership: Men occupy the majority of leadership positions in government, business, and religious institutions." That is indisputable.
So even in the less common times when a woman is the President, she must work with a government dominated by men. And since most governments are influenced by those with money, "Top positions in finance, business, and central banks are overwhelmingly male, even in female-led countries."
I think you have confused an analystical description of patriarchial rule as the norm with a condemnation of men. Most men don't rule, don't have power; like women, most men are victims of oligarchies most often dominated by men.
Here is the first rule of politics: He who pays the piper calls the tune. And so if we look at Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, we find that those calling he tune were mostly rich men: "The overwhelming majority of wealthy donors to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign were men. While precise percentages vary depending on the data source:
Estimates
Top 100 individual donors: Roughly 70–80% were men.
Corporate PAC-affiliated contributions: Also predominantly male, since the leadership of the contributing corporations and trade associations is mostly male." That explains how even when a woman like Clinton rises to power, it is the men who are calling the shots...ie patriarchy.
Imagine if ten years ago I told you an American President would fill his cabinet using the ex-staff of a right-wing TV network and other photogenic persons almost exclusively.
He wasn’t a conscientious objector. If he were, he could have gone to Canada. Instead, he got a phony “bone spurs” medical exemption because his family could afford to buy one.
You should not need to leave your home or country. You should force the criminals to fight their wars at their own expense, preferably elsewhere.
Tell us more about Ukraine.
If the Russian or Chinese governments established military bases along the Mexican and/or Canadian borders, or anywhere in Central America, what would the US government do?
Donald Trump did not object to war, anywhere for any reason. He did object to his personal performance in war until he could profit from it.
My comment was really not about the personality of Donald Trump. It was more to address the negative connotation of the term "draft dodger". Sounds like "anti-vaxxer" to me. Coercion to force people do what is not in their interests to serve someone else's agenda
I'd think Caitlin and more readers would actually appreciate the renaming of it. Instead of sanitized euphemisms for militarism that obfuscate the business they are in Trump actually brought us Truth in Advertising. A rarity in this day and age. It's not a "Defense" department. It IS a War department. It makes war around the world. Its actions around the globe are wars, not defense, as the previous title pretended. It should be applauded for its acknowledgement of the reality of what it does. Just sayin'.
She's reacting, not so much to the renaming, as to the glee with which that...geez, words fail me to describe the Hegseth creature--with which he preens, putting that plaque on his door instantly and posting it to social media. Look ma! What a big bad boy I am! I have hundreds of thousands of toy soldiers to play with now! And real tanks! At my word, lots and lots of real people will die!
Yesterday I watched a Planet Critical inter view with Luke Kemp, who studies ancient history. He said the evidence is that our ancestors did NOT kill the Neanderthals--they likely died out because of lack of genetic diversity, whereas our ancestors roamed far and wide, often changed groups, lived in bands of 100 to 200 people who were often not closely related...did all kinds of trade, and were generally egalitarian. There are even ancient cities that were egalitarian, no hierarchy. This matters, because we are told that xenophobia and hierarchy and violence are human nature, that we need strong centralized states to keep us in line or all hell would break out. He said the study of history is a study of organized crime. This answers the question, how did it come to this, where the people in charge of the most powerful empire ever, albeit one in decline--are all such caricatures, such monsters, such pathetic clowns? How different were the Democrats? They WERE different, more than Caitlin acknowledges, but the main difference was that they put a prettier VENEER over their reptilian heads. A pretense of democratic norms, the rule of law, concern about minorities, etc.The reality of their policies wasn't much different, and derives from the fact that sociopaths are much better at getting what they want than psychologically healthy people, because they aren't hampered by scruples--and want they want is generally wealth and/or power. The ones who come from poor and/or dark-skinned backgrounds, and the stupid ones, tend to end up in prison. The ones who come from wealthy white families and have at least normal intelligence, often end up in corporate boardrooms or Congress. The veneer coming off in January 2025, with obviously unqualified, often deranged people being put in powerful positions, is what happens when the empire is in decline.
"This answers the question, how did it come to this, where the people in charge of the most powerful empire ever, albeit one in decline--are all such caricatures, such monsters, such pathetic clowns? " This is pretty normal. What is valued is sycophants who won't rock the corruption boat. Gorbachev got where he was by charming the old Politburo guys vacationing in Sochi.
My "favorite" example is the Kosygin/Brezhnev decision. Max Frankel interviewed Kosygin and said it was like pitching batting practice to the Yankees. Alexi hit everything out of the park. Meanwhile, Brezhnev was demented. Once in an important speech he got to the bottom of a teleprompter page and started over again from the top. Brezhnev was chosen to "lead" the nation because he would never interfere with anyone's corruption. The Biden presidency reminded greatly of this.
I'm also told there is a strong tendency to hire people less capable than oneself. They aren't a threat to replace you.
I applaud the change of the name of the Department of Defense to revert to Department of War, as it was until 1946. I have long been fed up with the "Defense" hypocrisy. From now on we can call it "war spending" and "I'm employed in the war sector" and "we need to boost the war budget again."
There was a strong peace movement after World War II and the advent of the atom bomb but that was eighty years ago. All living memory of the awfulness has passed away. Meanwhile Big Money finds world war three highly attractive if not irresistible. Without politically organized opposition Big Money always gets what it wants. Both parties are all in on war. If you don't want that you'd better organize.
The reality of our world. It is militarized. Everywhere. Some cry defense, others cry pre-emptive, some cry peace through strength, unfortunately, they are all holding their "penis" shaped murderous toys in their hands, everywhere.
Their penis shape toys pierce the sky, the earth and the bodies of their fellow humans.
They are in competition with each other, like a pissing party, to see who has the biggest "penis" shaped toy that can do the most damage to the "other".
And our Dear Mother Earth is ravished by the consequences of their toys as they blame the life forms she pains to produce.
Global warming? Climate Change? Climate Catastrophe? Nuclear proliferation treaties? No bombs, missiles, nuclear submarines, warships, aircraft carriers, stealth bombers, bunker buster bombs, F-16's, fighter jets, weapons manufacturers....... nope, nope and nope.. Their destructive toys shaped like "penises" are so much more important than saving their Mother, Our Mother... Each blast is jizz upon her face. An assault on her ability to conceive.
They are the wretched of the earth, yet their Mother, our Mother continues to give birth to them, all of them and their wretched minds that spend billions of dollars and collects millions upon millions of bodies dressed in murderous uniforms, strict, disciplined, defined, chiseled bodies of standing armies at the ready to kill, murder, displace, terrify and subdue the "others" that their Mother, our Mother produced.
Whatever they call it, as they manufacture these "penis" shaped toys or weapons of war and death, none of it bodes for a peaceful world. A world where their Mother, Our Mother, can conceive and produce beings who play with toys that make them drunk with love in their hearts. Unless deployed, those toys will just pile up in stock piles worth billions until someone gets the bright idea. What are we gonna do with all these "penis" shaped toys? And another person answers the question with glee, let's have a war! Pick a reason, any reason... Old "penis" shape toys become obsolete, like a withered old man. So they have to replace them and all the young folks who died in the last war, with new "penis" shaped weapons and new young folks who will gladly jizz on the face of their Mother, our Mother, and call it all peace through strength.
I love your spring poem, so real and of our times, so unsentimental. Though am awaiting the cicadas of the coming summer - will we still be here to hear them this year?
If I was a Calvinist I think I would interpret the current state of the West as a punishment from a deity.
In my parents’ era, life was hard, but opportunity was real. Technological change moved at a snail’s pace, and many working people saw communism as a viable alternative to the injustices that were part and parcel of the capitalist system. The Depression hit the weakest the hardest. War would be a harbinger of change that happened in plain sight that nobody saw.
The war restored industrial viability, and the harsh, abusive treatment of people looking for work had largely been checked by the continuing need for weapons and socks, so as the boys were recruited to kill Hitler or somebody else, the young women and mothers were given jobs in the brimming factories.
Against corporate plans, the Roosevelt administration conferred a substantial degree of economic stability upon the eager immigrant workers who believed they’d achieved their just rewards. A burgeoning middle class emerged, and all over, young Americans were making babies. This is where the euphoria of the parents became a toxin that the children ingested unaware.
The boomer generation has been called by a pseudo journalist “the greatest generation,” but it was really the sickest. Between the desperate immigrants petitioning for justice, and the adolescence of their pampered progeny, a vital truth had been exterminated, and it was replaced with a labyrinth of lies.
The impulse to listen and question and learn and decide was replaced by a voracious appetite to own. Schools were left to local communities where the blind are hired to lead the children to ensure their fitness for shopping. Television was the vehicle of the ruling elites, and it masterfully spoke to each single viewer as the only living soul. The very logic of television is to serve as a seductive invitation to learn who you really are, and to celebrate your worthiness to have whatever you want. This was a corporate wet dream.
While banana growing campesinos were organizing for a just social arrangement, the gringos from El Norte were assassinating their leaders and installing a puppet to hand their wealth to the wealthy colonialists. The Americans were largely unaware by design, but despite the best efforts of the political elites, idealistic intellectuals would write to inform the people, but the people were addled and comfortable, and bad news isn’t on their shopping list. So this is the brave new world where ignorance truly is blissful, and submitting is the only option.
First of all it is not the boomers who were called the Greatest Generation, but our parents; and secondly, your history ignores the reality that when the boomers were young, the older generation was wringing its hands that we wanted peace, love and marijuana instead of three piece suits and corporate offices. Nut enough of us had marinated in TV--I agree with you on that bit, and thank my mother for the hundredth time that I was an exception. When the hippie dream soured, and they had kids to support, most reverted to what their parents, the Greatest Generation people wanted them to be.
Zionism knows the power of religion to achieve its fascist glory, and Zionists praise the power of fascism (Romans, Spartans, Zionist, and Slavery); which, in turn, makes reality of the gullibility and ignorance of the populace and utilizes religion to achieve clearly antagonistic ends, in order to solidify power (this clearly applies to Christian Zionists as well). And again, like Mussolini:
“It is a well-known ability of viciousness to mimic the appearances of virtue and truth; else, should evil look as ugly as it is, its power upon humans would be small. This favorite guile of the fiend has long been adumbrated in the allegory introducing Satan as a handsome angel, nay, the handsomest in all the celestial array. Accordingly, the first section of Mussolini’s dissertation smuggled the anarchy and tyranny of the One as a remedy against the disintegrating individualism of many; while the latter section disguises lust for carnage and sadistic glory as heroism, nay, as the only possible redemption from cowardice and selfishness.
“It should have come out clearly for the readers and for the author as well that it is not the amount which decides the quality of human energy. Such phrases as “the maximum of tension” or “the storm i the people’s hearts” are liquor spilt from a cheap romantic cask. It used to be intoxicating; it is now lees and sourness. Were the amount or violence of explosive energy the measure for human conduct, the fury of the arsonist should seem better than the architect’s endurance and the rapist should be above the saint.” (ibid)
Inspired outrage:: How can Trump be denied the Nobel Peace Prize for honestly renaming the Dept of Defense the Departmen of War.
And have we forgotten the one member of Congress out of 435 who voted against the War on Afghanistan, Barbara Lee, now the mayor of Oakland. She had promoted a proposal first announced by Dennis Kucinich as an aspirational signal renaming the Dept of Defense and naming it the Dept of Peace. She should have been the Secretary of Peace, but the patriarchy had a different tune to play....and now Trump known for lying is speaking the truth: the US military exists not to defend us but to wage war.
"She had proposed as an aspirational signal renaming the Dept of Defense and naming it the Dept of Peace." I'm glad that didn't happen. It would have been much too 1984 in which the Ministry of Peace administers perpetual war.
Now Trump can, instead of saying, "Israel has a right to defend itself",
be more up front,
****************"Israel has a right to make war".******************
Even that would be propaganda. A "war" implies that both sides have armies.
And also an affront to Dennis Kucinich, who tried to start a real Department of Peace back in the day.
Yes, it was Kucinich who proposed it and Lee was one of the few who promoted it. Thank you for the correction.
Look up the word aspirational; she was talking about a change in course, from war to peace. As Secretary of Peace, she would not have administered perpetual war. Since you were too lazy to consider how I labeled her proposal, I will help you out:
"Aspirational” generally means relating to a strong desire to achieve something high or ideal, or aiming toward a higher standard" That was her goal, and sadly, you have totally missed it.
I don't tolerate insults. Blocked.
The patriarchy?
Yes, the male -dominated system that has kept women out of positions of high power....often, as in the Trump cabinet, women chosen are chosen for their loyalty to the patriarchy.
So: when women are kept away from power, the patriarchy is to blame. When they are in power, it's the patriarchy that put them there. The patriarchy is always the culprit, whereas women are never to blame in first person, because if and when they do some evil thing, it's the patriarchy that made them do it. Correct?
It's kind of like Zionism, Trump could refuse to obey Netanyahu and the mossad. JFK did. You do as the boss (Aipac)says or you're fired. Typical hierarchial tyranny.
that sums it up: so long as people like Bondi and Noem are under the thumb of Trump, this will continue. For the last 12,000 yrs, after patriarchy replaced egalitarian nomadic communities, that has been the story. Your conclusion that this means women are never to blame in first person mislocates the focus from a system ruled by men (do you honestly deny that has been the case oveer 90% of the time?) to personal accountability. There have been powerful women such as Katherine the great and Margaret Thatcher but they are rare. Currently 167 countries are ruled by men, 27 by women.
Women leaders usually rule in a government dominated by men, for example: only about 25% of legislators in the world are women, 75% men. And for specifics:
Mexico: President Claudia Sheinbaum is female, but as of 2025, only about 36% of deputies in the Chamber of Deputies are women.
Iceland: Halla Tómasdóttir is president, yet the Althing still has a male majority (~55–60%).
Out of 200 nations, only two have a majority of women: Rwanda and Cuba (53%) in the legislative branch, which makes the laws, with 99% of the world's legislators dominated by men. The key feature of patriarchy is: "Male Leadership: Men occupy the majority of leadership positions in government, business, and religious institutions." That is indisputable.
So even in the less common times when a woman is the President, she must work with a government dominated by men. And since most governments are influenced by those with money, "Top positions in finance, business, and central banks are overwhelmingly male, even in female-led countries."
I think you have confused an analystical description of patriarchial rule as the norm with a condemnation of men. Most men don't rule, don't have power; like women, most men are victims of oligarchies most often dominated by men.
Here is the first rule of politics: He who pays the piper calls the tune. And so if we look at Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, we find that those calling he tune were mostly rich men: "The overwhelming majority of wealthy donors to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign were men. While precise percentages vary depending on the data source:
Estimates
Top 100 individual donors: Roughly 70–80% were men.
Corporate PAC-affiliated contributions: Also predominantly male, since the leadership of the contributing corporations and trade associations is mostly male." That explains how even when a woman like Clinton rises to power, it is the men who are calling the shots...ie patriarchy.
Thank you. We need more poetics, even grim with the macabre reality of decaying empire.
It's a fucking clown show!
Imagine if ten years ago I told you an American President would fill his cabinet using the ex-staff of a right-wing TV network and other photogenic persons almost exclusively.
You would have called me an idiot.
Or that twice times draft dodger would be president and change the defence department into the war department?
Dodging imperial genocidal war is a virtue in my book
He wasn’t a conscientious objector. If he were, he could have gone to Canada. Instead, he got a phony “bone spurs” medical exemption because his family could afford to buy one.
Who cares. Whatever works. Why do I have to flee my country because some criminals want me to fight a war for them? Look at Ukraine
You should not need to leave your home or country. You should force the criminals to fight their wars at their own expense, preferably elsewhere.
Tell us more about Ukraine.
If the Russian or Chinese governments established military bases along the Mexican and/or Canadian borders, or anywhere in Central America, what would the US government do?
Donald Trump did not object to war, anywhere for any reason. He did object to his personal performance in war until he could profit from it.
My comment was really not about the personality of Donald Trump. It was more to address the negative connotation of the term "draft dodger". Sounds like "anti-vaxxer" to me. Coercion to force people do what is not in their interests to serve someone else's agenda
The US created the entire proxy war in Ukraine. You know that right? It was the Department of WAR from 1789 to 1947.
Like in Gaza?
He said he would end the wars. How many fools believe that?
Nobody in Iran.
I'd think Caitlin and more readers would actually appreciate the renaming of it. Instead of sanitized euphemisms for militarism that obfuscate the business they are in Trump actually brought us Truth in Advertising. A rarity in this day and age. It's not a "Defense" department. It IS a War department. It makes war around the world. Its actions around the globe are wars, not defense, as the previous title pretended. It should be applauded for its acknowledgement of the reality of what it does. Just sayin'.
It maybe an eye opener for those who still believe somehow in the US as a force for good. Nomore this defence pretense!
They're never wars now, just one-sided vicious attacks perpetrated by insanely greedy and power-mad fiends, zombies with no hearts.
Never wars...and forever wars.
Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues again.
If all are wars then none are wars. And vice-versa.
this shift away from "defense" is a good thing imo, and I dont consider myself some accelerationist either - the DOD name was always a fucking joke
I prefer his blatant bigotry. imperialism, and corruption to the covert style. It is waking up some people.
She's reacting, not so much to the renaming, as to the glee with which that...geez, words fail me to describe the Hegseth creature--with which he preens, putting that plaque on his door instantly and posting it to social media. Look ma! What a big bad boy I am! I have hundreds of thousands of toy soldiers to play with now! And real tanks! At my word, lots and lots of real people will die!
Yesterday I watched a Planet Critical inter view with Luke Kemp, who studies ancient history. He said the evidence is that our ancestors did NOT kill the Neanderthals--they likely died out because of lack of genetic diversity, whereas our ancestors roamed far and wide, often changed groups, lived in bands of 100 to 200 people who were often not closely related...did all kinds of trade, and were generally egalitarian. There are even ancient cities that were egalitarian, no hierarchy. This matters, because we are told that xenophobia and hierarchy and violence are human nature, that we need strong centralized states to keep us in line or all hell would break out. He said the study of history is a study of organized crime. This answers the question, how did it come to this, where the people in charge of the most powerful empire ever, albeit one in decline--are all such caricatures, such monsters, such pathetic clowns? How different were the Democrats? They WERE different, more than Caitlin acknowledges, but the main difference was that they put a prettier VENEER over their reptilian heads. A pretense of democratic norms, the rule of law, concern about minorities, etc.The reality of their policies wasn't much different, and derives from the fact that sociopaths are much better at getting what they want than psychologically healthy people, because they aren't hampered by scruples--and want they want is generally wealth and/or power. The ones who come from poor and/or dark-skinned backgrounds, and the stupid ones, tend to end up in prison. The ones who come from wealthy white families and have at least normal intelligence, often end up in corporate boardrooms or Congress. The veneer coming off in January 2025, with obviously unqualified, often deranged people being put in powerful positions, is what happens when the empire is in decline.
"This answers the question, how did it come to this, where the people in charge of the most powerful empire ever, albeit one in decline--are all such caricatures, such monsters, such pathetic clowns? " This is pretty normal. What is valued is sycophants who won't rock the corruption boat. Gorbachev got where he was by charming the old Politburo guys vacationing in Sochi.
My "favorite" example is the Kosygin/Brezhnev decision. Max Frankel interviewed Kosygin and said it was like pitching batting practice to the Yankees. Alexi hit everything out of the park. Meanwhile, Brezhnev was demented. Once in an important speech he got to the bottom of a teleprompter page and started over again from the top. Brezhnev was chosen to "lead" the nation because he would never interfere with anyone's corruption. The Biden presidency reminded greatly of this.
I'm also told there is a strong tendency to hire people less capable than oneself. They aren't a threat to replace you.
I applaud the change of the name of the Department of Defense to revert to Department of War, as it was until 1946. I have long been fed up with the "Defense" hypocrisy. From now on we can call it "war spending" and "I'm employed in the war sector" and "we need to boost the war budget again."
There was a strong peace movement after World War II and the advent of the atom bomb but that was eighty years ago. All living memory of the awfulness has passed away. Meanwhile Big Money finds world war three highly attractive if not irresistible. Without politically organized opposition Big Money always gets what it wants. Both parties are all in on war. If you don't want that you'd better organize.
The secretary of insanity is an incompetent, overbearing, ignorant racist drunk. Fits right in with the orange freak
And lech....wife around to be sure his zipper stays up...
"their minds buzzing with Palantir porn,
their lips casting spells of Raytheon and ruin."
That's how I see the denizens of the Pentagon, too.
I sincerely hope the Secretary of War falls into his bottle of Jameson and never crawls out.
There's plenty more where he came from.
Great poem, Caitlin!
The reality of our world. It is militarized. Everywhere. Some cry defense, others cry pre-emptive, some cry peace through strength, unfortunately, they are all holding their "penis" shaped murderous toys in their hands, everywhere.
Their penis shape toys pierce the sky, the earth and the bodies of their fellow humans.
They are in competition with each other, like a pissing party, to see who has the biggest "penis" shaped toy that can do the most damage to the "other".
And our Dear Mother Earth is ravished by the consequences of their toys as they blame the life forms she pains to produce.
Global warming? Climate Change? Climate Catastrophe? Nuclear proliferation treaties? No bombs, missiles, nuclear submarines, warships, aircraft carriers, stealth bombers, bunker buster bombs, F-16's, fighter jets, weapons manufacturers....... nope, nope and nope.. Their destructive toys shaped like "penises" are so much more important than saving their Mother, Our Mother... Each blast is jizz upon her face. An assault on her ability to conceive.
They are the wretched of the earth, yet their Mother, our Mother continues to give birth to them, all of them and their wretched minds that spend billions of dollars and collects millions upon millions of bodies dressed in murderous uniforms, strict, disciplined, defined, chiseled bodies of standing armies at the ready to kill, murder, displace, terrify and subdue the "others" that their Mother, our Mother produced.
Whatever they call it, as they manufacture these "penis" shaped toys or weapons of war and death, none of it bodes for a peaceful world. A world where their Mother, Our Mother, can conceive and produce beings who play with toys that make them drunk with love in their hearts. Unless deployed, those toys will just pile up in stock piles worth billions until someone gets the bright idea. What are we gonna do with all these "penis" shaped toys? And another person answers the question with glee, let's have a war! Pick a reason, any reason... Old "penis" shape toys become obsolete, like a withered old man. So they have to replace them and all the young folks who died in the last war, with new "penis" shaped weapons and new young folks who will gladly jizz on the face of their Mother, our Mother, and call it all peace through strength.
I love your spring poem, so real and of our times, so unsentimental. Though am awaiting the cicadas of the coming summer - will we still be here to hear them this year?
Ah, yes, your summer is coming Down Under! And we're about to welcome fall.
Yeah. I hear them roaring right now.
Wow!
If I was a Calvinist I think I would interpret the current state of the West as a punishment from a deity.
In my parents’ era, life was hard, but opportunity was real. Technological change moved at a snail’s pace, and many working people saw communism as a viable alternative to the injustices that were part and parcel of the capitalist system. The Depression hit the weakest the hardest. War would be a harbinger of change that happened in plain sight that nobody saw.
The war restored industrial viability, and the harsh, abusive treatment of people looking for work had largely been checked by the continuing need for weapons and socks, so as the boys were recruited to kill Hitler or somebody else, the young women and mothers were given jobs in the brimming factories.
Against corporate plans, the Roosevelt administration conferred a substantial degree of economic stability upon the eager immigrant workers who believed they’d achieved their just rewards. A burgeoning middle class emerged, and all over, young Americans were making babies. This is where the euphoria of the parents became a toxin that the children ingested unaware.
The boomer generation has been called by a pseudo journalist “the greatest generation,” but it was really the sickest. Between the desperate immigrants petitioning for justice, and the adolescence of their pampered progeny, a vital truth had been exterminated, and it was replaced with a labyrinth of lies.
The impulse to listen and question and learn and decide was replaced by a voracious appetite to own. Schools were left to local communities where the blind are hired to lead the children to ensure their fitness for shopping. Television was the vehicle of the ruling elites, and it masterfully spoke to each single viewer as the only living soul. The very logic of television is to serve as a seductive invitation to learn who you really are, and to celebrate your worthiness to have whatever you want. This was a corporate wet dream.
While banana growing campesinos were organizing for a just social arrangement, the gringos from El Norte were assassinating their leaders and installing a puppet to hand their wealth to the wealthy colonialists. The Americans were largely unaware by design, but despite the best efforts of the political elites, idealistic intellectuals would write to inform the people, but the people were addled and comfortable, and bad news isn’t on their shopping list. So this is the brave new world where ignorance truly is blissful, and submitting is the only option.
First of all it is not the boomers who were called the Greatest Generation, but our parents; and secondly, your history ignores the reality that when the boomers were young, the older generation was wringing its hands that we wanted peace, love and marijuana instead of three piece suits and corporate offices. Nut enough of us had marinated in TV--I agree with you on that bit, and thank my mother for the hundredth time that I was an exception. When the hippie dream soured, and they had kids to support, most reverted to what their parents, the Greatest Generation people wanted them to be.
Thank you, Mary for reading and correcting my mistake.
Hegseth looked in the mirror and realized he has a right to self defense.
I'd say he knew his job was to wage war.
The way I see him, he would have been quite disappointed otherwise.
Zionism knows the power of religion to achieve its fascist glory, and Zionists praise the power of fascism (Romans, Spartans, Zionist, and Slavery); which, in turn, makes reality of the gullibility and ignorance of the populace and utilizes religion to achieve clearly antagonistic ends, in order to solidify power (this clearly applies to Christian Zionists as well). And again, like Mussolini:
“It is a well-known ability of viciousness to mimic the appearances of virtue and truth; else, should evil look as ugly as it is, its power upon humans would be small. This favorite guile of the fiend has long been adumbrated in the allegory introducing Satan as a handsome angel, nay, the handsomest in all the celestial array. Accordingly, the first section of Mussolini’s dissertation smuggled the anarchy and tyranny of the One as a remedy against the disintegrating individualism of many; while the latter section disguises lust for carnage and sadistic glory as heroism, nay, as the only possible redemption from cowardice and selfishness.
“It should have come out clearly for the readers and for the author as well that it is not the amount which decides the quality of human energy. Such phrases as “the maximum of tension” or “the storm i the people’s hearts” are liquor spilt from a cheap romantic cask. It used to be intoxicating; it is now lees and sourness. Were the amount or violence of explosive energy the measure for human conduct, the fury of the arsonist should seem better than the architect’s endurance and the rapist should be above the saint.” (ibid)
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Very well said.
Powerful words and excellent description in all the chaos
Recall George Orwell's 1984, in which the Ministry of Peace administers perpetual war.