A picture send me today by a group called Roots Action says a lot about our times compared to the 60’s when I became an adult. The picture, on side and below larger, symbolizes the major switch our country has gone through the last four decades from dreaming to conquering, from one war to ‘endless wars’. There was a sense of hope that we can change the world in the 60’s. The one war we were fighting was, in all his ugliness, was on our TV screen tonight and we were paying for the war. Today we have declared and undeclared endless wars and we are not, except our veterans and military people, paying for it.
In 2012 more active military died from suicides (343) than from our war in Afghanistan. Including suicides of veterans the number is earthshaking. Violence in our society has become endless with over 500 homicides last year in Chicago.
Going from the Dream of Martin Luther King Jr. to the Killer Drones of President Obama is a major change from a USA being seen as a nation of good will and good people to being viewed as an empire with military might.
The USA is responding to suicides of soldiers and veterans with more money for treatment rather than deal with its cause, the types of wars we fight today. Even operators of drones thousands of miles away from the battlefield are suffering the effects of killing by remote control. So rather than ban drones the USA is creating drones that will not need humans at the computer screen but kill by face recognition.
Martin Luther King Jr. sought to end segregation by bringing people together while now politicians set out to “divide and conquer” people from each other.
Johnson the president during the Vietnam War made great strides in civil and human rights in our society. Obama ignores the issues of racism and segregation while working on a “kill list” in the White House for countries like Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, countries we are not officially at war with. The new nominee for CIA director is the person who draws up the “kill list” for the President each week.
I have a dream that each person in need of bed, refrigerator and stove in Milwaukee will get one. This dream is considered foolish and not systematic. However, I considered this dream more effective and ending or slowing down the violence on our streets than the drones of law enforcement, jails and prisons.
We had a dream but now we have a drone.
Comments
(:commentboxchrono:)