Living With War
Don Hynes
“Not only is another world possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” ~ Arundhati Roy
Of all the analyses of failed empire, even those positing collapse from within, few account for the psychic disintegration of a society living in a state of constant war. The exceptionalism that hallmarks presidential accolades upon their own nation, including the current chief executive’s, promote a triumphalism, a belief in invulnerability providing rationales for war and the volunteers to produce it. However, no amount of grandiose eloquence can undo the psychic damage that deteriorated every society devoted to aggression and foreign occupation since the days of Rome.
One of the unusual statistics facing our present dedication to militarism is the high degree of debilitating stress occurring in the Air Force operators of drone bombers who are neither in the country where their violence occurs or are in physical touch with the damage they inflict. However, the growing percentage of these men and women whose service is challenged because of traumatic stress is just the canary in the mine shaft of the American psyche.
The Bush Cheney junta forged a policy of never ending conflict after the horror of the September 11th mass murders. The tribalistic response they promoted produced a great deal of personal wealth for them and their corporate allies while dismissing an unbiased investigation of what really occurred and through whom. Worse however was their inculcation of permanent war through psychological attacks on the populace they were oath bound to protect via a complicit media and a political stranglehold on legislative oversight.
The various war like sports accepted as national pastimes are amplified through violent video games and war toys that inure our children to violence and suggest an acceptance of homicide to our next generation in order to support the empire with its array of military bases and armed forces on every continent.
The causa belli being corporate profiteering and the reason for the butcher bill paid across the heartland of America the acquisition of other countries natural resources are realities obscured by the wizard’s screen for the most part while flags unfurl and politicians intone nobility of sacrifice and security for the homeland.
As our economy eviscerates beneath the unsupportable weight of worldwide aggression and the systemic corruption that thrives upon it, the unrecognized disintegration is in the heart and soul of the culture itself. The church of football may rule on Sunday but no amount of bread and circus can contain the inner disease spawned by the violence of empire.
The media mouthpieces for corporate news, drones in themselves, may excuse “collateral damage” repeating the Pentagon whitewash with the occasional apology for civilian death, but the reality of those tens of thousands of human lives lost on our spear point in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan will not be dismissed, not at the intrinsic level of human consciousness where we are all connected and no violence will be forgotten.
The future of our nation does not rest in presidential speeches or international prizes but in the reality of our actions, and it is what we do that will not easily be forgiven, by our neighbors or by our inner most selves.
Peace,
Don Hynes