I’ve been down this road before. And yes, I’ve dragged you along with me once or twice. But I’m gonna do it again. If for no other reason than another year is drawing to a close and we’re no further along than we were at the beginning of it (or the last one or the one before that!).
Even though we’ve got lots of new people involved, we’re still doing things in the same old ways. We’ve got new people running the white house, lots of new people running (around) the halls of congress. We’ve even got some new (at least formerly unnoticed) people running the military.
But we’ve still got the same old people (actually young folks) doing the dying!
We’re still fighting two wars, going on longer than our civil war. Long’s W.W.II and the Korean conflict together. Don’t grimace at me! It’s true!
The people in charge (moneymaking war mongers in the defense industries) are doing just what we continue to let them do. Stretch out any conflict long enough for everyone (at the top) to make a profit!
We’ve been doing this for most of the past forty years.
You’d think ordinary people would eventually figure this out and put a stop to it? After all it’s the ordinary people who are actually in charge of this country! Trouble is the ordinary people only get upset enough to “do something” when they’ve suffered enough. Unfortunately (?) ordinary folks don’t actually suffer much (from war) anymore.
A few years back the government, defense industries (some college perfessors) got too smart for ordinary folks. Don’t look at me that way! They Did! They changed “one thing” in the way we fight our wars. And as Robert Frost might say, “...that has made all the difference....”
What “one thing” could make war so different from all recorded history that ordinary folks would allow them to go on and on, over and over..., forever? What’s “one thing” that could cause folks to ignore the waste of treasure. Ignore that it keeps science, education, medicine waylaid? Keeps (re)building our crumbling infrastructure (highways, bridges, sewers, water systems, electrical grids, subways, et al) All on the back burner?
Well folks, that “one thing” mighta sounded too good to be true? But people everywhere bought into it! It remains forever true: Things that sound “too good to be true..?” Are always too good to be true!
Back in the heady days following one long (not that long ago) conflict, politely referred to as a “police action” (by those who didn’t have to actually fight in it) sometimes called the Vietnam War, came to a bedraggled political end.
This upset a lot of folks.
So many folks were upset all ‘round that the government boys, along with their defense buddies, et al decided to find a better way to fight (well, at least hold) wars. They thought and thought and asked, "What “one thing” could we change that would cause ordinary folks to let us hold our little wars whenever we want?”
Lotsa thinkin’ went into it. Many meetings and discussions and forums were held. Then one day some guy in the back yelled, “Hey! What if we could do it without ordinary people suffering?” Brilliant! someone called back. But what’s the easiest way to accomplish that?
The smartest guy in the room thought for awhile, then blurted, “Remove ordinary folks from the fighting!” Amazing! The simplicity of it staggered the imagination (no one had done it successfully since Rome).
So they put their best minds to work and they came up with a way to do away with the military draft! Wow! No more “ordinary folks” doing any fighting (or dying!). Didn’t take long for the idea to catch on. Out of three hundred million or so people in the whole country, they’d only need a few hundred thousand actual patriots to do all the heavy lifting (fightin’ an’ dyin’).
After all, way too many ordinary folks had died in unpopular conflicts like Vietnam (souring ordinary folks on war). This new idea would put an end to all that bothersome (widespread) sufferin’ an’ dyin’!!
You know what? It worked just fine for many years. Then..., all of a sudden! We got into not one, but Two Wars! Stubborn folks in charge maintained their “keep ‘em going” profit process.
Trouble is, you can only go on killing the same little group of patriots over and over for so long. Eventually, you begin to run out of supply.
I Don’t Know About You..., I’d bet a military draft would end these wars quicker than any bomb.
Cal Teeple, sole member of the Observational Cogitation Consortium can still be found three stools down. Or At: www.wayneindependent.com/cal And At: calteeple@gmail.com He may be ignored, accosted or contacted in all three.
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I’ve been down this road before. And yes, I’ve dragged you along with me once or twice. But I’m gonna do it again. If for no other reason than another year is drawing to a close and we’re no further along than we were at the beginning of it (or the last one or the one before that!).
Even though we’ve got lots of new people involved, we’re still doing things in the same old ways. We’ve got new people running the white house, lots of new people running (around) the halls of congress. We’ve even got some new (at least formerly unnoticed) people running the military.
But we’ve still got the same old people (actually young folks) doing the dying!
We’re still fighting two wars, going on longer than our civil war. Long’s W.W.II and the Korean conflict together. Don’t grimace at me! It’s true!
The people in charge (moneymaking war mongers in the defense industries) are doing just what we continue to let them do. Stretch out any conflict long enough for everyone (at the top) to make a profit!
We’ve been doing this for most of the past forty years.
You’d think ordinary people would eventually figure this out and put a stop to it? After all it’s the ordinary people who are actually in charge of this country! Trouble is the ordinary people only get upset enough to “do something” when they’ve suffered enough. Unfortunately (?) ordinary folks don’t actually suffer much (from war) anymore.
A few years back the government, defense industries (some college perfessors) got too smart for ordinary folks. Don’t look at me that way! They Did! They changed “one thing” in the way we fight our wars. And as Robert Frost might say, “...that has made all the difference....”
What “one thing” could make war so different from all recorded history that ordinary folks would allow them to go on and on, over and over..., forever? What’s “one thing” that could cause folks to ignore the waste of treasure. Ignore that it keeps science, education, medicine waylaid? Keeps (re)building our crumbling infrastructure (highways, bridges, sewers, water systems, electrical grids, subways, et al) All on the back burner?
Well folks, that “one thing” mighta sounded too good to be true? But people everywhere bought into it! It remains forever true: Things that sound “too good to be true..?” Are always too good to be true!
Back in the heady days following one long (not that long ago) conflict, politely referred to as a “police action” (by those who didn’t have to actually fight in it) sometimes called the Vietnam War, came to a bedraggled political end.
This upset a lot of folks.
So many folks were upset all ‘round that the government boys, along with their defense buddies, et al decided to find a better way to fight (well, at least hold) wars. They thought and thought and asked, "What “one thing” could we change that would cause ordinary folks to let us hold our little wars whenever we want?”
Lotsa thinkin’ went into it. Many meetings and discussions and forums were held. Then one day some guy in the back yelled, “Hey! What if we could do it without ordinary people suffering?” Brilliant! someone called back. But what’s the easiest way to accomplish that?
The smartest guy in the room thought for awhile, then blurted, “Remove ordinary folks from the fighting!” Amazing! The simplicity of it staggered the imagination (no one had done it successfully since Rome).
So they put their best minds to work and they came up with a way to do away with the military draft! Wow! No more “ordinary folks” doing any fighting (or dying!). Didn’t take long for the idea to catch on. Out of three hundred million or so people in the whole country, they’d only need a few hundred thousand actual patriots to do all the heavy lifting (fightin’ an’ dyin’).
After all, way too many ordinary folks had died in unpopular conflicts like Vietnam (souring ordinary folks on war). This new idea would put an end to all that bothersome (widespread) sufferin’ an’ dyin’!!
You know what? It worked just fine for many years. Then..., all of a sudden! We got into not one, but Two Wars! Stubborn folks in charge maintained their “keep ‘em going” profit process.
Trouble is, you can only go on killing the same little group of patriots over and over for so long. Eventually, you begin to run out of supply.
I Don’t Know About You..., I’d bet a military draft would end these wars quicker than any bomb.
Cal Teeple, sole member of the Observational Cogitation Consortium can still be found three stools down. Or At: www.wayneindependent.com/cal And At: calteeple@gmail.com He may be ignored, accosted or contacted in all three.
