47 online
 
Most Popular Choices
Share on Facebook 29 Printer Friendly Page More Sharing
OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 10/19/14

Strange Days Indeed!

By       (Page 1 of 2 pages)   12 comments
Follow Me on Twitter     Message Timothy Gatto
Become a Fan
  (79 fans)

A stranger in a strange land by Sidney T. Wilmer & Walter Vincent.
A stranger in a strange land by Sidney T. Wilmer & Walter Vincent.
(Image by Library of Congress)
  Details   DMCA

Nobody told me there would be days like these, nobody told me there would be days like these, Nobody told me there would be days like these, 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 other's 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 Kaddafi 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.

Next Page  1  |  2

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).

Well Said 7   Must Read 5   Valuable 4  
Rate It | View Ratings

Timothy Gatto Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Tim Gatto is Ret. US Army and has been writing against the Duopoly for the last decade. He has two books on Amazon, Kimchee Days or Stoned Colds Warriors and Complicity to Contempt.

Go To Commenting
The views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
Follow Me on Twitter     Writers Guidelines

 
Contact AuthorContact Author Contact EditorContact Editor Author PageView Authors' Articles
Support OpEdNews

OpEdNews depends upon can't survive without your help.

If you value this article and the work of OpEdNews, please either Donate or Purchase a premium membership.

STAY IN THE KNOW
If you've enjoyed this, sign up for our daily or weekly newsletter to get lots of great progressive content.
Daily Weekly     OpEd News Newsletter
Name
Email
   (Opens new browser window)
 

Most Popular Articles by this Author:     (View All Most Popular Articles by this Author)

S 1867: Killing The Bill of Rights and Declaring War on Americans

Arranging the Deck Chairs While Death Comes from Japan

The Fix is In. The Revolution is Coming.

Interview with Finian Cunningham: Bahrain and the U.S. Role

America Does not have a Functioning Democracy - President Jimmy Carter-- Yet MSM Keeps Serving Up Distractions

Prime-time Politics for the Masses

To View Comments or Join the Conversation:

Tell A Friend