skitzjones

The government as an organization does not mean what you think they mean when they say they support the troops. Be aware of the fact that as Major General Smedley Butler said, "War is a Racket". War makes money, the troops are used to make war. The troops are valued by this system insofar as their ability to carry out missions that extend the profitability of war and occupation and defense of financial interests. It has been this way with our country for as long as we have had a country. We have been an empirical nation of businessmen since the idea of Manifest Destiny was first proposed. Our colonies were not ones of territorial occupation, but of financial occupation. Changing economies whole and making nations dependent on American businesses to survive, while our military acted to outright butcher populations who stood in resistance to our actions. In more modern times the defense budget does little to benefit the troops themselves, so much as it continues to thickly line the pockets of war profiteers designing the weapons of war, which continue to outclass those of every other nation on the planet, and yet still underperform when meeting a population fighting with homemade explosives. It continues the contracts with fast food chains that spring up within the confines of military installations even in warzones. The budget is expanded broadly every year, eclipsing the combined budgets of every other nation on earth combined, but rest assured it is NOT in support of the troops. It is for business interests alone. That is what our politicians mean when they say they "support the troops". The troops make money for big business interests. Veterans, those formerly known as "the troops", cost money. They are not profitable. That is why, every year, more and more cuts are proposed to veterans programs. That is why the VA flounders under the weight of a burden it was never designed to handle. That is why veteran suicides threaten to overtake the number of troops lost in conflict. Our priorities in this country are not designed to benefit our fellow man. They are designed to benefit business. They are designed to make money. We are a selfish, greedy nation who care little for assisting those next door, but will funnel millions into other nations to assure our continued economic interests are protected. And when I speak of "our economic interests" be clear that I am not speaking of the common man or woman struggling to survive in America, I am talking about those sitting at the very top of the pyramid of power, those in control of the wealth who make it their daily mission to convince all of those beneath them that if we just work a little harder, we can be them. That if we give them all of the money and resources, that somehow a little of their gluttonous spread of excess will overflow from their table and slop on to ours. Those who convince us that everyone else in our position is looking to take from us, looking for an unearned handout, looking to take something from us when we don't have enough to go around. But theirs is NOT a table, it is a trough with high walls into which they plunge their faces but spill not a drop. And the person next to us is not looking to steal from us what we ourselves do not have. It is in the best interests of the rich minority to keep the poor minority divided, by color, by creed, by ideology, because if the poor minority were to unite and recognize the true forces that hold us down and build walls and place guards at the gates of their own prosperity to keep us out... if we saw the system for what it really is, we would not hesitate to burn it to the ground. We are no great nation. We are a nation of distracted ignorants, produced by a system of controls that wish to keep us as such, blinded by the myth of American Exceptionalism and the idea that anything other than our status quo is unpatriotic. We need to wake to the fact that rebellion has been a thread woven into the fabric of our nation from it's very beginnings, and it wasn't until we turned from the ideals of founding and became obsessed with economic holdings that we began to smother rebellious voices. I realize that where I started this post, and where I have led it, seem to be two disparate thoughts... but they are not. They are as intrinsically tied as all policy and practice in this nation, and in this world. Nothing is seperate from anything else, and when you recognize the roots in one problem, you find that so many of our problems share the same root system, and you see that for us to keep watering this system in the hopes that at some point it will blossom a sweeter fruit is foolish. We must to more than make little pocket changes and concessions. Everything we believe in, every action we carry out as a country needs a full overhaul, and until we recognize these truths, we shall never again prosper and never find our potential to be that shiining city upon a hill.