Violence... The story so far

The path to world dictatorship [and world dominance?]

Except perhaps for Pax Romana, perpetual war describes human history. The human being, the consummate predator, having vanquished its natural enemies, turns on himself. HIMself is used for war and violences are mainly male endeavors, which is not to say females cannot behave similarly. They can and they have--a teen-age girl-warrior left an indelible mark on French history, and high profile murderers can be women as well as men.

Perpetual war has a more sinister side: when it is used to usurp the rights of free people. Many will scoff that that could ever happen. Even more will scoff that it is about to happen, even more that it has already.

Whatever our politics, whatever our religion, the logic behind this eventuality is there. This web site recognized that early on. Initial incredulity gradually gave way to overwhelming logic. Still, in view of the many valid, or potentially valid, arguments pro and con, we could only be sure that there are Authoritarian Personalities, and that there are Sociopaths who co-opt organizations, movements and even nations in various shades of grey to black. Under such governance, a people, even the American people, in their fear of terror, for example, might give up their freedom and gradually accept a totalitarian state molded by the the Neocon and Religious-Fundamentalist minorites. We are reminded how timely a famous statement from the past still is:

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd president

Making the case that such fear of terror is an improper perspective is not enough. Neither is mere opposition to the war in Iraq. Terror, we now know, has many causes, the most fundamental being human frailties in the guise of bigotry, racism, empire building, and lust for power which bring about Humiliation, Alienation, and environmental destruction. The 2006 election showed an increasing awareness by the American electorate, on a bipartisan basis.

It remains to explore the bricks making up the "perpetual wall of terror," which equates to Perpetual War, already beginning to separate us from our liberty and freedoms. At some point that separation could become irreversible and leave us in the exact role our founding fathers fought so ably against. A modern comment addresses this very point:

There is no good or evil. There is only power and those too weak to seek it. Lord Voldemort (From Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling)

Legal aspects: Use, misuse, and hazards to freedom:

• FISA defined: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, 1978.
  
• FISA: Origins and Misuse

American Vulnerability

American society is the most "modern" on earth at least in terms of applied technology. Abundant natural resources provided self subsistence to a new nation peopled by refugees from tyranny and protected by oceans.

In waves, seafaring, printing press, wireless communication, air travel and the Internet shrank the world. America, almost by default, became the supreme economic power in the world. A strong central government limited only by the Constitution saw America through civil war and wars with other nations, for both good and not-so-good reasons.

None of these experiences prepared American society for responsible hegemony. None of these experiences prepared American for anything except, perhaps, continual war. And that is the rub. Somewhere along the line after founding, American society lost its purpose so ably phrased by Abraham Lincoln: A nation "of the people, by the people and for the people." Quite without realizing it, American society largely gave up on the "of," "by," and "for." This came with the good life of plenty for most people, not all people, to be sure, but for most of the electorate. Pax Americana had its soothing feature.

Americans did not lose their ability to fight. They lost perspective of their place in the world, eliminate tyranny. Conditioned by Manifest Destiny and America First slogans, it was easy to slide into a fatal policy of American interests above all others. A great democratic nation began acting in very autocratic ways in developing an empire where economics and military strength provide foundation. With its tripartite governance system, America is especially vulnerable to hijacking. Leopards who have rolled in the mud to hide their spots, can win seats in Congress, and even the White House, and staff the government with their own kind. The Neocons in our time have accomplished just that; the rest of the world now sees America behaving internationally as a tyrannical nation.

If this is not how we see ourselves, "American Interest" especially the kind practiced by Bush/Cheney INC., is, like it or not, what we have to deal with. The "war on Terror" is simply fertilizer on the fields of terror seeded by the Neocons. We do not advocate abandoning the chase to eliminate terror. We advocate bringing it into perspective, relegating it to the police action it should be, on the individual, local, national, and international scales. Persisting in war makes righting the ship and regaining perspective ever more difficult. Like Marx, the Neocons spotted a weakness in America's social fabric; like Lenin, they exploited it. Like both Marx and Lenin, the Neocon ideas failed the test.

Using shotguns to eliminate fleas is a losing proposition. And so is employing military means to eliminate individual terrorists. To the uninterested observers, our flouting the Geneva Conventions, just because the terrorists do, reduces us to the same moral level as the terrorists. Interested observers see a bit more: American interests cornering oil supplies from the lands of others by colluding with and enriching feudal dynasties is also immoral. By leaving the rich ever richer, the poor ever poorer, in America as well as well as elsewhere, we fulfill yet another Neocon goal.

One of the earliest renditions of trouble brewing came via David Griffin in his book, "The New Pearl Harbor," which many viewed as just another conspiracy theory.

Reluctantly, Dr. Rosemary Radford Ruether, a Christian theologian at Pacific School of Religion, reviewed Griffin's book. We quote from her review:

"If the complicity of the Bush Administration to which he [Griffen] points is true, then Americans have a far greater problem on their hands than even the more ardent anti-war critics have imagined. If the Administration would do this, what else would they do to maintain and expand their power?"

What else they could do has been unfolding in a steady stream ever since. Anarchy in an Iraq now breeding terrorists, where there were none before; terror attacks accelerated, scandal upon scandal from Congress to the White House, all with no ends in sight.

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To be continued... One brick at a time.