Well, it
is becoming obvious to more and more people that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower's predictions of "a military-industrial complex" (
Wikipedia) have proven to be true. And the resulting corruption has permeted the halls of government, not only in the United States but also in Europe.
Think about it... when you read that the U.S. has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on the war in Iraq,
where does all that money actually go? You know... "who gets to keep it?"
Right now, far too much of it goes to things like no-bid contracts to Haliburton, and to Carlyle Group, and to many similar companies ... who happen to be controlled by families with names like Cheney, Bush, and Rumsfeld. The wry bumper-stickers about "what if the schools had all the money they wanted and the military had to have a bake-sale to build a bomber?" are
true. Government has become corrupted in service of this pot of gold that is not only bottomless but classified. The President of the United States
alone has (in his "other job") profited his arms-business enterprises in the billions of dollars ... and that's not even beginning to talk about gasoline! That's racketeering and profiteering, but on a gargantuan scale.
Since the world is increasingly linked by lines of communication and trade, this problem has become a worldwide issue in which
no citizen can sit behind his or her national boundaries and breathe a sigh of relief that "Gee, I feel sorry for the Brits and the Americans but thank goodness it doesn't affect
me." It does. You, no matter where you live, are not immune. Are not "protected."
This next year might be the first year that the Americans
actually impeach a sitting President (and maybe the Vice squad, as well), but in the bigger picture that is not the point.
Citizens, throughout the world, have been asleep at the switch for far too long.
We allowed it to happen. When horrible pictures of "the Russians" or "the Commies" or even "the Iraquis" (
note: subsitute the appropriate end-of-the-world-as-you-know-it bad-guy that's being trumped about in
your country...) have been painted for our public consumption, we blithely chose to consume it just beause it was the easiest thing for us to do. We didn't want to look. And if we did look, we didn't want to
see. We wanted to believe that people on the other side of the planet
were catastrophically different from us and somehow bent upon unspeakable evil, just like we were told that they were. It was easier than the much more complicated truth... filled with shades of gray, not black-and-white or red-and-blue.
"We have met the enemy, and he is
us..." Our own human nature.
There has to be a recognition, among ordinary citizens throughout the world, that "there are a few thousand of
them, but hundreds of millions of
us, and
we have different priorities for
our governors than they do." If you do not want to spend the rest of your lives in fear, impoverished by the effects of gigantic spending on "defense," you're going to have to articulate a different set of priorities for how you wish to be governed. If you want more money to be spent on feeding your poor and clothing your elderly and improving your children's education in a
meaningful way, you're going to have to give up that bomber-airplane to do it. You might have to take the bus, too.
And I believe that you're going to have to do it
at a grass-roots level, using this marvelous thing called "the Internet" for all that it is worth. Get involved in your local politics (even if you live in Serbia). Talk to your neighbors and have them talk to the people that
they know. It may sound trite, but when millions of people start talking the same way, even the fattest cat will start to listen.
Even though not every country's Constitution and Declaration of Independence puts it the same way that the United States' short documents do, it doesn't require a written document to say the obvious: that no matter who we are or where we live,
governments and governors exist to serve the people, not the other way around. And, human nature being exactly what it is, they must be periodically reminded of that. By
peaceful means. In most countries, "the system works,
if the citizens will work it." And all of us have a responsibility to do that.
