What Would John Cameron Swayze Say About This?

The United States of America, 2011. After ten years of war in Afghanistan, the U.S. military (funded with 700 billion dollars a year of national treasure) is hoping to get out of the war with a draw. Victory is a word that’s never uttered because it’s so far removed from reality. The enemy for ten years has been a ragtag bunch of third world insurgents numbering less than 70,000— with no munitions production facilities, no industrial manufacturing capability, no heavy armament, no air force, no navy, no transportation infrastructure, no advanced technology, and absolutely no money flowing into its coffers. In fact, no coffers. Think David and Goliath with Goliath backed by astronomical amounts of American taxpayer money.

Back home, in the second week of September, 2011, the leading Republican candidate for the upcoming presidential election is found to have mandated vaccination of all 16 year-old girls in Texas against cervical cancer just to do the bidding of the vaccine maker, Merck, in return for substantial corporate monetary contributions. Democrat politics is equally inept. A solar panel start-up company has just declared bankruptcy after squandering half-a-billion dollars of “stimulus” money pumped in by the Obama administration. Polls show public approval of government is at 17%. “Official” unemployment stands at 9.2%, but the real unemployment rate is twice that high. Housing foreclosures have never been more numerous in all the nation’s history. U.S. corporations and small businesses are holding more cash than ever, but say they won’t invest in jobs or infrastructure upgrades until they can have their faith in government restored. Nobody expects that to happen anytime soon. And 84% of total American wealth is owned by the top 20% of wealthy Americans.

If John Cameron Swayze had reported news like this back in 1954, the American public at that time would have overthrown the U.S. government, even if it meant flirting with Soviet Communism.

Why All the Fuss About Same-Sex Marriage?

Rock and roll music, horseless carriages (early automobiles), Communism, cable television, and racially integrated public schools— what do these things have in common? At one time or another during the 20th Century, each of these cultural and technological elements was predicted to cause the demise of the traditional American family by corrupting the children. That puts them in the same category with same-sex marriage today. Here’s the thing about American-family-demise predictors (usually religious fundamentalists) — they never get tired of having their predictions turn out to be wrong.

Today, 40% of all American babies are born out of wedlock. In the black community, 70% are born out of wedlock. I don’t know what family demise looks like in America, but these statistics seem to me to fit that definition. Here’s my message to the born-again, religious fundamentalist evangelicals (I hope I’ve got the politically-correct label for these wingnuts) — there is only one cause for the demise of the traditional American family, and that is parenting which is selfish, irresponsible, and clueless. Since same-sex parents are currently almost negligible in number, I’m talking about mostly heterosexual parents, and many of these are fine upstanding Christians. Rock and roll was not the problem, and neither was Communism or cable television or racial integration in the schools. Same-sex marriage presents only one threat to the traditional American family. Maybe gays will prove themselves to be better parents than heterosexuals. In modern America, It wouldn’t take much for that to happen.

The Last Reason for War

World War II was unique in many aspects, not the least of which was the fact that the rationale for fighting, the essential reason for the war, remained unchanged throughout the full four years of the conflict. From start to finish, all Americans knew exactly why they were involved, and that reason for war stayed constant. I believe that this, more than anything else, explains why World War II is the only war in the last century where the United States came away with a clear and lasting victory (patriots may wish to cite the 1989 Panama Invasion as an exception to this statement, but that’s beyond pathetic).

In most cases, the stated reason for war changes to adapt to circumstances, and the rationale at the end is very different from the rationale at the beginning. Once you understand this process, the history of the war is already written long before the last shot is fired. Consider a couple of cases in point.

Immediately following the American Civil War, the Government, with a victorious army needing a reason to stay in uniform, sent the troops out West to “make the land safe for settlers.” The military orders were to convert the Indians into peaceful Christian farmers and to “exterminate” those Indians who resisted the process. The word “exterminate” was actually used. By 1876, the extermination had given way to pacification and resettlement. Then an egotistical fool named Custer led his men to their deaths at the Little Big Horn, and for the next 25 years the stated reason for the “conflict out West” was to avenge Custer and to honor the sacrifice of the men under his command. It took a hundred years for the truth to be told when bumper stickers finally appeared on Volkswagens in the 1970s reading, “Custer Had It Coming.”

Fast forward to those 1960s. The U.S. was bogged down in yet another war with a fuzzy rationale and bleak future prospects. The stated reason for the Vietnam War, initially, had been to create a buffer against Communist expansion. The marching orders were to “neutralize” (“exterminate” was no longer fashionable jargon) those who supported the Communists. Then, in February of 1968 came the Communist Tet offensive, and all the rhetoric changed. Tet was the modern version of the Little Big Horn. For the next seven years, we languished in Vietnam for the stated reason that “we needed to honor the sacrifice of those who had already given their lives.”

Which brings us to Iraq. I won’t bother with the litany of phony reasons for the war that have come and gone. Suffice it to say that we’re now down to the last stage in war where the government says we need to honor the sacrifice of those who have given their lives. Whenever a government tells us that, we can know five things with absolute certainty. This applies to any government and any war.

1. The initial reason for the war was fraudulent.
2. The stated objectives of the war are unfulfilled.
3. The government is losing the war.
4. The current leader of the government doesn’t want a lost war on his resume.
5. The government is NOT in the least concerned with those who are sacrificing their lives in battle.

There is a saying that, “In war, the first casualty is truth.” It is possible, however, to cut through the lies when you know how to read the code.