Again, I am ashamed of my small role as a United States Marine. I also often regret my service with the Department of Health. It was all lies, and I wanted to believe.
I occasionally wear a USMC ball cap. Here in the mid-south it either garners one a small measure of respect in an otherwise disrespectful culture, or it allows one to go on ones' way unmolested by the "crazies". The day before yesterday I wore it to the intensive care unit where my mother currently is and a nurse placed her hand on my shoulder and said, "I'd like to thank you for your service". I never quite know what to say when this happens. So, as usual, I simply replied, "You're welcome". If folks only knew what was really going on inside my head...
America: Drugged Up, Dumbed Down and Crazy Dangerous
By Robert Bridge
...
If you were planning to conquer the world, or at least a broad swath of it, the war would necessarily start at home. After all, no general worth his salt would rush into battle with his rear exposed. You’d have to muzzle the media, severely curtail political choice and dissent, while preaching to the world about democracy and human rights to cover your tracks. You’d have to construct the mother of all propaganda machines, which proclaims over every available wavelength that it’s the best darn civilization since Atlantis sunk to its watery grave thousands of years ago. It would be a bit like decorating the halls of a mental asylum with idyllic nature scenes. You’d also have to hire an army of loud-mouth talking heads to shout down any and all dissenters, accuse them of being conspiracy theorists and lunatics and commies, while keeping a paramilitary police force on the standby 24/7 should the bullying tactics fail.
You’d have to spoon-feed the populace with a liberal dose of anti-depressants, Jersey Shore, American Idol and 24-hour shopping channels with easy credit to prevent them from giving a moment’s thought to real-time, third-dimensional issues. You could also fuel battles over trifling cultural issues, like homosexuals in the military, Mel Gibson’s latest rant and Charlie Sheen’s complicated love life. What we are left with after the smoke has cleared bears no resemblance to a classic, text-book democracy. What we are left with is an obese, drug-addled Burlesque Empire, bursting at the seams with electronic circuses, cocaine and corn puffs, physically and mentally incapable of finding the remote control when the scenes of war become too unappetizing.
We are overstretched at home, and like despotic Rome, overstretched overseas. Now it is anybody’s guess where this depressing joyride will take us.
This this article was first published at RT
