From children’s art, 14 best UN Art for Peace

Is there any hope for humanity? Or will the destructive use of our enormous creativity do us in.

While I usually maintain an optimistic attitude, applauding Trump’s apparent rapport with both Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin, thus beginning to  deprive the Military Industrial Complex (the MIC) of the enemies it needs to keep drumming up support for expenditures, of course I was dismayed to realize that Trump plans to ask for an increase in the military budget for 2019.

Trump Plans To Ask for 716 Billion for National Defense in 2019, a Major Increase

Even so, I still want to assume that Trump truly does want to break up the American military empire, and drain the swamp of corruption that has infected all aspects of our lives.

It’s amazing to me to realize how few people really do care about the fact that the American culture is founded on war, has always been about war —

America has been at war 222 out of 239 years, or 93% of the time

— and that prospects for war are really just about the only short or long term subject of our national thinking process. And yet, so few citizens seem to even care, or to even have the fantastic militarization of everyday life on their radar. Why is that?

Back in the late ’60s and early ’70s, there was an enormous outcry from my generation against the Vietnam War, then raging, and drafting young men to carry it out. That’s what got us going, most likely, the draft. Now, there is no draft. Instead, the military relies on impoverished young men and women with no prospects to enlist or re-enlist and get  a signing bonus of up to $40K!

Even more insidious, it appears that the endless hunger of the military mindset has truly wormed its way into the interstices of every aspect of our culture. From military grants to sponsor university research, and the arts, and non-profits, to dry cleaning services for military uniforms, to contracts to build even more military bases and supply them, restock them, to Silicon Valley surveillance and data mining, not to mention weapons manufacturers and video games based on weaponry and war, it’s hard to imagine just how deeply and broadly involved the military is embedded within every single aspect of American life. Who will bite the hand that feeds him? When most people, in one way or another, are dependent upon the military for their salaries, can they afford to object?

This is where we think, or we hope, that Trump is immune. Since, as a billionaire, he has no need for money, unlike most politicians, he cannot be bought. But, even with such an ubermensch at the helm, is there any realistic hope that we can shift the paradigm, the direction, of this huge monololithic entity crashing straight to oblivion?

Paul Craig Roberts found this first essay on Counterpunch. It delves into the intricate details of the militaristic infection of America. Well worth reading in its entirety, unfortunately.

The All-Pervasive Military-Industrial Complex

The second essay, by Robert Whitehead, assumes the worst about Trump, a view I do not hold, but does it even matter? Is there any way he (and whoever is the so-called white hat alliance that works with him) could rein in what is apparently out of his or anyone’s control?

The Deep State is Real and Trump Is the Latest Tool

Case in point: NATO. Did you know that the NATO nations that Trump is now urging to pay for more their own defense, he is also pimping to American weapons manufacturers? Yes! They should pay for U.S. weaponry, rather than have us supply it to them for free.

NATO Is A Goldmine for U.S. Weapons Industries