On the one hand, I’m thrilled to come across the title of such a post as this one —
Rethinking America’s Military Industrial Complex
— and in fact, began to read it eagerly, thinking maybe the author had some new ideas as to what “our” vast bloated military machine could be transformed into, now that wars have been exposed as a racket, always instigated with some kind of false flag to deceive the public, and bankster financed on both sides, with huge profits to weapons manufacturers.
And oh wow! I think. Maybe the transformation is already happening! Look at the Qanon phenomenon, that amazing alternative communication channel which began only 15 months ago. Growing in popularity and sweeping across the whole world, Qanon is rumored to be a swamp-draining operation of military intelligence! Wow, So yeah! Maybe swamp draining is an example of what the military could and is already being repurposed into! Given the depth and complexity of what we have now learned to call “the deep state,” to dismantle and dissolve it is certainly the kind of job that requires vast resources and planning.
But unfortunately the above post itself did nothing to whet my appetite. Instead, it set the table, and then stopped before dinner was served. Huh? Indeed that post felt positively snarky, rather than educational.
Through the years I’ve always been alert to various small ways that aspects of the military are and can be repurposed. For example, I remember when they started to convert old nuclear missile silos. From 2010:
Seven Repurposed Cold War Missile Silos
Here are more examples of this kind of thinking, repurposing military structures:
People who used to be in the military are also putting their military training to use in various ways that heal rather than hurt. Examples:
These Veterans Are Fighting A New War, This Time Against Attacks on South Florida’s Coral Reefs
and
Shane Claiborne and Activists Turned Guns into Gardening Tools to Show What Beating Swords into Plowshares Looks Like
Even better, check this out: veterans healing from PTSD by learning how to garden:
Milwaukee Program Uses Urban Agriculture to Help Veterans Heal
But these programs, while of great value, simply nibble around the edges of what’s necessary if we wish to truly transform the military machine. So . . . how about this?
From 2013:
Repurposing the Military Machine
Hard to believe that it’s already six years since that article was posted. And the repurposing spoken of there, using the military to address the destructive effects of climate change, is what I would call the best and most obvious re-purposing of such a vast bureaucratic machine that has been devoted to destruction, and could be transformed into protection and regeneration. Whether you beLIEve in global warming or global cooling doesn’t matter. What matters is the recognition that things are going mighty wacky on our beautiful Mother Earth, and that human industry is in part responsible for it.
What gives me pause here, of course, is that I can just see this kind of repurposing fitting right into a New World Order Globalism mandate, centrally controlled, and demanding obedience from its minions. Just like the military now!
Okay, look again. It turns out we don’t even need the military to shift our way of life on this planet. We the People can do it ourselves, as has been happening in China and India over the last 20 years. Check it out:
To me, the question is: can we, as human beings, learn to take care of our own localities, starting with the interior of ourselves, and reaching out from there to our households, back yards, neighborhoods, towns, cities, regions, etc. Bottom up transformation? But isn’t this absolutely opposite to the way the military works? Yes, it is. Once again, the key is to embrace paradox, and occupy the space between the opposites. Of course we can use centralized planning that the military is so very good at; and of course we all need to get off our buts and take charge of healing our own localities.
Another way to think of this necessity for paradoxical thinking. How many of us have learned, over the years, that life is bittersweet? That we have to take the salt with the sugar? It’s NEVER, EVER one or the other. In fact, without the one, we wouldn’t even recognize the other!
It’s always both. And that goes for inside me, too. There are, as the Native Americans say, two wolves inside each of us. Which one wins depends on which one I feed. And yet, I need to feed them both, simultaneously, at least enough to keep remembering that I, too, am always subject to temptation, and that I sometimes stray from the shining path. For without humility, I am lost.
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