Bread and Circuses - It Worked For Awhile
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Colts Win the Super Bowl!
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While listening to the Star Spangled Banner at the opening of Super Bowl XLI tonight I couldn't help but reflect upon how insulated the people of the United States seem to be. We are after all the nation which invade Iraq, a nation which was no real threat to us. Our invasion and occupation of Iraq has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.
We claim to have brought a type of freedom to the Iraqi people, but instead the people of that nation seem poised to begin genocide upon itself.
In previous ages our invasion of a weak nation like Iraq would have been perceived as barbaric, and imperialistic, but Americans don't seem to fully appreciate how others view us, nor do they seem to care. Today billions of people around the world view the United States with great suspicion, but this wasn't always the case. America was once considered a shining beacon of freedom, and justice.
Americans of previous generations would have had problems with the type of society this nation has become. Our addiction to imported oil, and our desire for the easy life has changed us into a society willing to redefine what is moral in pursuit of what generates a quick profit. Our nation's military, and economic might has ultimately begun to infect us, corrupting our national soul.
We are after all a nation that finds a way to sleep at night, enjoys children's games like football while others suffer due to our lack of concern, and lack of action against the Iraq war.
The luxury of isolation from the effects of war is nothing new in the history of the United States. In previous wars the United States has been afforded, due to geography, the luxury of celebrating its pastimes even during war. Yet it seems that there has never been an American war in which so many victims have suffered as a result of our national will while so few Americans seem either to care, or even to be aware. Americans of this generation, except for those in the military services and their families, do not appear to be inconvenienced by the ongoing civil war in Iraq.
There seems to be a national disconnect from the reality of what we have enable through our complicity, ignorance, and continued silence.
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This Week One Thousand Die In Iraq
This week was a particularly bloody week for the Iraqi people with an estimated one thousand Iraqis being killed. Most were innocent victims of the madness which has befell Iraq since the U.S. invasion.
This week the Bush Administration announced that the cost of the ongoing occupation of Iraq over the next two years will total two hundred and fifty billion dollars!
While hundreds of thousands of Americans huddle within cardboard boxes for warmth tonight, and forty nine million working Americans have no health coverage the taxpayers of this nation are told they must continue to finance George Bush's Iraqi quagmire using an enormous treasure!
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Where's The Outrage?
Any empire which bases its primacy solely upon military might is doomed to fail, and the United States will not be an exception. In this we can at least take some solace, for if there is a God watching down upon the actions of this nation we surely will be punished.
Perhaps that punishment has already been visited upon America for it appears that it has already lost its historic claim of representing the world's clamoring masses. At the very least America has lost its claim to innocence.
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The Ruins of the Roman Forum - Is This America's Fate?
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We The People Desire Better Representation
Despite our guilt over enabling the invasion of Iraq we have come to see that our occupation of Iraq must end. The American people spoke clearly through their votes last November. They clearly stated that they wanted Congress to end the occupation of Iraq. One would have thought that the fall of the Republican Party from power in the Senate, and the House of Representatives would have sent a clear message to the Democrats, but it seems that lesson has been lost.
The sense of indecision which festers within the hearts and minds of those sent to Washington is obvious. Congressmen, the people will not retaliate against you simply for acting in a manner requested of you. That's a promise. Act now, or loose the moment.
Fully one in three Americans are ignorant and self absorbed enough to continue supporting Bush's debacle in Iraq, but most Americans are fed up. They feel cheated out of their tax dollars and hold dear their soldiers lives. They know that they were lied to about the justification for going to war in Iraq, and no longer believe that staying will help.
We are not oblivious to the fact that conditions in Iraq will get much worse before they get even a little better, but we also know that there is no military solution to the problems which face that land. We know that by walking away from Iraq we walk away from controlling the vast reserves of petroleum which was never ours in the first place. We also know that America can not morally force its version of peace upon that region without becoming evil itself.
We can not accept that continued dependence upon foreign oil is good for the United States. We can no longer accept the lies which have been peddled to the people from a corrupt, and dishonest regime which has contemptuously ruled by decree since September of 2001.
America is a nation waiting for leadership. We await a leadership based upon a quiet moral authority, a steadfast determination, and a real courage not based solely upon war, but a courage willing to challenge the status quo. We await a challenger to the petty tyrant who now appears more jester than king.
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Photo Credits
Creative Commons Atribution - The Colosseum by Night - Rosino
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The Roman Forum Free Use Link
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