Why We Fight

This brilliant film by Eugene Jarecki explores not only why we fight, but why we (that's you and me, common Americans) keep backing the war pigs, even as they whittle away at our domestic strengths, productivity, health, self-sufficiency, and individual liberties. This is not "the government's" problem. This is MY problem. This is YOUR problem.

A good place to start: add this film to your Netflix queue, or go get it from your local video store. Next, watch ALL the extra content; the extra scenes, the crucial Q&A's, and each of the character profiles. Watch ALL of it, then we might have some reasonable basis upon which to communicate. In the meantime, take in the film's website, as well.

In the film, we are reminded that it was a Republican, a 5-Star General, a Hero of the Greatest Generation who cautioned us as a people about the military-industrial-congressional revolving door that presently holds sway over the American Empire's foriegn policy in the world. Two-term REPUBLICAN president, Dwight D. Eisenhower:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought ['accidental' and 'inadvertant' are just as destructive as collusive or intentional], by the military-industrial-congressional complex. [Yes, the ORIGINAL DRAFT of Ike's speech -- written BY HIM in the day before Presidents merely read cue cards -- included Congress in the domestic Axis of Evil; but to salvage his own future book deals, even Ike did not have the courage to leave Congress in the final draft.]

The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

By today's neo-con standard, even Eisenhower himself -- certainly no dove -- would be characterized as a conspiracy-mongering, wussy liberal, weak on defense. That is how dangerously far today's radical republicans have driven the party to the extreme right. The Bush doctrines have hijacked the republican party and driven it as far to the right as militaristic totalitarianism will allow. They aren't quite there, yet, but give them eight more years ... or maybe just four ... and the luxury of holding on to doctrines of infallible U.S. policy may turn to necessity of spouting precise Party Doctrine at threat of exclusion, suspicion, expulsion, and yes brother and sisters, incarceration.

The moment that we all fully believe that totalitarians could NEVER take over in the U.S. is the moment our complacency will become our final downfall. Moreover, if the idea of ONE PARTY, controlling all three branches, into the indefinite future, is appealing to you in any way, then you my friend are indeed my intrinsic foe in every possible sense of the term. I will oppose you with my own blood, even if we share a common blood. For that vision, is the vision of TOTALITARIANISM and I will gladly fight, kill, and die to prevent that from happening to the democratic republic that is MY AMERICA.

Consider, soberly, Wilton Sekzer's personal journey in Why We Fight; this is the journey that hundreds of millions of Americans have taken in the years since 9/11/2001. Millions of good-natured, trustworthy, and trusting patriots like Mr. Sekzer were sincerely duped and are now coming to terms with that fact. However, coming to terms with facts and voting in a way that reflects those facts are two very different things; particularly in a nation where voting any way other than Republican has effectively become a SATANIC vote. Hundreds of millions of U.S. Christians actually hold this belief as tightly as they hold to the unquestioned infallibility of their sacred textbook. THIS IS DANGEROUS BEYOND BELIEF and amounts to Talibanism in the U.S. Imagine the power of these religious communities and the pressure to conform to voting patterns at threat of being accused of "not understanding God's will."

THIS *HAPPENED* IN 2000 AND 2004 AND IS HAPPENING ALL ACROSS AMERICA, TODAY! This would have seemed incomprehensible to me, in My America, just a decade ago. But today, hundreds of millions of Christians have latched on to one or two core issues as THE ONLY ONES THAT REALLY MATTER TO GOD and ignore all others. In these minds, a vote for a Democrat is a vote AGAINST GOD. I am not even close to overstating the facts as they exist in today's mainstream Christian environment.

Most Christians (not all) but MOST are effectively behaving equivalent to a non-violent Taliban party. While the Taliban will not hesitate to use brutality and violence, the American Christian Taliban use social marginalization and exclusion to enforce their loosely affiliated regime.

Finally, dear reader, if you are truly interested in gaining a well-rounded exposure to all kinds of views on the direction of U.S. policy and the war in Iraq, add every single one of these to your Netflix queue; approach with an open mind; and watch all extra material on each. Often, it's among the extra material where some of the most surprising, candid, enlightening, and incisive material can be found.

• Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train (2004)
  
• WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception (2004)
  
• Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War (2003)
  
• Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election (2002)
  
• Noam Chomsky: Distorted Morality: America's War on Terror? (2002)
  

Finally, if you want political energy directed to personally crucial issues such as UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE then please begin thinking about voting according to YOUR OWN TRUE, INTERNAL, REAL WORLD PRIORITIES rather than conforming with peer-reinforced ideals of how things are SUPPOSED to be. Look at the way things TRULY ARE in your world and ask which things can make the most positive impacts in your own life and in the lives of those you love. Then, vote for the people advancing YOUR INTERESTS instead of marching lockstep with those who SAY they have your interests in mind.

infective.invective, iraq