As was Rome twenty centuries ago, Washington is the capitol of the world. Important officials and lobbyists therein sip 5 PM cocktails in the local bars considering new ways by which to translate this imperial status into the kind of "bacon" they can bring home to their constituents and companies.
Not far from their drinks looms the White House and the Capitol. Where stirring words are stirringly written on great marble walls and statuary. However, the guys who wrote them are long dead, and they actually are mostly there for the touring high schools classes. Over drinks, the real issues are trimming my taxes, boosting my profits, and making damn sure that neither Iran's crazies nor China's corporations do us any harm.
Self interest is not a crime. It comes with the territory of life; especially life at the top. And yet, even here in the current center-of-the-world, there are voices of concern. Whose words don't appear on marble walls, but recently in one of the local newspapers, The Washington Post. Columnist Richard Cohen wrote:
"The all-volunteer military has enabled America to fight two wars while many of its citizens do not know of a single fatality or even of anyone who has fought overseas. Had there been a draft, the war in Iraq might never have been fought. George W Bush didn't need your body or, in the short run, your money. Southerners would fight, and foreigners would buy the bonds. The US has become like Rome or the British Empire, able to fight nonessential wars with a professional military. Ultimately, this will drain us financially, and spiritually as well..."
Cohen doesn't -- couldn't -- work for Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal. Nor would he be invited to address the next Republican or Tea Party convention. Nor do most of the masters-of-the-universe over these drinks applaud him. After all, the US is not really an empire. Those military establishments we have in 195 worldwide locations are simply there to protect the peace. Which peace...? The one we signed after WWII in 1945...!
You don't have to hate your country to write columns like Cohen. Frankly, you have to love it so much that you worry about its current compass. Not every rich man is a demon, nor every poor man a saint. However, in a land where the really rich man (in after-tax-income and/or corporate profits) constitutes about 6% of the population, folks like Cohen are right to wonder how long will or can the other 94% keep bleeding in wars, losing status in income, and watching the rich-and-famous accumulate jets, yachts and overseas bank accounts.
That may sound like the old shibboleth: "Class war." But ask any street demonstrator from Los Angeles to Cairo to Paris. They simply call it: "Enough." Which is why the boys in the DC bars might think about as they drive home seriously avoiding all those "dangerous neighborhoods" in town.
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Lot of us hear the clock ticking. Wish more in DC did
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