American Abandoned

December 2019

Abandoned by America

Rick Bennett

Growing up in the "Wonder Years" of the 1950s in Southern California in my middle class "Navy" family was simply ideal, or so it appeared.   Times were good, and the economy was a “gold rush. All of us knew we had a life filled with great promise of the American Dream.  Even with the contrived hype and fear of the cold war era, we knew peace at least for a while.  What we could not see or even know about is that the power brokers of Americaʻs Oligarch had begun to stack the deck. We began the  "Winner Take All" politics of America.  The monied elite waged profitable wars all over the world. The working class was strangled.  We have a low unemployment rate, but today the truth is  44% of US workers make less than $20,000 a year.  The American Deal was a ruse.

America was about lofty ideals about ethics and human rights. We believed our government was of the people and by the people. Each day we prayed and pledged to believe in liberty and justice for all.  I felt that as I knew that the sun would rise tomorrow.  It was the truth, my truth, my belief, and I had all the faith in the good ole USA one could have.

Then one day, sitting in my high school art class, the load speaker interrupted the bliss of day.  "The President of the United States has been shot," the principal announced.  In that instant, my faith and security in America were shattered and shattered again and again as the dime novel excuses about JFK's murderer unfolded day after day.  

I was very inquisitive at 13 years old.  The story we were supposed to believe was too pat, too much like a cheap novel to be the credible words of my government.  The real truth was not for us to know.  Others were in control.

 Even 50 years later, the assassination documents remain classified. We were not the nation we thought we were. It was clear to me then as it is today, the government's lie and lie with impunity.  They speak great words but serve other interests.

The Viet Nam War, expanded by the Gulf of Tonkin lie,  killed many of my friends in body and soul.  For me, it killed any notion that we waged war to bring freedom and liberty to the people. One of my “dead soul” veteran friends would take suspected Viet Cong sympathizers up in a helicopter and interrogate them while they hung partway out the gunner's door.  He lost track of how many "fell" as his daily reports to the upper brass suggested. I pray he will forgive himself, acting only as a centurion in a war system that has no ethic other than to serve itself at the moment. 

It was General Westmoreland in the throws of loser's desperation told the commanders in Viet Nam to "kill anything that moves."  Decades later, in an act worthy of admiration,   Secretary of Defense McNamara found his soul and told the story of the government's egotistical war deceptions.

 At the time, my generation made great music.  Grew our hair long while unrelenting in the protest of the war.  We wished to believe our soulful crusade for peace ended the war.  It was the N. Viet Nam invasion of the south that drove the US scrambling out of the country in defeat.  We could not stop the war machine.

Unenlightened by history while waging the War on Terror, the egregious behavior of Viet Nam continues.  This time the government-controlled the public narrative.   We tortured people just because they were suspicious. We had the moral depravity to justify torture as "advanced interrogation techniques." Torture by any other name  Dick Chaney and others so proudly extolled.  My god, are these our United States of America leaders?

We unleashed a civil war that has destroyed lives and countries. This behavior does not speak well of we the ethical American electorate. Where is that sixties soul now?

These days my hair is grey and mostly gone. In spite of two decades as an academic with The University of California, I am learned, experienced, and cynical.  Perhaps, that is the fate of my generation. Our soul got lost to cynicism and resignation.

 The forces of special interest effortlessly game the system.  We have the best bureaucracy, and elected officials money can buy.   That is cynical truth we must accept. In doing, so there was hope.  Yet accepting the truth in spite of our fundamentalist zeal is hard, if not impossible.   Perhaps like any addict, we will have to "hit bottom" before we realize we abandoned America and not the other way around.

For our abandonment, the door to the unimaginable happened.  In a mindless reaction, the 9/11 horror was a call to arms. We waged war on terror.  The neocons got the war they wanted.  Richard Perle implored, in his book, The End of Evil, “What America Needed Was A New Pearl Harbor."  His suggestion was not mere rhetoric, it was a threat, and it was a plan.

 The notion that some hijackers and three planes could wreak such destruction on four buildings defies the laws of physics.  The explosive cutting charge,  Super Thermite laced the dust of the Twin Towers.  Burning Super Thermite liquifies steel; burning jet fuel only gets it hot.  Burning aviation kerosene will not melt steel and topple buildings.

The horror of September 11^th shattered me again.  How could we have messed up so big?  We know very well we are hated in the Middle East.  The CIA has a term for such predictable events. They call it "BLOWBACK."    Secretary Rice declared," No one ever imagined this kind of attack. To ease my pain, I needed to believe her!  Such a situation was indeed envisioned in military and engineering documents, years before 9/11. 

To justify the invasion of Iraq, she said we should not wait for the mushroom cloud to prove  Iraq had nuclear capability.   We know now such statements were engineered lies from the leaders of the United States of America.  There was no real evidence that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks.  General Colin Powell lied to the world, claiming with bogus evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.  I guess I forgot my truth; they lie with impunity in all ways and always. 

I was not to question that an ad hoc group of men with box cutters hijacked some planes and crashed them into the towers and the Pentagon. So much evidence was omitted and ignored in the 911 Commission Report.   There was no forensic financial investigation, just as there was no forensic examination of the physical evidence.  A massive amount of evidence, the steel structures, were cut up and hurridly shipped to China.  Over raging denial, I could see it was the perfect cover-up.

Our lives, our freedoms, our government, and our world has changed dramatically for the worse based on deception, ignorance, and the crimes of 9/11.  We were trained in my high school Critical Thinking class to be more critical, analytical, and less presumptive.  Critical analysis was not the intent of the 9/11 commission and so similar to the plan of the Warren Commission Report.   Both tragedies and both reports were the workings of the American Oligarchs.

The "War on Terror" and the trillions of dollars splashed around aimlessly was a promise to keep us free.  Freedom is not free; they chanted. President Bush said in effect if you are not with us, you are for the terrorists.  In one sentence, he chided us into becoming a nation of fearful sheep and mad dogs.  Few grant themselves any truthful inquiry or freedom to ask why.  The statue of fear became a permanent feature of our soul.  

Decades of deceit set us up perfectly in anger and despair.   It was those emotions that elected a pathologic narcissist.  Despite his despicable behavior, he is worshipped by his cult as a saint.  Ethics, morality, and respect for the rule of law are in the throes of death.   We like lemmings run in fear, for the sea, taking this young republic with it.

The founding people of this nation lived in England dominated by the King.   The broke away, sailed to the new world,  declared and fought a revolution. It is time for a new revolution. As the astute Christopher Hedges proclaimed a few years ago,  nothing short of a revolution will restore integrity to these United States.   This revolution must deplore violence.  The revolution to give democracy back to the people it will be the hardest thing “We the People” will ever do. I owe it to my grandchildren to work to restore these United States of America to real democracy, lest they ask, why did you give up?  When will you ever learn?