America: Empire of Silence

Are Americans ready for empire? I tend to believe that Americans are not ready yet for this undertaking--hopefully they never will be. But I think that the current political regime in power will try to accomplish this surreptitiously, and they are doing so already. (Consider the numbers of "bases" being built around the world by the Army.) ...

Perhaps there will arise something similar to what one might call "don't ask, don't tell" colonization. That is, the American public will not ask, even though they "know" that this is occurring; and the power brokers simply will work this way, taking no questions as quiet assent.

I believe that something like this is already in place--consider the lack of discussion, interest, or debate concerning the war in Iraq--the media simply have given Bush et al. a free ride and the citizens have simply been too lazy or preoccupied to care about what is happening.

The reason for this is that underneath it all, Americans know that the machinery of imperialism will help sustain the economic and social status quo. If I could draw an analogy: this type of insidious "silence" is similar to the silence that occurred during Nazi Germany; that is, when one's next-door Jewish neighbor was being bundled into the back of cars and trucks, people simply looked the other way.

I know I will be accused of scare-mongering, but certainly there is what is commonly called a "disconnect" going on between what people think is happening (and secretly know) and what is happening on the ground in "the colonies."

I think of the woman's daughter I had for class: she worked in the Army morgue in Iraq--what she saw and witnessed has so traumatized her life that (back here at home) she is drinking and drugging and waking up at night with nightmares. She has simply given up on bringing up her children.

It is these little "hearts of darkness" that are going to begin to eat at the fiber of this country. The question is, will we steel ourselves to the reality--continue to live as though nothing were happening?

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