The Marionettes of Christmas

Now that the United States has lost its struggle with Russia in Syria our government would like us to believe in or own innocence;  that this bloody massacre lies at the feet of Vladimir Putin, the Al-Assad regime and Iran.  It’s a very tall tale to sell given the investment of the Standard Oil Company of California in Saudi Arabia’s oil a hundred years ago.  The long history of U. S. supported corporate investment in Middle East oil and frequent U.S sponsored attempts to overthrow oil nation regimes, some of them democratically elected, are well documented; as are profitable arms sales to Iraq, Iran, the Saudis, Yemen and so on--often all at the same time. These have been the bloody standard tools of U. S. foreign policy in the Middle East. 

Here at home there’s a certain similarity with the post-election efforts of one-half of the U. S. population (the Democrats) trying to de-legitimize the other half.   Aside from inviting civil war at home, in both cases we're seeing the same tell-tale signs of death and denial (Bill Clinton dropping his ”Electors” ballot in the slot and blaming it all on the FBI). 

            What’s really happened? There’s been nothing like Aleppo since Hiroshima, really, or Dresden.  Nor has there ever been anything in modern time like globalization and automation destroying  tens of millions of people’s livelihoods.  So who or what did this? The disturbing answer in the interview with Henry Kissinger published this week in the current (December 2016) Atlantic monthly justifies the Vietnam and Iraq wars as expressions of  American exceptionalism. Not unlike Silicon Valley’s claim that exporting jobs is not a moral issue.  The assumption is that the powerful are inherently virtuous.

             Kissinger defines exceptionalism as constitutionalism and dedication to human rights but it’s clear that he rests it on the religious myth of a divine gift to chosen people such as  Americans and Israelis.  This pervasive myth has high utility and is visible today in the Hitlerian drift  of President-elect Trump’s tactic of discrediting the press to an economically wounded population.  Even after the election, Trump’s advisers seem sinister in intent as they send him out again and again to rally these wounded to their future purposes by strengthening  their cultural DNA fantasy of salvation by God’s messenger, Donald Trump.  

             It’s the most dangerous tactic and moment since the Civil War; a demonic absurdity that ironically counts on Christmas and Hanukkah for reinforcement.  Both the calamity at Aleppo and familiar U. S. political practitioners  count on civil society as marionettes whose strings are pulled not by powerful puppet masters but by their own religious myths.  

               It’s the task of people of faith to call these idols and demons by name and know the difference between promises, propaganda and truth.