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Sympathy and hope for “fear and loathing” in these uncertain days

            If only the chemically constricted pupils of Hunter S. Thompson could see us now.  I wonder if he’d look up from his gourmet-plated cocaine and through the smokescreen of cigarettes and imperceptible acid inputs to tell us to keep our fingers out of our mouths.  At least then we’d have some comic relief served alongside this never-ending buffet of uninformed opinions, conspiracy mongers, and fear jockeys endlessly feeding us during the coronavirus outbreak.

            With 2019-nCoV spreading globally, our newsfeeds serve as something like a cross-section of American’s gut reaction to the outbreak.  Accounts range from paralytic fear to complete apathy, multinational-elite conspiracy to deep-state biological war against Donald Trump.  American’s response to the coronavirus has been the accidental analog to the government purportedly representing them; clunky, devoid of nuance, unqualified and skeptical.

            I’m not, by any means, a subject matter expert on dangerous pathogens or medicine.  I am, however, a second-year emergency nurse who spent the six years before nursing working full-time on an ambulance.  That experience has given me profound insight into how people react to stress, how people interface with medicine, and most of all, how staggeringly weak health literacy is among the general public.  But it’s the social media age, with its cornerstone feature being an easy-to-use drop box imploring you to tell the world, “what’s on your mind?”  It shouldn’t be any wonder we have a wellspring of meme-takes feigning a kernel of truth. 

Are We There Yet?

            A common thread among so many consuming the constant breaking news headlines seems to be akin to impatient kids eager for their porch light after a long road trip whining, “are we there yet?”  Whether generally fatigued by the excitement of all of this, or completely skeptical of the “official narrative” streaming endlessly, it seems just about everyone is ready to get back to business as usual.  As if media-alchemists that can turn any lowly molehill into mountains for our viewing pleasure are going to stop covering the first global coronavirus pandemic.  Any overzealousness for a return to regularly scheduled monotony needs to take a breather (preferably through the elbow).

            One of the major question marks still lurking over this situation is how transmissible the coronavirus is when infected people have no symptoms.  This fact overlaid onto a globe made smaller than ever by travel and commerce is reason enough to pause.  If people are unwittingly transmitting this virus, it will be even harder to contain.  Even if that’s not the case, our recent nCoV is still projecting to infect millions in the US based on its documented behavior so far.  Unlike a typical flu season, nCoV-19 isn’t going to take the warmer months off, meaning measures to suspend public gatherings like sports and Broadway, or state-wide school cancellations and work reprieves are not going to stop the spread of disease, but will put the brakes on a little.  Slowing the spread and “flattening the curve” will soften the ultimate projections, per the CDC and independent researchers, but the world appears poised for long-suffering nonetheless.  So, for those among you who can’t hit “share” fast enough when side-by-side comparisons of influenza (now at the tail end of its season) and the coronavirus (likely just beginning to gain global traction) show that flu afflicted more people and didn’t cause a stir, take solace in knowing you won’t be dining alone this evening.

            In the meantime, scoffing at the only bull market left in Charmin and Quilted Northern is low-hanging fruit.  My readers are above that, but their friends list certainly isn’t.  If reports for Connecticut wintery-mixes leave grocers picked clean, “pandemic” seems at least worthy of extra toilet paper for the prudent.  After all, with the kids stuck home eating tv-dinners through their gas masks, demand is surely to rise.

Corona Crow

            I’m taking for granted there’s enough of a coronavirus common knowledge at this point that a review of “social distancing” and droplet precautions isn’t necessary.  There are so many disheveled assertions, predictions, and Q-breathed theories built on that collective foundation, though, I’m seeing stars.  Let’s review a nightmarish distillation of my newsfeed:

• “COVID-19 was done or is being used to crash the economy or impeach Trump.”
• “COVID-19 was done to force globalization protestors from the streets.”
• “COVID-19 was done to dramatically expand federal, state, and local powers to implement an endless totalitarian police state.”
• COVID-19 was made to drive depopulation while simultaneously furthering the plot to, “evolve the human race to interface with the Deep State’s advancing information technologies utilizing 5G and the Cloud, and the Silicon Valley’s most promising “PROMIS”-like software, for optimal permanent control over civilization.” Jeff Epstein and Bill Gates are bankrolling it.
• “COVID-19 was funded by Bill Gates with the express purpose of infecting the population, thus making them reliant on a vaccine he’s already discovered.”
  • See Event 201

The list, unfortunately, goes on. 

            I’ve come to think of conspiracy theorists like internet chihuahuas.  They bark at everything, and on the off chance they’re right, it’s nice they were there to alerted us.  But we’re so used to hearing them yelp incessantly at everything that moves, that anything genuinely noteworthy doesn’t get our attention.  Conspiracies often grow from founding myths that aren’t falsifiable, like the existence of a global superrich cabal of string-pullers.  When major narratives like coronavirus develop, they can be neatly fit into these elastic stories seamlessly, because the scaffolding doesn’t exist apart from them. 

            Whether it’s a hoax or not, downplaying the coronavirus potential is dangerous.  Much like the hopelessness that drove Thompson to snort and slosh is way through life, there’s an underlying uniformity emerging in the response to COVID-19: you’re being swindled.  From the web chihuahuas to the upper crust eye-rollers, so many among us aren’t buying what they perceive is being sold.  In the age of the internet, with truth like an elusive object that must be unearthed at the end of a harrowing epic, information consumers have self-segregated towards their own personally tailored outrage caves for treasure.  Just as in fantasy, dragons are always just around the corner, and worse than the town crier could have imagined.  Every meme can be the crumb that leads you along the path to ambush, or to the preferred oasis.  The fearful and the loathing – an inadvertent group of fellow travelers – will be forced to eat “corona crow” by the time this contagion plays itself out.

In Defense of Fear and Loathing

            I’ve found myself surprisingly sympathetic to the broad spectrum of internet responses, regardless.  I can understand the fear for yourself or your loved ones – young and old – that drives irrational stockpiling and white-knuckled commutes.  An unknown pathogen sweeping the globe is a terrifying prospect, even if the survival rate is high.  That fear should be balanced by the same inclinations that drive our loveable Q folks, though. The government knows to, “never let a serious crisis go to waste.”  Public fear is political capital. 

Since the outbreak we’ve seen federal bureaucracy has been a significant hurdle to responding appropriately.  When they’re not outright fumbling over themselves and do manage to get their governing tool kits open, it turns out it’s as sparsely populated as national medical supply reserves.  Outside of dramatic stimulus spending, inane partisan policy victories, and draconian-infused state of emergency declarations, the feds are left to rely on individuals to make rational choices.

Of those loathing, I’m all ears.  Consider me thoroughly unconvinced that a contagion of known-origin was manufactured and deployed by government spooks, though.  Pandemics aren’t unprecedented, and neither are unfounded conspiracy theories regarding them.  Any skepticism towards government is better than none; but walking the edge of Occam’s Razor is almost always the better course.  A cynical, poorly managed, underqualified and overfunded bureaucracy trying to be “creative” and capitalize on public panic is much scarier than that same bureaucracy secretly carrying out intricate orders from despotic pedophiles.  Both will fail, but one boot thinks its benevolent.  Those are the villains I’m worried about.

Importantly, sweeping disregard of critical voices isn’t the right response either.  The “state-loathing” crowd has a substantial argument on offer.  First, the media landscape has learned a lot about keeping an audience captive since the Trump era began, turning panic and outrage into profits.  From fallacious cycles like Russiagate to the Iraq War fear-blitz of old, training a critical eye for headlines is wise.  That, coupled with the incestuous nature of intelligence nomenklatura like John Brennan – who lied to Congress and the press during his tenure but still enjoys his freedom making TV appearances with Rachel Maddow – makes news consumers rightfully skittish. Compounding that is a fact the US government has made crystal clear: there is no bridge too far when the chips are down.  From Operations Northwoods and Mockingbird, back to Iraq, to the torching of Waco, NSA’s domestic surveillance program, or the poisoning of prohibition-era alcohol,  the government has shown an expectation for individuals and their rights to die on the altar of institutional wisdom.

Take A Day Off

With the coronavirus making its way around the world like the memes that doubt it, just take a day off; from work, from worrying about infection, and from media.  This virus is likely going to be a new paradigm for our lives for the foreseeable future.  During that time away, we can reflect on the success and failures of media, on government abuses of power, on our own sacred cows and what they yield, and how rational actors can starve the state of vital nutrients.  Beyond prudent preventative measures, there’s not much more you will do to change what’s to come of COVID-19.  With such a sudden shock to our lives, to our personal security, and to the structural safeguards we believe in, there is fertile ground ahead.  We can choose to sew radical new seeds for change, or we can stay the course, hoping there’s enough crow to go around.

In response to pathogenic outbreaks, like the recent novel coronavirus, this image, represents flattening the curve. The idea that by implementing measures to limit rapid disease spread, medical resources will better be able to manage the disease as it spreads over a long period of time.

Despite an early chivalrous ring, World War I was not “the war to end all wars,” it was a harbinger. Western civilization emerged from the ruins of the “Great War” more belligerent than ever before, now for the sake of prognostications by so-called experts or in pursuit of ‘humanitarian’ ends.

The War to End War yet rages on, resolutely bloodless.  Soldiers for peace go over the top with an ever-expanding list of data points on failed interventions and human atrocities, working to convince their betters and their untapped legions of cannon fodder that peaceful ends must be achieved through peaceful means.  There can be no handsome unfurling of the victor’s flag above more corpses.  In place of marching tunes to remind them of love back home or of pride for their motherland, those within these wretched trenches are motivated by principle, by hope for progress, by frank human kindness.

I can think of few better who embody these mainsprings of peace, who stoically shoulder their charge amongst our ranks, than 85-year-old lifelong antiwar activist Joan H. Nicholson. 

Joan was raised in a Quaker home in Pennsylvania in the 1930s with deep connections to the Religious Society of Friends; her uncle an Executive Secretary.  Drawing on the rich history of her predecessors, Quakers “provided the background and ongoing inspiration to carry on a witness for peace and justice,” Joan recounts in our written correspondence. 

Attending college at Earlham with a Junior year at Edinburgh, Joan took her Friends-infused framework to post-war Europe like family before her. Joan’s father helped rebuild France after WWI while her aunt fed hungry German children during the interwar period.  Joan went to a workcamp in Austria where she saw the effects of blood-soaked modernity firsthand.

After college, she joined the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) Interns in Industry Project in Atlanta.  Joan worked in a bra factory by day and boarded at Morehouse College at night.  Factory workers protested their presence for residing at the all-black school over summer break and demanded the interns leave.  She did just that; taking a job on offer from Martin Luther King Sr. to teach children with Ebenezer Church.

After living in full-intentional communities in Georgia, Joan went back to Pennsylvania to teach with the Get-Set program for two years.  Failing to amend her contract in light of the Vietnam war and the burgeoning war-tax resistance movement, Joan resigned.  She refused to participate in the coercive funding of the American empire.

Over several hours on the telephone, Joan offers a firm refrain, spoken in her distinctly convicted, gentle voice, “war is just a thing that shouldn’t be.” She had decided somewhere along the way that her life would fully reflect that belief.

As the war against Vietnam plodded on, peace protests gained new legs.  Joan joined a Quaker Action Group for weekly readings of the Vietnam war dead on the Capitol steps.  Joan read Vietnamese poems translated for an English audience. “We were arrested each time, but after five weeks, the judge finally ruled that it was unconstitutional to arrest us,” she writes. “That witness continued,” into the Pentagon itself – she laughingly interrupts herself – “can you imagine?” She remembers walking down steps into a common thruway where she and others began memorializing fallen American soldiers.  Joan and the others were promptly arrested.

Joan’s antiwar stripes were well earned, but she persisted.  Now in the late 1960s with violence in Vietnam reaching new heights, the draft was supplying incredulous holdouts for ‘service.’ Joan had other notions of what service meant.  Joan pens that she “joined the movement to nonviolently destroy or remove draft files in New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia.” The group “surfaced” and was called before a grand jury.  The case was dismissed as prosecutors struggled to connect activists to particular locations.

It was again alongside Quakers that Joan captured headlines in Rochester.  The Flower City Conspiracy broke into the Federal Selective Services building, the FBI, and the Attorney General’s Office and destroyed draft files.  The 8-person crew standing trial represented themselves to use the time before the judge and jury to highlight the criminality and injustice of the war against Vietnam.  The Flower City Conspiracy was facing 38 years, but the jury recommended leniency and Joan, the eldest at 36, received 15 months.

Joan’s penchant for protesting injustice ran roots even into her concrete cell block.  Joan took part in peaceful agitation for prison reform in solidarity with prisoners in Attica before the riots there.  After the smoke and gas had cleared in New York – with dozens left dead – Joan was moved with other women from Alderson to Texas where she spent the remaining 12 months of her sentence.  There, she penned a diary and began writing children’s books.

After her release, Joan traveled back to Washington, D.C.  Amidst the shouts of the Mayday Tribe, one may have heard Joan’s cadence calling with the crowd, “If the government won’t stop the war, we’ll stop the government.” The People’s Blockade, calling themselves the Mayday Collective, attempted to blockade 21 key positions around the U.S. capital.  The nation watched as police cracked down on permitted camps and tens of thousands of protestors with their usual tact of tear gas and low-flying helicopters.  Political chainsaw surgery for the manifestations of “Vietnam Syndrome.”

One morning Joan and a friend traveled to the White House, with names of the war dead echoing from the Capitol steps.  Joan had her blood drawn from a doctor and carried it with a rolled map of Vietnam into the East Room while tourists quietly shuffled between paintings.  Beneath the chandeliers with Washington himself watching like all the rest, Joan and her friend unfurled the poster reading “STOP SPILLING BLOOD” and splattered it with Joan’s blood.  She recalls that, “A small New York Times article reported that red paint had been used.”

As overt military action in Vietnam ended, Joan went back to Pennsylvania, where she worked as a camp counselor for 12 summers.  Throughout the Cold War, with the state’s war apparatus still in the forefront of her mind, Joan remained active. 

Most pressing was the now-forgotten reconstruction of Vietnam and Cambodia.  In 1991 Joan spent three weeks with International Peace Works reaching out to Vietnamese and Cambodian communities in violation of the Trading with the Enemy Act that still wracked a Southeast Asia in recovery.  Desperate medical facilities were strangled for supplies as the IMF and World Bank were prohibited from making loans.  This economic warfare 16 years after the Fall of Saigon stymied progress as ‘legacy ordinance’ continued savaging a helpless people. “Our hosts were concerned about what might occur on the trip, because war wounds are so deep and pervasive, and we would be the first U.S. citizens seen by some of the Vietnamese since the war.  Incredibly, we were warmly welcomed by most of the people we met.  We were deeply moved and challenged by their forgiveness, courage and persistent hope for peace,” she remembers in a Friends Journal piece. 

At the end of her trip to Southeast Asia, Joan traveled to Hiroshima, Japan.  She wanted to personally bear the image, some fifty years later, of those who died beneath the uniquely American mushroom-cloud-shaped olive branch.

With over 40 years of peacemaking behind her, the road ahead became altogether different in 2001.  The once dichotomous Cold War model of supposed good versus evil transformed into a totalitarian nightmare of political-military global hegemony backed by corporate war-profiteers.  The justification for endless American military intervention struck New York City’s Twin Towers, and the Global War on Terror began.  In a few short years, as the laundry list of countries to be liberated grew, Joan hatched a plan.

Thanks to the generosity of “an old Friends Meetinghouse” owner, Joan began planting signs on the lawn facing Highway 1 in Pennsylvania.  Every morning – and every afternoon until recently – while weather permits, Joan stands outside quietly decrying the U.S. imperialism of the day.  Ever the slight, silent sentinel, Joan jealously guards her values in the face of thousands of community passersby.  

“CLOSE GUANTANAMO.” 

“STOP U.S. SUPPORT FOR KIEV.” 

“FREE MANNING, ASSANGE.” 

“ABOLISH U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS.” 

“STOP U.S. WARS FOR PROFIT AND PLUNDER.”

Traveling with CodePink, Joan flew to Pakistan to meet with families and support victims of the U.S. drone program while they buzzed overhead.  She heard stories from families who lost innocent loved ones to so-called ‘precision-guided’ armaments.   She flew to Nicaragua and Haiti on mission trips supporting the impoverished and meeting with community action groups.

As she’s grown older, Joan travels less, needing help coordinating transportation and a friendly bed to rely on.  In a letter to a friend, she recalls a more recent trip to Washington.  Joan writes, “Christians and people of other religious faiths were gathered in the Hart Senate Building to pray for peace, for an end to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.  Through prayer and stillness, word and song, we sought to reach out to the heart and minds of those who have voted for the madness of the invasions and occupation which destroyed the lives and welfare of untold millions of people and caused suffering that will endure for generations.”

In another visit to D.C., from the gallery of the House of Representatives, Joan watched as strident non-interventionist Representative Kucinich (D-OH) hosted a debate on ending the U.S. GWOT wars.  During the proceedings, a fellow member of the house repeatedly yelled, “al-Qaeda are global terrorists.” Joan couldn’t stand the hypocrisy and shouted down from the gallery, “The U.S. is the global terrorist!” She was arrested and banned from the capital for nine months.

In 2011, on the 8th Anniversary of the Iraq invasion, Veterans for Peace organized a demonstration outside the White House to protest the illegal war and the treatment of Chelsea Manning.  Joan and the VFP members in attendance were arrested.  Everyone arrested, save Joan, was offered a $35 fee to forfeit.  Joan was told she would face the charges because of “previous cases.” Several of her fellow protestors from VFP refused to the offer and stood trial.  She writes, “As it turned out, I was thankful to be with the others on trial.”

In her testimony, Joan criticizes the drone program and the tactics of the GWOT under the pretense of protection.  In her testimony’s closing remarks, Joan’s resolve reflected bluntly, “These unspeakable crimes against humanity were by themselves enough to compel me to join the veterans and others in front of the White House on March 19th… Peaceful efforts to effect change often seem to be futile gestures, but I believe we must never give up hope that our nation’s war policy can be radically transformed.”

That hope has ordered nearly every step Joan’s taken since she came into adulthood.  Contemptuous of an unjust ruling class and the “corporate media” she blames for perpetuating their lies, Joan manifests that dismay with kindness.  Though, there are no stars in the eyes that have seen so much.

I asked if she was at all optimistic; if she thought ‘our side’ had a chance of making real headway or effecting policy.  Stillness.

In time, Joan hesitantly chuckled. “My heavens,” she reflexively answered as she had so many times before. 

I sensed there’d been too much needless blood split for her to say; too many entrenched interests, too much money and power on the other side of no-mans land. Joan’s already connected countless weathered-by-war faces to the receiving end of the U.S. foreign policy establishment to muster the strength to lecture on change from her retirement home in Pennsylvania.

Instead, she incessantly pointed to those she considered more worthy of admiration than herself.  In each of our conversations, Joan downplayed her efforts for peace in place of those she’d come to respect throughout her years.  Joan saw my writing as a chance to highlight the work of others – earnestly agitating for peace in their times – rather than herself.

It’s precisely that deference that makes Joan’s life so admirable. 

In the era of unceasing expansion of ‘American exceptionalism’ at the barrel of a gun, Joan built her life into an obstacle; not for the sake of obstinance, but for principle.  Joan’s footprints are woven through some of the most pressing moments of 20th century America and the world beyond.

Joan’s not finished yet.  At the end of her letter to me, she writes that, “The situation in the world makes me want to continue witnessing for peace and justice as long as I can.” So tomorrow you can find her on Kennett Square’s Highway 1 – amidst her hand-written signs with a wispy peace sign – calling you to take these wretched trenches next.

Joan asked for the piece, originally published on antiwar.com, be amended for clarity. The original piece states that Joan’s uncle was the “First Executive Secretary” of the Quaker organization, a misunderstanding on my part during one of our interviews.

The Devils We Don’t Know

                Unwrapping raw information from the various cultural and social overlays can be maddening, especially in politics. The punditry, special pleading, and white knighting can be dizzying, and making heads or tails of things is often too much of a labor for the average news consumer.  That’s why we look to sources.  Established reprieves of thought and information we self-segregate and nestled into for the takes we trust.  Perhaps no nightly news program better fits the centrist, “just the facts” review of the here-and-now better than 60 Minutes.  In its first episode of March, Eddie Gallagher, the Navy SEAL convicted of posing with a dead enemy and subsequently pardoned by President Trump, was profiled to speak about the case.  This is, to date, the only public response Gallagher has given about the crimes in question, as he was never called to the stand during his trial.

Beneath the sophistry from just about everyone on the case, Gallagher’s moment in the public eye is extremely telling.  In an era when the troops are paraded continuously about as living examples of full-bellied freedom and benevolent peacemaking, Gallagher was thrust on stage in a handsome dress uniform.  Meanwhile, photos of he and his team posing with the body of a teenage insurgent were circulating the internet.  Fortunately for him, his well-shined shoes happened to tread on fertile ground.  The soldier-worship of this moment can’t be overstated – from stateside line-cooks to highly-trained operators – every member of the armed forces are due endless, nauseating waves of veneration.  So unifying, in fact, that both the ruddy-skinned MAGA barfly and the New England soccer mom alike can’t fall over themselves fast enough to unfurl a flag in their direction or thank them for their service.  Briefly, the ribbon-crested chest of the military man and the reality of the Global War on Terror collided in the public arena for our viewing pleasure.

                Except, as we who care about US military adventurism know too well, the story was only ever told as if transcribed from Lady Liberty herself.  Though the implications of this case should be far-reaching, with partisans from both sides taking the opportunity to critically examine their sacred cows, there’s no sense holding your breath.  Like any other revealing story of the last ten years, Gallagher serves only as a trench whistle for each side to go over the top and face-off with the “true enemy.”

Importantly, Eddie Gallagher’s case only came to light when his team began speaking out.  Reports spanning several deployments from the guys he was fighting alongside demonstrate Gallagher’s complete disregard for innocent life in US-occupied countries.  Stories ranged from shots being fired at unwitting passersby, shooting a little girl in a tense ISIS commander stand-off, and the back-breaking straw of the dead ISIS fighter in the photograph he violently stabbed.  When we consider the self-proclaimed and internally fortified bonds of fraternal organizations like the SEALs, much like police and firefighters, the gravitas of defiant voices becomes even more credible.  This isn’t a store clerk reporting a fellow cashier for skimming from the drawer.  Even shedding the bravado and hyperbole, these people fight and die alongside one another in far-off lands, isolated in small cohorts, suffering collectively.  The mental and social barriers to publicly dissenting from an extremely selective in-group should be condemnation enough.  This is especially true for those red-skinned beer sluggers and Escalade soccer moms who value the troops so dearly.  These are SEALs ratting on SEALs!  If a capo from some mafia family came out decrying one of his fellow garrote-choking, cigar-smoking buddies, saying he was made to feel uneasy after a mission and publicly referred to him as “evil,” the court of public opinion would be done deliberating before the chyron faded.

Shortly after the unnamed ISIS combatant’s death and photo-op, Eddie sent the picture to a fellow SEAL with the text, “Good story behind this, got him with my hunting knife.”  In the 60 Minutes interview, Gallagher reassures us, “’I was trying to make it look tough, yeah,’ Gallagher said. ‘I know how bad it looks when it gets out into the public, which it never was supposed to.’” What then, haven’t we seen?  How many trophy walls are adorned with photos of gloved hands holding the limp heads of Middle Eastern men?  How many forward-deployed lips are sealed?  With such a defense, what are the sins of the devils we don’t know?

It’s important to note, Corey Scott, the SEAL who reported the ISIS teen being stabbed to death by Gallagher, changed his tune on the witness stand.  Under the condition of immunity, Scott said during his testimony that even though Gallagher stabbed him in the neck, it was Scott himself who ultimately killed him.  A mercy killing, he says per the Times, by putting a thumb over his breathing tube because, “he knew he was going to die anyways.”  The prosecution promptly pointed out that throughout the investigation he had never shared this critical piece of information and was likely doing so now only to protect his former teammate.  Scott denied this, though did say on the stand he did not want to see Chief Gallagher go to jail.  Gallagher maintained his innocence throughout the proceedings and was eventually found not guilty of murder.  Several SEALs aside from Scott maintained Gallagher did attack the kid, offering grisly details of Eddie stabbing him, “in the jugular at least twice,” with blood spitting out like, “a baby throwing up.”  The jury was apparently satisfied those injuries were not life-threatening or worthy of conviction.

Instead of a collective slaughter of their sacred cows following the case, commenters on the Gallagher trial and conviction doubled down in the most extraneous ways.  From the 60 Minutes piece, “Evan Hafer, a former Green Beret and co-founder of the veteran-run company Black Rifle Coffee, argued that more must be done to support war-fighters who have carried, ‘the burden and the psychological and physical weight,’ of the global war on terror for, ‘over almost two decades now.'”  Of all things, our veterans are under-served, he says.  After two decades of fighting, with more terrorists than ever before, trillions of dollars spent, millions of dead civilians, and a candlelight vigil for nearly every Smalltown, USA, you’d think Hafer and his fellow travelers would have more pressing humanitarian concerns.  This isn’t the first time 60 Minutes aired the sentiment that the cost of “other blood” is really no price at all.  Remember the now infamous 1992 episode of 60 Minutes, featuring the callous defense of Madeleine Albright’s that starving half a million kids to death for foreign policy aims in Iraq was reasonable?  “We think it’s worth it,” her steady voice asserted, when asked about the veracity of child death statistics after Iraqi blockades.  Somehow Evan and those huddled around Gallagher never seem to ask if the costs of these wars are worth it, only that the troops aren’t getting enough tender loving care.  Self-made martyrs for the war on terror, I wonder if the Gallagher’s spend quiet evenings around the dinner table lambasting the Bush administration for putting him over there?

As a matter of fact, we can surmise the answer.  Eddie’s wife, Andrea, shared her pain after the arrest, “All those years sacrificing my husband, every holiday, every birthday willingly giving our family to the cause to fight the war on terror. This is not something we took lightly. We’ve committed our entire life, our children’s lives and our marriage to the cause.”  The warrant execution and raid were apparently abrupt, with Andrea describing police as, “kitted-up” and, “looking ready for war,” as they stacked up on their front porch; a tactic her husband is plenty familiar.  As her kids sat outside in their underwear with cops rifling through their home, their dignity left for dead on the altar of GWOT, I have to imagine Andrea missed the tragic irony of the whole thing.  Police defended their tactics as standard procedure, a favorite fallback for police and for the military.  Eddie and Andrea likely never had the sobering realization that those horrors are the constant reality for Iraqi families under 15 years of military occupation.  All a part of their glorious “cause.”

It’s a shame so many families have been forced to make the war on terror an inextricable part of their family’s identities, wearing deployments like a badge of honor instead of an unfortunate black eye.  Even with relatively platonic family ties to the military, where little threat exists on deployments, is “sacrifice” the healthy outlook for children subject to absent parents because of senseless wars?  The line between ardent support and bitter revulsion seems razor-thin, often complicated by which side of the earth their loved one rests on.  Gallagher was well suited to exploit this fevered base of military families and supporters, rallied at the top by the consummate populist himself, Trump.

Teams red and blue clashed as the decision to pardon was made.  Trump defended Gallagher as a war hero and fired the Navy Secretary who tried to undermine his efforts.  Detractors called the move brash, a miscarriage of justice, irresponsible.  Each team scored a few points for their side and hurried us along before the two-minutes hate stopped looking like a montage and started reading like a deep dive into US imperialism.

The smoldering embers left by Gallagher both overseas and in the military justice system remain faintly lit, as Eddie himself walks away unscathed.  But even as the storm settles from the 60 Minutes interview, thoughtful reflection for media or its consumers isn’t likely to follow.  In the typical fashion of the day, news items become objectified and melted down into ammunition for hurling at the other side without a second thought.  Gallagher should be the face of corruption at “the tip of the spear.”  A thorn in the side of Trump politically – and his supporters morally – Eddie’s abject disdain for faceless proles in US subjugated countries isn’t an aberration, but a mission accomplished.  Somewhere early on the Iraqis (as well as the Afghans, Somalis, Yemenis, Libyans, Syrians, Iranians, etc.) became mere silhouette targets to hone one’s skills on; morphing from oppressed masses to be valiantly saved into aggravating adversaries.  Eddie Gallagher, it turns out, is the embodiment of “the cause” of the US global terror wars.  The zealous believer delivering violent “democracy” at the barrel of a gun to a people opposing his very presence in their home.  It isn’t any wonder the face of illegal 21^st century war-making would be found “not guilty.”

Below is my exact transcription of the testimony Joan Nicholson gave to Judge Canan following her arrest by Park’s Police in Washington during a peaceful VFP demonstration on the Iraq and Afghan wars.

Good afternoon Judge Canan,

I am thankful for this opportunity to testify as to why I found it necessary to participate in the peaceful veteran-led presence in front of the white house on March, 19^th.

To me, it was above all, an affirmation of the sanctity of human life. I believe our nation’s war policy should be transformed into a policy based on respect for human life and adherence to international law.  I further believe that it is not only a constitutional right to peaceably assemble for a redress of grievances, it is our moral responsibility to do so as long as we are physically able.  I add this last, because my 77 years have made me more conscious of the passing of time and the need to use the time well.

Corporations prescribe and promote the war policy.  They lobby Congress, and it gives nearly half of all Federal Funds to the military establishment to implement the policy.

Because of this, troops and contractors are stationed on bases around the world.  During the past decade, 1.6 trillion dollars have paid for wars waged against two countries.  The military and CIA are active in an undisclosed number of other countries.  Weapons manufacturers are able to develop advanced systems for perpetual warfare.

This is what brought me to witness in front of the White House where the final war policy decisions are made.

Justification given for the war policy?  The need to protect this nation from terrorists.  Corporate-controlled media lies, distorts and distracts, and it conceals OUR governments war of terror.  This has been a further reason for me to try to witness and do it publicly.

The war policy may seem abstract until we consider its effect upon people such as those in Afghanistan, where we have waged a 10-year war.  The main instruments of terror and murder are ground raids, helicopter gunships and predator drones.  There are on my heart and mind every day.

Ground raids are carried out each night.  Doors smashed in by soldiers wielding assault rifles, small children cowering while men and older boys are wrist-tied, hooded, interrogated.  Occasionally at the outset, men, women, and children have been shot.  Many of the people who are kidnapped are never heard from again.  Most of the prisoners are held without charges. Torture has been routine.  The construction at Bagram prison will more than double it’s capacity.

The helicopters may target anything that moves.  On the first day of the month it which our witness was halted, ten young boys were attacked as they searched for firewood for their families.  11-year-old Hemad was wounded.  Sheltered by fallen branches, he watched as the other boys were murdered.  Later, an uncle reported, “Finally, we found the dead bodies.  Some of the dead bodies were really chopped up by the rockets.  The head of a child was missing.  Others were missing limbs.  We tried to find the body parts and put them together.”  During the preceding and following weeks, 46 other children were reported to have been murdered in the same way.

The use of deadly unmanned drones with guided missiles has proliferated in recent years.  They are regularly launched from the United States and other sites to attack people in the tribal regions.  The Afghans do not know when or where the missiles will strike.  They do know there is no protection and that even wedding parties have been attacked, leaving all the celebrants dead or injured.

These unspeakable crimes against humanity were by themselves enough to compel me to join the veterans and others in front of the White House on March 19^th.

Why this effort to “stabilize” Afghanistan?  It is a strategic location vis a vis other countries in the region.  It has extensive natural gas reserves and has long been regarded as being a crossroads for lucrative gas and oil pipeline routes.  There are huge mineral deposits including iron, copper, cobalt, gold, and lithium estimated to be worth between 1 and 3 trillion dollars.  An internal Pentagon memo has stated that lithium, a critical industrial metal, could be for Afghanistan what oil is for Saudi Arabia.  The Pentagon is using geologists to locate the minerals.

Peaceful efforts to effect change often seem to be futile gestures, but I believe we must never give up hope that our nation’s war policy can be radically transformed.  We must continue to believe that the President and other government officials will realize there is broad public support for them to disengage from the corporate stronghold.  Only when that happens will our nation begin to follow a path that will benefit humankind and save our shared planet, earth.

Fellow Americans, we live in a magnificent country. 3.8 million square miles smack in the middle of North America spangled in steadfast colors. So grand, in fact, that a hegemonic hands-on-the-waist global posture simply isn’t enough. Consider all of the children not under our care. After all, the only problem with the remaining 196 countries on earth is that they aren’t these glorious United States. They merely require purification.

As our mission of unrefined altruism continues here on earth, there remains a final frontier worthy of our benevolent bootprints: the universe.

In February of this year, internet memedom exploded with Starship Trooper Space Marine’s stamped in Ol’ Glory trouncing potential foes in the great beyond. Trump had issued the order to stand up a new, tremendous branch of freedom’s honor guard; the Space Force.

Much to our collective chagrin, neither the duo of Bugs and M.J. nor Johnny Rico was tapped to command the sweeping legions of dusky, iron-clad U.S. Space Marine’s. As a consolation, we got some insights into their mission statement.

“The United States Space Force will ensure that our nation is prepared to defend our people, defend our interests, and to defend our values in the vast expanse of space and here on Earth with the technologies that will support our common defense for the vast reaches of outer space,” Pence said at the National Space Council meeting Tuesday.

If you thought eradicating terror from the face of the earth was ambitious, Trump and company have got news for you. As the blue planets last bastion of ethereal freedoms, and having revolutionized its ability to plant outposts anywhere, the United States government now has the means and charge to make the skies safe for democracy.

Four times in a single sentence, Vice President Pence reiterates the defensive nature of this move by the executive. As if a bloated and burgeoning defense budget, a global network of missile defense systems, allied military support, and far-flung strategic positions weren’t enough, Pence seems to be trying to convince us, and maybe himself, that we need the Space Force.

If the Global War on Terror has taught us anything, it’s that this century-old wisdom rings true: “war is the health of the state.” Since its beginning, the U.S. federal government’s budget, width, and breadth have all expanded like the edges of the universe itself. With the new advent of a space-specific military branch, the last legal framework for American universal domination is taking shape. Don’t doubt the lawyer-alchemist’s abilities to conjure links between alien-life and al-Qaeda, extending an already tenuous AUMF to the very stars above.

While hawkish eyes gaze upward, warheads continue pointing outward. It’s not space Muslims or alien life this Space Force functionally guards against, rather the perennial enemies of Russia and China. “The Air Force’s actual concerns center on China and Russia’s ambitions, including current attempts at interfering with communications between satellites and other military machinery, like ships in the Pacific or planes flying over Syria,” says Paul Shinkman of U.S. News’ National Security. Since 2007, U.S. concerns over China’s capabilities to disrupt satellite operations escalated with the launch of their anti-satellite missile. This poses a potential threat to Pentagon satellite-warfare progress. “Our competitors out there have been watching the way we fight over the last 26 years. And they see our asymmetric advantage that very often comes from capabilities in space. They’re looking for ways to deny that to us,” says Air Force Chief of Staff David Goldfein. Evidently, endless conflict has one downside to these cretins.

Overt military action towards the U.S., even if outside the atmosphere, would mean all-out war; and not with cosmonauts. “There’s no such thing as a space war,” Navy Rear Admiral Brian Brown of Joint Functional Component Command of Space admits. “There would not be a war that just stays in space. The minute a conflict extends to space … it starts to affect all domains.” This imparts the Space Force, as a stand-alone military branch, the inimitable strategic purpose of absorbing attacks for subsequent “real battle” in kinetic, conventional environments.

The American military apparatus, backed by some of the world’s most powerful nations, outmatch any potential belligerent to ‘democratic’ dominion. Practically speaking then, “space superiority” in the current climate is a jobs program disguised as muscle for tech protection. “Defense” is the military contractor equivalent of a mafia front and the government’s convenient justification for further military expansion and anticipatory legalese before technological advance requires action.

U.S. intelligence assets in space have and will continue to be protected in virtually the same way. Space Force serves to draw battle lines over the vacuum-sealed space corpse of once-globally cooperative efforts, further militarizing an already fetishized fascistic model of war-corporatism.

Star Wars: The Founders Promise will undoubtedly be the harbinger for further domestic nationalization, too. Without exception, U.S. military action always swells the state’s scope. In an increasingly digitalized world, imagine the implications of fully nationalizing and “securing” satellite and space infrastructure while in its infancy.

Only one ardent liberty stronghold stands between the threat of Martian terrorism and common sense; “Establishment of the Space Force still requires congressional funding and authority, a step Pence said Tuesday would happen soon,” per USA Today.

A chorus of snickering and chaffed elbows ensues. Such hubristic assurance for the passing of military boondoggles through bipartisan channels is Pence’s signal to the world that we’re all missing the joke. From both banks of the Potomac, the quiet refrain of a tragic comedy resounds: “The universe is ours.”

Asa’s story is the quintessential tale of rags to riches coupled with a class-defying love affair. A rural “savage” who’s left a wealthy estate by a distant family member, only to run up against envious schemers from polite society, Asa falls in love with a poor dairymaid and wins the day, the estate and the girl.

That was the plan on April 14th anyways, until Lincoln had a derringer explode at his head. Our American Cousin ceased for the evening and the United States, still wracked by a national war, began whirling with inquiries into the murder of its president.

One apparent casualty of political jurisprudence and celerity was Mary Surratt. Mary owned the inn that the assassin and co-conspirators frequented. This wasn’t a capital crime. There was tenuous evidence of Mary being guilty of anything but a supporter of the southern cause, who loved her confederate soldier son and supported the confederate army with the means available to her. The military tribunal, of all things, concluded that Mary allowed spies operating within a local network safe-haven in her boardinghouse, casting her amongst the other convicted conspirators to die.

The crime of quartering comrades and having a photograph of John Wilkes Booth, an apparent friend of her sons, was enough to hang her by her neck until she was dead. With a steadfast, sober adherence to law and order, carrying out sentencing took less than three months. This included a personal rejection of clemency and writ of stay of execution by the newly-ascended president Johnson. A presidency mired in conflict and a blood-drenched homeland ended with splattered upholstery and a highly spurious hanging; this death unaccounted for in the atrocious so-called civil war.

Interestingly, the federal government had decided July was enough deliberation for the hanging of Mrs. Surratt, but not enough time for shows to continue where Lincoln was shot. Three days after Mary stopped swinging, soldiers arrived at the Ford theatre by order of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, whose apparent grief made him, “opposed to its ever being again used as a place of public amusement.” The tenderhearted men of the administration couldn’t bear the thought of another laugh being loosed where Lincoln bled. If only such magnanimity were extended to those in the gnashing gallows.

Bureaucrats have a nasty tendency of doing just this, though; making special allowances for their own circumstances without extending the same to “their people.” Presidents and their administrations have left red-streaked memories on the corridors of American history as the body of liberty is dragged behind them since practically their beginning. It’s this ‘classism’ above all else that makes capital punishment impracticable in American society. How can we grant the state special permissions to kill, with their record of expedient desecration of supposedly sacred individual rights? As for fellow Christians, any opportunity to exercise restraint should be seized upon; our collective history from the gladius and bulls in Roman stadiums to recent pocket knives on Egyptian shores should be reminder enough the threat that authoritative strong-men can pose to believers. Assuredly we shouldn’t be enthusiastically voting for the potential guillotine on our children’s necks.

It was another night in April where this conversation begins to come full-circle. On April 19th, 1989, Trisha Meili was brutally raped and beaten, and 8 others were attacked around New York City. The ensuing events are well-known to most, as 5 young black men were wrongly accused of the crimes. The spectacle arrested the attention of Manhattan and the U.S. at large as opposing sides of increasing racial tensions drew their respective battle plans up and began to execute. Amidst the clamor for justice was real estate mogul Donald Trump’s full-page ads in four separate papers demanding, “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY! BRING BACK THE POLICE!” Without reference to the now-dubbed Central Park Five, the message was plain nevertheless.

Central Park Five

Trump’s view on the death penalty is curiously one of the few fast-held opinions of a man residing on seemingly every side of every issue. At a 2015 New Hampshire police union event, Trump affirmed that, “One of the first things I’d do in terms of executive order if I win would be to sign a strong, strong statement that will go out to the country, out to the world, that anybody caught killing a policeman, policewoman, police officer, anybody killing a police officer: death penalty. It’s gonna happen. OK? We can’t let this go.” As a rare-found matter of fact, he means it.

Conventional wisdom is standard issue for ordinary-minded leaders – and their followers – despite party affiliation or supposed principles. In that same spring of ’89, Trump parroted the oft-cited adage that murdering murderers makes murderers murder less. It’s basically science. Summating statements from then-NYC mayor Ed Koch on the Central Park jogger case, Trump voiced his protestations, “he has stated that hate and rancor should be removed from our hearts. I do not think so. I want to hate these muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, should be executed for their crimes. They must serve as examples so that others will think long and hard before committing a crime or an act of violence. Yes, Mayor Koch, I want to hate these murderers and I always will. I am not looking to psychoanalyze them or understand them, I am looking to punish them. If the punishment is strong, the attacks on innocent people will stop.” Science. Except the science says precisely the opposite.

One of the tangible problems with left-wing hysterics about Trump’s “blatant racism” or “Russia loving” is that they push a president already tenuously attached to principles far afield in the hopes of proving the media narrative negative. Regarding Russia, he’s been far more politically boisterous and inflammatory than any president since the Cold War. In regards to racism, he’s calling for summary killings of “hate crime” perpetrators to separate himself from the racist, hate-filled manifesto of the El Paso shooter, Pittsburgh and Charlottesville.

“Hate crimes” are probably reasonably well-intentioned legislative efforts to make race or religiously motivated crimes more severely punished, however, they offer an extensive range of additional crimes to the police and judicial systems tool kit for charging various offenders. Making hate crimes worthy of capital punishment will undoubtedly supply an endless drove of fodder for the state’s chambers. The Justice Department has already stated they will be resuming federal capital punishment under the Trump administration just last month, there’s no reason to think Trump is just bandying about with calls for expanding the offenses worthy of death.

States have traditionally handled most capital crimes, and that’s bad enough; nearly 3,000 are currently on death row nationwide in state judicial systems. There are currently around 60 inmates on federal death row, whose sentences will be enthusiastically carried out with this new presidential edict. Ceding capital punishment to D.C. do-gooders and their acolytes means an even greater potential for politicization of government killings, with a central body to push the proverbial plunger.

John Wilkes Booth crouched in wait for the hit line of Our American Cousin before he loosed his shot at Lincoln, knowing it always drew raucous laughter. The terminology may be lost on contemporaries, with Asa crying, “Don’t know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal — you sockdologizing old man-trap!” A sockdolager is an archaic way of saying a knock-out punch, a final blow. For capital punishment, the indefensible shot that always finds its mark is simply this: considering the myriad examples in history of government regimes stuffing its people through the meat grinder, often within the letter of their respective laws, how can we guarantee we are not painting the next canvas of state-sanctioned mass murder in red, white, and blue? American’s have been plummeting from their lofty political principles declared long ago at near freefall speed. Let’s hope we don’t find ourselves face-up on the executioner’s sterile table, strapped at the limbs and staring at fluorescent floaters when we land.

The Trump administration, with John Bolton on the only battlements he’ll ever man, is at it again. This time, enacting sweeping financial punishments on businesses who would dare transact with Venezuela’s Maduro government.

“The Maduro regime now joins that exclusive club of rogue states [Cuba, North Korea, and Iran],” Bolton said at a one-day conference in Peru of more than 50 governments aligned against Maduro.

Bolton goes on to offer his olive branch, “allowing” third-party sellers to engage in commerce with a Venezuelan private sector wracked by pressures foreign and domestic. I’m sure he imagines that sort of graciousness hasn’t been seen since the cross on Calvary.

The Trump ban gets its teeth by enacting sanctions on any business that violates it with restrictions to the U.S. market. This means that global entrepreneurs who differ ideologically from our president’s foreign policy edicts are barred from selling to little old you. So much for “free traders.”

That shortlist of “rogue states” is of particular interest: from what plantation did these regimes go rogue from, you might ask? The question answers itself. Like with every other economic embargo on foreign powers, this pig is placed in rose-colored glasses and a dress of democracy to be trotted out for our viewing pleasure. Bolton has a soft spot for our sympathies.

“The time to act is now. The United States is acting assertively to cut off Maduro financially, and accelerate a peaceful democratic transition,” Bolton assured those gathered in Lima.

With Trump’s ink now dry on the executive order that solidifies this move, questions arise about how this affects U.S. allies. “A number of European countries, from Spanish oil company Repsol to Air France, continue to operate in Venezuela and could see their U.S. assets seized unless they cut ties with the government. India and China are major buyers of crude from state-run oil giant PDVSA. All of the companies rely on the U.S. to process financial payments.” Trump is hoping that fortune will favor the bold here, though the ends remain entirely unclear. Taking cues from Madeleine Albright, he “thinks the price is worth it,” just the same.

Venezuelan President Maduro has stated this new round of economic sanctions will only hurt his people, that his regime will remain steadfast. And of course, he’s right. Sanctions have a curious way of managing to miss the oft-rotund leadership, while their proles struggle to tighten their belts to keep their trousers from falling.

Cynically enough, that’s precisely the point. Bolton and his crew of suit-clad pirates have said on several occasions that the express purpose of sanctions, in all of these so-called rogue states, is to incite a spirit of revolution. The logic goes that as calories dwindle, and the babies suffer at their malnourished mothers’ breasts, the people will rise and demand change.

That logic fails to marry very well at all with reality, though. Instead, as men watch their children slowly starve and their wives cheeks erode into age lines from grief, they become incensed, as victims of foreign aggression.

Any American worth their principled or patriotic salt should be inflamed by these moves by supposed conservatives. What business is it of a North American nation how a country in South America has politically organized? The human cost is even more pressing. Economic sanctions for the sake of lofty geo-politicking ends stands in stark contrast to the philosophical underpinnings of the United States. Furthermore, neither you nor I have any grievances with Maduro or the Venezuelan people. Why should these supposed representatives take such liberties to say otherwise?

In the typical bravado of a man guaranteed never to have to back it up, Bolton concludes with breast-beating towards Moscow. “We say again to Russia, and especially to those who control its finances: ‘Do not double down on a bad bet!’”

You don’t need to offer forgiveness or a U.S. reckoning for the evils of Nicolas Maduro’s regime John; economics was doing that for you.

I’ve noticed an interested paradigm shift with the latest U.S. shootings in Dayton and Texas. The Texas shooter apparently left a hate-filled, racist manifesto prior to shooting up an El Paso WalMart. This has spurned a debate about violent racisms prevalence. CNN ran a story stating Tucker Carlson “told a lie” when calling white supremacy hysterics “a hoax”.

However, the conversation about America’s white supremacy problem has always been wildly overblown. Surely the few adherents are worthy of public condemnation, but to think the U.S. is plagued by legions of white supremacists is patently absurd. Charlottesville to El Paso represent such a small number of people to nearly be a rounding error. Certainly we can’t be rewriting history this way.

The racists are vile. But these shootings are complex insights into burgeoning, systemic social ills almost completely apart from conversations on race. We should collectively refuse to accept that two hundred ‘tiki torched’, card-carrying nazis, or 8chan trolls, are appropriate cross-sections of American communities, even the violent aspects of them. These claims follow the logic of a constant and seemingly concerted framing of Trump and all of his followers as virulent racists. This is a terrifyingly slippery slope.