In this post I’m going to share just a few things that I’ve seen with my own two eyes; all truth, no lies. Just a few things I’ve heard with my own two ears, in my few short years, living in the heart of an empire.
Growing up in an evangelical Christian home, I experienced firsthand the church role in supporting right-wing, pro-war imperial politics. At the time I didn’t fully appreciate or even understand the double-standard of those who were worshipping the prince of peace while at the same time pledging allegiance to the troops whom they honored, Tripp’s which would be sent off to kill and to die in the empire’s wars abroad. It was just what you did as a good ‘patriotic’ Christian American in the Deep South, right in the center of the Bible Belt, deep in the heart of an empire. I can still remember those days when the local military men and women would show up at church on Sunday during their time off, off duty for a time, and how respected and highly esteemed they were for joyfully fulfilling their ‘patriotic’ duty.
It is strange indeed, the irony, of so many who go to church on Sunday and then train for war on Monday; of dedicating one’s life to the Prince of Peace on Sunday and then turning around and pledging allegiance to the bloody empire Monday through Friday. As I would come to learn, allegiance to the state, the government, and the empire for which it stands was one of the foundational pillars of fundamental Christianity; for going all the way back to its beginnings in 3rd Century Rome, in was founded as an imperial religion, the chosen religion of the Roman Empire, molded in the image of the Emperor.
Another one of those childhood memories growing up in the heart of an empire, was being made to stand up every day alongside the entire class at public school, hand over our hearts, to pledge allegiance to the flag and the empire for which it stands. I didn’t recognize the significance of such a pledge at the time, nor did I question the absurdity of pledging one’s allegiance to a piece of cloth rather than to our fellow humans, but looking back the implications are clear. It was just one form of indoctrination into the blind allegiance to the state demanded of us all, an act of ‘patriotism’, a pledge of loyalty to the empire and support for all the wars that it would wage. This was something I never did miss when I was homeschooled and later admitted to various private schools.
As I grew older, I realized this wasn’t just rehearsed every day at government schools, but also at every fireworks show, every ballgame, and at every Super Bowl. And the Super Bowl is important, here in the imperial homeland, important not just in keeping the masses entertained but also important for the corporate advertisers to further indoctrinate the masses into the imperial religion of consumerist materialism.
Pledging allegiance to the empire and the troops which fought their wars was an integral part of imperial society I learned, as was obsessing over the greed-driven advertisements put out by corporate America. And Americans just love to be ‘patriotic’ consumers. ‘Patriotism’ just became another word for imperialism in my mind, for that is what the word patriotism symbolizes - blind support of the empire and its imperial expansion in the name of ‘democracy’.
I was too young at the time to understand the big fuss over politics, but I remember how important the 2000 Presidential was among those around me, and I remember my confusion at the extreme excitement of many prominent church members when Bush was announced the winner. I remember watching the election results on a small TV in one of the rooms of the church after the evening service, one of the few times my family watched TV. All I knew is the excitement had something to do with a ‘pro-life’ victory over thepro-abortion democrats, though the church was technically nonpartisan.
Four years later, when the re-election of Bush was celebrated in similar fashion, my confusion was increased considerably, for by this time I was older and more aware of ongoing world events, and now we were all cheering for the ‘pro-life’ president who had just launched two foreign wars in three years, against two different countries which had never attacked our own... But they were ‘patriotic’ wars, we were all told, in defense of freedom, to stop the evil terrorists who had carried out the horrific acts of 9/11; even though by all reports those evil terrorists hailed from Saudi Arabia, not Afghanistan and Iraq...
I remember the day of 9/11, forever etched into my memory; I first learned of the attacks at dinnertime, as my family and I were living in east Africa at the time. There was only one TV at the boarding school I was attending, hooked up for broadcasting the various television channels, and my friends and I (and most all the school) rushed to the TV room to watch the news after a rushed meal. The one thing I remember vividly is the re-playing of the footage of the airplanes crashing into the towers, over and over and over and over again, and again and again and again. As if a hundred times wasn’t enough, as if there was no other footage to show, as if the moment those planes hit the towers was the only moment in the entire hours-long event that mattered. And that was very much by design, just as the powers that be wanted things, to put and to keep those living in the heart of the empire in a perpetual state of fear. Fear also breeds patriotism, I learned, and the empire would feed off of both for decades to come.
As I would later learn, this horrific footage wasn’t only re-played for hours on end, but for days and weeks following the attack, to instill the fear of Muslim terrorists into the minds of Americans for all of time. These were the images ingrained into all those living in the heart of the empire, the images that would be used as the basis to sell two new wars, which would turn into two full decades of empire-building wars and occupations abroad, wars and occupations that to this day haven’t been brought to an end.
All of those living in the heart of the empire were told that the war on Afghanistan was launched to get Bin Laden, that nasty terrorist kingpin responsible for planning and ordering the 9/11 attacks. And yet some six years after imperial forces supposedly caught and killed the terrorist ringleader (in Pakistan), and somehow the empire is still at war with Afghanistan. This is because, as I came to learn, there is no rhyme or reason or logic behind the wars of the empire, at least not as viewed through the lens of the ‘patriotic’ supporters of the war living safely at home, in the heart of the empire. And yet still they remain patriotic supporters of the empire, for no reason other than to remain ‘patriotic’ it would seem... War had come, and as usual, truth had been the first imperial enemy shot down.
I’ve seen with my own eyes what this‘patriotism’ does to destroy humanity, and I’ve heard with my own ears the personal desire to shed Arab blood that this post-9/11 ‘patriotism’ has instilled into a number of Americans.
I began to take an anti-war stance early in my life, soon after watching “We Were Soldiers”, even before graduating high school in Africa and returning to the heart of the empire. I can still remember the zeal of one fellow American classmate, however, who was both quite political, ‘patriotic’, and just couldn’t wait for his chance to ‘kill as many Muslims as he could’ after joining the army. I didn’t understand this deep desire to personally kill Muslims held by some who called themselves Christians - believers in Jesus Christ, the ‘Prince of Peace’. I couldn’t understand, even if the wars themselves were truly ‘necessary’, why anyone would actually long to take a life as if it were a hobby, especially religious folk, and how anyone could find joy from killing as many people as they could, simply because of the color of their skin or their religious roots or nation of birth.
But it wasn’t an isolated instance I would learn; far too many people don’t just support war as necessary, and even in some cases ‘good’, but have a strong personal desire to shed the blood of the ‘enemy’ themselves.
I’ll never forget the night years later at a bonfire held at my house in Montana, when I crossed paths with a couple of local ‘College Republicans’ who wanted nothing more than to kill as many Arabs as they possibly could. Those of us who had put out the invite to people for the bonfire were of a Libertarian and anti-war leaning, and much to my regret these college republicans were invited. I think it was due to hopes of influencing young republicans towards a more freedom-oriented mindset, but attendees were far more interested in getting drunk around the bonfire than taking part in any sort of philosophical discussions.
These two republicans, however, were not shy in announcing to all those present their intentions to “kill as many ragheads” as they could. At least one had joined the service, and the other either had or was planning to shortly, and neither one could wait to be deployed to Iraq (or Afghanistan) in order to have the opportunity to kill as many Arabs as they possibly could. They wouldn’t stop going on about it either, laughing and joking about it all the while, like it would be a game as to which one of them would be able to kill more Arabs than the other, or find more ways to kill a human than the other could. It was clearly a very deeply held desire of theirs to senselessly slaughter Arabs, Muslims, anyone that was the ‘enemy’ in their eyes. After several minutes, I left the bonfire and headed to my bed to get some sleep, for I had absolutely no need to continue listening to the sick genocidal intentions of these ‘patriotic’ young men fresh out of the government indoctrination camps, hailing right from the heart of an empire.
When I returned to the heart of the empire upon leaving Africa, I remember quickly realizing the profound ignorance of westerners, and extreme arrogance held by most Americans, who view the heart of the empire as the heart and center of the world. I remember how some people looked at me when I told them I had spent a number of childhood years growing up in Africa, and some of the things some people said just blew me away. The thought that the third world is filled with ignorant, low-life savages seemed to be a prevalent thought among many of those living in the heart of the American empire. It never once crossed their minds to think that the poverty all across the third world was and still is caused by corporate greed-driven colonialist imperial policies implemented at the barrel of the empire’s guns, to cater to their own materialistic culture and consumerist lifestyle.
To this day far too many westerners are still entirely ignorant of the direct link between their own culture - western capitalist greed-based materialistic consumerism - and the third world poverty it causes, sometimes right along with imperial wars and occupation.
Certainly one of the most arrogant beliefs prevalent across the entire imperial homeland is that America was and is the best country on earth, bar none. Oh what arrogance and hypocrisy feeds such deception, coming from those who dare their role as the self-appointed policeman of the world as righteous, when they are the only nation to have ever dropped a nuclear bomb on another country - and not just once, but twice did they drop the atom bomb on the Japanese civilian centers of a country which had by the time of the second bomb already surrendered. That’s because it wasn’t about breaking the will of the Japanese, it was about sending a message to the Soviets. And here in the heart of the empire we define that horrific crime against humanity as both necessary and a ‘life-saving’ tactic... Oh the arrogance of those ‘patriotic’ Americans living in the heart of the empire who cling to such wicked lies!
Growing up in the heart of an empire, they never did teach us in school that our military was responsible for the genocide of some 15 million natives (‘American Indians’). Though we were taught of the ‘trail of tears’, they carefully omitted the treachery of our trading smallpox-infected blankets with the Indians, of the number of countless treaties broken over and over and over again by our presidents and generals, of the tragedy at Wounded Knee, and of the white man’s use of alcohol as a weapon against them. They never did teach us in school that the famous ‘emancipator’ of the black slaves, ‘honest Abe’, the ‘hero’ Abraham Lincoln was in fact a self-avowed racist white supremacist who rounded up thousands of his own Yankee citizens with the northern armies, and threw them in jail without trial for protesting the war.
Nor did they ever did teach us in school that one of the empire’s holidays, or ‘holy days’, was named after a man who had claimed the Americas for his colonial overlords, taking shiploads of natives back to to be sold on the streets of Spain, and cutting off the hands of all the American Indians he encountered who didn’t bring him a handful of gold as he demanded- Columbus, the ‘holy day’ of course being Columbus Day. Another two of the empire’s high ‘holy days’ are held in honor of the imperial foot-soldiers who’s lives are sacrificed for the global expansion of the empire - Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day.
And as I would later come to learn, the greatest casualties of the empire’s wars abroad weren’t the dead from the foreign battlefields, but rather those whose survived - doomed to live the rest of their lives in the depths of hell back at home in the heart of an empire; an empire that could care less about those same veterans it pretends to ‘honor’ one day a year, but does everything in its power to avoid caring for after their use as killing machines have come to an end, and they are tossed out and discarded like dirty rags, their ‘patriotic’ duty being paid back in kind. Close to 20 veterans commit suicide every single day, here in the heart of the empire, more troops killing themselves to bring an end to the post-war hell than are being killed by the ‘enemy’ on the hellish battlefields around the world.
I’ve seen firsthand what the imperial wars do to our troops, but can only imagine the far greater damage done to the peoples and the lands of those we wage our wars against.
The day I met this particular veteran would change my perspective on life forever, in a small and subtle way, but nonetheless in a very powerful way. It is one thing to hear stories, and numbers, and statistics, and see the lines of coffins sent back home, but quite another thing to see and hear and feel personally and directly the reality of what war does to a man, firsthand. He was an old man, who stopped by the house I was living in to pick up one or two of my roosters I was giving away on Craigslist in hopes of sparing them the fate of being sent to a stew-pot. His breath wreaked of alcohol, his face was testament to the hell he had been through and betrayed the inner pain he was in. But he was kind and friendly and outgoing, and loved chickens. He later told me he would never personally slaughter an animal, for unlike the armed children he had sniped, these were totally innocent.
He took the rooster home, so happy to have found a replacement for one of his own recently lost to a predator, and called me up the next day to see if I was interested in joining him on a visit to a local chicken farm to pick up some super cheap one-year-old laying hens. “Sure,” I said, for it sounded like too good of a deal to pass up, and we set up a time for me to meet up at his place. I had car issues on the way, but turns out he’s a Subaru mechanic, and he offered to fix my car for free if I bought the parts, so I immediately agreed, afraid to drive any further considering how bad the issue had become in the short 10 miles from my house to his.
This gave me plenty of time hear some of his stories, as he worked on the car and I helped here and there as I could, astonished that he was able to get the job done at all with the number of beers he was chugging and chain smoking cigarettes all the while. “Iraq is a shithole,” he repeated a number of times. He had been a sniper, and had shot to death a kid he estimated to be around the age of 12, who was holding a grenade launcher. Shot him right in the face, watched through his scope as he bled out on the city street, his brain blown to bits. He clearly hadn’t forgiven himself for this, despite his repeat statements that it was “necessary” because he had been armed. The change in his voice betrayed the guilt he held for killing this young boy.
He explained how all of our years in Iraq hadn’t done any good, that it was still just as much a “shithole” as it had been the day he first arrived, and he had been through at least two (or maybe even three) tours before leaving the service for good. He explained that the horror of some of the things he witnessed was unimaginable to someone who hadn’t been there themselves.
Describing it as a living hell, he explained how he had just done his duty, and that he was a good sniper, one of the best, and because of it he had done acts he would forever regret. It’s one thing to kill a man in a firefight, shooting at those who are shooting at you, but another thing altogether to take a life from a distance, to kill a man who isn’t shooting at you, especially when these ‘enemies’ are children. When you are a sniper, you hold life in your hands like God, and when you pull the trigger you end a life, usually a life that was not directly threatening yours. He still had his dog, who had been trained in Iraq as a bomb-sniffer, but couldn’t handle the heat so had never been put on active duty.
He also told me the story of his friend and partner, the main character in “American Sniper,” who had survived the war but been killed by a fellow soldier after returning home. A fellow veteran had knocked on the ‘American Sniper’s’ door, seeking help. His wife had warned him not to have anything to do with him, for she had senses something wasn’t right. But his sense of loyalty to a brother in arms and commitment to helping a fellow veteran in need of a friend got the better of him, and he took him along with some other vets to a local shooting range. At some point during the day, the young vet who had come seeking help aimed his gun at the ‘American sniper,’ who, according to witnesses calmly asked him to lower the weapon, repeatedly telling him, “You don’t need to do this.” A few seconds later the troubled veteran pulled the trigger, and the accomplished sniper who had survived a war was killed by one of his own, in the heart of the empire an empire he had risked his life to serve.
As he told me this story, tears welled up in his eyes, and he went on to reminisce for a few minutes about their missions together, and how it was so wrong for a life to be ended in such a manner, as he had gone out of his way trying to help the troubled ‘brother’ in need who ended up murdering him in cold blood. It probably wasn’t intentional, but rather just an ‘episode’ of PTSD, and the killer had probably seen the ‘American Sniper’ as an Iraqi insurgent at the moment he pulled the trigger...
The man’s ex-wife, who drove me home that night (for it would take another day to finish fixing my Subaru), casually mentioned how the booze and cigarettes kept him sane and did the trick to dull the pain. And for the first time, as I drifted off to sleep that night, I began to realize just how widespread the victims of the empire’s wars truly were, and recognized from this experience a deep truth that most will simply never understand: That the biggest casualty of war is not those who die, but rather all the survivors who are left feeling dead inside, doomed to live the rest of their miserable lives, in guilt and pain, rejected by the very empire they gave their lives for, left forever dead inside.
Self medicating with drugs and alcohol is the only way they can survive, dulling the pain enough to go on one more day, masking the guilt and the pain that will never go away. Addiction and homelessness is normal for a veteran, and the pain doesn’t just eat them up inside, but all those in their life, both friends and family. It affects everyone around them, not just themselves. Until one day they overdose, or can’t take the pain any longer and take their own life, or maybe a fellow vet does it for them, a tragedy better fit for the battlefield abroad than the shooting range at home. The victims of war will go on long after the war is over, and the empire doesn’t care, it doesn’t care at all.
They go on recruiting new members all across the heart of the empire, recruiters selling young men and women lies about opportunity, and purpose and morality and bravery; but in the end it’s all about giving your life, in one way or another - just another human sacrifice offered to the empire on the alter of war, to feed the greed of war profiteers, who continually beat the drums of war, so the war machine marches on, the empire goes on to live another day.
This is the reality of life, here in the heart of an empire. A reality ignored, but always here. Nobody cares, everybody too busy working their lives away, caught up in the consumerist cycle of debt slavery and materialism. And those who do care either don’t have the power or they don’t have the courage to stand up to the Military Industrial Complex.
Because here in the heart of the empire, where democracy is championed but dictatorship reigns, politics is a joke. Politics is their game, the two parties are both puppets of the empire, and the elections are one massive game show.
Living in the heart of the empire, I know this fact from firsthand experience, I know what lengths both parties will go to ensure candidates for peace never get in. I saw it in 2008 during the Ron Paul campaign that I was highly active in supporting locally. I saw what great lengths even the local Republican Party went to lock out supporters of an ‘outsider’ - Ron Paul - from participation in ‘their’ party. Their biggest gripe against the statesman was his staunch anti-war stance.
They hated him because he wanted to bring peace. I saw the corruption, the games, the breaking of their own party rules, and I heard from their own mouths just how strongly these political folks all supported perpetuating war and how much they despised those who sought peace. I also heard many stories of similar behavior engaged in by Republicans all across the country, a concerted effort carried out by the party insiders to ensure that champion of peace wouldn’t stand a chance of getting into an office where he could bring the troops home.
In 2012 they had to stoop to wide scale election fraud to keep the good doctor out, for the movement he inspired had become a popular force to be reckoned with. It was during this time that I became utterly disillusioned with politics, convinced of the absolute futility of politics, for the ownership of the two parties by the corporate elite is total and absolute, and no amount of popular pressure or zealous activism was going to change that. The parties and the media promoting them are owned by the empire, and there is absolutely no way to bring down an empire through its own parties!
Politics is an absolutely sick joke. It’s all a big game in the eyes of the empire, put on every few years for the show, changing up the puppets on the stage to appease the need for change demanded by the peasants, and then nothing really ever changes. All can see it, but few are willing to acknowledge what they know in their hearts to be true.
For all those stuck living in the increasingly impoverished and tyrannical police-state homeland, it’s no joke, it’s no game, it’s a fight to survive, just to make ends meet, as price of housing skyrockets all across the country while labor rates stay the same, as corporate profit skyrockets and billionaire wealth explodes while unemployment of the middle class soars and the poor become even poorer.
Nobody has time to think about those millions of poor souls spread across the third world living on less than two dollars a day, many starving, while our brothers and sisters continue to sign up for the service to join the ranks of the imperial war machine, to give their lives for the empire and the corporate greed for which it stands. Let alone to feel the pain caused by the empire which most continue to serve. The pain is too much and too real for most, so they just close their eyes, preferring to go on living life asleep, remaining numb to reality, content living life as one of the walking dead, oblivious to the fact that they too are living in the heart of an empire. An empire that doesn’t care about them, that never did care and never will.
But for the rest of us, it isn’t easy to go on watching and living life as the empire marches on, and it sure as hell isn’t no idealistic ‘American Dream’, living here in the heart of an empire. It’s just what it is, it’s just reality, and the worst of it isn’t the inability to bring down the war machine, it’s that so many of our brothers and sisters all around us continue to deny the reality of life staring them in their faces. The reality that here in America, all of us are living in the heart of an empire, patriotism is just a fancy word for imperialism, and human sacrifice is still alive and well, daily offered up to the empire on blood-stained alters spread all across the world. Will America wake up, or will it take the fall of an empire to shake them out of their sleep?
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One day it will end, for all empires that rise must fall. But until then, it is a heavy burden to bear for those who are awake and alert to the reality, of living in the heart of an empire.
