might makes right

as i try to process heartbreaking, ungraspable grief, preparing myself for the
inevitable ways this latest unimaginable loss of precious young, unlived lives
will likely be used, and musing on the never heeded calls for gun control in a
land that makes more weapons than any other product, i feel compelled to point
out that we must cast our gaze deeper than the tools that enable America's
exceptional violence.  we must address the doctrine of "might makes right"
that is virtually enshrined in our society, and which, with the lockstep support
of the two party system, takes unconscionable resources from our public
commons, at an astronomical level far beyond the comprehension of every
other nation on the planet.

'might makes right' is worshiped on our televisions, in movie theatres and
children's video games.  we are steeped in it from birth.  we have been
patriotically and pridefully exporting it to the world ever since we honed
our skills, claiming from sea to shining sea our "homeland".  its 'profit'
entirely controls our foreign policy, and is, in fact, what our "foreign aid"
mostly consists of.  and at the pinnacle of our political system, our president
is the commander and chief of the unequaled force that enforces "our" will,
used as the one-size-fits-all solution to every external "threat" our arrogant
presumption stirs up.

of course, the uncounted multinational murders our president presides over
are directed at officially sanctioned victims.  but in a country where mass
murders literally spew from our entertainment and the assassins are venerated
as heroes, spouting wisecracks as they demonstrate their absence of humanity,
never facing the slightest retribution, a growing number of damaged, disturbed
people are bound to go off the rails and choose their own victims, defining for
themselves who the "bad guys" must be, that dehumanized set of humans
we've been taught since infancy exist, that our culture, grooming us to be
citizens of empire, starting with the Indians, but claiming all sorts of 'japs'
and 'crouts' and 'gooks' and 'commies' and Muslims along the way, deems
perfectly acceptable to kill.

this is the precedent that allows people to be grouped together by
approximate skin colors, or by their looks, and makes them unqualified
for American "justice", and afraid to fall into the hands of the police.
for once the Pandora's box that sanctions the dehumanization of humans
is opened in the profit-driven dumbed down land of might makes right,
it is open season on life itself.
- Evan Hawthorn, the 13^th of June, 2016