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Three
Cheers for Testosterone (May/June 2006)
You’d
have thought in 1961 when Eisenhower warned the U.S. about its
emerging “military-industrial complex” someone would’ve
sat up and taken notice. Perhaps some calls for restraint in military
expenditures, or less interchange between defense industry execs
and positions of power within the federal government.
But, of course, there
was the ongoing threat of Communism. Red scares and blacklists.
Death squads and arms deals. A race to the death for superior
weaponry against omnipresent enemies. Who’s going to notice
a few capitalists lining their pockets with profits when the Soviet
menace is poised to take over the planet? In such situations warmongering
seems suddenly understandable, and warnings to the contrary fall
upon deaf ears.
So you’d have thought
in 1991 when the Soviet Union dissolved, leaving only one remaining
world superpower, maybe someone would have heeded Ike’s
plea. Collectively, breaths were held in anticipation of the alert
and knowledgeable citizenry which would surely demand the deconstruction
of a now unnecessary supercharged armory.
Yet, here we are all
these years later, still holding our breath.
The nuclear warheads,
sitting in silos on high-alert, have yet to be dismantled. We
have continued accumulating our own WMDs at breakneck speed, but
with no one left to impress. All the Cold War arm-chair-warriors—the
Rummys, the Cheneys—recycle themselves from administration
to administration, cannibalizing and regurgitating the same failed
policies. For them, stockpiling weapons is better than masturbation.
Old habits die hard, and all they need are some Jihadists to give
them an excuse to keep stroking.
Today, these chicken-hawks
have seized near complete control of all three branches of U.S.
government, and despite the nature of our current low-tech enemies,
demand we bleed red-ink to fund their expensive toys. Pass the
hat to subsidize their penis envy. Far from remaining alert, we
continue to vote for representatives who approve this engorged
militarism.
The U.S. spends more
on defense than the rest of the industrialized world combined.
All this while record
numbers of Americans are without healthcare or access to good
education. While officials within the Department of Defense tell
us global warming is a bigger threat to national security than
terrorism. While biologists and ecologists tell us Earth’s
decreasing biodiversity is the gravest peril ever to face our
species. So where are our innovative solutions to these problems?
The only scientists given government grants to think outside the
box work with the Pentagon trying to turn insects into remote-controlled
cyborgs, or build microwave pain-rays. There’s no cash to
spare on superficial concerns such as human and environmental
wellbeing.
Like any addiction, our
national fixation with phallic playthings has led to institutionalized
neglect. State-sponsored irresponsibility.
And it’s long past
time for an intervention.
-Jason M. Glover
Editor
“A
nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military
defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual
doom.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
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