My Dark, Secret Fantasy: A Robust Anti-War Movement In America

Can I share a very intimate, private fantasy of mine with you, dear reader? I want to see a large, ideology-spanning anti-war movement gain a solid foothold in America.

Don’t laugh. I know it’s just a fantasy. I don’t need a bunch of lefty neckbeards falling all over themselves to tell me that I’m being unrealistic because Americans are apathetic and a lot of them are warlike and blah, blah, blah. If I’d told you my fantasy was to have a menage-a-trois with Allen Ginsberg and Jack Sparrow I wouldn’t need you rushing in to tell me they’re dead, gay and fictional either. I’m allowed to dream.

And excuse the hell outta me for dreaming big. I see the current president’s base starting to come to terms with the reality that he’s just going to continue and expand all of Obama’s bloodthirsty policies exactly like Obama did with Bush, and I can’t help it if that makes my imagination run wild.

I know that the far-right doesn’t agree with the left on war for the same reasons, and I know there are a lot of military entanglements that they support and we don’t, but there is undeniably overlap, and today they’re complaining about the same things we are.

And it’s not just the far-right; I’m hearing rumblings from the TYT/Elizabeth Warren Democrats as well, which could possibly even spread to much of the #Resistance mainstream Dems since they hate Trump so much. Again, I’m aware that they support escalations that leftists do not, and I’m aware that their anti-war sentiment evaporates as soon as there’s a Democrat in the White House. But there is undeniably overlap, and today a lot of them are complaining about the same things we are.

Forgive me but that gives me a teeny tiny bit of hope. You’ve got to admit, that’s more likely than my Ginsberg/Sparrow shibari fantasy. Think about it. Inadvertently, the military-industrial complex gave us an issue that many Dems, the far right and we actually agree on. That seems like a rare strategic mistake for them. Do my eyes deceive me or did a door just maybe possibly open a tiny crack in front of us?

We have a small window of time here where the issue of the day has us lined up perfectly for once — it’s the humans against the war machine. The news churn will try to drag us away from it as quickly as possible but it’s right here, right now. Literally no one with a human brain wants to continue the war in Afghanistan. We can barely remember the tenuous “humanitarian” reason they used to get us there in the first place, and even that reason is lost somewhere in one of that endless networks of caves and deserts that make up “Ganners.”

And now cue the army of know-it-alls that will flood the comments with their pet theories as to why we continue to flog Afghanistan. That’s not the point though, people. Don’t use your God-given creativity to make up theories about why the needless killing continues. It’s not up to us to supply the reason; it’s up to them. If it’s really about minerals, opiates and Russia, then make them say it out loud. Don’t tell us, ask them. Ask questions and make them uncomfortable. Too often we rush to fill in the gaps of the narrative for them.

If we push the war machine hard enough, it will fall. The reason America’s unelected power establishment works so hard to manufacture consent for endless, stupid wars is because it needs that consent. If the people withdraw their consent en masse it will force our rulers to either expose themselves as tyrants or tap out.

Without war, America’s unelected shadow government cannot survive. If the globe-spanning power structure that is loosely centralized in the United States can no longer use the US military to manipulate the world economy, it will force America to create a real economy of its own, one that isn’t backed by cruise missiles and secretive agreements with OPEC nations. Green energy will cease to be suppressed and the banksters and war profiteers whose plutocracy is strengthened by the impoverishment of ordinary Americans will lose power. It would strike a death blow to the oligarchy.

Okay, so I admit it’s not just a fantasy. I’ve witnessed far too many miracles lately to believe it can’t happen. This is me putting my dream out there, America. Please and thank you.

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