Devil makes us do it? — US arms sales and national soul

26 May 2021

My thanks to William Hartnung and William Astore . . .

. . . for today's snide observation.

We really are the best!

"USA!" times three:

When it comes to trade in the tools of death and destruction, no one tops the United States of America.

In April of this year, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) published its annual analysis of trends in global arms sales and the winner — as always — was the U.S. of A. Between 2016 and 2020, this country accounted for 37% of total international weapons deliveries, nearly twice the level of its closest rival, Russia, and more than six times that of Washington’s threat du jour, China.

Sadly, this was no surprise to arms-trade analysts. The U.S. has held that top spot for 28 of the past 30 years, posting massive sales numbers regardless of which party held power in the White House or Congress.

This is, of course, the definition of good news for weapons contractors like Boeing, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin, even if it’s bad news for so many of the rest of us, especially those who suffer from the use of those arms by militaries in places like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, the Philippines, and the United Arab Emirates.

The recent bombing and leveling of Gaza by the U.S.-financed and supplied Israeli military is just the latest example of the devastating toll exacted by American weapons transfers in these years.

William Astore snatched the perfect point . . .

. . . (about America's arms-selling greatness) from Martin Luther King Jr's 1967 speech about the Vietnam War:

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

© 1967 Martin Luther King, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence, http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html (04 April 1967) (quote is contained in the 12th paragraph — counting up from the last paragraph of the document)

Speared through (the immoral heart of) our conceit?

Admittedly, one has to think that a nation can (or should) have a "spiritual" character of some kind. That is certainly a contestable point.

However, it becomes less contestable, when the nation that:

continually pollutes the planet with weapons-related death and maiming —

is the same one that

relentlessly praises itself as moral example to the world.

Can't have your shining cake and reconstitute its chomped bits from your stool, at the same time and in the same condition.

The moral? — As I have said before, American culture is not known for astute self-reflection

How else could we have ignored Reverend King's so easily considered insight for 54 years?

I mention Hannah Arendt (again) for that reason.

Evil really is banal in most of its manifestations. Moral wrong is tolerable, only when one does not think about it. The acts of not thinking — and not connecting acts with consequences — come easily to most of us.

It is too bad, I think, that most Christians make getting into Purported Heaven so easy a process. And Hell, so easy to avoid.

The Eastern Hemisphere's more subtly working concept of karma arguably better shapes day to day consciousness.

Not that the more pointed karmic concept (about heavy versus light spiritual baggage) has had much of an effect on cultural behavior over there, either.

Scumbags rule.

Nevertheless, I side with (former seminarian and current journalist) Chris Hedges on this topic:

To resist evil is the highest achievement of human life. It is the supreme act of love.

It is to carry the cross, as the theologian James Cone [see here] reminds us. And to be acutely aware that what we are carrying is what we will die upon.

[Resistance] is an act of faith.

Choose your soul bucket.

PeteFree.com

Devil makes us do it? — US arms sales and national soul