Symbolic event so powerful that it entirely sums the United States — Oregon's National Guard helicopters

© 2020 Peter Free

 

13 September 2020

 

 

Ours has got to be one of the most idiotically led . . .

 

. . . "developed" nations on the planet.

 

 

Oregon is on fire

 

And we learned this:

 

 

Six of the state's largest firefighting helicopters, the CH-47 Chinooks, are not available because they have been deployed to Afghanistan at the request of the Department of Defense to aid in military missions.

 

© 2020 Gary A. Warner, Oregon governor issues emergency fire order; three prisons evacuated, Portland Tribune (13 September 2020)

 

 

This happenstance is so richly indicative of American priorities . . .

 

. . . that we should gather and chant "USA".

 

This is the same Department of Defense that has had trillions of dollars — in its absolutely unsupervised, uncontrolled slush fund — for years, but manages to strategically lose one war after another, anyway.

 

And (still) DoD is so tactically clueless and resource-wasteful — that it had to steal six Chinook helicopters from Oregon's National Guard.

 

This fine act of "borrowing" occurring only, so as to keep the United States' strategically absurd effort in Afghanistan going.

 

That "longest war" of American Ever continuing to lollygag along — with deadly ineffectualness — and to no conceivable ultimate purpose, other than to enrich the United States' Military Industrial Complex at a variety of dead people's expenses.

 

This absurdity taking place, while "homeland" Oregon burns to ash. And Americans die and hundreds lose homes amid record-breaking wildfires.

 

 

Now, let's ask ourselves

 

Exactly whom are America's (state) National Guards supposed to be protecting?

 

Why are Oregon's most capable firefighting helicopters in Afghanistan — when the wildfire threat to America's western states has been "blazingly" obvious for years and years?

 

 

The moral? — We are governed by . . .

 

. . . violence-seeking morons, who (for the most part) lack the slightest sense of duty to anyone save themselves. A larger collection of "Criminal Imbeciles in Charge" is difficult to imagine.

 

America's drug-cartel-like leadership may be why the US ranks 28th on the 2020 Social Progress Index and continues to plummet downward:

 

 

The newest Social Progress Index, shared with me before its official release Thursday morning, finds that out of 163 countries assessed worldwide, the United States, Brazil and Hungary are the only ones in which people are worse off than when the index began in 2011.

 

And the declines in Brazil and Hungary were smaller than America’s.

 

© 2020 Nicholas Kristof, ‘We’re No. 28! And Dropping!’, New York Times (09 September 2020)

 

 

Unfortunately, we remain oblivious to even the most striking symbols that represent our culture's self-choking stupidities.