Kanye West Is Not Crazy. The Military-Industrial-Media Complex Is.

Congratulations, America.

We have reached the part of the story where Kim Kardashian becomes the voice of sanity and reason. Either this is a sign of the apocalypse or the beginning of the Pax Americana.

All it took was three words on social media—“we got love”—and a selfie of Kanye West wearing a Donald Trump “Make America Great Again” baseball hat for the military-industrial-media complex to lose its collective mind.

we got love pic.twitter.com/Edk0WGscp6

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018

Someone is being nice to Donald Trump? Showing deference to the president of the United States? In public? And they are a big-name celebrity with influence? That’s crazy talk. Quick, flood the internet with “Kanye is crazy” stories. Faster than you can say Orwellian, West became Public Enemy No. 1 for veering off the Trump-is-a-terrible-dictator script. The pro-war military-industrial-media complex despises free thinking and went into full-blown attack mode. Like hawkish clockwork, article after article questioned West’s mental faculties.

And West didn’t even pledge undying loyalty to the Don. “You don’t have to agree with Trump but the mob can’t make me not love him,” West tweeted to his 28 million-plus followers. “We are both dragon energy. He is my brother. I love everyone. I don’t agree with everything anyone does. That’s what makes us individuals. And we have the right to independent thought.”

West clarified his position to avoid any confusion: “My wife just called me and she wanted to make this clear to everyone. I don’t agree 100 percent with everything Trump does. I don’t agree 100 percent with anyone but myself.”

my wife just called me and she wanted me to make this clear to everyone. I don’t agree with everything Trump does. I don’t agree 100% with anyone but myself.

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018

What a nut case.

This is the problem for the military-industrial-media-complex. West’s wife, Kim Kardashian, is as famous as he is and has her own army of followers (59.8 million, and counting, on Twitter alone). And she called bullshit.

“To the media trying to demonize my husband let me just say this… your commentary on Kanye being erratic & his tweets being disturbing is actually scary. So quick to label him as having mental health issues for just being himself when he has always been expressive is not fair,” she tweeted.

To the media trying to demonize my husband let me just say this… your commentary on Kanye being erratic & his tweets being disturbing is actually scary. So quick to label him as having mental health issues for just being himself when he has always been expressive is not fair

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) April 25, 2018

“He’s a free thinker, is that not allowed in America? Because some of his ideas differ from yours you have to throw in the mental health card? That’s just not fair,” she continued.

He’s a free thinker, is that not allowed in America? Because some of his ideas differ from yours you have to throw in the mental health card? That’s just not fair. He’s actually out of the sunken place when he’s being himself which is very expressive

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) April 25, 2018

Behind every successful man is a strong woman, and Kardashian made sure her voice was heard and everyone understood the facts: “Now when he spoke out about Trump… Most people (including myself) have very different feelings & opinions about this. But this is HIS opinion. I believe in people being able to have their own opinions, even if really different from mine. He never said he agrees with his politics … Kanye will never run in the race of popular opinion and we know that and that’s why I love him and respect him and in a few years when someone else says the same exact thing but they aren’t labeled the way he is and you will all praise them! Kanye is years ahead of his time.”

Now when he spoke out about Trump… Most people (including myself) have very different feelings & opinions about this. But this is HIS opinion. I believe in people being able to have their own opinions,even if really different from mine
He never said he agrees with his politics

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) April 25, 2018

Kanye will never run in the race of popular opinion and we know that and that’s why I love him and respect him and in a few years when someone else says the same exact thing but they aren’t labeled the way he is and you will all praise them! Kanye is years ahead of his time

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) April 25, 2018

West’s actual words, not how the media spins them, are complete sentences and coherent thoughts. He encourages free thinking, no fear and love. What an unhinged lunatic.

Free thinkers don’t fear retaliation for your thoughts. The traditional thinkers are only using thoughts and words but they are in a mental prison. You are free. You’ve already won. Feel energized. Move in love not fear. Be afraid of nothing.

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018

You don’t have to agree with trump but the mob can’t make me not love him. We are both dragon energy. He is my brother. I love everyone. I don’t agree with everything anyone does. That’s what makes us individuals. And we have the right to independent thought.

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018

If your friend jumps off the bridge you don’t have to do the same. Ye being Ye is a fight for you to be you. For people In my life the idea of Trump is pretty much a 50 50 split but I don’t tell a Hillary supporter not to support Hillary
I love Hillary too.

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018

I love when people have their own ideas. You don’t have to be allowed anymore. Just be.

Love who you want to love. That’s free thought. I’m not even political. I’m not a democrat or a republican

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018

And also I’m all the way out the sunken place. And I’m not scared anymore. I’m not scared of the media. I’m not scared of the past and I’m optimistic about the future. This tweet is in love not fear.

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018

my wife just called me and she wanted me to make this clear to everyone. I don’t agree with everything Trump does. I don’t agree 100% with anyone but myself.

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018

let’s move in love not fear

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018

Love is the most powerful force in the universe

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018

All kidding aside, West is not crazy. He is a talented artist/philosopher with a creative mind and big heart who knows how to be provocative and get people going.

But West is not just an entertainer. In this week’s episode of media-manufactured drama, he sounds more like an enlightened Buddha than a Bellevue candidate. Which is why the media pushes back against his message of love with such ferocity. Dissent against the U.S. war machine is not tolerated. When was the last time you heard an anti-war voice on a corporate media channel? Love is not part of the narrative. Anyone who preaches peace and love will be discredited.

That goes to infinity for Donald Trump. Sure, he’s not Mr. Egalitarian or Mr. Compassion. He cuts corners on decency and morality. Yes, he can ramble on like an overstimulated senior citizen at times. But is he the worst, most corrupt, president in the history of the world? That remains to be seen.

On Friday, North and South Korea agreed to end nearly 70 years of war—on Trump’s watch. If he can close the deal for peace, he might deserve the Noble Peace Prize. Yet after his 30-minute “Fox and Friends” interview a day earlier, he was portrayed as a wacko with no mind to lose.

Trump is not going to win any awards for humility, brevity or righteousness. He’s a used car salesman who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and he’s parlayed being a game show host into the most powerful CEO position on earth. But at the end of the day, he’s a human being, as we all are. And until he’s proved guilty of collusion or money laundering or whatever the charge, he’s the president of the United States. And if you care about the future of America and the world, we should be rooting for him to do well. Obstructionist politics do nothing to help America.

And if we’re talking about “crazy,” Washington, D.C., has no shortage of characters that fit the definition. For some perspective, having a “kill list” for a military assassination program in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia (as Barack Obama did, with his secret drone wars) or cheering the overthrow and death of a foreign leader that destabilize the Middle East (as Hillary Clinton did with Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi) also exhibit some psychopathic tendencies.

But we don’t hear much about “crazy” Obama or “crazy” Hillary. The point is, all human beings are flawed. If Trump or anyone is guilty of crimes, he or she should be punished. But to date, no Trump crime has been proved, though a lot of time, energy and money have gone into treating him like a criminal. Is that right? Is it productive for the country?

Instead of attacking Trump the messenger every second of every day, how about the media and government provide some coverage to Trump’s message and investigate his claims? Do his words about the integrity of James Comey have any validity? After all, 11 House Republicans recommended a call to prosecute Comey, Hillary Clinton and others. We don’t hear much about that, though. Is there any truth to the allegations?

Justice and news should be nonpartisan, fair and balanced. But we live in an age of buzzwords and spin over substance. What you see and hear from the government and media often does not present life as it is. Reality gets distorted through misinformation and disinformation campaigns.

In other words, keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out. Walter Kotschnig, a professor, hammered this point home at Smith College in a 1939 speech titled “Do we want peace?”

Let us keep our minds open by all means, as long as that means keeping our sense of perspective and seeking an understanding of the forces which mold the world. But don’t keep your minds so open that your brains fall out! There are still things in this world which are true and things which are false; acts which are right and acts which are wrong, even if there are statesmen who hide their designs under the cloak of high-sounding phrases.

The military-industrial-media complex has a pro-war agenda. So don’t believe the pro-war hype. Kanye West’s critics are the crazy ones. The people pushing for regime change in sovereign nations are the crazy ones. The perpetual warmongers are the crazy ones.

George Washington warned about the dangers of a divided country and extreme militarism. On Sept. 19, 1796, in his presidential farewell address—a 32-page handwritten speech—Washington “urged Americans to avoid excessive political party spirit” and cautioned “against long-term alliances with other nations” in foreign affairs:

The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts. …

While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same governments, which their own rival ships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other. …

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices? …

In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim. …

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government. the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? … The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without anything more, from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace and amity towards other nations.

Almost 165 years later, President Eisenhower delivered a similar warning in his farewell address on Jan. 17, 1961: “[A]n immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. … [W]e must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

We have not heeded the warnings of Washington or Eisenhower. “One way or another, a military-industrial complex now extends to much of corporate media,” journalist, media critic and anti-war activist Norman Solomon wrote in 2005. “In the process, firms with military ties routinely advertise in news outlets. Often, media magnates and people on the boards of large media-related corporations enjoy close links—financial and social—with the military industry and Washington’s foreign-policy establishment.”

History was made this week with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un crossing the world’s most heavily armed border to greet his rival, South Korean President Moon Jae-in, for talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons. The Korean War is finally ending, and Trump had the political will to help make it happen.

Not everything Trump does is good, and when he needs to be challenged, he should be challenged. But when he achieves something worthwhile, the accomplishment should be lauded. Attacking diplomacy as “weak” and “treasonous”—as some in the media are doing—is right out of the neocon playbook. It’s more than wrong—it’s deranged.

So why the panic over the peace process? War is profitable.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about loving your enemy. He did not mean a sentimental, soft kind of love, but love in the highest form of humanity and charity. The Greek word for this kind of love is agape.

We need more agape in our world. Hate—at any level, by anyone—hurts the individual, society and world. All it does is create ill will and enemies. And the bigger a person gets, the more enemies they have.

Kanye West and Donald Trump both have a lot of enemies. Dealing with hate is the price of power. But everyone has the power to choose love over hate.

“If you can cultivate the right attitude, your enemies are your best spiritual teachers because their presence provides you with the opportunity to enhance and develop tolerance, patience and understanding,” says the Dalai Lama.

So next time you want to hate on Kanye West or Donald Trump, consider an alternative.

Peace.