Prolonging Ignorance

A few days ago I read Christopher Dickey’s “What the D-Day Veteran Told Obama at the 70th Anniversary Commemoration“ (The Daily Beast, June 6). In attendance along with Obama were French president Hollande and Russian president Putin. Most of the article discusses the leaders’ speeches of the day and the awkwardness of having both Obama and Putin in each others’ presence despite their little “showdown” over Ukraine.

Before the speeches, the article talks about Obama and Hollande walking together and shaking hands with the crowd. But one man in particular held Obama’s hand a little longer than others and whispered something in his ear. By the end of the article, it is revealed that this man is an American veteran of the D-Day invasion. Dickey asked him what he whispered and the man responded, “I thanked him for keeping us out of war.”

Except for: the continuous drone strikes killing innocents throughout the Middle East and Africa since Obama took office. The 30,000 troop build-up in Afghanistan (around the time of his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance). The NATO actions taken in Libya to supposedly help the people get rid of a tyrant (while the U.S. government supported and continues to support tyrants of their own). The presence of U.S. military bases and troops around the globe to fight a force that only exists because of that presence to safeguard the manipulation and exploitation of economic resources for the corporate plutocracy. The near-invasion of Syria to, again, supposedly help the people get rid of a tyrant. With naval buildups in the Persian Gulf near Iran, a buildup of forces trying to surround China, and now a $1 billion pledge to strengthen NATO forces around Ukraine.

If anyone has truly been paying attention to the fervent militarism of the Obama administration, this comment made by the veteran seems quite confusing. Yet this type of ignorance is all around us, especially in regard to liberal Democrats (not that Republicans are excused). To many of them, Obama is a peace-loving president who is doing everything he can to end the wars and fix the economy, not the war-hungry deceiver whose policies favor greed-ridden, monopolistic elitists. There are some liberals, such as Michael Moore, who have criticized Obama, yet still voted for him in 2012 because he was the “better of two evils” – as if there is such a thing when it comes to the two-party tyranny.

Just because someone in power says they are doing this because it will help, does not mean it actually will. Those who believe everything a person says just because they voted for them fall victim to those narcissistic foes who will say anything in order to garner a large amount of support just to do the opposite of what they fooled their voters into believing they would.

As Hitler, the totalitarian mass murderer, once said, “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”