Civilianism is the opposite of Militarism. We need to move beyond the destructive forces of militarism and war in the 21st century and emphasize peace and the survival of the human race.
The Civilianism podcast can be found here. The podcast will resume in mid-May. The site can be found by clicking on "Site" on the top of the page. The blog is here.
The purpose of the podcast is to address what is happening to our culture and our priorities as the U.S. and certain other countries get increasingly militarized. This growing, ultra-powerful militarism is the greatest threat to individual freedoms the world has ever witnessed. Along with the pervasive militarism in our culture is the personhood of corporations and the inextricable multi-national corporatism in every aspect of our lives. People are becoming less and less individual human beings and more human resources, soldiers, or consumers. Health care is considered a "product" for the consumer, not a human right. Even surviving is no longer a priority, as an entire U.S. city was abandoned by the top leaders of this country in 2005. Meanwhile, we are encouraged to disengage and not worry about anything or be particularly interested, which is another way of telling us to not worry our pretty heads over what they are doing. Corporations now have more rights than individuals, and war and the war supply industry are multi-billion-dollar operations, like corporations, producing a product: a plastic-encased McDemocracy forced on people who don't ask for it. It doesn't matter. If our country and the corporations that run it want what a country has, they will take it. The will of the people is irrelevant. The rest of us can be easily lied to. The last few years have proven that if nothing else. The new militarism requires that force be used to spread what passes for freedom, and the product produced is not a free population, because the population never mattered. The product is endless profit opportunities for those fortunate enough to be more powerful, richer, and better-armed.
There have been reports from Iraq of contractors, employees of giant corporations, knocking things down and blowing things up so they can be built up again. This is a perfect example of the New military industrial complex. It exists not for the reasons of freeing anyone, but purely for profit and endless conquest for the world's remaining natural resources and profit possibilities. If human beings are in the way of what the giant corporations want, that can be dealt with.
Now we have a presidential election to consider and the "democrats" have descended into attacking each other. There is no longer any liberal or progressive candidate in the race, and there is also no anti-war candidate other than Ralph Nader annd Cynthia McKinney. If you want a candidate that is like Dennis Kucinich, who I believe was the best candidate from the start, you now have to look outside the Democratic Party and to the Green Party or an independent like Nader. The Democratic Party has abandoned anti-war citizens of this country. The Democratic Party is not the answer to much of anything; it is now as much devoted to supporting the defense industry and war contractors as the Republicans. Our only hope is to push these candidates back to left of center where most of the country is and where they belong..
If you still have a primary coming up I hope you will either vote for one of the progressive candidates (Cynthia McKinney or Nader, if possible) and if that's not possible, at least go with the candidate with the most experience. We have enormous, immense, difficult problems in this country and experience counts for something.
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