Maybe, today, on a holiday where the president is spending millions to clothe himself in meaningless militarism, would be a good day to imagine what the world would be like if we hadn't spent all our money on endless weapons and directed our brightest minds on destruction.
But don't take my word on it, here's Republican war hero president Dwight Eisenhower: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies...a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed."
Also, Eisenhower said the theft of militarism included "the sweat of...laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hope of its children."
Imagine what scientific advancements we could have had. What kind of humane economy we could have had. What diseases we could've cured.
We speak of our wars and our military endeavors as if they were destined, as if they succeeded simply because the world didn't end. But we never stop and talk about what the world COULD have looked like, how much better society could have been.
We don't speak of the consequences of an entire country dedicated to war. We don't speak of all the endless trauma, what it's done to us as a people, to our lives, to our minds and spirits. It's time to imagine the world that could have been so we can start to make it real.
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