"DOMINANCE"

"Ain't Gonna 'Study' WAR No Mo' "

 

In the summer of 1961, I was a Cadet in Air Force ROTC Summer Camp at beautiful Hamilton AFB, California.  It was a tough, but memorable time when I met students from the entire state.  I had my first jet fighter ride, and the wonderful "new" Boeing 707 flew us to sites like Hoover Dam.  One day, in preparation for a barracks inspection, I opened the attic hatch to hide my shone-shine equipment.  I felt something in the dust of what had been an old, WW-II barracks, and pulled out a "mint-condition" issue of TIME magazine, with Eisenhower on the cover as Man of the Year.  The issue was dated 1944.  I still have it.

 

Little did I know then that my Air Force career would lead to the Nevada Desert, Washington, D.C., the states of Kansas and Nebraska, and the slums of New York city's boroughs.  I arrived in Washington, D.C. in July of 1962, a fresh brown-bar attached to the NSA.  I was there for four years of what I call the Hell Years of my first career: In the cross-hairs for the Cuban Missile Crises (three months after I arrived); the March on Washington (I did not attend); the March on the White House for the Birmingham Bombing deaths of four children (I participated); the assassination of President Kennedy (I still don't "get it" why the American People just "rolled over"); the Gulf of Tonkin and the early Johnson years; and the assassination of Malcolm X.    I left for training in Ohio before the later assassinations of Bobby and Martin, and the riots that ensued.  They rioted in Dayton, too!

 

In this Easter Season, I'm finishing Gaddis' book on the Cold War (see my 3/20/13 blog: RACE and the COLD WAR).  Truman and Churchill, (not so much Ike, who thought we could use "tactical" nukes on the battlefield) shared the early notion -- (shared even by Stalin) -- that "The Bomb" made warfare obsolete.  The destructive power of nuclear weapons was just too great for standing armies to counter.

 

We're, yet again, at a spot in world affairs (think the two World Wars) when the excesses of the rich cause wars.  But this time, it looks like it really IS different!  The focus for dominance seems to have shifted from "external" (between nation-states) to "internal" (within nation-states and trading regions).  Nations like the United States wil seek to increase its oppression of the weak  (as it has since its founding; from the 'exterminations' of the natives and 'workin' the slaves to death, to the current neglect and exploitation of non-white youths).  The role of the malignant Right will become ever-more transparent as they try to breathe life into the extremism of Barry Goldwater, and the Republican "leadership" that followed in his wake.  Think Syria, Think Cyprus! 

Stay Vigilant!  READ more than you WATCH!

 

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