Sunday, August 05, 2012

Leggy actress Julie Newmar's TV series "My Living Doll" debuted in 1964, just as the "War On Poverty" was getting underway. 
WARS WARS WARS!!!!!

Public Radio is telling us we are losing the "War On Poverty."
Since Lyndon Johnson started this "War" there have been scores of headlines written by editors  bemoaning the same thing.

You can't win or lose a "War" against a concept, as so many have stated. 

Poverty can only be lessened when we change our mode of thinking. 

Wars on Poverty, Drugs, Terrorism indicate a poverty of ideas. 

The Kennedy adviser who put the bee in the bonnet of Lyndon Johnson to make a "War On Poverty" two weeks after ascending to POTUS set up an untenable proposition. As in much of American medicine, the policies masked symptoms and were anything but a cure.    

As soon as  the "War On Poverty" was declared, the political opposition began making War on the Poor. 

Then Nixon made a "War On Drugs," giving us the Law Enforcement/Prison Complex that grows on and on. 

As soon as the "War On Drugs" was in effect, the government at all levels used enforcement to make War on Drug Users, in effect, another War on the Poor.

Then W made "The War On Terrorism" to replace the "Cold War." This gave the Pentagon something to do and people to kill and contracts to put out for bid.  George W. Bush should have called his memoir "The Care and Feeding of the Military/Industrial Complex." 

This "War On Terrorism" was immediately transformed into a War On The Rights Of The People, which was fought in faraway lands, essentially by the Poor. 

All these Wars are doomed to FAIL, yea, they are designed to FAIL.
When a war is won the money stops.
We cannot win wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq....
You name the place unless it is a small tiny helpless island like Grenada.
These wars are not winnable. 
We don't want to win these "Wars" because winning would require an actual rational solution to these problems.
These Wars are created to fatten the wallets of the connected.

A socialized national health care program would have done more to alleviate poverty than a thousand bureaucracies. 
Fully subsidized higher education for qualified students would have done even more. 

I almost forgot about Nixon's "War On Cancer." [Nixon loved Wars.] 

Real cancer survival rates have changed little since that War began.
The medical establishment will tell you survival rates are higher, but if you look at what is really going on you will discover that the only significant progress has been earlier detection. So it appears as if "survival" is going up when actual survival times have stayed about the same since survival time is based on when the cancer was detected. 
This second metaphorical Nixonian War was no different than the others since it was designed to further enrich an elite and powerful Medical/Corporate Establishment. 

So They declared War on ME.

Notes:

As I watch synchronized swimming I wonder why no one has invented a hidden nostril plug instead of those very unattractive nose clamps that look like they came out of an S&M boutique.