If Hindsight is 20/20...

...what is Foresight? Over and over and over and OVER again I am perplexed by the extreme short-sightedness of our citizenry - and our "leaders." In order to gain some short-term popularity or cause a stir or further one's own opinion (facts are irrelevant, or course), there seems to be no limit to what people will do. Who cares about anybody else? I DO WHAT I WANT! We are a fucking nation of Eric Cartmans. Prove me wrong - I IMPLORE YOU.

What an absolute breath of fresh air to hear Ted Koppel on Talk of the Nation yesterday. In January, he spoke eloquently about the need to help Haiti in the aftermath of their devastating earthquake. This time, he spoke about our war "efforts," or, more precisely, our lack thereof: how the burden of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is not shared by all Americans, and that the average American (read: non-military) has not sacrificed anything during the last 9 years of war.

Seemingly common-sense legislative checks and balances such as, I don't know, (a) actually making a Declaration of War like we SHOULD do when we invade a country; (b) raising taxes to fund war efforts; (c) creating a sense of shared sacrifice [rationing, the draft] so that all of the citizenry shoulder the burden in some way - all these ideas are absolute political suicide. If our fucking politicians do not have the wherewithal to engage their constituents in something as serious as WAR, then THEY SHOULD NOT WAGE WAR. As Ted said,

We haven't sacrificed. I haven't sacrificed any blood. I haven't sacrificed any treasure. My taxes are the same now as they were before the war began. My taxes have not increased. None of us is paying more in taxes today for a specific war tax than we were paying before. And when he says we are sacrificing blood, that's precisely my point -we aren't. The young men and women who are over there are, and by extension their families are. The rest of us are sacrificing nothing.

It is an awful lot of easier to borrow the money from the Chinese and defer the payment than it is, you know, I mean, imagine here we are coming into the political season again. We have elections coming up. How many congressmen out there do you think are going to come out and say, yeah, I was listening to Ted on NPR the other day. I think he has a terrific idea. I'm going to propose raising taxes so that we can underwrite the cost of these wars.

Almost by definition, that man or woman would be elected out of office. It is politically so unpopular to suggest any additional taxes. But that is a state of mind. And that's really, Tony, what I'm arguing right now, that the American state of mind these days is so self-indulgent, is so self-oriented, is so concerned about doing, you know, I'm all right, Jack, as the British used to say. Everything is okay with me. I'm not going to worry about what's happening to those kids over there. I'm not going to worry about where the money is coming from. Maybe my grandkids will pay for it. You know, where will I be by then?

I mean, think of a single sacrifice that we, as citizens, who do not have children or relatives in Iraq and Afghanistan, what sacrifice are we making? My argument is: none. And it has to be something.

Putting aside the argument of whether the draft is right or wrong, at least it spreads out the burden of fighting our wars. And when "normal" people are called to serve their country, it might make us think twice about putting their lives in jeopardy, hence the massive protests during Vietnam. The motivations for waging war need to be scrutinized to the utmost degree, by our politicians and by the public. Lots of luck with that pipe dream. We're all too goddamn busy watching Jersey Shore to give a fuck about anything real.