I’ll Cry Instead

I've got a chip on my shoulder that's bigger than my feet
I can't talk to people that I meet
If I could see you now
I'd try to make you sad somehow
But I can't, so I'll cry instead

[dropcap]K[/dropcap]udos to the Beatles for this passage from their 1964 song I'll Cry Instead. Obviously the song was about a guy's love for a girl who did him wrong. Yet, to this writer the essence of the deep feelings of hurt can be analogous to one's feelings of betrayal by one's country's leaders. Such had to be the case (in addition to my feelings about my country at this time) of how anti Nazi German citizens must have felt during that regime's reign of terror. In Jim Marrs' great 2008 book The Rise of the Fourth Reich, he quotes from a few German citizens who knew their nation was being run by psychopaths and evil doers: " An unnamed German teacher said that after 1933 no one seemed to notice the gap between the government and the people. He said this separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purpose... The dictatorship, and the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting. It provided an excuse NOT to think for people who did NOT want to think anyway. Many were probably, unconsciously, I suppose,  GRATEFUL.  Who wants to THINK? "

Wehrmacht soldiers swearing allegiance to Hitler.

Marrs shares with the reader the famous quote from German Pastor Martin Niemoeller: " First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." The academic Milton Mayer shared the feeling that in Nazi Germany ( as with today's Amerika) people who seriously questioned the motives behind government policies were deemed alarmists. Today, of course, they are called conspiracy theorists. Mayer went on:" In small gatherings of your oldest friends, you feel like you are talking to yourselves, that you are isolated from the reality of things. This weakens your confidence still further and serves as a further deterrent... for if you are going to do anything you are labeled as a troublemaker." Shades of our illegal ( by international law) and immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. Those of us who dared to even question this brewing storm of imperial arrogance were labeled as unpatriotic and un American. They literally had to push out those yellow ribbons from the storage bins, the ones they issued right out of the Goebbels's propaganda handbook from the first Iraq invasion of 1991.

Cheapened patriotism: the ubiquitous flags and chauvinist bombast are actually part of a program commissioned by the Pentagon with the teams' owners, for a hefty fee.

We have a long lasting parade of fools in my beloved country. They marched as the Silent Majority during Nixon's version of the ( so called) Vietnam War... which was really never our war, but simply a civil war between a ' divided by imperialists' nation. The fools parade continued when Bush Sr. suckered the gangster ( our gangster ) Saddam Hussein with his invasion of Kuwait, and of course continued when the Bush Jr./ Cheney gang did their evil deed in ' 03. Anyone with even half a brain should know that this ongoing ( shades of Gore Vidal's Perpetual War comments) ' War on Terror ' was consummated due to the USA attacks on Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and then Syria. When you keep upsetting the hornet's nest, the damn bugs start coming after you!  So, this Parade of fools keeps growing stronger every day. You see it with the many license plates honoring our branches of the military. You see it with the continuous pregame spectacles replete with honor guards, camouflage hats and gear worn by coaches on the sidelines, and of course the humongous flags, MY flag too by the way, spread across the playing field or arena. All you hear through the embedded media is " Thank you for your service" when what should be said is " They had NO right in sending you young guys and gals over there! "

On the early morning of March 19th, 2003 I stood in my living room and watched the newest version of Shock and Awe. I watched the news anchors ( regardless of what station ) cheerleading this horror. I did what John Lennon said in his aforementioned song... and sometimes I still do.

PA Farruggio

January 2019