by anderson
As is often the case on a Friday evening, I was reading Antifascist-calling and was directed toward the website of the DoD's National Geospatial-intelligence Agency (NGA), where, it turns out, the humungous US Department of Defense (previously known as the more apropos "Department of War") is attempting to enjoin "kids" to learn about the marvels of "Geospatial Intelligence" and "GEOINT games." Why, the NGA evens asks "kids" if they've ever "wondered what it's like to be an NGA analyst?" A softball, to be sure. Who doesn't?
But why is this for "kids"? Surely, this sounds like fun for one and all.
I'll tell you why.
Currently, the western world is facing a "demographic problem." Which is to say that the birthrates in what is nominally considered to be "western society," are negative, while the birthrates of "emerging economies", BRIC, SCO, and others, are demonstrating healthy positive growth rates. Essentially, this spells doom for the society that exhibits these negative birthrates. The birthrate problem Engdahl elucidates certainly has the western world concerned. As we in western world might view them, "solutions" appear nowhere in sight. Western society is demographically doomed.
Unless, of course, one sits in the Pentagon. In that case, well, the "kids" will be the ones defending the homeland and the frontier against any and all, continuing the expansion, and reducing the "drop-size," of the US military grid. Because US foreign policy remains de facto militaristic. Hence, a burgeoning interest by the military-industrial complex in the "education" of the next generation of Americans, helped along by a "third rail" defense budget, massive defense contractor profits, and a struggling public education system, made worse, of course, by Wall Street.
Defense contractors sponsor the education of American children in a variety of ways, while the US military is pushing a "rise" in "military-backed public schools," attempting to inculcate children with an impending need defend to homeland against "terrorists." Science, math, and engineering are the focus here, other pursuits apparently pointless in the arbitration of international disagreement. Weapons. Expansionist foreign policy. And more and more sophisticated weapons. That is the US foreign policy in the face of collapse. Which includes the next generation of vulnerable, militarily-educated Americans, born and bred to fear and war against the other.
Desperation can breed a lot of things, stupidity among them. If the US, under the Obama administration, continues an extroverted militaristic approach to the world in furtherance of an agenda that is being rejected by what are, in our multilateral world, trading partners, adversaries, and sometime allies, the country is doomed as it is.
The United States and its military maw will have to retract. That much is certain. Whether the US military, and the foreign policy behind it, recognizes that reality remains to be seen. The enthusiasm expressed by the military and defense contractors about the opportunity to "educate" America's youth at this point in time would suggest that that recognition has not occurred.
This seems to be a global trend. Children have historically been the first and most pliable candidates to become a professional warrior class. That much is not a modern idea. But in our time the phenomenon can be found all over the world.
ReplyDeleteThe Lord's Resistance Army and others in Africa, as well as a group I read about in South Asia literally employ children who have been stolen and brainwashed. In Iran the Basiji have roots in the revolution that overthrrew the Shah, but they cut their teeth on the Irqn-Iraq war during which children as young as 12 were sent into mine fields unarmed in great numbers, specifically to detonate the ordnance to clear the way for armed troops.
Stories following the recent Gaza incursion by the IDF indicate that that group of young people includes not a few feral examples of "kids gone wild" in military uniforms. I put up a post or two about that at the time.
When I was drafted as a conscientious objector in 1965 I had the innocent notion that no one should be subject to conscription, but after I saw how many of my peers seemed ready and willing, even eager, to kill whoever we labeled "enemy" I changed my mind. I have come to the grim conclusion that the human population has enough of these people that they need one another in the same way that nature needs predators to keep the ecosystem balanced. The draft is long gone, of course, and now we have what is euphemistically called a "volunteer" military, so called because so many young people see that route as the only way out of desperate social and economic bondage.
Sad to say, this most recent wrinkle in the shaping of young minds, though tragic, is not a new idea. My only hope is that even in the face of a growing trend toward a modern professional warrior class enough Americans will resist the atavistic DNA that gives rise to that impulse and hold fast to "better angels" in the pursuit of non-violent conflict resolution.
Incidentally, my Google account has been hijacked by a spammer who is now sending out scam letters to all my contacts soliciting money. I'm helpless to do anything about it since the Google apparatus has locked me out altogether from both blog and gmail.
ReplyDeleteI opened a new blog and gmail account, but those, too have been compromised, thanks to a notice validating a new password to -- where else?-- the hijacked account! I'm pretty pissed at the moment and have about decided to drop blogging altogether and see what I might do with Facebook and You Tube.
If the Facebook people would allow embedding of You Tube videos they would become the new blogging. Hijacking would still be a possibility, but for several hundred of one's closest friends the assault would be immediately noticed.
I was on the edge of putting everything important into the clouds via Google docs and spreadsheets, but this experience has made me change my mind about that as well. Too vulnerable.
Hoots, d'you want to do some posts for us?
ReplyDeleteRegards, Steve
I would be honored. Looks like I'm not getting anywhere out here in the woods by myself. I realized that Bloglines has what they call a
ReplyDelete"blog" but with no comments, editing or deletion functions. Go figure. Had I been more successful with the old blog I might think about actually paying for one, but in my case that would be pure vanity.
When I get my very old Yahoo mail cleaned out I'll get in touch in a way that we can exchange email. (I'm sill not into Facebook that deep. And privacy is an issue there that I haven't fully figured out. In addition to everything else my PC died last weekend and I'm working on a new toy, a Dell "netbook" with no printer hookup. (My old HP printer has one of those cable hookups with a thousand pins and this thing only has usb ports. Am I a dinosaur by inclination or what?) (I'm putting off taking delivery of my new PC until July 30 to save paying the sales tax. Cobb County has a tax holiday the first week of August for purchases related to school supplies and it's worth waiting to save fifty or sixty dollars.)
Sounds good. Contact me when you've sorted it all out and we'll set you up a contributor byline. We've known each other years, the Newshoggers crew and you, and we all know you write good stuff. We'll be happy and proud to see your posts under our banner.
ReplyDeleteRegards, Steve