SELLING THE WARS TO THE YOUNG

I went to Bowdoin College last night to participate in a Theatre of the Oppressed workshop led by our summer housemate, and Bowdoin student, Phui Yi Kong.  While waiting for it to start I was flipping though the latest edition of Sports Illustrated that was sitting on a table in the college dance studio where we held the workshop.

On page three was a full page advert for a new Cinemax series called Strike Back: Diplomacy is overrated.  The ad has two white guys, not in uniform, looking macho with their machine guns.  Explosions are in the background.  I tried to lift the image off the Internet but they are only available as posters for sale.  They are also selling T-shirts that carry the same message.

One description of the movie that I found called them two secret intelligence agents (one Yank, one Brit of course - coalition of the killing you might call it) from "Section 20".  One wag wrote: "REASON TO WATCH Bullets, bombs, breasts, bloodbaths."

Note in the action trailer above the scene is set in Kenya - African continent - the place that Obama is now leading us into endless war to secure precious declining resources.  But of course these "brave agents" are only there chasing terrorism and bringing freedom and democracy to these backward people.

And the other indoctrination point - all this is coordinated by military surveillance satellites flying overhead.  The message?  Military domination in space helps the good guys stay alive and beat the bad guys!

But the thing that grabbed my attention was the sub-headline - "Diplomacy is overrated".  It reminded me of the words from Thomas Barnett some years ago when he told a packed audience of military officers during a presentation I watched on C-SPAN that the U.S. won't be doing international treaties anymore because they would restrict "our" ability to do what it (corporate oligarchy) wanted done around the world.

This show should be analyzed along with the other new war promotion series on NBC called Stars Earn Stripes. (In addition to all the other mind-bending violent shows on TV.)  There can be no doubt that the next generation is being prepared for a life of "security export".  It makes me heart sick.

This also makes me even more clear that our Thunderbird airshow protest in Brunswick on August 25 is the right place to be.

Free the youth from a future of endless war!