By Frederic E. Bloomquist (from San Pedro)
As typical American journalists, Miller and Samuels ignore the gorilla in the room. When the George W. Bush administration decided to unilaterally invade Iraq based on a falsehood, we also acted as an extremist group, killing thousands of innocents. Similarly, in Afghanistan, as we continue to blunder through a misguided war, innocents die.
Thus we too are extremists, only in our case it is “quality of life” that is our cult. It is a lifestyle dependent on artificially cheap fossil fuels and submissive foreign governments sustained by a weary workforce gypped by trickle-down promises.
Let’s be clear: Jingoism is not an excuse for wanton death and bloodshed; nor is our own “ideological virus,” the notion that Americans have the right to maintain a lifestyle subsidized by poverty. Certainly if a terrorist cult is defined as an extremist group moved to murderous violence because of an insane fanatical belief, Walt Kelly was right: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
Los Angeles Times
(Submitted by Asghar Vasanwala)