Flagpoles

The two stoners hashed some things out tonight (see what I did there?).

Somewhere in the path of America's rise to global dominance - probably in the mid-1890's - some maniacal genius considered the implications of the burden of an American empire, and concluded that though military dominance was a strong factor in imperialism, it was doomed to fail if its means of control was merely the physical occupation of large amounts of territory. As recently as 1945, we witnessed firsthand how an extraordinarily strong military ultimately failed in keeping an empire for even just six years. Going further back we see a prototype of our empire in the British colonies, but this still relied too much on the subjugation of native populations.

Rome, of course, is the only comparison to the current global situation, and we all know how that ended.

But before the fall, what is so genius - and ultimately so devious - about America's rise is that we have systematically gained control of some of the world's most valuable property without firing so much as one shot. Our strongest presence in the Middle East and Africa isn't staked out by military garrisons, but rather by Chevron, BP, Texaco, etc., and the local economies that spring up around them. The American dollar gets tossed around bigtime - almost entirely to the pro-West government - annihilating local currency and goods, enslaving native male populations to work the dangerous and destructive rigs or refineries, and giving the rest of the people "good" jobs supporting the behemoth operations with American fast food restaurants, hotels, chain retail or department outlets, grocery stores. We wipe out the people's ability to compete with our economic culture, and expect that they will march right along with the American Dream glowing neon over their decimated way of life.

Whoever that evil genius was, he (or she, although I don't think any woman would argue strongly for their sex's equal ability to spray their piss all over the world) would also probably have predicted the cultural backlash that we are now living in (read: terrorism), which doesn't necessarily mean he just couldn't come up with a way to avoid that, but rather he knew the consequences to the American people and fucking did it anyway.

I say "he" - a single human being of monstrous import - but I realize such a scenario only plays out in superhero movies. Of course this "he" is a revolving-door cabal of powerful white men, fully visible and usually elected or appointed to the tacit approval of a legion of dipshits. There is nothing mysterious and there is no conspiracy; these guys sit in front of cameras and have the gall to act surprised by how things are going, despite how they line their brains daily with blueprints for an homogenous universe, and actively provoke nations and organizations into becoming antagonists. Then like a nuclear-powered flyswatter, the military sweeps the hopelessly overmatched nationalists aside to the roar of the fans back home, then reward that honor and valor by assigning the underwhelmed troops to guard oil wells and construction equipment.

Really, even in saying these things I understand I'm basically stating the obvious. I believe my point is that if I can fundamentally sort out the disgusting truth of America's current worldview while fucking blazed and watching cartoons - how come 50% of the voting public cannot?

Sometimes I think marijuana is illegal because it clears a lot of sophisticated rationale - also know as bullshit - out of the way and allows for some simple, unfettered reason to peek through.

In which case, keep it illegal. I'd rather not cause a panic.