It's War Outside: Let's Go Shopping

Erik G. Widman 11/18/2007

It is nearly 2008, and it has taken six years for me to ask the question: is our nation at war? Some may find the question trivial, but with more insight into the question, I find that it's not easy to answer. When the notion of war comes to mind, images of bombs exploding, soldiers shooting, and innocent civilians caught in the crossfire come to mind. These are the pictures media and history books have shown me from an early age. Yet when I leave my living quarters every day the images I see are none of these. I see cars traveling the highways, people vacating the restaurants of their choice, and the machine we call America turn its gears another day. The images of war in my mind are not aligned with the impression from my eyes. For the past six years we have been told to go shopping, visit our favorite national destinations, and pursue the ideology of the American dream as fabricated by our politicians. Have we as American mastered the art of fighting an invisible war?

Since the 20th century the US has been part of ten wars, all of which have taken place on foreign soil with the exception of Pearl Harbor in WWII. Of these, eight have taken place since the 1950s. Two generations of Americans have grown up with a sense of acceptance of war and its inherent lack of direct consequence to American Life. Children have become desensitized to the nature of war by extravert and introvert forces in the home. Most countries in western society teach children about the value of peace and humanity and celebrate international holidays such as the United Nations Day. Trust in the human spirit is the underlying creed to a free society that allows for freedom of thought and goodwill. American schools follow another principle of learning. Freedom is a fundamental principle to our nation. Students learn to pledge their alliance to a flag daily, regardless of the cost to social welfare. Society teaches them that the sense of freedom outweighs the value of life and prosperity for people of foreign nations. Humanity is overshadowed by our pride. War has become a part of us and is the backbone of the American way of life.

During times of war the US economy has strengthened as many sectors are affected directly as well as indirectly. Manufacturing jobs are created, large military contracts are distributed among companies like Lockheed Martin and Honeywell. More families generate additional expendable income and the wheels of capitalism are greased. Manufacturing plants open and blue collar jobs are created. The stock market increases in correlation with consumer spending as larger corporate profit margins are expected each quarter. The market pressures engineers and scientists to compete and innovate. They make our computers faster and our portable music players smaller. The television has found a home 2 as the centerpiece of the dining table to minimize our word count with family members. Medical companies find ways to make us live longer while fast food chains counter act their intentions. Cars are purchased from the dealers as increasing number of airplanes populate our skies. Life, as we know it, is good. The image of wartime looks considerably different that I had once thought.

Throughout the chaos we call life, the media feeds us daily reminders that there is a group of Americans fighting in some part of the world but without the immediate consequence to our lives. We do not see any roadside bombs exploding on our way to work, nor do we see innocent children caught in soldiers' crossfire. We are not even allowed to see the dead bodies of soldiers return from the battlefields. For this reason we have no desire for change. In our minds war is nothing but an image, an image only a select demographic of our population will realize. Having grown comfortable in our ways we accept the concept that people must die in order to retain our lifestyle.

Politicians will continue to fuel the American dream by holding ceremonies with medals and commemorating special days for the soldiers. They will tell them they are defending our freedom by committing the ultimate sacrifice, yet are unwilling to send their own kin into the line of fire. The rest of us display miniaturized flags on our vehicles and broaches on our lapels as a symbol of our unity in life as Americans. Fear unites us as a country. We fear losing our way of life, our entitlement to possession, and attacks of terror on our soil. Politicians use this fear to fuel the agenda of the continued economic success of our nation. Fear justifies the rationale of war.

Terms such as "unorthodox times" are used to describe the state of the world. Ironically, every decade since the 1960s at the time seemed to be unorthodox in nature, which has motivated each war. The oxymoron of modern American wars is that the nation as a whole is not truly at war. War is a time of uncertainty when civilians fear for their lives and cannot carry out normal daily activities due to the extremities outside their homes. All Americans will never truly be involved in war until it is fought in our country. The United States benefits from geographical superiority over any other country in the world. We have no neighbors to the east or west. To the north we have friendly socialists, and to the south an underdeveloped country. We have two giant bodies of water as shields from a quick invasion. A geographic sense of security is provided by Mother Nature. Our preferred isolationism is reflected in our history books, which overshadow historical world events with American history. It doesn't seem fair that all countries America fights should be crushed by our invading army. The countries become socially and architecturally crushed, while American soldiers return home to a thriving society not phased by the effects of war. The converse is unimaginable to Americans. Envision California being invaded by China. It would be a true test of patriotism for the American people. The feeling of being internally engaged by an outer force might overwhelm us. Perhaps the next conflict America willingly chooses to enter should be fought on 3 American soil as a goodwill gesture to the world. It could be our way of apologizing for ten wars fought on foreign ground.

There is an important question we should all consider this holiday season when shopping at the mall: Is our lifestyle sustainable from a macroscopic point of view? Can we keep fighting wars for another 100 years to keep our society functioning? What will it take for us to question our way of life? A mechanism for change is needed and the catalyst will be a self realization by the human spirit. It is not right to propel the American dream at the expense of human life.