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Andrea Gibson via Normand ICH

Declaration of Peace

Today marks the fifth year since the decider accomplished his mission. The table was tilted and all the wealth rolled into his side’s pockets. All of the benefits accrued to the rich, all the rewards. All of the costs have been borne by the poor, all the risks. As of today I have no enemies on this globe and my peace has come with a price unpaid. What is the cost of justice? How shall we value truth? What pain will we feel as we excise the shrapnel of deceit from the body politic? What stains will permanently discolor our social fabric? The cold war is long over — Churchill and Stalin and Truman and Khrushchev long dead. There never was a war on terror. We defeated Iraq and have lost ourselves in its occupation. We ousted the Afghan Taliban and wandered aimlessly in the mountains seeking bin Laden, the golem we built. The rich and the powerful are weighing the odds that thermonuclear horror in Tehran will distract us, the drums of constant war drive us mad, erode our faculties, assure continuity of the oligarchic rule that has brought us to the brink of extinction.

But I am at peace. I have no enemies on this globe. I have only my duty to the people and the truth. It’s my job to speak up and dissect the myth of Adam Smith, to remind people of the insanity that informed their economists and game theorists, the ones who provided the scaffolding of rationalization for the politics of greed.

I am not at war. I am simply a citizen looking for justice.