Note to Reader: I am not a fan of modern advertising which has made an art of labeling things to convince people to buy what they don’t need, often disguising the danger of the product. With that in mind I want to dispense with terms such as “Defense Department” and “Secretary of Defense”, and return to the older, clearer, and more honest terminology, calling them the War Department and the Secretary of War. While we are at it, let’s forget about the “defense contractors” or “the military-industrial complex” and just go back to the old terminology, “merchants of death.”

The topic for the day is a recent speech by our Secretary of War, Mr. James Mattis, in which he publicly announced that the endless “War on Terror” was not enough to protect ourselves and that we need to add a new policy, which would prepare us for military confrontations with Russia and/or China. In order to accomplish this Mr. Mattis indicated that we, the U.S. American people, needed to address the problem that the merchants of death and the War Department are under-resourced.

What does Mr. Mattis mean by “under-resourced”? According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) statistics for 2016, the United States with 4% of the world’s population accounted for 36% of the world spending on arms. China accounted for 13% and Russia 4.1%. It occurs to me that with that kind of money the merchants of death can not only buy a lot of weapons, generals and soldiers. They can also buy a lot of politicians, and advertising. Could it be that what we are being sold is not “national security” but unending international insecurity? It would make sense, since this is just what the merchants of death need to insure their business.

How did we get into this mess and how are we going to get out of it? I would like to suggest that things went seriously off track for the United States and the world on November 22, 1963 when President Kennedy was removed from office. If this is true, one antidote to the current commercials would be for us to go and read, listen to, and/or watch President Kennedy’s June 1963 speech at American University, at ratical.org/JFK061063.html. That is the last time I can remember hearing a U.S. American President intelligently address the question of war and peace.

I will be back to discuss this further, but I have to get to my meeting of War Addicts Anonymous. I highly recommend you find a meeting for yourself and if you can’t find one, found one. The world desperately needs the U.S. American people to sober up and get spiritual recovery on the question of militarism. One final bright spot: kudos to the people of Vermont who have elected Senators Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders who voted against the current military budget and apparently are not bought by the merchants of death. On that score we in Massachusetts and the rest of the country have a lot of work to do.