When we hear that the Iraq/Afghanistan war is costing us billions of dollars, where does that money go? It doesn’t just evaporate. It goes somewhere. For sure where is doesn’t go is to improve our lot. It doesn’t pave the roads, fix the bridges or provide daycare. It doesn’t go to needy people, it doesn’t go to education and it doesn’t go to make us safer, happier and more prosperous. In fact, it could be argued that these current wars (all wars?) are having the reverse effect of what the politicians are telling us; that this phenomenal waste of resources is somehow in our best interest. It isn’t.

The great bulk of the money goes to military contractors. They in turn fund the politicians who continue to offer death and destruction for sale. So far, the violence and holocaust of war have been “over there”. But nature has a way of evening things out. One has to wonder just how long we, as a country, can act so badly in the world before it comes home to bite us.

Many suffer under the illusion that the events on 9-11-01 were perpetrated by outsiders, by ‘terrorists’. Actually we don’t know much about 9-11 because the official investigation was so flawed it leaves major holes in the understanding of the events of that day. For instance, the report spoke nothing of Trade Center building #7 which, to the trained or untrained eye, was a professional demolition. Testimony from the NY Firefighters wasn’t allowed to be entered into the record. What’s up with that?

From the very beginning we have been lead to believe that Al Qaeda was behind everything. Now they are in Iraq. They weren’t there before we went in. We created the enemy. Why? Talk to the Military/Industrial complex as they laugh all the way to the bank, while the rest of the world suffers horrors not imaginable in our part of the world. But don’t get complacent. The war is coming home in the form of less jobs, less resources and an unconscionable shift of wealth from the working people (who are the source of all wealth) to a select few at the top of the economic feeding chain.

We have been lied to by those in whom we trust with our safety. The use of force instead of justice has turned people against us worldwide, and for good reason. Instead of finding who was responsible for the events on 9-11 and bringing them to justice, the chicken hawks in congress simply started blasting away at Afghanistan, a virtually defenseless country that has been abused by great powers for centuries. They may not have our technical capacity, but they have survived over time and will survive our bloody incursion into their land.

George Bush is an imposter and fraud who needs to be held accountable for the destruction of not only Afghanistan and Iraq, but also our country. The tact taken by the neo-cons has not served us well, it has enriched only a handful of CEO’s of the defense industry. Make no mistake about the lies fed to us to get the trusting people of this great nation to kill, maim and torture people world wide for the profit of a few. There has been little actual threat from so-called terrorists. What little threat exists is because of the terrible foreign policy of the United States. Unfortunately few citizens really know of what occurs in our name worldwide. It isn’t pretty.

I’m not particularly optimistic because the media has been co-opted to the point of censorship of the truth. Big media buys the government’s story hook, line and sinker. What happened to the notion of a watch dog, of eternal vigilance to protect our precious and rapidly receding freedom?

The mind boggling mountain of graft and corruption are merely another tough climb for the mt. biker. Yet, the soul willing to slide from the mainstream and dwell for a while in the eddy of order, sanity and regeneration will find peace and freedom in a world fraught with seemingly unsolvable issues. With each turn of the crank the altitude yields, the view broadens and the burdened spirit finds buoyancy. It is a sketchy world out there. However, there are also treasures to be mined from the chaos. Treasured moments that connect us with the beauty and joy of this life.