"On the fourth day, I’d be assassinated."

[davekriss]

49. Quoting another "realist" for you, George Kennan

"We have about 50% of the world's wealth, but only 6.3% of its population. ... In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity. ... To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. ... We should cease to talk about vague and ... unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better."
—George F. Kennan, Policy Planning Study 23 (PPS23), Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1948

Let's face it, we oppress and kill people outside of the United States primarily for one reason: "Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity."

Millions die so our upper classes can wallow in wealth with little fear of reprisal. That's real. One of Blum's earlier books was called "Killing Hope" - its what we do. We kill hope in other populations to rise up and control their own resources, their own lives, when in so doing our elites feel the impulse for freedom might hide buried within it the seeds of threat to the non-negotiable (Cheney) American way of life. We smash every nation that deviates from the status quo even when the nation itself is of little consequence simply because our elites cannot stand even a small example of independence from our model of the world.

That's real. That's what drives our military machine and the incessant propaganda needed for we of the 99% to sacrifice blood and treasure to keep things going. You may be comfortable with the relative peace within our boundaries, but I imagine it must be difficult to sleep at night if one pushes out of mind the real costs and consequences of that peace.

Cheers.