Chris Hedges: "A lone soldier..who rises up inside the system..unmasks the military for what it is"

[gratuitous]

9. Anytime you buck organized religion, this happens

Our national religion is not, as some would have it, some narrow brand of evangelical or fundamentalist Christianity; it's militarism, the High Church of Redemptive Violence. It requires a lot of money (if you think televangelists rake in the dough, think about the $2 billion we spend on the military every day, Monday through Friday, weekends and holidays). It requires blood sacrifice (not this antiseptic ritualistic water-into-wine transubstantiation or consubstantiation). It must be lived 24-7, waking and sleeping (you don't got off with just flattening your fanny on a church pew for an hour once a week).

It requires constant repetition of the articles of faith, and it seeps into every part of public life, from school ceremonies to sporting events to public festivals. Virtually any public gathering is going to have some reference to militarism and the blessings it secures for ourselves and our posterity. Anyone who questions it will be held up for public approbation at the very least, and perhaps accused of the highest apostasy, aka treason. Insufficient fervor for the High Church of Redemptive Violence is constantly monitored and backsliders are admonished.