America's Kamikaze Mission
Might Makes Right
May 11, 2001
It’s often comical how the precedent of history can be reincarnated as a grotesque mutation to wrap an unjust cause in the nobility of of ancient glory.
In 1274 a Mongolian army numbering some 25,000 forces under the leadership of Kublai Khan invaded the Japanese mainland. In quick succession, the smaller Japanese islands surrendered to the overwhelming forces of Mongol barbarism. By 1281, this Mongol army had grown to a force of over 140,000 and was making its final assault on Japan’s main island.
In this desperate hour, the Gods and/or fate intervened when a typhoon of catastrophic proportions descended from the heavens and destroyed the Mongol fleet thus saving Japan.
In Japanese tradition this typhoon became known as Kamikaze or the Devine Wind.
Some 650 years later, a corrupt Japanese military reincarnated this romantic tale of national destiny as a hideous justification for the heinous act of suicide missions against the American forces in the Pacific theater during World War II.
At the time of the World War II Kamikaze reincarnation the Japanese leadership was fighting a war that it knew was already hopelessly lost. The main motivation of the fanatic military zealots who hatched the rebirth of Kamikaze lore into a sinful waste of misguided, yet youthfully impressionable, Japanese lives was to save their own butts.
If the Japanese leadership could exact a great enough toll on the American forces by sacrificing the lives of their naïve youths, perhaps these selfish zealots could force America into a Conditional surrender with the main condition being the avoidance of war crimes trials and hangings for themselves.
In the typical schema of corrupt governments, the leadership did the deceitful talking from the comfort of their hot geisha house baths while the followers did the dying from a belief that their sacrifice secured the national good.
Although a moot point, it would be of historical and future benefit to learn if these same youthful Kamikaze pilots would be so willing to die if they knew the real reason for their sacrifice was to secure another round of hot sake and even hotter sex for Tojo and, at best, was a negative contribution to Japanese national interests.
Hypocrisy, although deplorable, is to be expected from something akin to the invalid leadership personified by the military dictatorship (Monarchy?) of World War II Japan. But, in America, it should be a deplorable trait and never tolerated.
Unlike a dictatorship, America’s government belongs to its people. American leaders are people who ask for the privilege of being elected. Once elected, these leaders represent the people by proxy as the leadership in a government whose only power is derived from its people and on revocable loan.
Consequently, when an American politician exercises political power it should be exercised only to the best advantage of all the people and not to the distinct advantage of either a small, yet powerful, interest group or a large, yet tyrannical, majority. For governmental purposes, the people are the principles and rights documented in the U.S. Constitution.
The Constitution is the glue that holds the United States together. Without it, all that would be left is a landmass with abundant resources and divergent human interests. That is why the framers of the Constitution specifically chose its goal as, “…to form a more perfect Union.” If they meant otherwise, the intent would have been to, “…form a more perfect Disunion.”
However, it is alarming the rate at which post World War II America has been cast into disunion by political leadership more intent on self-interest than national interest. And, sadly, this has been accomplished with the ill-gotten support of the deceived American people.
Like the Kamikaze pilot of Japan, the American people are not being made privy to the truth. And, like the military dictatorship of Japan, America’s politicians are manipulating their people through a deception based on love of country and self-interest. In both instances, the Kamikaze concept is enabled by the detachment of leadership from the realities of the mission.
In one regard, the political leadership of the United States is morally a notch below that of Japan’s World War II military. The Japanese were a homogeneous people with the common goal of prosecuting the war against the allied nations. Tojo et al reinforced the single people, single nation and single cause concept because, if for no other reason, it united the Japanese people singularly in the protracted struggle.
America’s leaders, conversely, make every effort to segment their population into conflicting interests groups pitted against each other. Thus, the electorate is unable to unite in a struggle against the cancer of over-reaching government intrusion. Washington D.C. plays the “divide and conquer” game against its own constituents.
Logic would question the productive merit of America’s leadership segmenting the population into conflicting spheres of influence. But, in asking the question, the question is answered.
View contemporary American government as an organism, perhaps a cancer. Therefore, government is competing against other organisms in the system for resources. It is a “thrive or die” scenario. If the private sector (including the individual taxpayer) receives more of the economic pie, this dictates that less is left to satiate the government’s appetite.
Just as corporate executives receive much of their compensation outside of their declared salaries in the form of perks and bonuses, so do politicians. Although the profit sharing plan for a politician manifests itself as increased perks and patronage which equals constantly growing government.
For every dollar the individual is “allowed” to keep, there is one dollar less for the U.S. Treasury to gobble down.
This is Darwinism at its most base level.
Consider how healthcare is rationed to the individual through Medicare, Medicaid and HMO’s. Simultaneously, Congress receives free outpatient care at Bethesda and Walter Reed military hospitals. And it’s not a stretch to assume that no Congressperson arrives for a 2:00 p.m. appointment and is kept waiting until 4:00 p.m.
Consider that while the average small businessperson thinks it fortunate to obtain health insurance at a premium cost of $400.00 per month, a Congressperson has access to the Office of the Attending Physician (yes the equivalent of an on-site personal physician) for a cost of half that amount per YEAR.
Consider that while Congress plays games with a rapidly eroding Social Security system and jeopardizes the quality of your retirement, a network of pension programs that guarantee six figure retirements with generous cost of living adjustments covers the Congressperson. All taxpayer subsidized.
Consider that as gasoline prices near the $2.00 per gallon mark this summer, the Congressperson keeps taxpayer-paid frequent flier miles for personal use. Not to forget that Congress receives Free parking at National and Dulles airports in addition to the Capital.
Least significant, but most insulting is the fact that as the individual sacrificed to pay the exorbitantly increased costs of home heating this past winter, Senate offices received free wood for their in-office fireplaces.
Consider that the above is just a very small example of the disparities between the way your government tells you to live and the way your government lives at your expense.
A government that pits black against white, male against female and rich against poor, enables all of this duplicitous behavior. When the “trust fund liberal” cries that smaller government is a ploy of the “rich”, consider that the top 50% of taxpayers (about 22% of the population) pay 96% of the taxes in America. And, never forget that the price of admission into the sanctified realm of the “rich” comprising the top 50% is an annual income of about $27,000 per year.
Although it is never fun to be the cause of rain on another’s party, the American electorate must wake-up to the fact that the enemy is not the guy or gal in the next neighborhood. Rather, the enemy is the cancer of an all-consuming government growing out of control. The only number bigger than the growth rate of the government might be the growth rate of the lies politicians tell to deny the facts.
Strong leadership requires character. Character dictates that an individual never ask of another what one is not willing to sacrifice from oneself. The next time the “Beltway Tojos” ask you to climb into the Kamikaze cockpit for the “good of the country”, it might be amusing to invite them to join you for the ride.
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