Leave no one behind
By Nick Egnatz
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Mar 1, 2010, 00:20
Socialism at its heart is simply the commitment not to leave any member of society behind.
Laid bare, capitalism allows the strongest and most conniving to leave the maximum number
of their fellow citizens not just behind, but battered and broken.
Think of the warm fuzzy feeling you may have experienced when you first heard about the
commitment of our soldiers to leave no one behind when we sent them into battle.
That’s analogous to socialism. Now think about the death and destruction that these same
soldiers are sent to deliver to fellow human beings that never lifted a finger against the
U.S. until we invaded their countries. That’s closer to capitalism; only in capitalism the
soldiers also kill each other, in addition to the enemy.
It is cruelly ironic that a country which takes such great pride in being a predominately
Christian nation has at its core an economic system which is the antithesis of the teachings
of Jesus.
Also ironic is the fact that a nation which revels in the belief that these same soldiers
that are being sent halfway around the world to wreak the mayhem of U.S. Empire, are doing
so purportedly to protect our freedoms. Yet the very freedom of speech, they are allegedly
protecting, does not allow for the public airing of a rational debate on the pros and cons
of socialism and capitalism.
With corporate media, government propaganda and both political parties owing allegiance
to the altar of American capitalism, the only hopes for change are nonviolent mobilization
and demands made from outside the elite-controlled electoral process.
Nick Egnatz is a Vietnam veteran and member of Veterans For Peace.
He has been actively protesting our government’s crimes of empire
in both person and print for some years now and was named “Citizen of
the Year” for Northwest Indiana in 2006 for his peace activism by the
National Association of Social Workers.
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