white hats and black

Idling through the alpha waves of the television yesterday, it seemed to be true -- there is an uptick in westerns and black-and-white dramas of yore. What caught my attention was "Shane," a 1953 good-guy-bad-guy western in which the guys with the white hats squared off against the guys in the black hats and the guys in the white hats -- what else? -- carried the day.

Westerns and war movies and Three Stooges ... all of them throwbacks to simpler times at the same moment that real life is fraught with complexities abetted by the internet -- complexities that are woven with "fake news" and a U.S. president who lies as a matter of routine. Simultaneously, the Department of Defense (once more aptly tagged as the "War Department") is looking for/getting support for a patriotic, blood-shedding financial boost.

And who is likely to pay for the military uptick? Medicare, Medicaid, and various other social safety nets is a good guess, I think.

War is so much easier than peace. Just press the patriotism button. Just press the fear button. Just ladle out the laundry list of guys in black hats and ....

Watch a latter-day rerun of 1949's "Sands of Iwo Jima," a John Wayne flag-waver. No one ever accused John Wayne's movies of being complex. Things were simpler then and therefore (of all damned things) true-r. They were heroic and right and un-fake and the top-gun didn't lie.

Hunger and poverty and climate and racism be damned.

OK ... let's have another war. Boeing and kin could use a financial infusion. Seventeen years of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan barely scratches the financial surface.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration is nearing completion of a new “Buy American” plan that calls for U.S. military attaches and diplomats to help drum up billions of dollars more in business overseas for the American weapons industry, going beyond the assistance they currently provide, U.S. officials said.

Fuck diplomacy! Get out there and sell, sell, sell!