The Cost of Authoritarianism

Meta AI at the prompts of the author

Heather Cox Richardson, in her blog Letters From An American, has cited "Alison Durkee of Forbes magazine today that Trump’s military strikes in Iran have already cost U.S. taxpayers more than $1 billion. The three F-15E Eagle jets lost to friendly fire on Sunday cost $90 million each. Transporting troops, ships, and aircraft to the Middle East cost about $630 million. Missiles and weapons systems are also expensive—a drone is about $35,000, and a Tomahawk missile costs millions—and the two aircraft carriers in the region together cost at least $13 million a day. And then there are the costs of operating aircraft, and so on."

If Americans want to know why their infrastructure is failing, why the cost of electricity is through the roof, why we don't offer our young people free college, and why healthcare is a luxury and not a right --- THIS IS YOUR ANSWER.

Billions for the military and crumbs for everything else.  

People should be highly offended by this and not just because of the gross expenditure of money, but also because of the wanton destruction of human life.

The Quaker peace testimony is based not only on the teachings of Christ to love thy neighbor, but also is rooted in non-coercion (Phillip Gulley). Coercion, in its many forms, is the root of violence. "Do what I want you to do or else!"  People are manipulated with every manner of coercion from threats of violence to violence itself.  

We have normalized it. We accept it. We have enshrined it.

What? Enshrined it?  Surely not?

Who has the right to fine, tax, imprison and kill -- all enforced with the threat of violence or actual violence? And able to do these things with immunity from consequence?  Yes, the state.  Enshrined in law. Americans have given a monopoly on the right to use violence to the state.  And when we see it in action (whether it be suffocating George Floyd with a policeman's knee, Shooting non-violent protesters in Minn, or starting foreign wars) we are shocked.  

What we need to understand is that the rot runs deep in human culture. It is not an American phenomenon.  It lies just below the surface in all of us. 

So what is the antidote to coercion and violence?  

To answer this just imagine the last conversation you were engaged in. The one where you were just waiting for an opening in the dialog to put your 2 cents in.  That kind of communication, a discussion (a dis-cut-tion), where there is zero listening, a lack of consideration, and no discernment of what is going on.  This is the root of coercion.  It starts there and escalates.  

Witness the recent so-called "diplomacy" with Iran.  Two sides sit down at a table to work out differences in foreign policy and one side has half its navy amassed in the Mediterranean and Red Sea threatening to unleash an "epic fury" if they don't get what they want.  

Is that diplomacy?

Sounds like coercion to me!   

Expectant listening is the practice of having no agenda.  No demands. It is the kind of listening that leads to discovery.  Something that surprises you.  Something that might actually have you change your mind. Something you could hear that might alter what you were "absolutely sure of." 

Expectant waiting is not merely psychological sovereignty over knee jerk reactions, but at its best is two (or many) gathered as one willing and open to discover what can arise from nothing.  

~ Joseph Olejak