You could not possibly encapsulate the spirit of mainstream America’s neoliberal neoconservative death march more perfectly than the nation losing its collective shit because a man who has dedicated his life to butchering human beings for war profiteers voiced an outdated perspective on nineteenth century slavery.

I can’t spend much time on this because it’s one of those days where there’s just too much going on to write about and I want to get another article out today, but that’s okay because the always excellent Moon of Alabama has summed it up nicely. If you don’t check in regularly with this blog for solid insights into what’s going on in the world, you should.

MoA explains why Confederate General Robert E. Lee was not by any stretch of the imagination an “honorable man”, contrary to John Kelly’s assertions, outlining Lee’s fondness for owning slaves and torturing them when they defied him.

“There is nothing astonishing about this,” MoA continues. “Kelly did not become a 4-star Marine general for being an enlightened defender of humanity.”

Kelly’s draconian worldview is not a bug, it’s a feature. The US war machine is a cruel, demonic vehicle which requires a cruel, demonic mindset to operate. You don’t become a four-star general of the US Marines because of your dedication to truth and compassion, you become a four-star general of the US Marines because you are good at slaughtering human beings for the benefit of war profiteers and geopolitical manipulators. Kelly continues to enjoy influential positions in the US power structure because he is one of its most profitable weapons.

The perspective I’m voicing here will upset some people, but I don’t care. Americans have been brainwashed into a fetishistic cult of adoration of their military by generations of establishment war propaganda, to the point where calling a spade a spade becomes outrageous heresy. Indeed, Kelly himself has become a high priest of this cult, lecturing the American citizenry that they owe their unquestioning support not only to the US military, but to everything it does.

Well I’m calling a spade a spade. This man, who has for months been uplifted by McResistance anti-Trumpists as an “adult in the room” of the administration, is a sociopathic thug. He got to where he’s at not only because he’s good at killing, but because he found a way to kill off every part of his humanity which had a problem with killing. It is in fact unfair and unreasonable for Americans to demand that he fulfill his duties while also maintaining a compassionate worldview, because his duties necessarily preclude a compassionate worldview. When your job is to facilitate the global slaughter of everything that gets in the way of America’s unelected power establishment, you can’t be the sort of person who spends time contemplating the inhumanity of America’s role in the African slave trade.

Members of the American death cult will object, saying that at most we should despise the war but not the warrior. Indeed, people do tend to enter the US military because domestic war propaganda has led them to the mistaken impression that they’ll be participating in something more honorable than bullying and destruction for gas pipelines and Raytheon profits, combined with the fact that it’s a way to make an independent living in the face of America’s soul-crushing Walmart economy. But at a certain point you stop giving them the benefit of the doubt. If you’re getting promoted up the ranks of an immoral operation, and then to a leadership position in an immoral presidential administration, it’s because you’re an immoral person.

I’ve lost all patience with people who bitch about powerful men saying mean things while ignoring the bloodbaths and barbarism they inflict upon the world day after day. Do you want your military to have kinder generals, America? Stop consenting to a foreign policy which requires unkind generals. Right now mainstream America has no problem with vicious men ruling the world, they just don’t want to see the viciousness. You’re like the psychopathic mayors who sweep homeless people out of upper class neighborhoods instead of trying to find solutions to homelessness.

Out of sight, out of mind. America doesn’t care what its professional butchers do as long as they keep their personal savagery out of sight.

As Moon of Alabama so eloquently put it, “Lamenting about Kelly’s biased view of history looks silly when the speaker then misconstrues the imperialism of the U.S. and the role of its military. Kelly and the other members of the junta are, like Trump, not abnormities but reflections of the United States.”

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