Pearl Harbor Day has come and gone. The remembrances are a little more subdued each year. Go back to November 11, 1918. A celebration has even been canceled. Armistice Day, a celebration of the end, that’s right the end, of World War I was magically turned into Veterans Day. The military-industrial complex hates to celebrate the end of a war.

Jump ahead to today. The world economy is on life support. Government spending is a larger portion of peoples’ income than ever before. And it is being printed or borrowed. That means after all of our nurturing and guidance and love, our children will be handed the bill for our lavish lifestyles. But inflation is in the news. More and more people are being shocked at the check-out counter. Some will believe retailers are gouging their customers. But the truth is the government is destroying our money’s value in order to create an illusion of prosperity. Real wages, that is wages measured by purchasing power, have declined every month since January. We are starting to notice.

The solution is, of course, a war. Russia is massing soldiers on the Ukrainian border. Germany is colluding with the Russians to bring natural gas to their green paradise of windmills and solar panels. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline will help alleviate bizarrely high energy prices in Europe and we are told the Europeans don’t like it. Go figure. Meanwhile in the Land of the Free (as in free access to our wallets), politicians like Joni Ernst and Roger Wicker struggle to maintain the image of scary Russia as if it is the Soviet Union that died in 1991, even though it is no longer a communistic devil bent on world domination.

Without a villain the monster has no purpose. What interest do we have in stopping affordable energy in Germany? And why is Ukrainian sovereignty of any interest to any American who doesn’t own Lockheed Martin or Raytheon stock?

In the one country in the world most blessed by free markets of the past (so much so that thousands of people are still sneaking in for a better shot at a decent life) we oppose a pipeline bringing a product from a place of plenty to a place of scarcity for an agreed upon price? What a slap in the face to our predecessors who sacrificed so much to ensure our standard of living through a free choice economy. Republicans who whine about Biden’s spending should take note.

We decry Russian soldiers amassing at their own border. Let’s count the ways American politicians are hypocritical to criticize Russia here:

• The U.S. military has 173,000 personnel at 750 bases in at least 80 countries around the world.
• To maintain such a presence we spend almost as much as all the other countries combined.
• Our borders are relatively open.

Our military is misused and abused. NATO is no longer of any interest to the security of Americans within the legal jurisdiction of our military. The Eurozone has the incentive and resources to defend itself. President Trump’s demands for Europe “pay their fair share” didn’t go nearly far enough.

Senator Roger Wicker even went so far as to say we may have to use a “first strike” nuclear weapon. People like him should have to live in such a hell and leave the rest of us alone.