Star Wars has provided an oddly prophetic theme in entertainment and science fiction which may account for both its own lasting popularity and a basis for the current confusing question of the day: “why don’t we feel like the heroes anymore?”.    We love Star Wars because the gifted, under armed, scruffy guy and his rag tag group of rebels prevail every time over the overwhelming military advantage of the Galactic Empire. The world also loves the David and Goliath story where the kid with a sling shot and great faith brings down what was thought to be the impregnable giant.  What the United States doesn’t understand in this current administration is we are transforming into the “Empire” and “Goliath” and other sides are assuming the heroic side.  Sadly as voters instead of history filling our minds, we go to the poles with the past glory of the underdog story provided by the accommodating entertainment industry. This fun foolishness is killing us because it has now the fantasy of our leadership.

Take this battle against the Houthis.  They use thousand dollar weapons to bring down our multimillion dollar weapons.  According to the New York Time last week we lost a reported 60 million dollars worth of MQ-9 Reaper drones in two nights (that is two drones).  We have parked two not so intimidating aircraft carriers costing 6.5 million a day to operate off Yemen’s coast.  We fire 2 million dollar anti-missal interceptors at low cost low end Houthi rockets.  By the end of May the New York Times reports we will have spent 2 billion dollars to fight one of the world’s poorest nations. Like the old Senator said (adjusting for inflation) “you spend a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon it adds up to real money”.  How is it we contemplate cutting meals-on-wheels for the poor elderly , children’s education, food stamps and medical services because reportedly we don’t have the money. You would have to be wrapped head to toe in wool not to see that we have the money to fully take care of and support our children, elderly, and disabled. If we have enough wealth to fire hose funds by the billions into the world’s seas and oceans, we can take care of own citizens.

Good is realizing that the nature of war has changed and we are not who we fantasize ourselves to be. We can’t hold this country together blowing up multi-million dollar weapons at low percentage targets, cutting taxes for the very wealthy and punishing the poor for the mathematically inevitable budget deficits.  We are playing big, rich and powerful in a time when good decisions need to be made to knit together a splintering nation that has a tendency to bury it’s head in the flickering screen of news, entertainment and propaganda instead of disciplined journalism. What is wrong with being ‘woke’ to a freight train coming down a track on which I have fallen asleep?