warmongering.

We all know from comic books and superheroes that the weapons industry is full of war mongers.  It is supposed to be what they exist for.  A warmonger is a person who advocates, endorses, or tries to precipitate war.  Since a corporation is a person, any group can also be a person.  I am going to assume that a war means not just a "declared war" but also police actions and peacekeeping actions in which people are killed and maimed for the safety of the world.  Don't forget that every genocide that has occurred was for the "greater good" and the safety of the world.

So who is warmongering besides those most obviously vested in the profits of war?  We know about the defense contractors, the mercenaries, the leaders of our armed forces---but who else?

Well, there are the people, the scared people:  the people who are full of hate for people that are different than they are,  the people that think the only way to stop change is to kill everyone that represents change to them.  In our country, they are mostly white anglosaxon protestants.  In other countries they look differently.  They are the people that fear that the people at the bottom will quit being at the bottom and start rising above them.  If inequality is the only thing giving you an advantage, you like inequality.  The less advantage you get from that, the more desperate you become.  One hundred and fifty years ago, it explained why poor, white sharecroppers in the south didn't want black people to be treated like humans.  And today, it explains why poor people that have ancestors that got here as immigrants hundreds of years ago, don't want poor immigrants allowed in.  The only thing safe about the status quo if you are almost at the bottom of the societal structure, is the certainty that you are not at the very bottom of that structure.  

But where do the warmongers come in?  Well, we have many groups these days that are dedicated to hate and to egging on the fear and paranoia of those that feel their position in society threatened.  The woman that declared secret  messages to Islamic people were embedded in the State of the Union Address this past week.  Since she is part of a group that is concerned (read as "stone them all") with LGBT people--as in "they are destroying the American Family",  what she said regarding messages to the Islamic community was odd--unless the goal is to use the current fear of the second largest religious group in the world to set off the fear, anger, rage, and craziness of the first largest religious group in the world. 

 Last time I checked, Islam was much less friendly to the LGBT communities than the average American.  Of course, belonging to her group, she might have a skewed view of that.  More likely is an agenda in which she riles up the larger groups of people, the ones that are fearful of all Islamic people due to the current threats of terrorism by violent Islamic extremists.  It is ironic that the group she is trying to align the president with is a hate filled fundamentalist group, much like her own.  The only similarities between the political stance of the president and the Islamic religion is his middle name.which means beautiful.  There is no evidence of Islam in his family, his father's people had a religion that was related to both Christianity, Islam, and the original tribal African beliefs.  The president went to catholic school and currently goes to church with his family, although I have no idea what, if any, religious beliefs he has.  

So why try to align a pro-LGBT president with an anti-LGBT fundamentalist religious group that is currently at the top of the fear-provoking curve by the average (read average as you wish).  Because it makes the president the enemy.  And most average Americans are not in a panicky fear of the LGBT community.  We have plenty of homophobes, and people whose minds can not wrap themselves around the idea that 1950's America had a lot of stuff that was never printed, only discussed in whispers and over fences.   And, they want someone to make everyone be like them.  They want to know what is normal.  They want rules that eliminate anything gray....or rainbow.    But the reality is, most families have somebody in the LGBT community that is also in their family.  Some of those families  have exiled their members that don't meet their specifications, but others have had to open their minds and hearts to other possibilities.  In other words, pointing out that this president is not anti-LGBT isn't doing it for her group.  

So how crazy does a person have to be to buy that crap?  Well, fear makes normally sane people less sane.  And people that are sitting on a load of hate and feeling hopeless and trapped by a system that will never let their loved ones succeed, at least not like the TV shows depict people succeeding, those folks have a low tipping point.  But how is this  warmongering?  What is her goal.  What could be her goal.  We have a lot of activism going on right now.  We have a lot of craziness going on right now.  Which is which takes a lot of discernment.  

I am using that old parent question, the one aimed at building empathy and ethics in a child.

"How would you like it if someone did that to you"  

It's good for biting children and it's good for recognizing crazy agendas.

And really, why would a state of the union address contain a secret message?  Is there a decoder ring for that?