In his famous novel 1984 George Orwell imagined the countries of the world reduced to three. They were named Eurasia, Eastasia and Oceania. They were in perpetual conflict. Two of them would gang up against the third, and seemingly win, but then a different two would form an alliance against the new third country, ad infinitum. All conflict benefited the real movers and shakers of the world. Their machine turned misery into wealth and power. No one knew who these very powerful, very wealthy people were.

Part of the perpetual shame of being a citizen of the United States is that the United States benefits enormously from conflict. Huge corporations euphemistically named “Defense Contractors” work with the military to create more effective means of ending lives. Little research and development is devoted to defense; much is devoted to offense.

The current President, when a candidate for the office, when asked how he would handle a certain collective that has been described as a “Terrorist Group,” replied, and this is as exact a quotation as my memory provides, “I’d bomb the shit out of them.” As President, he has caused to happen a certain amount of bombing that has resulted in the deaths of noncombatants. These deaths are euphemistically called “Collateral Damage.”

In the movie VICE, based on the life of former Vice President Dick Cheney, there is a scene that occurs during the Nixon presidency. Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are near a closed door to a room where Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger are discussing their plans to carpet-bomb Cambodia. Somehow Cheney and Rumsfeld knew this. Years later, Cheney would be instrumental in compelling the US to invade Iraq, while the “Defense Contractor” Halliburton, which formerly employed Cheney as Chief Executive Officer, benefited from enormous, no-bid, cost-plus contractual work. For further information please run an Internet search on “sailboat fuel.”

Part of human nature is a desperate need to feel like one of the “good guys.” “Good guys” cannot exist without “bad guys.” In my lifetime, according to my ever-evolving government, the “bad guys” have included ex-Nazis, organized crime, Lee Harvey Oswald, the Ku Klux Klan, Communists, North Vietnam, “Red” China, the U.S.S.R., the Palestinian Liberation Organization (“P.L.O.”), Madalyn Murray O’Hair, Iran, Iraq, Daniel Noriega, the Taliban, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, ISIS and/or ISOL, Saddam Hussein…Moammar Ghaddafi…Osama bin Laden…so many more. Ironically, many of these enemies were created by the zealous efforts of the US Government to effect regime change, ostensibly for the good of the world.

The way to avoid Pushback is for the initial Push not to have occurred in the first place.

The words to the acrostic:

Post this suspect’s APB
Unto dog comes tick & flea
Shave it burn it write it: Bic
Have a prospect take a pick