Finally, we are coming to the end of World War Two.

My mind keeps going back to an old movie. Not black and white old, but one from earlier in my life. A movie titled, “Jacob’s Ladder” (1990). The movie was about a Vietnam Veteran, played by Tim Robbins, who was having increasing difficulty living a simple life. As the movie progresses he has psychotic episodes that increase in frequency and intensity, involving what appear to be demons. As he works to understand what was happening to him, he discovers that something secret was done to him and his comrades during the war. At the end of the movie we discover that the entire movie takes place in a few moments, as the main character lies dying on a gurney in a medical tent in Vietnam. The main thesis of the movie was a scene where the main character was getting an adjustment at his chiropractor’s, played by Danny Aiello, and the chiropractor shares a view that demons were nothing more than angels trying to get a person’s soul to let go of the material world. The final scene was of the main character climbing a stairway into a bright light.

The United States has never stopped fighting World War Two. This is not a radical statement. Most people who are paying attention have known this for a long time. We are still seeing new movies and books coming out about WWII, much the same way a middle aged man will tell the same stories of his highschool football days over and over again. What is interesting is how the war machine has slowly taken over the nation. At first it was simply a function of manufacturing reasons for war, like in Korea and Vietnam, but by 1980 it began to assert itself on the economy. Reaganomics was never anything more than a rationalization to funnel money to the industrial military complex and build the entire economy around war. Then in 2000, the war machine came after our culture. An endless propaganda assault that left nothing untouched. (French fries and the Gulf of Mexico? For crying out loud!) Like wolves lurking in the shadows, they slowly gained confidence to come closer and out into the open.

The wolves are certainly out in the open now. Well, more like hyenas, because they are out in the open and laughing hysterically. Nonetheless, I am still optimistic. I see this as the final stage in the process of our nation letting go of World War Two. The end of our midlife crisis. Of course it will not be pretty, but nor will it work out the way the oligarchs want it to. What they do not count on is that every person in this country, and the world, will experience this release on their own terms. Every person will let go of the unnecessary dross that our corrupted culture has convinced them to be vital, to protect the things that truly have meaning to them. This will not be done from reason or planning, but simply as a reflex. Only when this process is over will our nation be able to truly build a new vision of ourselves in the future. And, in this way, the oligarchs are really angels.