HOW MY WORLD HAS CHANGED

          The April 2012 issue of Harper’s Magazine has two major articles that highlight for me how my world has changed. They are “It’s A Rich Man’s World: How Billionaire Backers Pick America’s Candidates” by Thomas Frank and “The Warrior Class: A Golden Age for the Freelance Soldier” by Charles Glass.
            It takes a lot of money to be elected to any office in the present times. In our Congressional District in rural Arkansas, a candidate for House of Representatives won in the Democratic primary over another candidate who spent many times more money. He won by “shoe leather” electioneering. However, the state and national Democratic parties are sorry he won. The Republican candidate has demonstrated an ability to raise lots of campaign funds, had no opponent in the primary and now is in a position to outspend the Democratic contender ten or twenty to one in the general election.
            On the level of Presidential primaries and in the general election in November, billions of dollars will be spent to gain residence in the Oval Office for the next four years. There were candidates who demonstrated an ability to raise funds from tens of thousands of ordinary citizens. They did not win enough votes to become their party’s candidate in the November election. It is the candidates with billions of dollars to spend, whose backers themselves are millionaires and billionaires, who will be our choice whether we like it or not. No matter who we vote for in November, to be our President, our Representative, and our Senator, we know in voting for them that they will go to Washington indebted to their millionaire and billionaire backers to do what is in the best interests of those who bankrolled their election campaigns.
            Military service in the United States of America used to be primarily for patriotic duty, for the defense of our homeland. Two major events have worked to change that, though patriotism is always placed in the forefront. One event was the elimination of the draft. Military service then had to be sold as an attractive and profitable career choice. The other event was the Viet Nam War. The defense of our country was not at stake. 

In former times the best known “mercenaries” were men who joined the French Foreign Legion. Many of them were criminals and murderers from other countries who joined the Legion to escape conviction and sentencing in their own countries. As little nations in Africa, Central and South America were formed from former empires of European nations, mercenaries found opportunities selling their barbarism to would be dictators in these young nations. At first these mercenaries were mostly European. After Viet Nam a number of Americans began joining their ranks. They even had their own magazine, Soldier of Fortune.

            Glass’ article details how mercenaries working for contracting companies in the USA became private armies in Iraq and Afghanistan.