Morning Joe segment: normalized warmongering.

The segment wasn’t on that topic, of course. That was just my takeaway.

It was meant, no doubt, to honor the fallen in keeping with Memorial Day. But what I couldn’t help thinking, as they conversed with their guest, Colonel Jack Jacobs, is how blinkered the whole thing was . . . which began with this extremist vision that it’s our job to prevent “influence” in X, Y and Z regions by X, Y and Z countries.

First of all, why should we be World Cop? Second, if you’re going to take on that responsibility, don’t try to pretend like we’re not seeking “influence” in those regions too. Don’t try to frame this all as something those other countries do, and we don’t . . . . (the segment concentrated mostly on Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the Taliban . . . in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan especially.)

From there, the colonel proceeded to complain about lack of funding for all of this, outdated equipment, too few personnel, too little of this and that . . . and I’m thinking, Well, if we weren’t all over the world trying to prevent “influence,” then we wouldn’t need to spend more money . . . In fact, we could actually slash the military budget by at least half, if not 75% and still lead the world in “Defense” spending overall.

The supposed need for a massive increase in all of that is because we’ve taken on this role, which I would argue is mostly just cover for the defense and protection of the capitalist system itself, with trillions in immediate gains as well (weapons proliferation, especially).

And, of course, taking on that role means more wars, which means we supposedly need more funding, for more wars, then more funding, world without end.

How on earth does any of the above “honor the fallen”?