Stuck In The Middle Review
columnist: Scott from Oregon

Topic: Ron Paul
Ron Paul And An Army Of Oreos

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Some lessons about cravings and giant military bases abroad

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by Scott from Oregon
(Libertarian)
Thursday, January 3, 2008

I was born in an Air Force Hospital in the early sixties, which meant my father's generation was all about Vietnam and the taming of the evil peasants from North Vietnam.

A personal injury and a bit of luck found my father out of fighter training and sent off to Jerusalem, along with his family, loaned out by the Air Force to the fledgling United Nations- an organization put together to resolve such issues as the Palestinian/Israeli conflict- where I lived and learned as infant and toddler, until the war there in 1967.

In High School, Pops tried to steer my brother and I into military life lanes, but we diverted. I traveled the world using carpentry skills as petrol, and my brother married young and produced children early.

All of this to explain where my desire to see the world came from, and how I found myself in Tokyo in the early eighties, craving Oreos and a good glass of milk.

As an American boy out in the big world, I missed my Oreos and milk and was having trouble getting that urge pacified. I am sure many of you have been there? You have a food vision, and it won't go away. The only cure for this picture in your mind is to sit down at a table and eat the vision, until sickness becomes the cure.

My plan to satiate this urge came to me by talking to a young Navy recruit who was spending a little leave time touring Tokyo in the train. He told me to come out to the base, where they had a Commissary, and he'd hook me up with Oreos.

I did just that. I traveled by train and taxi and found myself in little America. I stared in amazement at the mass of gray, American steel hulks of ships amassed and floating there. I was given a short tour and a large pile of Oreos in plastic wrappings, and I returned happily back to my wayward traveling ways, (which in those days consisted of chasing Japanese tail in and out of nightclubs and coffee shops).

That was over twenty four years ago.

I've been reading the Constitution lately. I've been following along with the debates, both Democrat and Republican. I've been watching as our government swells precariously, like those midway balloons when you squirt water into the clowns mouth, and the combined slurry of candidate promises and Constitutional relevancies brought to mind the day I greedily dipped Oreos into blackening milk. While amazed at the little American island in a sea of Japan, where one could get not only Oreos but Captain Crunch Cereal, the one thing I never questioned WAS THE COST. It never occurred to me that this enormous enterprise sitting before me in this foreign country was covered by American tax payers back home. Those enormous ships. All of the men and women working on them- maintaining them. The cooks and mechanics and radar experts and on and on.

Carpenters like myself in America were reaching into their pockets by force and threat and handing over cash so that we Americans could keep other Americans in a little America in a far away land. So that, in the end, the world could be a safe place for Democracy and other more egregious governances which we would give money to packaged as "aid" (from money taken from carpenters), so that we wouldn't have to take those big ships out of their safe harbors and open up a big can of whup-ass. Make sense?

As I think about those men and women stationed there, I think of Okinawa. I think of South Korea. I think of Germany. My mind does a head-spin as I start to conceptualize just how many little Americas there are around the world. There doesn't seem to be enough carpenters to pay for all of them, and I guess that teachers and salesmen and plumbers and taxi drivers and waitresses are also being hit up for the bucks to keep those little Americas funded.

I wonder what those bases are producing, besides fear in others, while they sit there consuming American dollars outside of America? I start imagining the amount of fuel they consume, cruising the skies and the waters of the world like vigilant sharks?

I begin to ask myself, just WHO are we afraid of out there that requires this much vigilance?

Is the world the same world that it once was? Are the lessons of WW2 still germane to the 21^st century? Hasn't google and optic fiber cable changed the understandings of mankind to such a degree, that that kind of frontal vanguardism has become atavistic and hyper-paranoid?

Are we THAT afraid of North Korea, that we need to live at their doorstep at a high cost to our own citizens?

I don't think so.

One of the candidates running for president is an old fella by the name of Ron Paul. Ron Paul is suggesting that we retract much of the American military so that we can take care of America. He's suggesting that we trade with those nations we are afraid of, and get them used to being kind to us, and us to them. I know, it sounds really old fashioned doesn't it? In fact, it almost sounds Biblical.

I even think the founders of America had some notion similar to the one Ron Paul is espousing. Imagine that?

So, instead of sending soldiers everywhere around the world, we should bring them home and send travelers and traders and tourists. We should invite the same here to sample our fine way of walking shopping malls and BBQing. We should stop paying so much to demonstrate our swagger, and start demonstrating kindness and thoughtfulness instead.

In other words, we should leave North Korea's border and start sending them Oreos and Captain Crunch Cereal. And if they are really nice to us, maybe even some milk.

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2008 Scott from Oregon, all rights reserved.
Published: Thursday, January 3, 2008
Last modified: Thursday, January 3, 2008

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