The Alternative

By: 
Fritz Groszkruger

Mr. Hyde
    Three years before I reached draft age I swore I would not go fight people who did not threaten our borders. I lucked out, and apparently our eternally efficient U.S. government lost my records. That is, I won the lottery but was never contacted.
    I've been steadfast in my nationalistic and pro-life beliefs to this day. The garbage heap known as our choices for president in 2016 contained several impossibilities but two stood a chance. One laughed with glee when describing the assassination of the leader of a foreign government that she ordered (Libya turned out to be a disaster). The other described our invasion of Iraq as a disaster that would destabilize the entire Middle East.
    The choice was an easy one based on their words.
    Now, Steve Bannon, who NPR described as publisher of “white nationalist news site, Breitbart,” has little influence on the president anymore. Bannon, while overestimating the danger of foreign influence, at least had our country's (the people, not the war profiteers and other crony capitalists) best interests at heart. He viewed military involvement in Syria as a quagmire, a situation we can't seem to avoid over the years. He also felt it was a waste of valuable American assets. Contrary to popular belief, either from liberals who want to make everything fair, or conservatives who would suffer excruciating pain from withdrawal from the war habit, there is an end to the incredible wealth produced by the laissez faire economy we once enjoyed.
    Besides that, the consequences of our hubris are now too many to count, and in the public view are not even attributable to our leaders' adventures.
    Those consequences are what we should have considered long ago. For my part, I voted for a man who has declared bankruptcy five times. Once is too bad, but five times indicates a profound disrespect for other people. Now that he's president, his son-in-law and an equally disrespectful band of Neo-cons have filled the space Trump's ignorance presents. America First is now Trump First. After all, in American history class, when was a peacetime president ever considered great.
    Barack Obama's rush to greatness as a Nobel Peace Prize winner was to order 26,172 bombs dropped in 2016 alone. Did we really expect things to change with a presidential election?
    On another note, I'm now a DJ. So if you would like to hear some of my old records with my friend Bob Dorr on Iowa's best radio show, tune in Saturday, April 29 at 2 p.m., to 90.9 or 91.5 on the FM dial.
     Any opinions on this column are welcome at 4selfgovernment@gmail.com or through a letter to the editor. The blog is updated almost daily at www.alternativebyfritz.com. Try it. You’ll like it.

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