We’re back here? Again?

I personally can’t believe what we’re witnessing. As a father of a very draft-able son maybe I’m just seeing everything differently. But it’s more than that. I’ve changed. I no longer believe what our elites say, no matter how hard they bang on the table, no matter how red-faced they become over my unwillingness to support their call for war.

We are living in an emperor’s new clothes moment, particularly when it comes to that rather persistent narrative about the Middle East.

We’re hearing that Iran is five minutes away from a nuclear bomb!!! But we’ve been hearing that since the 90’s. Maybe it’s true this time. Maybe it’s not. But I can’t believe you.

We’re hearing that Iran needs to be liberated from the mullahs. So yeah, we will be treated as liberators. Again.

It’s better we fight over there than a dirty nuke going off in NYC, right?

Remember it? The whispers, then the shouts, then the full-blown pronouncements from the halls of power. “Democracy!” they cried, their voices resonating with attempted gravitas. “Freedom!” they bellowed, as if freedom were a commodity that could be delivered by drone strike. “Weapons of mass destruction!” they shrieked.

And for a time, we nodded along. We bought the ticket, we took the ride. We saw the carefully curated soundbites and the solemn faces of those who claimed to know best. We believed, or at least we tried to believe, that these self-appointed custodians of global order had our best interests at heart, that their rationale, however opaque, was ultimately righteous.

But something’s shifted, hasn’t it? The scales have fallen from our eyes. We’ve seen the rubble, the refugees, the unending cycles of violence that seem to follow these “liberation” efforts like a particularly persistent shadow.

And as regular human beings are left to sweep up the human debris, our elites reap staggering profits. War is, after all, good business.

We no longer believe them, do we? Not in our hearts, not in our guts, not in that ancient, primal part of us that recognizes a con. We’ve seen behind the curtain, and there’s no wizard, just a few puffed up pols and media types spouting the same rationales, obfuscations, and outright lies.

The elites continue churning out the same old script. But the audience? The audience has checked out. We have opted out of being pawns of our elite overlords. We laugh as they attempt to manipulate us through fear. We see through it all.

So, let them spout their old narratives. Let them bend their aging knees before their crumbling altars of war. But we’ve moved on.