Prima di parlare dei discorsi, l’articolo descrive Obama e Hollande che passeggiano assieme e stringono le mani con la folla. Un uomo, in particolare, ha trattenuto Obama un po’ più a lungo degli altri e gli ha detto qualcosa all’orecchio. Verso la fine, l’articolo rivela che si trattava di un veterano americano del D-Day. Dickey gli ha chiesto cosa aveva detto al presidente e lui ha risposto: “L’ho ringraziato per averci tenuto fuori dalla guerra.”

Tranne: Gli attacchi continui con i droni che uccidono innocenti in tutto il Medio Oriente e in Africa da quando Obama è stato eletto. L’invio di ulteriori 30.000 soldati in Afganistan (ai tempi del premio Nobel per la pace). L’azione Nato in Libia presumibilmente per aiutare la popolazione a liberarsi di un dittatore (mentre il governo americano ha appoggiato e continua ad appoggiare dittature per conto proprio). La presenza in tutto il pianeta di basi militari e truppe americane che hanno come unico scopo la difesa degli intrighi e dello sfruttamento delle risorse economiche a vantaggio della plutocrazia corporativa. La quasi invasione della Siria per, ancora una volta, presumibilmente aiutare la popolazione a liberarsi di un dittatore. E poi: l’intensificazione della presenza militare nel Golfo Persico attorno all’Iran, un aumento delle forze nel tentativo di stringere la Cina, e finalmente la promessa di un miliardo di dollari per rafforzare la presenza Nato attorno all’Ucraina.

Se qualcuno fa caso a tutto il fervore militarista dell’amministrazione Obama, le parole del veterano gli appariranno fuorvianti. Eppure questo genere di ignoranza è tutto intorno a noi, soprattutto tra i liberal del partito democratico (non che i repubblicani siano perdonati). Per molti di loro, Obama è un presidente che ama la pace e sta facendo tutto il possibile per far cessare le guerre e mettere a posto l’economia, non l’imbroglione guerrafondaio che fa una politica a favore delle élite monopolistiche rigurgitanti avidità. Ci sono liberal, come Michael Moore, che hanno criticato Obama ma poi l’hanno votato nel 2012 perché era il “migliore tra due mali”; come se in questa tirannia a due partiti potesse esserci un migliore.

Il semplice fatto che qualcuno del potere dica che stanno aiutando gli altri, non significa che quello che fanno si tramuti in un aiuto vero e proprio. Quelli che credono a tutto quello che dice una persona semplicemente perché l’hanno votata sono vittime di quegli avversari narcisistici che dicono qualunque cosa pur di aumentare il consenso e poi fare il contrario di quello che hanno fatto credere ai loro elettori.

Come disse Hitler, il dittatore totalitario e assassino di massa, “Fabbricate una grossa bugia, semplificatela, ripetetela continuamente, e alla fine ci crederanno.”

Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.

Upon arriving at the food bank, I did not know what to expect since I had never volunteered in this manner before. There are two large garage doors on the front of the building; I entered through a side door that led to the office. There I shook hands with Wes, who runs the warehouse. He led me to the warehouse which has an upper-deck where customers look at assorted items and choose what they want – there are no limits. The lower-deck consisted of many large shelves full of food items. The first thing Wes had me do was put packages of cans in a pile below shelves of other food. The work I performed was mainly heavy-lifting, including moving boxes of food around the facility and helping customers load their vehicles. I would also help sort items and put them in their proper places. The operation of the food bank runs very smoothly. Customers would come in and pick out which items they need, running at nineteen cents per pound, and place them on a skid. After they were finished, the skid was transported to a ledge and taken off of the skid. The customers would back in through one of the garage doors and pull up to the ledge. From the ledge, other volunteers and I would help load these items into the backs of their vehicles.

After helping a few customers, Wes came up to me and explained exactly what the food bank does; it sells food items to organizations and charities, such as food pantries (including church-based), the Women’s shelter, Teen Challenge and even day care centers. The food bank takes in food donated by food-drives and the general good will of people. While volunteering I noticed that a few times the staff was preparing to have a food-drive at certain places. They also take in items from grocery and convenience stores that are some-what damaged (such as a few cracked eggs) or close to expiring. Their official mission statement reads,

The Western Maryland Food Bank, Inc. is committed to reducing hunger by acquiring and distributing food and non-food items to local and regional organizations assisting those in need.

Now that I have described the operations of a food bank, let us see some statistics on worldwide hunger and poverty. In the world today, a recorded 842 million people do not have enough food to eat. About 827 million of those people live in developing countries and poor nutrition causes about forty-five percent of deaths in children under age five. In 2012, about 46.5 million U.S. citizens lived in poverty; 49 million lived in food insecure households, 15.9 million of them children. With a world population of about seven billion, 842 million people may not seem like a lot. But roughly imagine the combined populations of the United States, Indonesia, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, and Sweden without enough food to eat, while the rest of the world is living the good life. It always sounds much more shocking when describing statistics according to entire populations because, although more prevalent in developing countries, hunger occurs all over the world. It is much more camouflaged by the well-off when in developed countries because, if that is not the reality of the majority, then why show what only a minority go through?

I chose to volunteer at a food bank because I wanted to work within a place that deals with the issue of hunger, one of the most common and profound forms of violence. Hunger is an issue that is largely neglected by those in charge because they feel as though they have far more important priorities than making sure people, especially children, are not going hungry. Although most food banks receive government funding, they provide a good model of voluntary cooperation in order to help the needy. We cannot and must not wait for the state to “help” us. We must take care of ourselves and each other. Mutual aid is a simple way to help people overcome poverty in a peaceful manner. We must build our own facilities, such as food banks, and resources so that this may be possible and not let anyone tell us that it cannot be done.

Many conformists may see this as idealistic, and me an ideologue, but I see it as absolutely natural and desirable. Hunger is something that can lead people to commit acts of criminality out of desperation, such as theft or physical violence. A lot of people damn those who commit these acts, but many of them are put into a situation, such as poverty, where they are out of options. Poverty is, without a doubt, a cause of crime. Some may see certain people as inherently ugly, while I see them as beautiful individuals who are begging to be set free from whatever coercive powers are keeping them bound. I sincerely believe that peace is an absolute kept from truly coming into existence. No matter who I am speaking to, a brother, sister, friend, comrade, it is intrinsic that we knock down those barriers that keep peace from emerging and a free society from flourishing.

Before the speeches, the article talks about Obama and Hollande walking together and shaking hands with the crowd. But one man in particular held Obama’s hand a little longer than others and whispered something in his ear. By the end of the article, it is revealed that this man is an American veteran of the D-Day invasion. Dickey asked him what he whispered and the man responded, “I thanked him for keeping us out of war.”

Except for: the continuous drone strikes killing innocents throughout the Middle East and Africa since Obama took office. The 30,000 troop build-up in Afghanistan (around the time of his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance). The NATO actions taken in Libya to supposedly help the people get rid of a tyrant (while the U.S. government supported and continues to support tyrants of their own). The presence of U.S. military bases and troops around the globe to fight a force that only exists because of that presence to safeguard the manipulation and exploitation of economic resources for the corporate plutocracy. The near-invasion of Syria to, again, supposedly help the people get rid of a tyrant. With naval buildups in the Persian Gulf near Iran, a buildup of forces trying to surround China, and now a $1 billion pledge to strengthen NATO forces around Ukraine.

If anyone has truly been paying attention to the fervent militarism of the Obama administration, this comment made by the veteran seems quite confusing. Yet this type of ignorance is all around us, especially in regard to liberal Democrats (not that Republicans are excused). To many of them, Obama is a peace-loving president who is doing everything he can to end the wars and fix the economy, not the war-hungry deceiver whose policies favor greed-ridden, monopolistic elitists. There are some liberals, such as Michael Moore, who have criticized Obama, yet still voted for him in 2012 because he was the “better of two evils” – as if there is such a thing when it comes to the two-party tyranny.

Just because someone in power says they are doing this because it will help, does not mean it actually will. Those who believe everything a person says just because they voted for them fall victim to those narcissistic foes who will say anything in order to garner a large amount of support just to do the opposite of what they fooled their voters into believing they would.

As Hitler, the totalitarian mass murderer, once said, “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”

Translations for this article:

• Italian, L’Ignoranza Continua.