The Iran War: A Game Show

Don't worry, I'm not going to make a habit about writing about political stuff. This will be an anomaly.

When I was a child I had a globe. It was a nice one, on a stand like a movie prop. I was always turning that globe, marveling at the countries, wondering what it would be like to travel to them. I loved my globe but that didn’t stop me from driving a knife into it. I was aiming for Iran but hit India; the cardboard punctured and my globe was wrecked. Why? Because it was 1980 and the Iranians had taken Americans hostage. The news painted the Iranians as a bunch of bearded maniacs, not even human; cruel monsters. So, in anger, I wrecked my wonderful globe. Out of ignorance. I didn’t know why those bearded guys in robes had taken the hostages. Hell, I knew nothing about Iran when I was a kid, all I knew was that the news had painted the Iranians as the Bad Guys—

They were the Bad Guys and the U.S.A. was the Good Guys.

I knew nothing about history, about how the guys in robes had overthrown a despot called the Shah; a despot the United States and England had put in power twenty-six years earlier.

I still miss that globe.

The price of oil has been mercurial:

There is news of a deal with Iran and it drops to $85 a barrel. 

There is a headline related to a conflict and it jumps to $100 per barrel.

Some people hear missiles, some people hear cash registers.

Every time the price moves wealthy people get wealthier: Buy low, sell high, buy low, sell high.

You learn the dance and you’re the prince or princess of the ball.

“We have to keep them from getting a nuclear bomb!”

So, two nations with nuclear weapons attacked Iran. 

The people who control Iran are not stupid, everyone knows they would never attack the U.S. or Israel with an atomic weapon or allow their proxies to do so—

The mullahs are aware they would be obliterated.

Everyone knows this was never about whether or not Iran acquires nuclear weapons.

It’s all a game show.

Some people paint Trump as a doddering old man who falls asleep in meetings; I think that is a dangerous assumption.

He knows how to run a game show, and that’s all this is, a geopolitical The Price is Right.

Let’s Make a Deal with drones and aircraft carriers.

The price of fertilizer goes up forty percent. Us working people suffer as groceries get more expensive and we go deeper in debt trying to keep our farms operating.

The price of gas goes up making it harder for us to get to the Safeway or Fred Meyer, to work, or to pick up our kids from school.

Console yourself with knowing that somewhere, a deserving billionaire just got richer.

“We have to keep them from getting a nuclear bomb!"

For every valid news outlet there are hundreds and then thousands of opinion factories where the truth is spun so much it breaks into a million pieces. With A.I. and deepfakes the media becomes a dreamscape where reality shifts moment to moment. 

I’m not one of those “fake news” people, I simply believe you need to see it in six different places before believing it’s true. 

I remember what a college critical thinking teacher told us: 

“Follow the money. You follow the money, you find the truth.”

I wasn’t political then but once I was, that became my mantra.

Why are we really fighting in Iran? Honestly, us working people are not in the know. We can only have our suspicions and I am pretty comfortable with mine. War is just a large scale business transaction; if it bleeds it leads. We’ve spent around $30 billion so far but in the long term, factoring everything in, it could end up being $600 billion to a trillion. People are getting rich, wealthy to a degree I cannot comprehend. 

Is money the reason we attacked a sovereign nation without provocation? I’ll let you decide for yourself. 

We’re in the audience. The production team is holding up signs cueing us when to applaud, when to boo, when to laugh—

Or we’re watching from our couches at home—

Maybe it’s time to change the channel...