Left: a photo of the boat that was targeted by Trump's administration. Right: A meme created by the "MAGA" movement, shared by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on X, in defense of their crimes, which appropriated Franklin the Turtle for their agenda. The creators of Franklin the Turtle have condemned the use of their character for these purposes.
The story is everywhere. Two men in distress, fighting for their lives in open water.
Why? The U.S. military bombed their tiny boats (that may or may not have contained black-market drugs — all evidence was destroyed).
The two men survived the first blast.
And while swimming for their lives, they were bombed again.
The political class and their social circle in the “Western” media are pearl-clutching, calling it a “potential war crime.” But we’re not at war. So the word is murder.
And most of these people (heavily funded by the arms industry) spent the last three years running public-relations cover for the mass bombings of children in Gaza — attacks carried out with U.S., U.K., Canadian, and Australian weapons.
Beyond that, they promoted and voted to supply more than half of the world’s exported weapons, which always wind up getting used mostly against civilians.
The scale of loss, criminality, and sheer stupidity, month after month, is beyond what any human mind or heart can hold.
The task before us (the people still standing on the round Earth) is to dig ourselves out of this cycle of terror by pulling it up at the roots:
- The ideology of militarism.
- The worship of war and the warrior.
- And the incomprehensible damage this religion does to us.
This week’s dispatch makes militarism easy to understand, explain, and take action against — so we can help drive it out of civil society:
Militarism: The Foundation of Empire
Our planet produces more than enough to feed, clothe, and house everyone on Earth.
Instead of facilitating that, every year the ruling class devotes $2.4 trillion of our tax dollars into weapons – roughly ten percent of all taxes collected on Earth.
This insanity enforces global monopolies on energy, resource distribution, and technologies. And creates no safety for us—only a permanent emergency.
Not only that, global war profiteering drives the two great threats to human survival as a species: nuclear escalation and climate collapse.
Both are symptoms of the false belief that security comes from domination, not cooperation.
1. The Reality
Weapons do not create safety.
Health, housing, food, education, and a livable climate do.
Nature knows what “survival of the fittest” really means. Vampire bats share food so no one starves. Guppies cooperate to watch for predators. Reciprocity—not firepower—is what true survival looks like.
2. The Ethics
Dr. King put it plainly:
“The choice today is not between violence and nonviolence. It is between nonviolence and nonexistence.”
Journalist / filmmaker Abby Martin has devoted years of her life to studying militarism:
“A habitable planet cannot co-exist with a global military empire.”
This isn’t poetry. It’s math.
3. The Game Theory
Militarism creates a security dilemma—a self-destructing feedback loop.
One side buys weapons. The other side feels unsafe and does the same.
Everyone defects. No one wins.
More weapons → more fear → more weapons.
From a game systems perspective, it’s a guaranteed lose-lose. In our case, for our species.
4. The History
Every militarized empire eventually collapses.
Rome. Nazi Germany. The Soviet Union.
Human flourishing has always emerged when societies redirect resources from war toward building actual life—housing, healthcare, infrastructure, education, arts, science.
That’s how we created the first majority middle-class societies in human history – after we bottomed out with the insanity of two world wars.
5. The Obstacle
Militarism is extraordinarily profitable.
Weapons manufacturers fund politicians, banks, and the media.
Fear and paranoia are sold as patriotism and keep the world’s people divided and conquered.
Meanwhile, our actual human needs, the ones that create real security and stability, are ignored.
Global Solution
Militarism must be exposed for what it is: savage, medieval madness.
Our response must be to demand our labor and taxes go toward real security:
- ending poverty
- universal healthcare
- climate repair
- disaster response
- human development
- global cooperation instead of nationalist competition
If we devoted just 10% of current world military spending we could start eradicating extreme poverty and stabilize the climate.
What You Can Do Today
- Move your savings out of banks invested in weapons or surveillance.
- Divest retirement accounts and stock portfolios from arms, fossil fuels, and militarism.
- Refuse to vote for candidates funded directly or indirectly by these industries—including the ones hiding behind AIPAC and similar militarist lobbying groups.
Every dollar and every vote reroutes the game.
Everything we publish is designed to help make us smarter, calmer, harder to manipulate, and stronger together. If we can see the future we want, we can certainly build it.
Big hugs,
Matthew & the SGE team