History (comes and goes) in a form of detergent sale

It is one of those absurdist thoughts that nobody alive can unravel. We all learn history, but our selective memory process cleverly selects only those parts that we want to remember. Not a very small part is played by the media. Modern societies (both 20th, and probably more so in the 21st Century) tend to be consumer goods oriented, in an endless chase for a lower mortgage rate, newer kitchen appliances, car parts and service, kid’s school, cost of living dressage and management, having very little time to read or think freely – hence CNN, Fox, ABC, CBS and other toxic sources become our history teachers and news sources. Never-mind that their primary goal is to deliver a good chunk of viewing audience to their advertisers selling the very same mortgages, kitchen appliances, car parts, schools and other daily needs we started off with. Hence the vicious circle starts gnawing at its own tail.

March 23 was an anniversary of a shameful part of American history. Clinton’s escapism overshadowed Houdini’s work, so much more so, since Houdini was never responsible for bombing a sovereign nation. This “benign sentence” has dreadful implications, in the following facts:

1. Yugoslavia was a sovereign state that in no way, shape or form posed any threat to any of its neighbors, let alone the United States of America.

2. With no congressional approval Bubba managed to coax the NATO alliance into the “Allied Force” exercise as if it sorely needed to dump the depleted uranium bombs somewhere far from “the shores of the shiny seas”.

3. Even the NATO overwhelming saber rattling all over Europe has been a topic of some considerable criticism, their own charter prohibits a military involvement in any instance unless another NATO member is militarily threatened

4. Collateral damage (I saw some of it firsthand during the two or three visits I made to Belgrade in the last five years, was not nearly as “minimal” as it is stated in our media* (*see detergent sales, mortgage rates, schools, car parts, household brooms, kitchen appliances, etc.)

5. The above damage took out:

a) an entire civilian train at the Grdelicka klisura region in South Central Serbia.
b) An entire TV studio with some 15+ civilian workers in the middle of downtown Belgrade.
c) Maternity ward of local downtown hospital
d) Turned a full city block Chinese Embassy into a pile of ash

Call me stupid but when you connect all the dots you inevitably come back from history to:
Detergent sales, car parts, kitchen appliances, car loans, car parts, mortgage rates, schools and kid’s clothing. So all those noble efforts to study and know history (even as recent as 8 years ago) fall by the wayside, to the needs of our everyday rat-race.