Another D-Day is past. Normandy was supposed to be the beginning of a new world, a better world. World War II was called “the good war.” But how could that be true when millions died and millions more were wounded? It was a great victory for the Western allies and another crushing defeat for humanity. Ironically, Fascism was not defeated. It continued in Spain. The tyranny of General Franco survived until 1975. Why he was allowed to remain in power is a subject for another article.

The world did not see peace. The world shredded again when the great empires were defeated and conflict continued: The partitions of Korea, China, Vietnam, India and Germany. Five years later the Korean War began in 1950. Young men, boys really, were the next victims of modern-day human sacrifice and were betrayed when they were asked to march lock step to an early grave to save capitalism.

Thus began a quiet rebellion of the early 1950s, the Beat Generation, the Beatniks, the counter-culture, anti-establishment, anti-materialistic lifestyle. It had begun in Bohemia in the Nineteenth Century. It was a reaction to a world alien to intellectuals who saw through the deception of patriotism, conventional philosophy and the timid acceptance of the status quo. Why not escape to drugs from a war-ravaged world? Drop out and resist. They were rebels with a cause. The Hippies of the ’60s took up the cause, however brief.

Has there ever been a time in human history when there has not been a war somewhere? Humans became killers when we dropped down from the trees and became carnivores. It’s past time to admit what kind of species we truly are, the most deadly predators in evolution. The famous dialogue at the end of the movie, “Planet of the Apes,” said it best: To paraphrase, we (humans) are the harbingers of death.

Those of us who have studied and taught history know that war has always been a war of income inequality, and ethnocentric and egocentric behavior. It began thousands of years ago. It’s not a stretch to believe that if it wasn’t for obscene human avarice none of our Western revolutions would have happened. The Russian Revolution was a reaction to extreme income inequality.

The third great world war of the empires, the Cold War, between capitalism and communism, was well underway even before World War II ended. The blood stain of human history continues with Ukraine and Gaza as they join the Hall of Human Infamy.

It may be hard for some of us to accept without guilt that the Untied States of America is one of the great empires of the modern era. Some believe we are one of the rogue countries, that we fight wars not to promote democracy but to preserve capitalism.

Historians have always known it could happen here. It was predictable. Now we turn on ourselves; the existential hypocrisy and the rise of comical conspiracies threaten to unravel our country. The prodigal sons of war have come home to roost. The stain of greed and rigid conformity lies heavy upon us. Income equality and ethnocentric and egocentric behavior never really left us. We have lost our way. No one should be surprised.

Another D-Day arrives in November. We will get what we deserve.

Ken Spooner is a Korean War veteran, a retired secondary social studies teacher, a professor of World Regional Geography, and the author of ten digital novels. Spooner lives in Littleton.