The climax of last night’s State of the Union Address was the President’s call for an up or down vote on proposals to curb gun violence in America. The applause was uproarious and continuous.

This violence must stop.

But what of the underground stream of violence that erupts in gun violence in the nation that prides itself on the greatest military the world has ever known and the greatest economy the world has ever known?

Is it a coincidence that the geysers of unprecedented school, mall, and street massacres in the homeland have come at the same as America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Is the world’s greatest military something to celebrate?

How does one measure a military’s greatness? By its superior capacity for violence over other militaries, or its ability to subject foreign nations to the American will for freedom and democracy? By the number of dead it leaves behind in other military ventures?

Is an economy’s greatness measured by the size of a nation’s Gross National Product?

The measure of an economy- from the Greek word oikonomia, the management of a household- is how well it serves the inhabitants who live in the house.

How well is the American economy serving its members?

An economy is not measured by the amount of stuff it produces. It’s also measured by the fairness of the distribution of those goods within the one household, the oikonomia.

By that measure, can we really declare that the American economy is the greatest in the history of the world?

During last nights State of the Union Address the loudest shouts came in response to a call to end to gun violence in America. But it doesn’t mean we want to stop the violence. The applause through the rest of the night took for granted the essential goodness of the underlying systemic violence of the American military-industrial-corporate-complex and the military whose superior capacity protects those interests abroad while creating Rambos on our own streets at home.

The home of the brave and the land of the free is neither so brave nor so free. We will only be brave and free when we connect the insanity that shoots innocent school children here at home with the carnage the world’s greatest military has left overseas.

The American republic was born in the violent occupation by Western Europeans who believed they were God’s special people. That belief has morphed over time. But it continues to be the case that violence is as American as apple pie. While we applaud the attempt to end gun violence in our schools, malls and streets, the underground stream of violence rolls on undetected beneath the the nation’s delusions of grandeur about the exceptional greatness of our economy and our military. Violence is enthroned as the god of the not-so-free and the no-so-brave.