A Cynical Hypothesis
Q: What's the single most important commodity in the world? So important, that the manufacture and sale of every other commodity depends on it? Oil? Gold? Food? Conntrol of potable water?
A: Arms.
Munitions -the military-industrial complex- is the biggest industry in the world. Every government knows it.
If one is a politician and takes on the arms industry in any meaningful way, that politician wakes up the next day and finds he's no longer a politician. In some cases the politician may not even wake up the next day. It doesn't matter whether one is pushing a law on gun ownership in, say, Idaho, or trying to stop the sale of F-16s to our "friends," the Saudi Arabians. If someone steps on their toes, they step on someone's head.
What the arms industry needs more than anytthing else is conflict. If there is no conflict, one is manufactured, e.g. the Gulf War; the current debacle in Iraq -and who knows what else? Of course, apparently legitimate political or security concerns are employed as the facade, though Saddam Hussein certainly received what he thought was a "green light" from the first Bush administration (via U.S. ambassador April Glaspie) to go into Kuwait... And what the current Bush administration tried to pass off as a casus belli for its pre-planned war on Iraq was pure nonsense, embarrassing really. But it's done -through many channels- and seems to work every time.
Why?
Your guess is as good as mine, though part of the problem seems to be that in some "democracies," the people don't read books. They're far too distracted with everything from the latest techno-gadgets to just putting food on the table. There are also convenient canards like terror alerts (fear is mighty handy) and immigration complaints (fear again). Being distracted by fear, real or imagined, is fatiguing, causes people to become more insular (often seeking more distractions to get minds off of bugaboos; buy something and feel empowered, get that false sense of security through the acquisition of things) and confused. Pretty soon they have neither the time nor the inclination to look too far beyond their noses: Isn't it enough to worry about whether one has adequate healthcare, a living wage and affordable necessities? Still...
Americans don't appear especially versed in history or philosophy and generally act as if they could not care less. Keep it simple, or make things seem as straight-forward as possible, and when somebody shouts "fire!" hearts and minds follow. It's one of the oldest tricks in the books, and much more complicated than here expressed, but the gist holds up.
So, how long will we allow ourselves to be held up and taken like so many of P.T. Barnum's proverbial suckers?
It looks like it will be a while.
A: Arms.
Munitions -the military-industrial complex- is the biggest industry in the world. Every government knows it.
If one is a politician and takes on the arms industry in any meaningful way, that politician wakes up the next day and finds he's no longer a politician. In some cases the politician may not even wake up the next day. It doesn't matter whether one is pushing a law on gun ownership in, say, Idaho, or trying to stop the sale of F-16s to our "friends," the Saudi Arabians. If someone steps on their toes, they step on someone's head.
What the arms industry needs more than anytthing else is conflict. If there is no conflict, one is manufactured, e.g. the Gulf War; the current debacle in Iraq -and who knows what else? Of course, apparently legitimate political or security concerns are employed as the facade, though Saddam Hussein certainly received what he thought was a "green light" from the first Bush administration (via U.S. ambassador April Glaspie) to go into Kuwait... And what the current Bush administration tried to pass off as a casus belli for its pre-planned war on Iraq was pure nonsense, embarrassing really. But it's done -through many channels- and seems to work every time.
Why?
Your guess is as good as mine, though part of the problem seems to be that in some "democracies," the people don't read books. They're far too distracted with everything from the latest techno-gadgets to just putting food on the table. There are also convenient canards like terror alerts (fear is mighty handy) and immigration complaints (fear again). Being distracted by fear, real or imagined, is fatiguing, causes people to become more insular (often seeking more distractions to get minds off of bugaboos; buy something and feel empowered, get that false sense of security through the acquisition of things) and confused. Pretty soon they have neither the time nor the inclination to look too far beyond their noses: Isn't it enough to worry about whether one has adequate healthcare, a living wage and affordable necessities? Still...
Americans don't appear especially versed in history or philosophy and generally act as if they could not care less. Keep it simple, or make things seem as straight-forward as possible, and when somebody shouts "fire!" hearts and minds follow. It's one of the oldest tricks in the books, and much more complicated than here expressed, but the gist holds up.
So, how long will we allow ourselves to be held up and taken like so many of P.T. Barnum's proverbial suckers?
It looks like it will be a while.
posted by concordland at 11:47 PM
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