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| "Whoopie, we're all gonna die" |
I think that the answer to his question is that some percentage of Americans are hooked on war (warmongers, "Dick Cheney, John McCain").
Others romanticize war (the "war is peace", "my warrior hero" trance).
Or the profits made from war by those who control the weapons and materiel making corporations ("war profiteers, Daddy Warbucks").
Yet, another percentage of Americans have heeded the words of one of the founders; specifically the one who wrote the "Bill of Rights," and the one who is called "The Father of the Constitution."
His words were pointed out in a Toxins of Power Blog post in November of 2009:
An answer from the sages in our past who we are very fortunate to have had, but sages which we have ignored to our great demise in recent times.(The Greatest Source Of Power Toxins?). One would be remiss to not notice how much the empire today is utterly infected with the war germ we were warned not to catch.
An answer that seems today to be totally and completely at odds with the conventional wisdom-hype and propaganda, which is composed of the glorification of the greatest source of the toxins of power.
Our founders were well aware of the question and the answer hundreds of years ago.
They spoke the answer with unmistakable words and with certain clarity:
Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied: and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. Those truths are well established.(James Madison, emphasis added). The visionary who made that statement was the 4th President of the United States, Bill of Rights author, Congressman, Cabinet Member, and who was also called the "Father of the U.S. Constitution".
The above quote is from his "Political Observations," April 20, 1795, in Letters and Other Writings of James Madison, Volume IV, page 491-492.
Notice, in the quote above, how Madison equated or associated the toxins of power with disease epidemic concepts, saying that the war toxin "develops the germ of every other" anti-freedom toxin.
Other sources of vision saw what would happen if we stumbled into the emotional quicksand of the madness of our more recent leaders:
There were Senators like Byrd, and House of Representative members like Pete Stark, in the year 2002, who had vision.(The Stark Truth). Even some of those who one would not expect to be as politically saavy, the comedians, also got it (The Onion, 2003).
But vision was discounted as a kooky thing, and those that had vision were discounted by the dementia congress was suffering from then, and still is.
Where there is no vision the people perish, and the leaders supplant vision with "excuses" and whining.
The Honorable Pete Stark said this about the "AUMF Resolution" before the Iraq disaster happened:
But, here we are again, with the war whores all lathered up about more war (The War Whores Ride The War Horse - 2).
They are utterly unaware of the invasion taking place on every mile of our national shoreline. or that our national psychology is the same as the Don Quixote diagnosis (Why The Military Can't Defend Against The Invasion, American Feudalism - 3).
Peace has gone extinct from the thinking of the powers that be.
The hunt for invading terrarists:
Peace has gone the way life on Earth is headed.
ReplyDeleteGreat class Dredd (again)
ReplyDeleteSending on your 'lessons' regularly.
First awareness, then understanding, then possibly change if enough are interested.
Am hopeful about this and your tools are the sharpest ones in the shed!
Many thanks!
i find it peculiar that our country began with the genocide of the indigenous population, and we haven't looked back since. We've ALWAYS been a warring nation. The U.S. once thought itself the top of humanity for its Constitution, coming out of the French Revolution, and the Bill of Rights, which G. Carlin has correctly noted are actually privileges to be taken away by the very same government when the proper time arrives.
ReplyDeleteYou don't build peace by funding arms dealing and by deploying ones military all over the globe. We've been indoctrinated with the same nationalist propaganda as has been used countless times on other people of the world to get them to invade another sovereign nation "to protect themselves." We're no different than any "enemy" we point to.
Tom
Madison's statement was written only 6 years after the U.S. Government began: "On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document, and it was subsequently agreed that government under the U.S. Constitution would begin on March 4, 1789" (History).
DeleteA map of the U.S. at the time he wrote it is (Graphic Map).
When Madison wrote it he was looking back to feudal Europe, and was seeing what that warmonger controlled era had produced, which was clear to those who could see ("No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. Those truths are well established").
But the germ of war he spoke of is terribly resurgent, and is now producing the final epidemic (American Feudalism, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).
"As it turned out, however, there was a virulent threat to peace still lurking on the Potomac. The great general and president, Dwight Eisenhower, had called it the “military-industrial complex” in his farewell address, but that memorable phrase had been abbreviated by his speechwriters, who deleted the word “congressional” in a gesture of comity to the legislative branch.
ReplyDeleteSo restore Ike’s deleted reference to the pork barrels and Sunday afternoon warriors of Capitol Hill and toss in the legions of beltway busybodies that constituted the civilian branches of the cold war armada (CIA, State, AID etc.) and the circle would have been complete. It constituted the most awesome machine of warfare and imperial hegemony since the Roman legions bestrode most of the civilized world.
...
But the everlasting truth is that the relative handful of suicidal jihadi who have perpetrated murderous episodes of terror like 9/11 and this weekend’s carnage in Paris did not exist in November 1989; and they would not be marauding the West today save for the unrelenting arrogance, stupidity, duplicity and mendacity of Imperial Washington."
("Blowback -- the Washington War Party's Folly Comes Home to Roost", bold in original).