Live by the sword
A peaceful, civil society keeps its mad dogs and warmongers on tight leashes. It controls the money. It insists that the military jefes take their orders from civil authorities.
Wednesday, October 16th, 2024
Bill Bonner, writing today from Baltimore, Maryland
All men would be tyrants... if they could be.
Abigail Adams
A friend sent a video, from last year, of hundreds of people — mostly Jews — gathered in Grand Central Station to protest Israel’s ‘killing spree’ in the Middle East.
The group chanted:
“No more weapons, no more war. This is what we’re fighting for.”
Those were people badly in need of a transfusion... of cynicalism. Our new creed (cynicalism) warns us that things are not always the way we would like them to be…nor are they under our control.
Weapons and war are not likely to disappear any time soon. Archaeological records show that people have been killing each other since prehistoric times. In the Americas, different tribes kept up almost continual attacks on one another. The bone record shows evidence of mass murder... ancient genocides that wiped out whole groups of people.
Archaeologists believe that one community lost so many young men in battle…and spent so much time erecting palisade walls to protect themselves…that their whole community collapsed.
Rousseau’s ‘noble savage’ was a killer. And modern man keeps at it.
In Classical Greece, Alexander the Great did not only defeat Thebes... with its ‘Sacred Band’ of gay lovers. At the battle of Chaeronea, 338BC, he annihilated them and destroyed the whole city... and almost everyone in it.
And then, the Roman general, Scipio, wasn’t content to merely defeat Carthage in war; he insisted on killing every Carthaginian he could lay hands on... leveling the city... and salting the fertile land around it so that it could never again support a powerful rival.
Killing may not be a nice thing. It may not be a good thing... but it is a thing. And it is a thing that humans take to regularly... and with enthusiasm.
Genghis Khan said famously that... “the greatest pleasure of man is to defeat his enemies, to drive them before him, to take from them what they possess, to see their dear ones with their faces bathed in tears, to ride their horses, to press their daughters and their wives in his arms.”
Sen. John McCain: ‘Bomb, bomb, bomb…bomb, bomb Iran.’
Donald Trump: ‘Blow them [Iranians] to smithereens.’
Matthew Brodsky [White House ‘peace’ advisor]: ‘Carpet bomb’ [Irish peacekeepers.]
Richard Nixon: ‘Bomb them [North Vietnamese] back to the stone age.’
A peaceful, civil society keeps its mad dogs and warmongers on tight leashes. It controls the money. It insists that the military jefes take their orders from civil authorities. But inevitably, the war fighters break free from time to time. Even with the UN... and ICC... and ICJ, international institutions set up after WWII intended to prevent government-sponsored violence, we now have expanding wars... more terrible than ever... with innocent people getting slaughtered by the thousands.
How come these things happen? Why can’t they be controlled? Why don’t the combatants lay out their complaints before an international tribunal... and settle peacefully?
Really, dear reader... we’re disappointed in you. Are you so naïve?
What follows is a brief rumination on the role of violence in human affairs... and the role of (fake) money in promoting it.
The first part of it is obvious. More money buys more influence, more weapons and more members of Congress. Responsible Statecraft:
'The lawmakers get richer if we spend more money on defense'
“The U.S. is not a normal country with a regular military,” [Johnny] Harris says, by way of offering a kind of explanation as to why the Pentagon spends so much… “The U.S. is a global hegemon who uses its military to assert control and order over every corner of the globe,” he adds, in effect, flagging American primacy as a culprit.
“But there’s another reason why this budget is so high and this reason is much more infuriating to me,” Harris says. ”Most of this money is going to private corporations.”
For example, the Pentagon, Harris notes, paid Boeing $3,357 for one ball bearing, a part it could have gotten for $15.
The hustle is well known. The firepower industry gets money from the feds…and uses it to control federal policy, so it can get even more money.
No surprise there. But there’s more to the story, isn’t there? Why do some nations succumb to the temptation... while others don’t?
The Bible tells us that ‘those who live by the sword, perish by the sword.’ Today, the US has more swords than anyone ever had. What’s next?
Stay tuned.
Regards,
Bill Bonner
An easy way to constrain the MIC would be to ban military personnel from working for the weapons companies and lobbying firms for at least 5 years after retirement. Even better would be to end private campaign financing for federal offices. Let's admit that large campaign contributions are bribes. If the feds provided equal financing to congressional and presidential candidates who had received a set number of voter signatures we would save money in the long run. Big Pharma/AG/and MIC wouldn't be able to bribe "our?" representatives.
All empires, eventually fail, all fiat currencies eventually fail. Not one has escaped this fate in the history of time. Now, saying exactly when that is to be, is the question.