Bloodbath

A perceptive observer once characterized the world as a slaughterhouse. And if you think that is a cynical overstatement, let’s look at the carnage of the 20th century, the worst bloodletting in history. The First World War destroyed the lives of 10 million people and the Second World War, which was the result of the first, destroyed the lives of 50 million.

Most of us poor and middle class are deluded into thinking that we live in a democracy and, on the other hand, the rich chronically fear that we might get it. It’s the people in power who make the decisions, pile up the profits and take us to war. The power brokers and corporatists run the show. You may vote but you are powerless. We recently voted to get out of Iraq. You went to the polls and exercised your so-called democratic right to vote to get out of Iraq. Did it happen? The people in power instead did the opposite. They sent more troops and kept the troops already there longer, as the suicides increased and more families were broken. Political campaigns in this country are bullshit on a grand scale.

George Carlin (RIP) may have been right – Why vote? If you don’t vote for a candidate who wins and he does something stupid, you can always look innocent and say, I didn’t vote for him. However, if you do vote for him and he does something stupid—Well, Ralph, you voted for him. So whether you vote or not, you’re screwed.

Let’s now consider how real power handles war. But first, real power no longer resides with governments but rather with private corporations, corrupt, mafia-style private interests. That’s why your vote doesn’t mean much. And the secret powerful few use the politicians as a front to lie and spin us into war. Why? Because war is profitable. It makes the rich richer while the poor die. The tragedy is that the poor believe the spin. It’s good to die for your country. Yeah, right.

In almost every case the paranoia of the Executive Branch and the State Department forced them, for example, to invade the following countries: Dominican Republic (Johnson), Grenada (Reagan), Panama (Bush, Sr.). The fear of popular revolt, land redistribution and assistance to the poor was basic to the decision to send the marines. The successful Cuban revolution frightened the very rich corporatists into believing they might lose their investments. But the excuse for invading in every case was the lie: protection of American lives and in every case there was no danger to American lives.

As for Noriega in Panama, he was a paid CIA agent and a well known drug trafficker, but now he was refusing to support the Nicaraguan contras with drug money and arms. So we had to invade to “protect American lives”. The lives that were lost were innocent Panamanians in very large numbers. And to this day the anniversary of the invasion is remembered as a day of mourning. Do you wonder why they hate us?


References:

Keegan, John. The First World War. 2000.
Solomon, Norman. War Made Easy. 2005.