(Focus On War: Tonight’s featured essay! – promoted by On The Bus)
There has always been a lot of ways to loot a country, but the best has always been to wage war. Either through plunder or the sales of weapons, someone always made a buck. The worry had always been blow back. What if the peasants no longer wished to play in the most brutal game, the taking up of arms against their fellow man.
Luckily there was The Church. The Church in all its form gave the people their cause. Under the banner of moral superiority, armies have marched to death and against their basic self interests. Nationalism helped a lot, too.
Then over the last hundred years or so, the people began fleeing the pews. Nationalism gained more and more steam until it almost ripped the world apart in the middle of the century. Humanity survived, just barely, but the people were weary.They would no longer march. The elite that made money were in trouble, they had lost their cash cow.
It was then that they realized that the real cash cow laid in the coffers of the country, not just through being weapons masters. What if they had a war, to have it as a distraction, instead the war being the ends to the means. The means being dump trucks full of gold. Sweet, sweet gold.
That is what happened in the 80s, here in America. It was just a practice run, but the elite did pull quite a stunt. They comically engaged in the Iran Contra Affair. That had all the countries attention, that and the Russians. Meanwhile back at the ranch, there was some looting going on.
The Savings & Loans Scandal is largely forgotten today, even by historians. Everybody involved has a pretty clean bill of health today. Under the cover of war and follies with the Iranians, the ruling elite got away with billions. That was big bucks back then.
They also realized the system worked. War was no longer the means, it was the cover. War had supplanted The Church as the distraction.
And that is what Iraq is all about basically. Sure the elite are making a buck or two off the weapons and contracts, but the big money was the wholesale looting of the treasury of these United States of America. Our once grand surplus has been transfered into the hands of a few. A very select few who will get away with it.
Our collective wealth has gone hidden in their bank accounts abroad, our military broken for their greed. Never mind all the civilian deaths in Iraq, which they do not bother their beautiful minds with. No, Americans think this is some just foreign policy disaster. That is utter bullshit.
It was planned for years under the name Pan Americana. It was executed not for some strategic position, it was brought into being to distract the average American from the transfer of wealth from the lower and middle class to that of the ruling elite.
And it worked like champ, just like the test run in the 80s.
In America, War is The Church. And these pews need to emptied as well.
18 comments
Skip to comment form
Author
Thanks for posting it. A friend of mine was undecided about the war until her pastor gave a sermon promoting it. She couldn’t actually remember his words, only that he was very convincing. I hope someday we find out the truth about how much this administration used the church to promote their evil agenda, and what the church got in return.
Just found this powerful anti-war song (from a soon to be released album by James) and video (for the UK based charity “help for heroes”)
Basically, the “elite” can plunder anything, be it war, Katrina, illness, etc. The bully can always push their will and rape–as long as the government is complicit.
Now I have to think.
Would they have been able to plunder as much without the war?
Nope….you are right.
So it comes back to 9/11 dammit, because the question is then…..how much was planned and how much was serendipity.
Oh, for a timely smoking gun.
I have a photo from our Eyes Wide Open event in St Paul that fits the religion and war theme.
I don’t know why but when I saw the first piece of art above that name just jumped into my forebrain. It has the same feel of outrage to it. Like a Gonzo Klimt. Very nice work. Steadman’s drawings for Hunter Thompson’s Rolling Stone articles and some of Thompson’s books have the same outrageous feel – for me. Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail – a must read for this election cycle.
Like Bob Marley’s kid Ziggy sings, “Don’t know the past, don’t know the future.”
such an interesting tension to move people with…..
and it is always about wealth transfer…..
great essay….
short but with just the right depth to the punch….
sort of like geting hit in the spleen…..
thank you, like your style….
of a bottle of Winking Owl Shiraz)
Well, the Christians had THAT figured out anyway.
Here’s to Easter.