Marathon Dancing
Butler Shaffer at LewRockwell.com - why war is like marathon dancing. A reminder that both sides in a war paint themselves as the good guys and the other guys as the bad guys. In reality, there are no good guys in any war. And no winners either. The "winner" is the one willing to keep losing for the longest time. Also, how to tell legitimate self defense from power-mongering terrorism. Governments make war. To increase their power over their subjects. That's why we should not support their existence. [lew]
War is an activity coolly organized by masters of the state machinery to manipulate -- through fear and self-righteous indignation -- the populations of their respective states into a frenzied effort to destroy more of "them" than of "us." Wars require the participation of two or more state systems willing to pair off into the dualistic roles of "good guys" -- with which to amass the support of their countrymen -- and "bad buys" -- around which the other state will mobilize its populace. That tens of millions will die in the bloody processes of a war is of no relevance whatsoever either to state officials or, amazingly, to the citizenry who eagerly and proudly send their own children into the slaughter! Parents who worry that a sexual predator might be prowling schoolyards looking for victims, express no concern for military recruiters using the same school facilities to enlist more cannon fodder for the war machine!
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I first became aware of the carefully-orchestrated nature of the war system when I was a child. I was ten years old when World War II ended and, up to that time, I had been carefully indoctrinated in the view that Russia and China were my "friends," while Germany, Japan, and -- for awhile -- Italy, were my "enemies." No sooner was this war over, than members of the repertoire company switched roles to perform in a succeeding play. Now, Germany, Japan, and Italy were my "friends," while Russia and China had become my "enemies." It was enough of a paradox to engage an adolescent's mind but, sadly, not the thinking of adults who made their costume changes and memorized their new lines with the same unquestioning ease that allowed them to support American involvement in World War II. In time, I began to wonder if there were any children in Germany or Russia who experienced the same transformation of "friends" and "foes."
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When the Israelis and Hezbollah go after one another; when the Indians and the Pakistanis conduct their periodic forays into each other's territories; when American and al Qaeda forces shoot at and bomb one another in Baghdad streets, it serves no principled purpose to take sides. Identifying ourselves with one side or the other is the mindset into which state systems have conditioned our thinking. There never has been, and never will be, a "good" war. The warped minds who think otherwise are telling us that some end they value is worth the deaths of millions of people -- as long as they are not among the casualties. When the twisted thinking of a Madeleine Albright can regard the boycott-induced deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children as a "price" she was willing to pay -- even though it was the children, not Ms. Albright, who paid the price -- you can rest assured that the state has abandoned even the pretense of moral direction.
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"War is an activity coolly
"War is an activity coolly organized by masters of the state machinery to manipulate – through fear and self-righteous indignation – the populations of their respective states into a frenzied effort to destroy more of 'them' than of 'us.'"
This sort of thing just wears me out. Stated so generally as it is -- and I see this a lot -- it could not possibly account for the American Revolutionary War. If this thinking were actually applied so generally as it's pitched, that could never have happened, and America would never have happened. And routinely amazes me how people take this stuff at face value they ways they do.
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