Staying the course on the road to Armageddon
The true believers, Religious Zealots, whose entire mental framework is defined in black and white, good and evil, are in their pulpits exhorting us to stay the course in Iraq. We may be doing bad things to innocent people, they argue, but overall, in the big picture, the bad things we do are nothing compared to the bad things others have done. Torture and sexual humiliation of “Enemy Combatants”, who by the way are not covered by the Geneva Convention for the treatment of “Prisoners of War”, a distinction that is too cute by half, has yielded much intelligence that will allow us to continue to pursue our International Goals.
Winning the war on terror, is for us the prize. We shall have won the war on terror when no one who is outcast, downtrodden or repressed will dare to challenge our dominant position in the Global Economy. It is imperative that we remember that we are fighting for World Domination, to pursue our goals of seeing our political and religious ideals and beliefs adopted across the entire world.
The Cold War was fought by our Military, Religious, Political and Industrial Complex to make our way of living, buying, selling and dying the norm. We, the followers of Judeo-Christian values want nothing less than to be permitted to impose through economics and politics our way of being in the world. This is after all, not a perfect world, but when push comes to shove, we want to be at the top of the heap.
Capitalism, having won such a hard fought war against social systems that limit how much power and money can be accumulated at the top, will not stand idly by and allow our wealth to be dissipated on a pie in the sky social system that puts power at the service of justice.
A just world order, one that makes food and medicine available to those in need, irrespective of their ability to pay, is a loser. The vast accumulation of wealth at the top cannot be reconciled with a distribution system that makes resources available to those unwilling or unable to pay.
Our economic system, which is based on putting the world’s resources at the disposal of those with the greatest wealth is not a just system, it is a free market system.
Free markets, we are constantly admonished, will deliver the greatest good to the greatest number, and while not perfect, is the best system we can devise for distribution of resources. The fact that half a continent is dying of AIDS or that two thirds of the world exists in squalor and poverty will not square with the “Compassionate Conservatism” of the free market capitalists.
Free markets are ruthless. They invent, and create “goods” for some, inadvertently creating “bads” for many. Because free markets rise and fall on the ability to identify and reward creative and inventive applications of new knowledge, we lavish untold wealth on individuals with skills to organize the productive capacity of the minions. Those charismatic or alluring individuals allow the organization around them to flourish and reward supporters with economic advantage. It is for the economic advantage that political and religious systems have fought so long and hard.
Is there another system of social organization capable of competing with free market capitalists? Can they deliver anything close to the standard of living or the level of education that Capitalism has provided? Is it a viable system that can withstand the test of time? Is it ruthless enough to stamp out and eliminate all competition for the world’s resources from competing systems? Is that a measure of its worth?
Terror comes from facing starvation and seeing images beamed around the world of beautiful people gorging themselves at the feast. It comes from watching a dying child that could be saved by a pharmaceutical, without the ability of acquiring it. Terror comes from watching free markets withhold the beneficial products from those in need, storing “goods” in warehouses while the quality of life and life expectancy itself continues to decline for the unfortunate.
The “War on Terror” is being fought by a freedom loving people who enjoy the vast resources of the known world, exclusive of the vast needs of the “other”. There is no winning this war, it is fundamentally about maintaining the distance between our system of economic domination and the people of the world that make our wealth possible.
Faced with the prospect of living and dying without hope, those who are trapped on the bottom want to eliminate our freedom, because freedom comes with responsibility and they know all too well that we have failed to make that connection.
Bob