"Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war."
--Albert Einstein
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Editor's Note: Waiting, demanding, asking, begging - the powers that be - does not end war. As James Rothenberg writes in this week's featured commentary, it takes a popular movement to fight back against entrenched interests that truly benefit from American empire. What do you think? Please stop by the blog to let us know.
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Only People Can End War
by James Rothenberg
The Department of Defense performs a greater service for America's billionaires than it does for its paupers, who have nothing to lose and only their lives to defend. It figures that the sectors of society that have the most to lose will have the greatest interest in being "defended".
This may be a good time to recall that the War Department was the precursor (DOD's own word) to the euphemistically named Department of Defense.
Going to war is an economic decision, unless in legitimate self-defense. It would be foolish (from the state's point of view) to start a war without conceivable material gain, and states do not act foolishly. Neither do they act morally.
States are inherently amoral yet can only obtain needed, popular war support by appealing to their people with a moral argument for war. No contradiction here. It's the smart play, the only one a government has when rousing its population to lay down in blood and fear. It certainly wouldn't do to talk in the cold terms of oil and gas, raw materials, minerals, markets, and such. That's not the poetry of death.
(read more and comment on the blog)
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