h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm sorry. I hate the fact, but peace just isn't enough to sustain a stable economic structure. Wars are great money makers. Plain and simple. That is why we (as humans) have been having them for so long. And nowadays we can try to sell Fast food and Coca-Cola during the commerial breaks between insincere Newscasters and taped footage of a smart bomb slamming into its target on the otherside of the globe. I know it's stupid and silly and we should all agree to not stick our noses where they don't belong.

I know it's war, but it makes great television.

So if war is necessary for the monetary economy, which I don't accept, why can't we go back to subsistance and barter? In other words the evil is greater than the benefits.
I'm not sure that green picures of intermittent light flashes is great television ( and if it is, will the Americans intoduce time outs and will you have to gain 10 yards within four plays?)

Jeeze - and I thought I was cynical!

So how do you square the starvation and desperation in Europe in 1946 after 5 years of war, with the prosperity and welfare here after 57 years of peace?

Just asking.



a peacenik called Ben

"peace doesn't sell"

Actually I thought just the opposite when I saw Clinton in Vietnam a year or two back. Are we reconciling with their nation because we're all "healed" now and ready to move on? No, we're ready to change Vietnam from an enemy to a customer, or cheap labor.

Think what could have happened if we had not entered the war at all, not given money to the French as far back as the 1950s to combat the Communists in Vietnam. Sure, there would have been less money made by US weapons manufacturers. But the US govt could have spent all that wasted money on other things. Free meals for any citizen who wants one, everyday from 1950-1975! (Just guessing here, but certainly there were millions or billions spent directly or indirectly in sending "advisors" to Nam.)

In the end, the Communists overran our puppet regime in Vietnam, and 20 years later, we become good enough pals to start making money off each other again. Maybe if we had let the Commies overrun back in 1946 or 1950, we could have been saving money (and making money off them) right away.

In the end, greed seems to be converting Communists in China and Vietnam much more effectively than all our advisors or bombs could.

The fundamental problem with economics and war is that, while weapons manufacturers and military-related industries profit from the war, you also have to consider that we can't sell anything to that country while we're fighting them. With world peace, we'd open new markets, people who wouldn't buy things from us before! Capitalists should fight for peace.

PS - Don't let our rebuttals scare you away, Researcher 186166. We're not attacking you, but the idea that war could be more universally profitable than peace. Anyhow, your sarcasm slipped through, so you're obviously a peacenik under there.

the title of this thread is of course LITERALLY true if you are part of one of the UK's more profitable enterprises: arms export. We make the finest killing machines in the world, something which Blair seems somewhat reluctant to mention in his self-congratulatory praise of the British economy.

As the great Gil Scott-Heron is wont to be point out, if everybody who said they wanted peace acted like they wanted peace, we'd have peace. By this, I take him to mean that if we all moved peace far enough up our agenda, then we'd have peace because we would not tolerate either politicians or systems that allowed warfare to take place. We live as though peace was the absence of war rather than a positive, dynamic state in and of itself.

It's always seems to be more difficult to settle a dispute peacefully than to just slug it out and see who lasts longest! War is a form of gambling! 'Winner take all!' People are too stupid to realise that gambling never pays off - you always lose, and the house always wins, in the long run!

As A pointer to to general standard of public consciousness, Vegas doesn't seem to be getting any smaller, and the proposed closure of the Tank factory near my beloved Leeds was greeted with cries of What about the job losses?
I think too many people are being too idealistic if they think that within the current system the ordinary person can change the way things are without a fundamental overhaul of Society, ( has anybody ever studied the Wobblies and what entrenched interests did to them?)

My point is not that we have achieved a society which is compassionate and humanitarian, but that we have started the journey.

And Western societies *have* undergone a lot of pretty fundamental overhauling in the last 100 years.

Universal suffrage - votes for women
Free primary and secondary education up to the age of 18
The concept of medical care free at the point of use (however patchily implemented)
Massive amounts of legislation to protect workers
The restoration of former colonies to local rule

and so on and so on and so on.

As I said - we ain't there yet - but we sure as hell are further along the road than we were even 20 years ago.

***B

Yes There has been progress, but there also has been some falling back. Somewhere in the falling back has to be the hypocracy that you can conduct "clinical strikes" and conduct a "war on Terror" and absolve yourself by dropping a few planeloads of food aid.
Thers a lot of work to do outside the Western world where progress is limited by the western world's desire to keep a reservoir of cheap materials and labour( look at Mexico for instance)

I agree with you on the language and I agree with you about the need for change - but I am not sure I agree that it was better before and is worse now.

The idea of a 'war on terror' is as vacuous and stupid as a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on poverty'. You cannot fight a war against an abstract noun.

Especially when it's an abstract noun that war inspires--such as poverty, drugs, and terror. Oh, wait. . .

NOTE: Yes, I realise that ordinarily "drugs" isn't an abstract noun, but in this construction it functions as one.

--Cooper
(fearing Carnivore)

agcB,

One of the things that fascinated me about this build-up to "War on Terror" was that it was for several weeks a "War on [To Be Announced]". Bush did not say that we were going to attack the Taliban, and would only call bin Laden the "Prime Suspect" for quite a while, for at least three weeks after the WTC attack. He advised anyone in the military to "get ready," and said that we would be striking soon, but meanwhile had not named a country.

But the other great thing, as far as the Imperialists are concerned, is that this War on Terror can shift from one target to another and keep the war effort going for several years. Everyone's buzzing about the possibility of attacking Iraq, for no other reason than we didn't kill Saddam the first time around. It's the perpetual state of war that the totalitarian government maintains in "1984," justifying every kind of clamp down on civil rights because it's necessary for "the war effort."

The really frightening thing is that this New War on the latest abstract noun "terror" will probably fare the same as earlier wars on Drugs and on Poverty. It will be interminable and just as ineffective.

The irony is that if the West had been serious about combatting poverty in the 3rd world, and about defeating drugs (which is one of the best ways of moving money around the place), then there would be less of a constituency for terrorism.

I can only imagine two words in which there is no terrorism - a world in which there is widespread prosperity and freedom, and a world in which there is absolute and effective totalitarianism. And I look around me and see us moving towards the latter not the former.

I had not thought of the Orwellian features of this war. There is nothing in 1984 which is not true, here, now.

As ye sow, so shall ye reap, and truly we are reaping the whirlwind.

*in a biblical mood, at the moment*

agcB

Huh, agcB, have you really not noticed until now that the war against Terrorism is going to involve a whole lotta totalitarianism, state control, invasion of privacy, greater police powers, and whatelsenot?

Heard a convincing argument on Channel Four last night that this war is actually part of the much larger Western War on High Oil Prices. Or, taking a longer term view, a War on Ozone.

Hi Pillowcase,

When I said Orwellian I was actually thinking of the concept that Deidzoeb mentioned, that Peace Is War.

When did I first notice that the war on terror would involve greater totalitarianism? Not sure. I don't mention it in what I wrote on the 12th September. On the 13th I wrote up the Buddhist Meditation for Peace acting on the instinct that the more of us who actively and wantonly hold peace in our hearts the more likely there is that there will be peace in the world. (And to some extent I beleive that to be working, the US is being more measured than I feared).

I know I have already said on site that I can only imagine two worlds in which there is no terrorism at all - a world of freedom and plenty for all, and a world of complete totalitarianism. I think I first said it about 3 weeks ago. Maybe 4 weeks.

agcB

No.

I think the US would have attacked any group which killed 7000plus people and destroyed the WTC and partially destroyed the Pentagon.

***B

Only 3,000 plus, according to the most recent estimates. Previous estimates have been based on the numbers of people reported 'missing', which obviously errs on the high side.

They would obviously have responded, but the method of response might well have been different. They might have bothered with negotiation. They might be less interested in building a viable (read as "western friendly) Afghan govt. They might have gone after Al-Qaeda rather than the Taliban. They might give a dying duck about capturing Bin Laden.

It makes me suspicious - a War on Ozone would explain too much...