FREDERICK the Great of Prussia once candidly told one of his generals: “If my soldiers started thinking, not a single one would remain in my army.’’
Even the Emperor Napoleon knew the truth about war.
Coming across a prostrate body after the Battle of Borodino, he heard a cry of pain and called for a stretcher. One of his aides said: “It’s only a Russian, sire.’’ Napoleon retorted: “After a victory there are no enemies. Only men.’’
US Confederate General Robert E. Lee, surveying an area where more than 12,000 soldiers had been killed, remarked to another general: “It is well that war is so terrible or we might become fond of it.’’
Lloyd George, Prime Minister of Britain in World War I when popular patriotism was at its zenith, noted the slogan “The war to end war’’ was on many tongues.
He expressed the gloomy reality: “The next war, like this one, will also be the war to end war.’’
Nowhere in any major religious book is there a notion expressed that killing is fully justified as long as one is indulged in a just war.
There is no such thing as a just war.
Gotthold Lessing, who wrote a rationalist attack on attitudes in 1775, said: “Until I see that the major commandment of Christ is being fulfilled—love your enemies—I will continue to believe that many people are not really Christians, but only pretend to be.’’
He has a point.
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The war mongers have well and truly sorted all that out today. It’s no longer ‘war’ to begin with.
It’s everything from a ‘police action’ to ‘strategic action’ ‘unrest’ or ‘terrorism’ …. and a ‘terrorist’ is so complex a term now, they’re ‘rebels’ or mentally disturbed, or ‘opposition forces’ or what-ever.
We use ‘drones’ to ‘take people out’ (including innocent civilians) spy on people….
Today we just do it differently. Create a financial crisis, disrupt countries to the point of madness, creating millions of refugees on a major scale worldwide.
America, spewing at the thought of helping the poor, shut down the country instead, thereby creating even more worldwide tension. Greece is dealing with Nazis …. the Euro is messed up.
Meanwhile Australia is so xenophobic to even talk about issues, instead the Prime minister choosing to disappear altogether.
Italy has a refugee boat capsize off it’s coast and declares a national day of mourning and sends hearses to the airport. Australia has an election to kill more of them and lock them up in so many different dangerous places I’ve lost count.
Some cultures are just different. So we’re xenophobic … who cares? Most just admit it now and couldn’t give a damn, and others are proud of it … they think it’s patriotic.
I’ve lived in this country long enough to know how many people feel.
Unlike our prime minister who said recently during Prince Harry’s visit…
“Today every Australian feels like a monarchist”
Aussies must love being told how they feel by their PM … especially Malcolm Turnbull.
Thank God for uncle Clive …
“I don’t give a stuff about cost ! I just want every Australian to do well” Clive Palmer
Any man who can say that with a smile on his face is my kind of man… who needs war?
CORPORATIONS
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I heard Clive Palmer the other day complaining that he was the member of a minority group…..billionaires!
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🙂
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He won’t be for much longer.
Watch this space ~> https://www.google.com.au/#q=hyperinflation+germany
it’s what the whole world is on the brink of.
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…and in case you missed it, the wheelbarrowful of DM100-million wasn’t able to buy you a loaf of bread.
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War is big business. The US would only agree to help the British against the Germans after they gained access to all military secrets of the British and access to their colonies trade routes. Access to their trade routes was the final nail in the British empire coffin.
One of the secrets given to the US was a working version of the Cavity magnetron which was a radar far stronger than any radar available. This allowed the US advantage over German and Japanese radars which was one advancement that help turn the war.
After World War 2, the US went from having the 15th largest army in the world to the 1st. They cleaned up big time. They were isolationist no more and saw war as big business.
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If one wants to be more of a conspiracy theorist one would say corporations run the US. Thus making the money and more importantly growing market share. However, as these multi nationals are stock market driven, the herd can make a difference. The herd who own stocks can shift money elsewhere. Now with the net this could be done with the herd moving as one. I wait to see this happen.
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I don’t think you need to be a conspiracy-theorist, Alexie.
The US government/public-administration shapes up as the standard by which all other corporations can be measured!
Don’t hold your breath waiting for that particular herd to “move as one”; it may be the only bunch of sheep that NEVER do that!
For every opinion there’s an opposing one; on can’t go broke selling off shares unless someone else is (optimistically) willing to buy them.
Though there may be cracks showing in that universal maxim too.
But some contrarians will always turn a profit regardless of what happens; usually enough of them to reign in the panic-merchants after they’ve shed enough sacrificial (financial) blood.
ALL of them will go to the wall when the arse falls out of an ever-more delicate debt-balancing act, in the foreseeable future.
Unfortunately it’ll take the whole world (bar those who don’t conform to the Establishment values and processes) with them.
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Every country with a McDonalds never goes to wAr. with another country with a McDonalds. The exception was the war in the Baltic states as this was a civil war. So far, the more economically tied we are the far less likely we will fight.
So I reckon the piece (intended) process in the Mid East can be fixed by building a McDonalds in every country that currently does not have one. Israel has them already. Now the others need them.
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Isn’t Israel the only democratic country in the Middle East?
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It depends very much on the definition of democracy.
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Is it more democratic than the rest of the Middle East?
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I looked it up 🙂 I know, Wikipedia…
“According to the “Democracy Index,” a measure of the level of democracy in nations throughout the world published by the Freedom House and Economist, the Middle Eastern countries with the highest scores are Israel, Kuwait, Turkey, Morocco and Lebanon. Countries that are occasionally classified as partly democratic are Egypt, Tunisia and Iraq. The remaining countries of the Middle East are categorized as authoritarian regimes, with the lowest scores held by Saudi Arabia and Yemen.”
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It seems “Moroccos’ democracy may be a bit iffy.
Incredible how Turkey and Israel, the two, it seems, real democracies in the ME are also the ones where the people prosper.
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That may be true so far, Alexie ~ given the restrictions of the franchise systems.
But you watch the McBurgers (with fries??) hit the fan when ten McDonalds (or legal clones) open for business on every kilometer of road.
(Same story as the overpopulated-planet one ~ and ALSO due to the oversized (and growing) human population.
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It comes down to thinking of our military forces as a thing not as people. If we remembered that each one is a son and daughter; a friend and lover; a human with interests and passions then when we send them into battle we might think differently of the “resources” we are committing to the field of battle.
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