When I used to fly for a living, my company served 58 countries. I found myself in hotels all over the world reading the local newspapers converted to english for the five-star hotels. (this was before newscorp destroyed media independence.)
One month, I counted over one hundred armed conflicts and skirmishes going on at the same time.
Just a few that I remember:
There were battles raging in Kasmir between India and Pakistan,
there was a war between Iraq and Iran that lasted for eight years
There were repeated coups in Fiji
The Tamil Tigers were fighting in Sri Lanka for twenty years
Burma and Laos and Thailand were in wars not even reported in the west by MSM.
Guerilla wars were constant in central America and Africa. Most of the runways in Africa were considered unsafe because they had been mined. My co-pilot was blown up at Southern Air Transport when her C-130 hit a mine on the runway.
Two of the countries I went to were under martial law much of the time, Tanks got in our way one morning trying to go to the airport in Taipei.
All our flight crews and airplanes were confiscated by MAC for Desert Shield and Desert Storm.....
I started realizing, what a great country the USA was to live in prior to the bushmonkey's tyranny against the Constitution.
But now, having delved into history in my retirement, I have come to realize the fact that man's natural state is famine and war, and that those two things are never going to go away. In fact those two things are endemic to all species of life.
We've just been terribly lucky in the USA never to know the boot of soldiers kicking down our doors. With NORTHCOM Domestic Control Army and FEMA death camps and trains at the ready, looks likes that is about to change.
TJ
"I fear for my little America" - Ben Franklin
Posted by Buck
Mar 12 2010 - 8:17am
Darwin postulated that the stiffest competition for any living organism comes from its own specie. The human spiritual quest is to over come this competition and live harmoniously within Nature. These wars and struggles for food and shelter do not have to be the norm. The u.s. feeds the conflicts globally directly with military intervention and indirectly with arms sales. Greed is inherent to capitalism, which makes death and destruction highly profitable for some. The basic premise of Socialism is mutual co-operation, caring and sharing with others. Change your mindset and the world will change. Declare violence a given and that is what you will get.
Posted by MBK
Mar 12 2010 - 9:54am
Famine and war are not the natural states of man. We are a highly adaptive species and have come a long way. Don't be fooled, with proper population control we have the ability to provide for a global population, but then their would be no one to exploit so a select few can have a disproportionate amount of resources.
Stupidity and greed are the natural states of man.
Posted by gdgoodman
Mar 12 2010 - 1:11pm
I refuse to believe that war is inevitable no matter if the fight for survival is bred into our genetic code or not. That instinct has been co-opted by corrupt leaders (or is that an oxymoron) for their own purposes since hominids walked out of the jungle. So it appears, at first glance, that "War is the father of all things," wrote the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus. Civilization itself, and its mother the culture, have too often rotated around war. War as conquest, War as spectacle. War as a grand game of competition.
But we have also examples of human subcultures without war. That have rejected savage conflict in place of peaceful cooperation. For them a life without war is no illusion. These have been few and far between, but very real. And they provide a beacon of hope for the rest of us, caught up in the war machine.
Gary
"The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as a sequence of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death's a stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try 'n' grab a piece of that Pie while they're still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of markets. Organic markets, carefully styled "black" by the professionals."
-- Thomas Pynchon
Posted by ThomasJefferson...
Mar 12 2010 - 10:36pm
gdgoodman,
great post. Thanks.
TJ
Posted by jimmytwoshoes
Mar 12 2010 - 8:11am
I have been alive for 60 years, and almost all of that time the United States has been in one war or another. Many Americans make their living off the death and destruction we cause...for good or bad. Some Americans get rich off of our wars and other countries wars. With our Military Industrial Complex, it is honest to say that we are the Merchants of Death.
Yes, I know that is harsh, but it is also the truth. The House voted overwhelming this week to keep fighting in Afghanistan, probably without a doubt the most pitiful country we have ever attacked, and we have attacked many pitiful third world countries, so that is saying something.
Every day Congress and the White House can keep that war going means millions in profits for the defense industry.
Posted by srenade
Mar 12 2010 - 11:44am
Jimmytwoshoes got it right! The USA is responsible for almost 70% of the arms and munitions sold on the planet. The CIA is but the marketing arm of the weapons industry, going into "hotspots" to stir up and inflame conflict, selling weapons indiscriminately, often to both sides of the conflict.
Business, profit, death, they even "reconstruct" devastated lands with Starbucks, MacDonald's, BofA and clones who speak the language of the Pentagon/Wall St. Yes, its true, the Pentagon for a brief time hung a banner that proclaimed "We Arm the World".
Bushmonkey, Obamamonkey ... it doesn't matter. The US has been cannibalized; the Pentagon-media would have us at each other's throats. It seems to me that the only way back to decency is to take ourselves further out of the game of economics and back towards the game of "enough". That's all you need, enough, and each other. We are each other's wealth and happiness.
Speaking for myself and most sentient beings I know, the "natural state" of Life is joy, sharing, play-full-ness, connection, love, being well-fed. And yes, we are all food at one time or another. Join the feast! Stop the war, lay down your arms, both the weapons kind and the mental-state of thinking we need to be "at war" with someone at all times. Most people on the planet are not "out to get you" unless you represent a threat of some sort to them. May all Beings be fed, and may we all gravitate towards the work to make it so.
Posted by samosamo
Mar 12 2010 - 11:55am
Kind of besmirches the idea of having so many humans on this planet and the idea that there is enough for all of us; maybe in arms and ammunition but definitely not in common sense.
Posted by Billmelater
Mar 12 2010 - 2:47pm
It is curious that a representative of the greatest war making nation on the face of the earth, and nation that spends more than any others combined on warmaking, is not featured until #28 in this series of photos.
'Muikan exceptionalism reigns supreme.
9 Comments so far
Show AllWhen I used to fly for a living, my company served 58 countries. I found myself in hotels all over the world reading the local newspapers converted to english for the five-star hotels. (this was before newscorp destroyed media independence.)
One month, I counted over one hundred armed conflicts and skirmishes going on at the same time.
Just a few that I remember:
There were battles raging in Kasmir between India and Pakistan,
there was a war between Iraq and Iran that lasted for eight years
There were repeated coups in Fiji
The Tamil Tigers were fighting in Sri Lanka for twenty years
Burma and Laos and Thailand were in wars not even reported in the west by MSM.
Guerilla wars were constant in central America and Africa. Most of the runways in Africa were considered unsafe because they had been mined. My co-pilot was blown up at Southern Air Transport when her C-130 hit a mine on the runway.
Two of the countries I went to were under martial law much of the time, Tanks got in our way one morning trying to go to the airport in Taipei.
All our flight crews and airplanes were confiscated by MAC for Desert Shield and Desert Storm.....
I started realizing, what a great country the USA was to live in prior to the bushmonkey's tyranny against the Constitution.
But now, having delved into history in my retirement, I have come to realize the fact that man's natural state is famine and war, and that those two things are never going to go away. In fact those two things are endemic to all species of life.
We've just been terribly lucky in the USA never to know the boot of soldiers kicking down our doors. With NORTHCOM Domestic Control Army and FEMA death camps and trains at the ready, looks likes that is about to change.
TJ
"I fear for my little America" - Ben Franklin
Darwin postulated that the stiffest competition for any living organism comes from its own specie. The human spiritual quest is to over come this competition and live harmoniously within Nature. These wars and struggles for food and shelter do not have to be the norm. The u.s. feeds the conflicts globally directly with military intervention and indirectly with arms sales. Greed is inherent to capitalism, which makes death and destruction highly profitable for some. The basic premise of Socialism is mutual co-operation, caring and sharing with others. Change your mindset and the world will change. Declare violence a given and that is what you will get.
Famine and war are not the natural states of man. We are a highly adaptive species and have come a long way. Don't be fooled, with proper population control we have the ability to provide for a global population, but then their would be no one to exploit so a select few can have a disproportionate amount of resources.
Stupidity and greed are the natural states of man.
I refuse to believe that war is inevitable no matter if the fight for survival is bred into our genetic code or not. That instinct has been co-opted by corrupt leaders (or is that an oxymoron) for their own purposes since hominids walked out of the jungle. So it appears, at first glance, that "War is the father of all things," wrote the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus. Civilization itself, and its mother the culture, have too often rotated around war. War as conquest, War as spectacle. War as a grand game of competition.
But we have also examples of human subcultures without war. That have rejected savage conflict in place of peaceful cooperation. For them a life without war is no illusion. These have been few and far between, but very real. And they provide a beacon of hope for the rest of us, caught up in the war machine.
Gary
"The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as a sequence of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death's a stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try 'n' grab a piece of that Pie while they're still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of markets. Organic markets, carefully styled "black" by the professionals."
-- Thomas Pynchon
gdgoodman,
great post. Thanks.
TJ
I have been alive for 60 years, and almost all of that time the United States has been in one war or another. Many Americans make their living off the death and destruction we cause...for good or bad. Some Americans get rich off of our wars and other countries wars. With our Military Industrial Complex, it is honest to say that we are the Merchants of Death.
Yes, I know that is harsh, but it is also the truth. The House voted overwhelming this week to keep fighting in Afghanistan, probably without a doubt the most pitiful country we have ever attacked, and we have attacked many pitiful third world countries, so that is saying something.
Every day Congress and the White House can keep that war going means millions in profits for the defense industry.
Jimmytwoshoes got it right! The USA is responsible for almost 70% of the arms and munitions sold on the planet. The CIA is but the marketing arm of the weapons industry, going into "hotspots" to stir up and inflame conflict, selling weapons indiscriminately, often to both sides of the conflict.
Business, profit, death, they even "reconstruct" devastated lands with Starbucks, MacDonald's, BofA and clones who speak the language of the Pentagon/Wall St. Yes, its true, the Pentagon for a brief time hung a banner that proclaimed "We Arm the World".
Bushmonkey, Obamamonkey ... it doesn't matter. The US has been cannibalized; the Pentagon-media would have us at each other's throats. It seems to me that the only way back to decency is to take ourselves further out of the game of economics and back towards the game of "enough". That's all you need, enough, and each other. We are each other's wealth and happiness.
Speaking for myself and most sentient beings I know, the "natural state" of Life is joy, sharing, play-full-ness, connection, love, being well-fed. And yes, we are all food at one time or another. Join the feast! Stop the war, lay down your arms, both the weapons kind and the mental-state of thinking we need to be "at war" with someone at all times. Most people on the planet are not "out to get you" unless you represent a threat of some sort to them. May all Beings be fed, and may we all gravitate towards the work to make it so.
Kind of besmirches the idea of having so many humans on this planet and the idea that there is enough for all of us; maybe in arms and ammunition but definitely not in common sense.
It is curious that a representative of the greatest war making nation on the face of the earth, and nation that spends more than any others combined on warmaking, is not featured until #28 in this series of photos.
'Muikan exceptionalism reigns supreme.