" War is good business. Invest your son." ...
Raymond
During the Vietnam War, one of the peace movement's more sardonic
slogans was: " War is good business. Invest your son." ...
For those who make its instruments, war is very good business
indeed...In recent years, some eminent pundits and top government
officials have become brazen about praising war as a good investment.
"Government is obviously composed of common and unsanctified men, and
is thus a legitimate object of criticism and even contempt. If your
own party is in power, things may be assumed to be moving safely
enough; but if the opposition is in, then clearly all safety and honor
have fled the State. Yet you do not put it to yourself in quite that
way. What you think is only that there are rascals to be turned out of
a very practical machinery of offices and functions which you take for
granted. When we say that Americans are lawless, we usually mean that
they are less conscious than other peoples of the august majesty of
the institution of the State as it stands behind the objective
government of men and laws which we see. In a republic the men who
hold office are indistinguishable from the mass. Very few of them
possess the slightest personal dignity with which they could endow
their political role; even if they ever thought of such a thing. And
they have no class distinction to give them glamour. In a republic the
Government is obeyed grumblingly, because it has no bedazzlements or
sanctities to gild it. If you are a good old-fashioned democrat, you
rejoice at this fact, you glory in the plainness of a system where
every citizen has become a king. If you are more sophisticated you
bemoan the passing of dignity and honor from affairs of State. But in
practice, the democrat does not in the least treat his elected citizen
with the respect due to a king, nor does the sophisticated citizen pay
tribute to the dignity even when he finds it. The republican State has
almost no trappings to appeal to the common man's emotions. What it
has are of military origin, and in an unmilitary era such as we have
passed through since the Civil War, even military trappings have been
scarcely seen. In such an era the sense of the State almost fades out
of the consciousness of men. "
The moment war is declared, however, the mass of the people, through
some spiritual alchemy, become convinced that they have willed and
executed the deed themselves. They then, with the exception of a few
malcontents, proceed to allow themselves to be regimented, coerced,
deranged in all the environments of their lives, and turned into a
solid manufactory of destruction toward whatever other people may
have, in the appointed scheme of things, come within the range of the
Government's disapprobation. The citizen throws off his contempt and
indifference to Government, identifies himself with its purposes,
revives all his military memories and symbols, and the State once more
walks, an august presence, through the imaginations of men. Patriotism
becomes the dominant feeling, and produces immediately that intense
and hopeless confusion between the relations which the individual
bears and should bear toward the society of which he is a part."
The patriot loses all sense of the distinction between State, nation,
and government."
--- Randolph Bourne
War is the Health of the State
The latest annual reports from some American firms with Pentagon
contracts. Those reports acknowledged, as a matter of fact, the basic
corporate reliance on the warfare state.
Orbit International Corp., a small business making high-tech products
for use by the U.S. Navy, Air Force, Army, and Marines, had increased
its net sales by nearly $2.4 million during the previous two years, to
about $17.1 million -- and the war future was bright. "Looking ahead,"
CEO Dennis Sunshine reported, "Orbit's Electronics and Power Unit
Segments expect to continue to benefit from the expanding military/
defense and homeland security marketplace." In its yearly report to
federal regulators, Orbit International acknowledged: "We are heavily
dependent upon military spending as a source of revenues and income.
Accordingly, any substantial future reductions in overall military
spending by the U.S. government could have a material adverse effect
on our sales and earnings."
A much larger corporation, Engineered Support Systems, Inc., had
quadrupled its net revenues between 1999 and 2003, when they reached
$572.7 million. For the report covering 2003, the firm's top officers
signed a statement that declared: "As we have always said, rapid
deployment of our armed forces drives our business." The company's
president, Jerry Potthoff, assured investors: "Our nation's military
is deployed in over 130 countries, so our products and personnel are
deployed, as well. As long as America remains the world's policeman,
our products and services will help them complete their missions."
The gigantic Northrop Grumman firm, while noting that its revenues
totaled $26.2 billion in 2003, boasted: "In terms of the portfolio,
Northrop Grumman is situated in the 'sweet spot' of U.S. defense and
national security spending."
War. How sweet it can be.
This article is adapted from Norman Solomon's new book "War Made Easy:
How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." For
information, go to: www.WarMadeEasy.com
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0715-13.htm
Let us prey....."War is essentially the health of the State."