By Jamie York
OK, folks, just imagine how exhilarating it must feel to be a George W. Bush, a Dick Cheney, a Donald Rumsfeld or a Condolezza Rice. After all, you would have extensive personal investments in the oil and/or weapons industries, so a new war on Iraq and the seizure of Iraqi oil fields will only help to boost your earnings to record levels.
Never mind that the majority of people on this little planet of ours think war is unnecessary. Never mind all of the death and destruction it will cause. Never mind that the U.S. economy is going down the tubes. Never mind that states are slashing funding for education and social programs. Never mind that people are sleeping on the streets in every city in the nation. Never mind that two million of us are in jail, prison, or on parole. Never mind that nearly 40 million Americans are without health insurance. Never mind the AIDS crisis in Africa. Never mind that a war on Iraq will increase incidents of terrorism worldwide.
Never mind all of that. What is important is that we need to maximize our profits now by cutting taxes for ourselves and for our rich friends. After all, we believe in "Reaganomics," don't we? We believe that if we rich folks have more money, then we will build more factories and create more "trickle-down" jobs so the working peasants can keep buying gas-guzzling SUVs. Of course, thanks to NAFTA and other "free trade" agreements, we will build those new factories down in Mexico where labor is cheaper, but we won't mention that in our media, now will we? He he he!
All of these societal benefits begin with war -- and the more war we have, the better off we will be. You see, it's like this: If we have a stockpile of weapons, machinery and soldiers, we have to use them in order to justify the expense of keeping them, right? If we don't use them, then production slows down and we lose money. But if we keep using them on a regular basis, then we can keep producing more weapons and more machinery and we can draft more young men and women to replace those we lose in battle. But make no mistake about it: A new war on Iraq just gets our foot in the door. What we really need is "Permawar" so we can keep producing those weapons and machinery without having to worry about those awful, peaceful interludes when production slows down and our profits fall.
For example, just look at how long our nuclear warheads have collecting dust. If we start using them, we can get our nuclear program back on track. No one cares about those raghead Iraqis, anyway, right? Remember, Saddam Hussein is a madman who gassed his own people. (Of course, at the time, that's what we wanted him to do, but we won't mention that in our media, either. Why ruin a good news report with truth and context? He he he!) While we're busy obliterating Iraq, we might as well take over Saudi Arabia and Iran. Yes, let's! The American people are sheep and will do whatever we say as long as we appeal to their patriotism and their morality. They are too busy working, watching sitcoms, and laughing at Michael Jackson to care much about what we do. God Bless America! He he he!