Why We Fight

Why We Fight (documentary film) is a terrific follow-up on the previous posts, in a nutshell "that capitalism is winning over democracy right now."

Favorite line of the movie, "I guarantee you, with war this profitable, we're going to be seeing a lot of it."

New found respect for Eisenhower. Excerpts from his farewell address, some quoted in the film

We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.

I've also answered a question I hadn't yet quite formulated (clearly, some logical brain processes at work): fear. The culture of fear is a natural consequence of this in that it justifies the military spending. No wonder insecurity stress and anxiety are the headline news everyday.

Following up on a recent read quoting US military spending of 450 billion, I did some quick mental math. Clearly that number was wrong - that's in the order of 1 1/4 billion dollars a day; even 'they' couldn't be spending that fast. Besides, Google wasn't yielding much info at first.
Till I hit upon the fact that the current defense budget is in fact 532.8 billion dollars, closer to 1 1/2 billion dollars. A. Day.
And that the 2008 budget calls for 717 billion dollars. 2 a day.

How?



The death and taxes 2008 poster provides an interesting visual representation of the 2008 federal discretionary budget (of which 67% is military/national security). 67 billion are set aside for Health and Human Services.

I must repeat myself though, how can almost 2 billion dollars be spent on offense and 'defense' every day? Even on holidays.

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An article on adoption in a French parenting magazine grabbed my attention. France has recently set up a national adoption agency, prior to which it has been impossible to adopt foreign children. The agency comes under much criticism on its stance to refuse to retribute countries and institutions in exchange for children. They take the moral high stance that children are not a trade; critics claim that they need to get a reality check.
Despite declining numbers of children 'available' for adoption worldwide, the US adopts increasing numbers of foreign children. How come, asked frustrated infertile French adults?

Apparently, the US sets up bilateral agreements with poor countries, in which they pay for a quota of children to be 'given' to the US.
Read that again. The government is paying other countries for children. The French in me (i'm still 100% French says my passport) is shocked out of her socks.

What else hides in trade agreements?
I mean, we sort of know about the large chunks which are just money funneled back to the US, such as weapons sales and so on.
But who can help us and demistify those bilateral agreements, help us read between the lines? Any good links or clues appreciated, thx.

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"life liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Sounds familiar enough.
But I can't figure out what they meant by, the unalienable right to life. As opposed to the right to death? I don't believe abortion rights were at the forefront of their thinking, so what does that mean?

book reviews

Phew, it's been a long time coming.

You're Wearing That?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation, by Deborah Tannen
Worthwhile reading if you're a woman struggling to comprehend inexplicable reactions of your grown mother. Tannen's writing style lacks in conciseness and effectiveness; but she gets her points across: [with a big IN GENERAL for everything that follows]

• that it's so painful and complicated because we're so close;
  
• that caring and criticizing can be two sides of the same coin;
  
• that daughters, only too aware of the influence their mother still has on them, generally significantly underestimate the power they also hold in their mothers' lives (both want approval);
  
• that having brothers and watching the different treatment they get from the same mother can sting;
  
• that grandkids is the most powerful weapon a daughter has against her own mother;
• that mothers feel compelled to protect their daughters - up until the point where mothers age and daughters take on that responsibility;
• that mothers are the lightrod for criticism: that truthfully daughters are more critical of them than of anyone else (apart from their own selves perhaps); and that daughters don't think twice about criticizing mom even for something for which she's partly or not at all guilty of. Because it's safe.

Unfortunately you also learn along the way that mothers whose daughters did 'better' than them (academically or in earnings) are often resentful of their daughters' successes - a reality you don't find with fathers or daughters who did not excel. A daughter is both supposed to accomplish what her mother would've liked to do differently in her life, yet not to go too far from her mom (including geographically), else the mother feel rejected and irrelevant.
Most interesting was the spiralling out of control analysis, whereby the natural reflexes of a mother and her daughter just make each other worse - think mother wanting to be more involved in her daughter's life, and asking more questions, calling more frequently or dropping by more, and as a reaction her daughter stepping back more, not calling as much to not encourage this, hereby making the mother feel the urge to call even more, and so on to no good.


Identity and Violence, by Amartya Sen
Highly recommend it; a great deconstruction of the so-called "clash of civilizations" bs theory. Also not the most condensed writing though (or perhaps I'm simply impatient these days)
From the book cover:
Sen argues in this book that conflict and violence are sustained today, no less than in the past, by the illusion of a unique identity. Indeed, the world is increasingly taken to be a federation of religions (or of "culture" or "civilization"), ignoring the relevance of other ways in which people see themselves, involving class, gender, profession, language, literature, science, music, morals, or politics. Global attempts to stop such violence are also handicapped by the conceptual disarray generated by the presumption of singular and choiceless identity. When relations among different human beings are identified with a "clash of civilizations", or alternately with "amity among civilizations", human beings are miniaturized and deposited into little boxes.
Through his penetrating investigation of such diverse subjects as multiculturalism, postcolonialism, fundamentalism, terrorism, and globalization, Sen brings out the need for a clearheaded understanding of human freedom and the effectiveness of constructive public voice in global civil society. The world, Sen shows, can be made to move toward peace as firmly as it has recently spiraled toward violence and war.


Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins
I was entirely predisposed to love this book - finally, an insider spilling the beans about the corrupt world of large greedy corporations in cohute with the G5 governments and international institutions (world bank, IMF), and detailing their sneaky tactics of using bogus economic projections for engulfing poorer countries into endless debts all the while advancing the global empire of the corporatocracy.
Well, I almost liked it... Definitely recommend it for DJ (goes back to our discussions about whether US actions should be termed imperialist or not).
Definitely includes some interesting tidbits of information about the Summer Institute of Linguistics to name just one - a controversial missionary organization who got kicked out after allegations that it was performing the dirty work of oil companies and the CIA by kicking indigenous people out of their oil-rich land with tactics such as diarrhea-inducing food packages.

But what infuriates me is the lack of sophistication and believability in this book.
All the interesting people are 'beautiful'. The NSA connection is an utter guess. The one who co-opted him into becoming an economic hit man? disappeared magically after a few weeks, never to be heard of again. All the heads of states he's rubbed shoulders with are dead; who could dispute him? His conscience that started bugging him on page 1? 30 years later, he publishes. There is not a single fact in here which has not been disclosed previously (where is the insider information? the numbers to back his story?). Yet he was magically in all the exciting places at the right time, and always one of the almost good guys who wanted to mingle with the locals.

I am entirely dismayed that it only takes a guy like him to take down countries - one who's not even an economist, one who's not even very articulate, one whose knowledge of his historic models (e.g. Tom Paine) is amazingly vague.
There is no sophistication. And yet the wheel keeps on turning and the gap between the five wealthiest and five poorest countries keeps on widening despite all the wonderful 'successes' of our international institutions.
If there is no sophistication, why can't this be stopped?
Btw he's got a new book out, The Secret History of the American Empire.

I also started Evening News by Marly Swick and A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah, but I ended up putting both of them down.
The writings of both seems compelling, but neither subject matter is right for me at the moment.