Blood Money
Blood Money
Progressive bumper stickers make an impression, but perhaps not in the way their owners hope they do.
What is “Peace, Please” supposed to accomplish? On May 12, 1996 US Ambassador to the UN, Madeleine Albright said that the deaths of some 567,000 Arab children under the age of five due to the United States embargo was “worth it”. Do you think she would have settled for 250,000 if you had asked politely? Maybe 100K for a pretty please?
I already know that “war is bad for children and other living things” but thanks for the reminder anyway.
Only one sticker goes right to the heart of the matter on it’s way to missing the point: “Why is there always money for War and none for Education?”1
The quick answer is that it’s because war, and by extension control and expropriation, is the main business of our hijacked state. The priority that “defense” and military operations get in spending should be proof enough of their primacy in the scheme of things. Programs such as “welfare”, “education”, etc. are the chump change left over that gets tossed to we the people in order to buy votes and grease squeaky wheels. The true function of “Welfare” is its role as the bribe that makes the warfare state OK. Guns go better with butter.
Historically the modern welfare state owes much to Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor of Kaiser Wilhelm II. It was a reaction to worker unrest and burgeoning socialist ideology and was not born of idealism. The warfare/welfare combination in one form or another has been a going concern since at least the days of the Roman Empire, and probably earlier.
If progressives are actually serious about ending the scourge of war and militarism in the US they will have to make some hard choices and take a long look at their status quo, because they drink from a poisoned well.
The welfare state, as currently practiced, is simply unachievable without the trickery of fiat money, Keynesian debt and central banking.
Unfortunately, this is true of modern unlimited warfare as well, and that’s the rub. The industrial-military complex in the US today is also utterly dependent on fiat money and the sale of government debt to keep it going in the style it is accustomed to.
Do you suppose it was a coincidence that the Federal Reserve Bank was created in 1913, just in time for the first worldwide war? Or that the last 100 years have been the bloodiest, most murderous period of organized slaughter the planet has ever seen? Can you even contemplate the lives and resources that have been squandered by such carnage and destruction?
Fiat money is blood money, plain and simple; it’s no different than the “blood diamonds” progressives are so fond of condemning. Fiat money is effortless, no mining required.
Political and economic ignorance is not an excuse; it shouldn’t even be an option these days considering the resources that are available to individuals for study. The US war machine is financed by the Federal Reserve and the monetization of sovereign debt. That’s what makes those $600 dollar hammers and trillion dollar submarines possible, not Granny in Dubuque’s piggy bank. And we have been busy.
Literally millions of (mostly) dark-skinned foreigners have been killed by our fiat dollars since the end of WW II. The count is increasing daily, with wedding parties a current specialty.
Now the government’s interest is turning increasingly inward towards its own citizens; do you really want to give these guys limitless blank checks that are drawn on your grandchildren’s future?
The challenge to progressives is clear: get your ethical house in order; stop enabling the war machine with your lust for fiat dollars and your willingness to be bought. No spoon is long enough when you dine with the devil.
A central bank lies at the dark heart of every sinister political agenda from the far left to the ultra right. There will always be bombs to buy and voters to bribe. Political control is an expensive game, and to pay for your own oppression only adds insult to injury. The lifeblood of the welfare state and the lifeblood of the warfare state are one and the same. And a lowly bumper sticker already told us which one of the two is actually in charge.
Progressives, Libertarians and all peace-loving Americans should join in common cause to end the Fed!
1. We are letting the progressive agenda stand unchallenged for the sake of argument. Actually, progressivism and the belief that government solves all problems (rather than creating them) are on pretty thin ice ethically, economically and intellectually.