“In fifteen short chapters, Chris Hedges astonishes us with his clear and cogent argument against war, not on philosophical grounds or through moral arguments, but in an irrefutable stream of personal encounters with the victims of war, from veterans and parents to gravely wounded American serviceman who served in the Iraq War, to survivors of the Holocaust, to soldiers in the Falklands War, among others. Hedges reported from Sarajevo, and was in the Balkans to witness the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The question is how to stop war. Moral arguments are wasted on sociopaths. Reward and punishment is the only language that they understand, although they understand it quite well.
Quote Bible verses to a robber, if a little girl tells the Bad Man to Let Daddy Go! and he will laugh in your face, delighted at your impotence. A loaded .357 Magnum pointed at his head and the sure knowledge that you will without hesitation pull that trigger elicits a very different response.
And in turn how to wake people up to the fact their mainstream media of choice is engaged in an effective brainwashing of sorts... that is viewing whatever "enemy" as subhuman and inundating the citizenry with that narrative over and over. Between the magnitude of apathy and ignorance, I always wonder how to get into the solution. With restrictions on protests spreading from state to state, it appears any resistance will be met with violence from the powers that be. Looking to Chris for answers, he suggests small acts of civil disobedience. I'm open to all non violent ideas.
Unfortunately a lot of people actually profit off war. Not just the elites, but millions of people in the defense industry and military have good middle and working class livelihoods that depend on war. They cannot imagine trying to stop the system, they are dependent on it.
Which is just one more example of how evil the ultimate evil...WAR....is. It also implicates Capitalism, which to my mind is a more formidable reason why wars continue than is the old saw that 'people are inherently violent'.
Capitalisms drive for profits is indesputable; the argument from human nature far more open to dispute, and dependent on the fallacy of sweeping generalization.
Agreed. If it was in 'human nature' to be violent and go to war on our fellows, all our soldiers coming back from war would not be carrying mental scars, emotional trauma, and committing suicide at a much higher rate than civilians.
Exactly. Violent human nature is a sweeping generalized lie we use to coax our young men into fighting violence with violence........and it damages them, sometimes irremediably. The higher rates of suicide among returning vets is one indication among many.........that humans aren't inherently warlike.
It's an extreme reaction that has to be socially encouraged. Did you catch the bit about Finland closing its borders to Russian asylum seekers??? One more indication of how eager Russian boys(even!!) are to going to war. It's the leaders who think we need it....and those who don't have to go themselves..........who cheer it on.
My partner and I march every week with the protests against the genocide in Gaza....and we are meeting people from all over the world who've come to Canada....and who are now standing with Palestinians. Unfortunately, there seem to be less of us settler colonialists braving the sub zero temperatures....
So while I agree that abusive childhoods make us prone to violence, I also agree with folks who point to religious ideas that separate us into chosen and leftover.........so called spiritual beliefs based on salvation for the few are also likely abusive....since they exclude the non believers. Who is it decided that Palestinian lives were less valuable than Jewish ones, and why has our media complied for so many years??
When we come home, tuckered out and arthritic, we talk about what more we can do. We've decided one thing is to live as if the world that could be, is here now.........with us. So we consider behaviors we need to banish....actions we need to take.........and ways of celebrating the miracle that is life..........while we're still alive.
Like Moses.........we won't live long enough to experience the new world..........but we could use this last dozen years to be the elders who 's vision helped that world come into being.
We've also been systematically Abusing the natural world in our capitalist, rip off everything system. So transitioning off fossil fuels is a big part of living as non abusive elders for us........moving forward.
It's ironic, but also an eye opener, that Cop 28 is happening simultaneously to the renewed fossil fuel burning aerial bombardment of Gaza. Some dots should be connected there, but will the politicians of abusive systems have the courage to do so?
You’re right of course. But my impression is that there are far too many sociopaths to kill, and, as always, whose definition, whose diagnosis shall prevail?
I think a more sure and more permanent solution would be to work toward a society which does not produce enough sociopaths to make trouble, and then teach them something useful. Knitting is good. Or teach them to write comments in the New York Times, although most of those positions are already filled.
If we raised a generation where all children were nurtured, and education was something other than stuffing old ideas into young heads...........if we gave religion a rest and tried universal kindness and inclusion.....there would be jobs a plenty and good people to fill them.
It seems to me that what we often miss is the fact that WAR is the end game of a society that promotes competition, judgement, status, and most universally of all, a contempt fot the body of the child and the body of the world he/she is to inhabit.
There likely is no road to Peace, but Peace may be the road.
And increase the games and books and discussions that help us to see what's to like in people. I have very little hate in me.....and I like and love and am curious about people.
Currently, I'm developing the thesis, that if men of worth got to spend more time with children....in a genuine care taker role...they'd like and trust people more too. We all start out beautiful, engaging, curious, honest and capable of love.
That so many of us fall out of this original blessing is the real curse of our time.......and War, and the hatred and fear it needs to manufacture to continue.......is a very large part of our fall from original grace.
I never said that guns were a long-term solution. They are not. They are, however, a very stark illustration to the point that I am trying to make.
A Biden, a Trump, a Thatcher, a Netanyahu cares nothing about moral arguments, except as a way to persuade the gullible masses. But if you get one of them alone in a room and tell them that something is The Right Thing To Do, they would take it as a sign that you are but a contemptible weakling.
Offer them a choice of reward for compliance and punishment for failure to do so and the means to carry it out, and they will look at you very differently.
Writing a promo piece for the NRA? Yours is the kind of argument they'd make: "Arm yourself with primitive projectile weapons because your brother may be a sociopath." I personally hate guns and the associated violence, but who knows, you may have a point.
I dislike shooting others over political differences on basic principles. I would very much rather talk things out and find workable compromises, given any option. But that's NOT always a viable alternative.
Gandhi's non violent mass resistance worked vs. the late stage British Empire. Outcome was non lethal, mostly. At least up until the Empire covertly encouraged religious strife and fomented the Pakistan/India split.
Protesters against the USA fomented coup in Odessa ca. 2014 got shot, run over by APCs and burned to death by Western intelligence/military organized & trained arsonists, all while "Western" media carefully avoided amplifying reports of those activities.
What use does a cat have for guns? For that matter, it would be great if force weren't a way to get things done, but I must live in the real world or I will be dogfood sooner than I'd like.
The point he has is not an argument to justify war. Equating the nutbar next door with the Warmongers around the world is a fallacy. We could....and often do....deal with our violent individuals in peaceful ways. We could, and often do, manage our societies so that there is more equality, community and cooperative support for all....so that no one falls through the cracks....and literally 'cracks up'.
Violence is a symptom quite often..........of things that need redress. But seeing all acts of violence as proof that War is inevitable is generally just a Warmonger's justification for War.
Agree. The gun discussion is off-topic in that war is a kind of mass-psychosis with no bearing on the issue of individual gun ownership. In fact, most people in wars are NOT killed by firearms, but bombs, artillery, disease, hunger, etc.
Most people killed in wars aren't even combatants........but civilians, women, children, the grandparents. We see it being played out in vivid colours just recently.........in Gaza.
If anything, war speaks to a hatred of the human, the gentle, the vulnerable, the insignificant little people trying to go about their lives as best they can. Shame on anyone who shills for it.
It seems to me you're illustrating the problem, not the solution. Violence begets violence, and so does the idea that the world is full of sociopaths.
Not saying sociopaths....and psychopaths don't exist.......but there'd be far fewer of them if the first resort for every problem we face, wasn't some form of violence.
Referencing the Lord of the Rings in your insistence that there are so many sociopaths out there actually strengthens my argument.
We go cheering into war after war after war, in part because the Empire you reside in has spent a whole lot of money convincing us that war games are fun games.
Perhaps......for the sociopaths at the top........for the west of us War is the Ultimate Hell..and, as Chris argues, the greatest evil. Surely no Christian person can shill for a game that kills human beings??? The real 'hunger games' happen in war......and always, the warmongers hide that 'inconvenient truth' from the populace.
But we can watch it unfold in Gaza......and listen to the warhawks telling us its necessary to root out Hamas........we can watch who buys that load of caca and perhaps even follow their money trail......
There are ways to deal with psychopaths and sociopaths...........a peaceful people will learn how....and it won't be by 'blowing them away'.
That is the common opinion.....much pushed by conventional thinkers and ideologues. I don't think there's as much evidence for it as you assume...in general, the majority of the earth's people want peace....nor are the majority violent.
Your belief system is defending the status quo.........and essentially boils down to this: It would be nice if there was no war but that's impossible because people are violent.
There's a few logical fallacies inherent in that argument...Sweeping generalization being one of them. The fallacy of false equivalence lurks in the assumption that individual acts of violence = the violence of War.
In interesting aside: Israel is using that fallacy of equivalence to justify the destruction of Gaza, right now. Faulty logic is perhaps necessary, when one wishes to argue that what Chris Hedges calls the Greatest Evil....is actually made necessary by the presence in our midst of violent individuals.
In the metaphor, the ruler of the nation and his army are the robbers. The ruler must finance the development of weapons, raising and army, supplying the army as well as paying them which will require him to borrow the money from a bank or tax his subjects. If they borrow the money, the banker holds the .357 magnum as he can force ruination (even slavery in older times) on the debtor and take his property. This is a big incentive to use the army to his economic advantage and take his pound of flesh from those less developed. And war is getting to be a bit risky, especially with nukes around. I view my security differently. I can't be more secure by making someone else less secure and poor.
Evidence is in the history of WWI, which was supposed to be "the war to end all wars." What led to that war is murky (wasn't just assassination,) but a major cause was Europeans squabbling over empires. We still live with the effects of that war: 1.) Enabling formation of the Soviet Union. 2.) The harsh treatment of Germany led to the rise of Hitler. 3.) Establishing the boundaries of countries to serve Euro empire and not local peoples, like in Africa and especially in the Middle East. 4.) The USA, previously little interested in overseas affairs, got a taste of what it was to be a global military power...and power is addicting.
As the anti-Vietnam war slogan had it, "Fighting for peace is like f*cking for virginity." Or Edwin Starr's famous soul song "War. Unh. What is it good for? Absolutely nothin'" War doesn't end war; it makes more of them. Oppressed peoples strike as guerilla warfare. The biggest powers, with all the weapons and a sense of superiority, aren't "winners" as history makes clear. But no way can the macho power addicts ever face that reality. To keep the charade going, they invent enemies, foreign and domestic. Constantly reinforced by propaganda, along with either/or thinking. If you're not 100% with us, then you must be against us. Unpatriotic to doubt the Truth and Goodness and Righteousness of our side, "our" meaning whoever holds political power, "side" assumed to be the entire nation.
But truth is that Truth is the first victim of war. Such that millions of dead or maimed humans and ruined environments are rendered invisible. What's another dead peasant? Especially those by definition evil; the enemy's children would only grow up to be threats. The maimed among our own troops are abstracted into "heroes" and the horror of their real lives not talked about. Never mind the suicides; that doesn't fit the propaganda.
Having massive stocks of WMD is MAD, crazy. One group of coldly calculating sociopaths justifying the armaments as necessary to protect against another set of evil psychopaths. I'm not saying unilateral disarmament is the way to go, but the chemical and nuclear weapons reduction negotiations were working. As for moral (and psychological) arguments, they are needed! Implicitly, we already have them--like asserting only harsh punishment will work; reasons for behavior "we" don't like never considered. Instead, how about making explicit the ways the current political and econ systems are structured to reward the worst among us? Calling them out for the power seeking and $ worshiping monsters they are. Who deserve scorn and derision, not respect.
War is excess resources applied in a gamble by some in a society to try and grab more via violence. If we didn't have an excess of wealth, resources, and energy to build bombs, missiles, and aircraft carriers, our warmaking capabilities would be reduced. Feeding and clothing the million plus personal in our military and intelligence services (not to mention feeding and clothing the people who manufacture our weapons) is an enormous commitment of surplus to absolutely no benefit. As Eisenhower said, it is a theft from other commitments that could use those resources. As Marx said, it is like dropping capital to the bottom of the sea. I would add, it is like dropping resources to the bottom of the sea, but attaching thousands and millions of human lives to it. Not just wasted resources, but wasted human lives. The powerful ending of "Johnny Got His Gun" is in my opinion the best solution. If anybody gives you a gun and says 'go kill those people over there who have never harmed you' we should immediately turn the guns on those in society who make the demands for war. Read the last few pages of Johnny Got His Gun :) Peace!
Hedges has more years (20) of front-line combat experience than most, if not all, members of the sitting Joint Chiefs, including 7 years in Gaza. His reporting from those pits of hell on Earth merits not only the Pulitzer he earned for foreign correspondence, but a Medal of Freedom from a POTUS, if not a Nobel Peace prize. Warmongering presidents and private citizens have received the last two of those three. The prophetic authenticity of Hedges' ongoing journalism, activism, speaking, and writing honor truth, justice, and peace far more honestly than most, if not all, of those routine ceremonial recipients do.
Yes, Chris, certainly, as you write, "The Greatest Evil is War" -- however the disguise, camouflage, propaganda, and insane infantilism of continually 'ginning-up wars' is the magical faux-pregnancy of all Wars.
IMHO, the birthing of all Wars, from inception to death, is dependent on hiding behind the most deadly concept of EMPIRE --- and today it appears that this last secret pregnancy of "The Quiet American" global AIPAC [American and Israeli pact of a final War] against China.
According to news reports, 'earlier in the week, Pope Francis denounced the unleashing of Israeli violence in Gaza, saying that “we have gone beyond wars. This is not war. This is terrorism.”'
This ceasefire must be extended for more than a day or two. It must be made permanent. Not back to the status quo under oppressive conditions, but as a place where all live with peace and equality. It is time for Pope Francis to do more than talk. He must go to Gaza and make a stand for peace and freedom.
Unless we eliminate this very real evil, there is no solution to climate change...or any of the threats that beset humanity. What gobsmacks me, is how many people, reasonable and kindly in their own little circles, still fall into cheerleading for it.
I think the primary cause of modern wars is debt. We are fine example. We have tons of debt and none of our rulers want to be taxed so as to pay off the debt. Now if inflation goes up because of higher commodity costs, interest rates go up, bond values go down, home and stock market values go down, and paying off the debt becomes even more expensive because interest rates are up. Then the dollar collapses, and inflation really goes up. So maybe containing Russia, China, India, Arab, South American and African nations, higher commodity prices, and the use of other currencies could be an "existential" threat a strong dollar and to our way of life. I think our self inflicted debt is our primary enemy keeping fighting for economic advantage in an era where the war sellers keep losing wars and we can't recruit enough soldiers to keep our outposts and ships manned.
Chris Hedges is a "voice of reason and morality crying out in the wilderness". Although the subject matter is very upsetting, his calm presence and the moral authority from which he speaks is a balm for the spirit in this very chaotic of times.
Accountability? It will eventually bite u in the butt. No one is exempt; no one gets off "scott free". ("Karma's a bitch".) We humans have an innate sense of morality enshrined in their "hearts". One can not escape it's condemnation. One way or another "we pay" for our crimes.
If there is a solution to the madness, Chris Hedges is a part of it. Will purchase the book, mostly to support that solution.
The question is how to stop war. Moral arguments are wasted on sociopaths. Reward and punishment is the only language that they understand, although they understand it quite well.
Quote Bible verses to a robber, if a little girl tells the Bad Man to Let Daddy Go! and he will laugh in your face, delighted at your impotence. A loaded .357 Magnum pointed at his head and the sure knowledge that you will without hesitation pull that trigger elicits a very different response.
And in turn how to wake people up to the fact their mainstream media of choice is engaged in an effective brainwashing of sorts... that is viewing whatever "enemy" as subhuman and inundating the citizenry with that narrative over and over. Between the magnitude of apathy and ignorance, I always wonder how to get into the solution. With restrictions on protests spreading from state to state, it appears any resistance will be met with violence from the powers that be. Looking to Chris for answers, he suggests small acts of civil disobedience. I'm open to all non violent ideas.
Believe me, if I had some way to shake humans from cognitive dissonance, I would have shared my little secret a long time ago....
Unfortunately a lot of people actually profit off war. Not just the elites, but millions of people in the defense industry and military have good middle and working class livelihoods that depend on war. They cannot imagine trying to stop the system, they are dependent on it.
Which is just one more example of how evil the ultimate evil...WAR....is. It also implicates Capitalism, which to my mind is a more formidable reason why wars continue than is the old saw that 'people are inherently violent'.
Capitalisms drive for profits is indesputable; the argument from human nature far more open to dispute, and dependent on the fallacy of sweeping generalization.
Agreed. If it was in 'human nature' to be violent and go to war on our fellows, all our soldiers coming back from war would not be carrying mental scars, emotional trauma, and committing suicide at a much higher rate than civilians.
Exactly. Violent human nature is a sweeping generalized lie we use to coax our young men into fighting violence with violence........and it damages them, sometimes irremediably. The higher rates of suicide among returning vets is one indication among many.........that humans aren't inherently warlike.
It's an extreme reaction that has to be socially encouraged. Did you catch the bit about Finland closing its borders to Russian asylum seekers??? One more indication of how eager Russian boys(even!!) are to going to war. It's the leaders who think we need it....and those who don't have to go themselves..........who cheer it on.
My partner and I march every week with the protests against the genocide in Gaza....and we are meeting people from all over the world who've come to Canada....and who are now standing with Palestinians. Unfortunately, there seem to be less of us settler colonialists braving the sub zero temperatures....
So while I agree that abusive childhoods make us prone to violence, I also agree with folks who point to religious ideas that separate us into chosen and leftover.........so called spiritual beliefs based on salvation for the few are also likely abusive....since they exclude the non believers. Who is it decided that Palestinian lives were less valuable than Jewish ones, and why has our media complied for so many years??
When we come home, tuckered out and arthritic, we talk about what more we can do. We've decided one thing is to live as if the world that could be, is here now.........with us. So we consider behaviors we need to banish....actions we need to take.........and ways of celebrating the miracle that is life..........while we're still alive.
Like Moses.........we won't live long enough to experience the new world..........but we could use this last dozen years to be the elders who 's vision helped that world come into being.
We've also been systematically Abusing the natural world in our capitalist, rip off everything system. So transitioning off fossil fuels is a big part of living as non abusive elders for us........moving forward.
It's ironic, but also an eye opener, that Cop 28 is happening simultaneously to the renewed fossil fuel burning aerial bombardment of Gaza. Some dots should be connected there, but will the politicians of abusive systems have the courage to do so?
You’re right of course. But my impression is that there are far too many sociopaths to kill, and, as always, whose definition, whose diagnosis shall prevail?
I think a more sure and more permanent solution would be to work toward a society which does not produce enough sociopaths to make trouble, and then teach them something useful. Knitting is good. Or teach them to write comments in the New York Times, although most of those positions are already filled.
If we raised a generation where all children were nurtured, and education was something other than stuffing old ideas into young heads...........if we gave religion a rest and tried universal kindness and inclusion.....there would be jobs a plenty and good people to fill them.
It seems to me that what we often miss is the fact that WAR is the end game of a society that promotes competition, judgement, status, and most universally of all, a contempt fot the body of the child and the body of the world he/she is to inhabit.
There likely is no road to Peace, but Peace may be the road.
Agreed. We need to eliminate from our schools the teaching of hatred toward other religions or people who look different.
And increase the games and books and discussions that help us to see what's to like in people. I have very little hate in me.....and I like and love and am curious about people.
Currently, I'm developing the thesis, that if men of worth got to spend more time with children....in a genuine care taker role...they'd like and trust people more too. We all start out beautiful, engaging, curious, honest and capable of love.
That so many of us fall out of this original blessing is the real curse of our time.......and War, and the hatred and fear it needs to manufacture to continue.......is a very large part of our fall from original grace.
I never said that guns were a long-term solution. They are not. They are, however, a very stark illustration to the point that I am trying to make.
A Biden, a Trump, a Thatcher, a Netanyahu cares nothing about moral arguments, except as a way to persuade the gullible masses. But if you get one of them alone in a room and tell them that something is The Right Thing To Do, they would take it as a sign that you are but a contemptible weakling.
Offer them a choice of reward for compliance and punishment for failure to do so and the means to carry it out, and they will look at you very differently.
Writing a promo piece for the NRA? Yours is the kind of argument they'd make: "Arm yourself with primitive projectile weapons because your brother may be a sociopath." I personally hate guns and the associated violence, but who knows, you may have a point.
@Johann Goergen
I dislike shooting others over political differences on basic principles. I would very much rather talk things out and find workable compromises, given any option. But that's NOT always a viable alternative.
Gandhi's non violent mass resistance worked vs. the late stage British Empire. Outcome was non lethal, mostly. At least up until the Empire covertly encouraged religious strife and fomented the Pakistan/India split.
Protesters against the USA fomented coup in Odessa ca. 2014 got shot, run over by APCs and burned to death by Western intelligence/military organized & trained arsonists, all while "Western" media carefully avoided amplifying reports of those activities.
Yes, he might have a point.
What use does a cat have for guns? For that matter, it would be great if force weren't a way to get things done, but I must live in the real world or I will be dogfood sooner than I'd like.
The point he has is not an argument to justify war. Equating the nutbar next door with the Warmongers around the world is a fallacy. We could....and often do....deal with our violent individuals in peaceful ways. We could, and often do, manage our societies so that there is more equality, community and cooperative support for all....so that no one falls through the cracks....and literally 'cracks up'.
Violence is a symptom quite often..........of things that need redress. But seeing all acts of violence as proof that War is inevitable is generally just a Warmonger's justification for War.
Agree. The gun discussion is off-topic in that war is a kind of mass-psychosis with no bearing on the issue of individual gun ownership. In fact, most people in wars are NOT killed by firearms, but bombs, artillery, disease, hunger, etc.
Most people killed in wars aren't even combatants........but civilians, women, children, the grandparents. We see it being played out in vivid colours just recently.........in Gaza.
If anything, war speaks to a hatred of the human, the gentle, the vulnerable, the insignificant little people trying to go about their lives as best they can. Shame on anyone who shills for it.
It seems to me you're illustrating the problem, not the solution. Violence begets violence, and so does the idea that the world is full of sociopaths.
Not saying sociopaths....and psychopaths don't exist.......but there'd be far fewer of them if the first resort for every problem we face, wasn't some form of violence.
They are here, whether we like it or not.
The reason that the hobbies had specifically to destroy The One Ring is because if they didn't use it, others surely would.
Referencing the Lord of the Rings in your insistence that there are so many sociopaths out there actually strengthens my argument.
We go cheering into war after war after war, in part because the Empire you reside in has spent a whole lot of money convincing us that war games are fun games.
Perhaps......for the sociopaths at the top........for the west of us War is the Ultimate Hell..and, as Chris argues, the greatest evil. Surely no Christian person can shill for a game that kills human beings??? The real 'hunger games' happen in war......and always, the warmongers hide that 'inconvenient truth' from the populace.
But we can watch it unfold in Gaza......and listen to the warhawks telling us its necessary to root out Hamas........we can watch who buys that load of caca and perhaps even follow their money trail......
There are ways to deal with psychopaths and sociopaths...........a peaceful people will learn how....and it won't be by 'blowing them away'.
People aren't peaceful, and they haven't learned how to deal with psychopaths and sociopaths.
That is the common opinion.....much pushed by conventional thinkers and ideologues. I don't think there's as much evidence for it as you assume...in general, the majority of the earth's people want peace....nor are the majority violent.
Your belief system is defending the status quo.........and essentially boils down to this: It would be nice if there was no war but that's impossible because people are violent.
There's a few logical fallacies inherent in that argument...Sweeping generalization being one of them. The fallacy of false equivalence lurks in the assumption that individual acts of violence = the violence of War.
In interesting aside: Israel is using that fallacy of equivalence to justify the destruction of Gaza, right now. Faulty logic is perhaps necessary, when one wishes to argue that what Chris Hedges calls the Greatest Evil....is actually made necessary by the presence in our midst of violent individuals.
It's an excuse, not a reason.
I never said that most people are sociopaths. But they are the ones who will do whatever it takes to get power.
And violence is, historically speaking, part of the human condition. Whether or not that is an Israeli argument is beside the point.
In the metaphor, the ruler of the nation and his army are the robbers. The ruler must finance the development of weapons, raising and army, supplying the army as well as paying them which will require him to borrow the money from a bank or tax his subjects. If they borrow the money, the banker holds the .357 magnum as he can force ruination (even slavery in older times) on the debtor and take his property. This is a big incentive to use the army to his economic advantage and take his pound of flesh from those less developed. And war is getting to be a bit risky, especially with nukes around. I view my security differently. I can't be more secure by making someone else less secure and poor.
I offer no solutions, I note only that power is to sociopaths what catnip is to cats. Except power also is what Gets Things Done.
Jeffrey Sachs Testimony at the UN Security Council Meeting - November 20, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm4qLWc_Co0
Fighting For Peace, Making More Wars
Evidence is in the history of WWI, which was supposed to be "the war to end all wars." What led to that war is murky (wasn't just assassination,) but a major cause was Europeans squabbling over empires. We still live with the effects of that war: 1.) Enabling formation of the Soviet Union. 2.) The harsh treatment of Germany led to the rise of Hitler. 3.) Establishing the boundaries of countries to serve Euro empire and not local peoples, like in Africa and especially in the Middle East. 4.) The USA, previously little interested in overseas affairs, got a taste of what it was to be a global military power...and power is addicting.
As the anti-Vietnam war slogan had it, "Fighting for peace is like f*cking for virginity." Or Edwin Starr's famous soul song "War. Unh. What is it good for? Absolutely nothin'" War doesn't end war; it makes more of them. Oppressed peoples strike as guerilla warfare. The biggest powers, with all the weapons and a sense of superiority, aren't "winners" as history makes clear. But no way can the macho power addicts ever face that reality. To keep the charade going, they invent enemies, foreign and domestic. Constantly reinforced by propaganda, along with either/or thinking. If you're not 100% with us, then you must be against us. Unpatriotic to doubt the Truth and Goodness and Righteousness of our side, "our" meaning whoever holds political power, "side" assumed to be the entire nation.
But truth is that Truth is the first victim of war. Such that millions of dead or maimed humans and ruined environments are rendered invisible. What's another dead peasant? Especially those by definition evil; the enemy's children would only grow up to be threats. The maimed among our own troops are abstracted into "heroes" and the horror of their real lives not talked about. Never mind the suicides; that doesn't fit the propaganda.
Having massive stocks of WMD is MAD, crazy. One group of coldly calculating sociopaths justifying the armaments as necessary to protect against another set of evil psychopaths. I'm not saying unilateral disarmament is the way to go, but the chemical and nuclear weapons reduction negotiations were working. As for moral (and psychological) arguments, they are needed! Implicitly, we already have them--like asserting only harsh punishment will work; reasons for behavior "we" don't like never considered. Instead, how about making explicit the ways the current political and econ systems are structured to reward the worst among us? Calling them out for the power seeking and $ worshiping monsters they are. Who deserve scorn and derision, not respect.
War is excess resources applied in a gamble by some in a society to try and grab more via violence. If we didn't have an excess of wealth, resources, and energy to build bombs, missiles, and aircraft carriers, our warmaking capabilities would be reduced. Feeding and clothing the million plus personal in our military and intelligence services (not to mention feeding and clothing the people who manufacture our weapons) is an enormous commitment of surplus to absolutely no benefit. As Eisenhower said, it is a theft from other commitments that could use those resources. As Marx said, it is like dropping capital to the bottom of the sea. I would add, it is like dropping resources to the bottom of the sea, but attaching thousands and millions of human lives to it. Not just wasted resources, but wasted human lives. The powerful ending of "Johnny Got His Gun" is in my opinion the best solution. If anybody gives you a gun and says 'go kill those people over there who have never harmed you' we should immediately turn the guns on those in society who make the demands for war. Read the last few pages of Johnny Got His Gun :) Peace!
War is downstream from greed.
Great book. Have had it for years.
I presume you mean "War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning" which came out in 2002. "The Greatest Evil Is War" was published last year, 2022.
yes
Hedges has more years (20) of front-line combat experience than most, if not all, members of the sitting Joint Chiefs, including 7 years in Gaza. His reporting from those pits of hell on Earth merits not only the Pulitzer he earned for foreign correspondence, but a Medal of Freedom from a POTUS, if not a Nobel Peace prize. Warmongering presidents and private citizens have received the last two of those three. The prophetic authenticity of Hedges' ongoing journalism, activism, speaking, and writing honor truth, justice, and peace far more honestly than most, if not all, of those routine ceremonial recipients do.
Yes, Chris, certainly, as you write, "The Greatest Evil is War" -- however the disguise, camouflage, propaganda, and insane infantilism of continually 'ginning-up wars' is the magical faux-pregnancy of all Wars.
IMHO, the birthing of all Wars, from inception to death, is dependent on hiding behind the most deadly concept of EMPIRE --- and today it appears that this last secret pregnancy of "The Quiet American" global AIPAC [American and Israeli pact of a final War] against China.
According to news reports, 'earlier in the week, Pope Francis denounced the unleashing of Israeli violence in Gaza, saying that “we have gone beyond wars. This is not war. This is terrorism.”'
This ceasefire must be extended for more than a day or two. It must be made permanent. Not back to the status quo under oppressive conditions, but as a place where all live with peace and equality. It is time for Pope Francis to do more than talk. He must go to Gaza and make a stand for peace and freedom.
Please sign the petition and share widely.
https://chng.it/CRQ7qw4Gzn
This is one small thing we can do. If we can do more, let us do more.
Unless we eliminate this very real evil, there is no solution to climate change...or any of the threats that beset humanity. What gobsmacks me, is how many people, reasonable and kindly in their own little circles, still fall into cheerleading for it.
I pre-ordered and can't wait to read it.
I think the primary cause of modern wars is debt. We are fine example. We have tons of debt and none of our rulers want to be taxed so as to pay off the debt. Now if inflation goes up because of higher commodity costs, interest rates go up, bond values go down, home and stock market values go down, and paying off the debt becomes even more expensive because interest rates are up. Then the dollar collapses, and inflation really goes up. So maybe containing Russia, China, India, Arab, South American and African nations, higher commodity prices, and the use of other currencies could be an "existential" threat a strong dollar and to our way of life. I think our self inflicted debt is our primary enemy keeping fighting for economic advantage in an era where the war sellers keep losing wars and we can't recruit enough soldiers to keep our outposts and ships manned.
Chris Hedges is a "voice of reason and morality crying out in the wilderness". Although the subject matter is very upsetting, his calm presence and the moral authority from which he speaks is a balm for the spirit in this very chaotic of times.
Accountability? It will eventually bite u in the butt. No one is exempt; no one gets off "scott free". ("Karma's a bitch".) We humans have an innate sense of morality enshrined in their "hearts". One can not escape it's condemnation. One way or another "we pay" for our crimes.
that is, "our hearts"...,etc.
Listening to Hedges is like getting an education