War: What It’s Good For
- **Written years ago, this piece, sadly, still has relevance — perhaps even more so, as war and rumors of war provide record profits to the military industrial complex.***
Randolph Bourne once wrote that “[w]ar is the health of the state.” Ronald Reagan noted on a number of occasions the important “technological spin-offs” that the Cold War provided our nation’s economy. And let’s not forget Ike’s warnings about the “military-industrial complex.” But just when we thought the welfare/warfare state had finally coughed-up its much-anticipated and ballyhooed “peace dividend,” a new raison d’etre had arrived: “the war on terror.” Or, as our new economic paradigm is more popularly known, “Homeland Security.” Nothing like fear and the need for security to generate “new business opportunities,” courtesy of that multi-millionaire terrorist (investor?), Osama bin Laden. Heck. If Osama didn’t exist, we’d have ton invent him, given the dire straits of the current U.S. economy. Al Gore, let’s not forget, thought that the “green terror” route was the way to go, warning that we Americans were to use
every means to halt the destruction of the environment…. Minor shifts in policy, moderate improvements in law and regulations, rhetoric offered in lieu of genuine change — these are all forms of appeasements designed to satisfy the public’s desire to believe that sacrifice, struggle, and a wrenching transformation of society will not be necessary. (Earth in the Balance, p.274)
Change a few words and Al sounds like “W” making his case for the PATRIOT Act. Unfortunately for Mr. Gore, the “green paradigm shift” just didn’t have the raw appeal that a looming terrorist attack did. A “war on terror” will trump a “war on materialism” every time.
So let’s all be content with our new face of new economic growth, Osama bin Laden, and get down to busying ourselves with the business that we do best. It’s time to give war a chance…again.
