U.S. MEDIA FIXATION ON WAR
Yes, I realize that the U.S. must have a military, and protect itself. However we have extended and expanded this to take on all the trappings of imperialism. From our imperialistic treatment of American Indians to recent illegal invasions of a foreign nation, America should be ashamed. And American capitalism has been very reliant on war to keep our corporations busy and making money, sell advertising and, like fires and natural catastrophes, it gets the biggest audience. Thus it sells advertising. And it concocts an American perspective that war is necessary, and war makes for profitable capitalism. OK-OK, we know the myriad stories of war and the drumbeat of military solutions to the world's problems. How about a little time given to peace as a subject? These are hardly peaceniks quoted...
"My first wish is to see this plague to mankind banished from off the Earth, and the sons and daughters of this world employed in more pleasing and innocent amusements than in preparing implements and exercising them for the destruction of mankind." -George Washington
"Old men declare wars because they have failed to solve complex political and economic problems. They then send young men to go fight them. Of course, the old men have to make up patriotic and emotional rationales to justify their stupidity." -Arthur Hoppe (1925-2000, American writer)
"Terrorsim' is what we call the violence of the weak, and we condemn it; 'war' is what we call the violence of the strong, and we glorify it." -Sydney J. Harris (Chicago syndicated journalist)
"The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one." -Albert Einstein
"War seldom enters but where wealth allures." -John Dryden
"Make wars unprofitable and you make them impossible." -A. Philip Randolph
"It's our taxes that are paying for the wars in Afghanistan and Colombia. Bombs are being dropped that kill innocent people. And our money is paying for those bombs. We have to take responsibility. We have to say: This is our money. The check that I sent to the IRS is being used to make bombs. And today, with the tightening U.S. budget, we're being asked for more money than ever before to make more bombs. We can look at it from a very personal viewpoint. When they talk about war, we're the ones who end up paying for it." -Dolores Huerta (1930- )
"Blind faith in your leaders or in anything will get you killed." -Bruce Springsteen
"So we must remain steadfast in our knowledge that . . . we are right, and we must remain hopeful that for our children and our children's children, that we are not a warring nation, but we will embrace and practice true compassion and honor the ideals of peace and freedom, and we will not give up. Peace." -Jessica Lange (1942- ), American actress
"God loves us, understands our struggles, and calls us to love ourselves for who we are -- imperfect but precious instruments of peace." -Catherine Whitmire (American chaplain, lecturer, writer)
"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." -Mother Teresa
"There never was a good war or a bad peace." -Benjamin Franklin
"You can't say civilizations don't advance . . . for in every war they kill you in a new way." -Will Rogers
"You furnish the pictures and I will furnish the war." -William Randolph Hearst (newspaper magnate)
"War, like any other racket, pays high dividends to the very few . . . The cost of operations is always transferred to the people who do not profit." General Smedley Butler (twice given the Medal of Honor)
Whether ror not I agree with all of the above is beside the point. It is time to give some consideration to thoughts of peace The people quoted above know war better than most of us. To put it bluntly...
"War hath no fury like a non-combatant." -C. E. Montague .....continuing on with great quotes...
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in a final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed -- those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending its money alone -- it is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children." -Dwight D. Eisenhower, American Republican President and military general
"All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." -Matthew 26:52 - King James Bible
"You have heard that they were told, 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.' But what I tell you is this: Do not resist those who wrong you. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn and offer him the other also." -Matthew 5:38-39 - revised English version of the Bible
"I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people refuse to go to war." -Albert Einstein
"I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it." -Dwight D. Eisenhower, Republican President, World War II military leader
