War & Money = Fat Cat Politicians

Let me break it down for you, in case you haven't thought of this already.  

The bankers need ups and downs and wars to make money

Just as bankers increase their profit as a result of upward and downward economic fluctuations, so, too, do they benefit from war. It is not unusual for a given bank to finance those who would create armed conflict, and indeed, they sometimes bankroll both sides. 

The military needs war.

The military-industrial complex is in the business of selling arms to governments. Although arm sales may tick up nicely in peace time, they boom in war time.  It matters little whether it is an all-out war or a series of smaller ventures. The object is sales.  The politicians need both banks and war.

This is true in the sense that politicians need both bankers and an active military to thrive. Political campaigns depend upon funding. Banks and arms dealers have long been a major source of campaign funds for political candidates.  Thousands of suburban dwellers in Maryland and Virginia live very nice on war profits.

But there is further necessity for armed conflict with regard to politicians. First, it is a true that a country rarely changes leaders during times of war, and nothing is more important to the politician than gaining a further term of office.   A great example is Obama whispering to Putin that he'll have more flexibility in his 2nd term!

Second, nothing distracts the voting public like war. If a politician is receiving increased criticism from voters, a good war can be counted on to get the voters concentrating more on the war than on the politician’s poor record.

Third, governments typically remove the freedoms of a nation over time. While citizens may object to the loss of their freedoms in normal times, they are often more willing to relinquish them “temporarily” in times of war, “for the good of the country.” Not surprisingly, lost freedoms are seldom reinstated after a war.  While many people like to blindly push for gun control, it would be mush wiser for Americans to focus on “war control.” That is, stopping our government from consistently, aggressively and unconstitutionally unleashing violence on populations all over the world, particularly the Middle East.

I find it the height of hypocrisy when politicians constantly using our nation’s blood and treasure to bomb and murder civilians all over the world, get up on podiums to stress the importance of disarming peaceful civilians due to a few random school shootings (as tragic as they are). When the U.S. government becomes Switzerland, then we can talk gun control. The biggest criminals, murders and war-profiteers around are at the top of the U.S. government and the military-industrial complex, and they’re doing it with our tax dollars.  My taxes and yours.   Ugh.