""Almost anything can be justified when the cry is, “We’re at war!”—even when the reasons for going to war are false""...

What an excellent article, and I guess I'll just paste, below, the same comments I left in an earlier SubStack (because I believe it fits in well), which is...

I’ve always had this sinking/sickening feeling that the United States power structure either… purposely manufactures these horrible wars/aggressions as a form of mass-distraction (and/or at this point, out of economic necessity) because it has absolutely ZERO answers to (what I suspect is the reality that) most of its citizens have been gradually (and probably now, much more rapidly) getting poorer and poorer, while only a tiny fraction are getting far wealthier… because "the system” knows that the only REAL way to resolve the huge wealth/income disparity is for the wealth to be shared vastly more equitably, and… capitalism (or at least the version we have… though I don’t know if there is a better version, though I suspect not) will simply not allow for that kind of sharing to happen. People can claim whatever they want but a system that allows like 8, that's eight, individuals to control as much wealth as its bottom 50% of its population simply cannot work, cannot last, will (eventually) fall apart... it doesn't take a panel of genius scientists to understand that! Therefore… awful human carnage must constantly be created to keep the country only thinking about war (and, of course, the human carnage also serves another purpose, which is to make the ultra-wealthy far wealthier), while everyone works longer and harder while getting (relatively/comparatively) poorer and poorer. And it’s worked “well” for the ultra-wealthy who own us (own us because... they own the power structure, and also own the media that instructs us what/how to think)… since I used the word “either”, here’s the “or” part (and of course, there could be plenty of other "or" parts, as well)… or it is just a natural result of a capitalistic system that has allowed such unfathomable concentration of wealth.

In a "for-profit-ONLY system" (on steroids) to the exclusion/detriment of its own citizens, a (relatively) few people figured out how to make killing other members of our species extremely profitable (...for those same few).

The important part, I feel, is that they figured out how to QUICKLY make it profitable. Capitalism seems to want only quick results for profit, and thus discards long-term vision... which is also why nothing is ever going to be done about our ensuing climate catastrophe until it's far too late (and, as just one of many examples, why we'll be choking ever-more heavily, here in the northeast U.S, New England area, and certain to be elsewhere of course, on thick hazy Canadian wildfire smoke). So "quickly" is the operative word. Hey... perhaps if "peace" could be made QUCKLY profitable then there might be a rapid transition to that instead.

That’s just one of my sinking “feelings” and, of course, I have a lot more of them too... lol. But just figured I’d throw it out there for anyone happening upon this comment to pick it apart, add to it, or whatever.

Oh yeah, also... I have often wondered if there is a way to figure out (and/or whether some one/organization has already done so) just how much the U.S. economy REALLY (as opposed to some complete baloney undercount/estimation) relies upon, basically runs on, the killing of other members of our species (including both actual war itself, and preparations for it AND, probably MOST importantly... industries/corporations tangentially, but firmly, related to the killing/war industry. I'll have to look into that. I guess what I'm getting at is that, since NAFTA decimated this country's manufacturing base, good-paying jobs that could support average families, ended up moving a lot of this country's non-war manufacturing outside its borders, it would not surprise me, AT ALL, to find that over 50% (and perhaps significantly more??... 75% maybe??) of our jobs/employment/economy is in some manner dependent upon the continuation of our killing (or the threat of, preparation for, the killing) of other members of our species worldwide. Don't know, but I'd sure like to. Think I'll start trying to figure that out, or hopefully find real outlets that already have.