The question is, why do the powers that be, the media and every red-neck ‘patriot’ in the world glorify war as some kind of major achievement and why are those who oppose war seen as unpatriotic, cowardly, losers?
In 2018 the world spent $1.8 trillion on military expenditure [1], the top five countries in 2020 being the United States, China, Saudi Arabia, India and the United Kingdom [2]. The highest estimate for ending world hunger is around $265 billion per year, a mere fraction of what it spends on death and destruction [3].
Where are the patriots for ending poverty, for making sure children are fed and healthy and get even a half decent chance at life?
Life is such a glorious gift and yet that isn’t taught in schools, nor is it that life is the pinnacle of nature and the evolutionary process of the universe.
Why not?
It seems the world is more concerned with destruction than life and we’ve achieved the ability to destroy all life on Earth in what’s insanely called Mutually Assured Destruction in a Nuclear War, regarding which Theresa May said she would press the button, thus ending any pretence of a nuclear deterrent [4]. Ironically, the thing that supposedly keeps us safe from nuclear war is MAD, Theresa May was responding from a different kind of mad, declaring she was prepared to trigger MAD. But both are mad.
Evolution has refined our bodies to be fit for life, unfortunately the same can hardly be said for our minds. There appear to be no great thinking civilisations any more. Humanity in general seems to be getting dumber every day, especially in its treatment of life. It’s a top down race to the bottom, spoon fed to the public via the main stream media and dominated by television, an intellectually redundant medium that leaves little or no room for critical thinking. It is, by and large, a telling medium which does not encourage enquiry (think BBC, Sky or Fox news).
As a thought experiment, imagine I was relating this in a video, it would sweep on and these sentences and paragraphs would pass by with little opportunity to process or think about them. As this is the written word, you are able to stop right wherever you need to to think about what’s being said and come back when you’re ready to or not bother at all.
A book feeds our imagination, television and film spoon feed us and absorb us in the visual and aural story. The value in a great film is in being captivated, drawn and absorbed into the experience. We need to understand and be clear about the difference. The one is no substitute for the other. Story telling is similar to reading, leaving the imagination to visualise what we’re hearing and that visualisation is unique to each listener.
Humanity should be doing everything it can to feed life, to protect, respect, enjoy and celebrate this unique gift we’ve each been given. Yet the powers that be spend vastly more on destroying life. And lets’ be very clear about this, it’s not ordinary people who are dealers in death, it’s governments and corporations. Ordinary people do not make war, they are just expected and coerced into fighting them and are always the ultimate losers along with all the innocent civilians that die. The reluctance of ordinary people to go to war can be measured in the amount of propaganda it takes to drum up an almost religious fervour for it. Given a free choice, who wants a blood bath in which ones own life is on the line? If you do, there’s something very wrong with you.
It really shouldn’t need saying, but life is for living, whatever anyone may think of a hereafter, the fact is that we’re here now, and it is this life that we should be making the most of. If there is a tree afterlife, I can’t imagine any tree wanting to be prematurely cut down or die to get there. If there is an afterlife, why sacrifice the one we already have, or make no effort to enjoy it, to get to it? It just doesn’t make any sense. Let’s just make the most of the one we’ve already got and do everything we can to preserve this precious time on this gorgeous planet we call home.
Hands up all the bonkers patriots for life, going against the flow, hungry for life and living. The world needs us so much, just as we need us, those clear thoughts and feelings for this beautiful life that we must battle to hold in a mad world.
Keith Lindsay-Cameron aka KOG. 29 September 2020.
[1] https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2019/world-military-expenditure-grows-18-trillion-2018
[2] https://www.globalfirepower.com/defense-spending-budget.asp
[3] https://www.globalgiving.org/learn/how-much-would-it-cost-to-end-world-hunger/
Conspiracy of Kindness 
Wonderful piece of writing from the heart (and the head), as ever, Keith. Kudos in spades to you, young man!
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Thank you. Much appreciated.
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