Perpetual War for Perpetual Fleece
Atlanta, GA
August 29, 2022
Rahm Emmanuel famously advised governments to “never let a serious crisis go to waste.”
He needn’t have worried. They rarely do, even if they create the “crisis” to take the advantage. Which they usually do.
It’s one of the few things the State does well. And it’s gotten better at it in recent years. External threats and internal foes are instinctive fears the government fosters. It pokes its stick into distant hives and domestic nests, then promises to protect the people from being stung.
Foreign war and local threats are traditional ways of rallying citizens to the government cause. But they historically had the distinct disadvantage of clear objectives and specific antagonists.
Traditionally, wars ended when the enemy was defeated and aims were attained. For government, that’s not good. When the ticker tape falls, fear subsides, and returning soldiers kiss random girls, State power recedes and the gravy train stops.
But what if the enemy’s everywhere, is often invisible, and never goes away? What if wars can be launched against abstractions that are ever elusive, always dangerous, and impossible to defeat? What if the gravy train rides on glistening rails that are perpetually cleared and never end?
What the State wants are wars that must ever be waged, but that can never be won. “Threats” should be reliable enough to seem real, and frightening even when fake. And “the people” must perceive that they can only be fought by the “experts” in charge, or “public servants” they think they’ve put in place.
Till recently, wars had beginnings and ends, which were known to all when the goal was reached. Helen had to be rescued from Troy, the infidel heaved from the Holy Land, and the Persians pushed back across the straits. In the United States before Truman (and excepting Lincoln), wars had declarations to send the troops, and treaties to bring them home.
There were specific objectives and particular adversaries. The stated goal was usually a diversionary lie, but at least it was a dutiful nod to a constitutional charade.
But since Nagasaki was nuked, the people in charge have found more nefarious ways to maintain the grift. Since then, the US government has been at constant war. None were declared, many never stopped, and none ended by treaty. US troops are all over the globe, and proliferate at home. How did this happen?
After the First World War, the American people were still sane enough to want no more part of senseless slaughter. They wished only to tend their gardens, and mind their own business.
This wouldn’t do.
By imposing embargoes and colluding with foreign powers, the Roosevelt Administration duplicitously steered reluctant Americans into the Second World War. When that catastrophe ended in incomprehensible carnage, the powers-that-be found fresh ways to fabricate fear. They managed to keep the wars going and the funds flowing, with ominous enemies and moving targets.
The Cold War was the first gold mine. The Soviet Union was an obvious evil. The most vile regime in history, it spawned imitators all over the world. And it excused what Bill Buckley justified as a “totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores.”
And that’s what we got. Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, and countless proxy wars around the planet consolidated and congealed unprecedented power along both banks of the Potomac.
Monstrous structures blemished both sides of the river. To them commuted the bureaucrats, lobbyists, and contractors of a new administrative state that transformed a sleepy southern town into the capital of an empire.
While the foreign circus got its guns, domestic bread demanded its butter. So fresh “crises” were conjured, new wars began…and bankruptcy beckoned. To keep funding its enriching wars, the government defaulted.
Foreign states were stiffed as finances were freed from the fetters of gold. As Treasury Secretary John Connelly told his international counterparts, “the dollar is our currency, but it’s your problem.”
Now it’s everybody’s problem. Fake money became its own crisis, and the font of all the others. It would enable some of the most wasteful, destructive wars in US history, many of which were fought on American soil.
Christ told us the poor would always be with us. To the acquisitive State, that makes their condition an ideal enemy, and the endless fight the perfect war.
That the “War on Poverty” destroys families and spread squalor is never a signal to sound the retreat, or call a truce. It instead becomes a reason to spend more money and draft more troops. It’s as if Custer’s remnant surveyed the carnage at Big Horn and decided to keep pressing.
Meanwhile, phony wars spread along multiple fronts. While the left flank attacked “poverty”, the right went after “drugs.” New bureaus, agencies, and cops wielded weapons to pursue plants and combat chemicals.
Since the mission began, dangerous drugs proliferated, inner-cities became war zones, and the prison-industrial complex needed additional wardens to guard its loot. The bureaucracy burgeoned, and its budget ballooned. But we mustn’t think they are being rewarded for failure. On their terms, this is compensation for success.
While domestic wars raged, the Soviet Union disintegrated. This was unacceptable. The US government didn’t so much want to “win” the Cold War. It wanted to prolong the game while retaining the lead. Then, suddenly, the Soviets forfeited.
As Georgi Arbatov told the Americans after his Soviet government fell, “our major secret weapon is to deprive you of an adversary.” But he underestimated his audience. Even without a foe, the US government is more than capable of becoming its own worst enemy.
After the Twin Towers fell, the State unleashed unfathomable waste to attack a tactic. With the population frightened away from reasonable perspective and rationale thought, the dogs of war were again let loose. But the “War on Terror” didn’t focus on the perpetrators of 9/11. Instead, it invaded countries the government had always wanted to get, and took the domestic fight to the real foe: us.
As the government lined pockets abroad, it rifled them at home…frisking grandma, feeling up girl scouts, and protecting the skies from toothpaste, hand lotion, and water bottles.
Subtle nudging to turn Americans against each other began to accelerate. Snitching was encouraged (“if you see something, say something”). That security theater did nothing to prevent “terror attacks” that never came was taken as proof that the kabuki was working. If an attack occurred despite the farce, it became evidence that more oppression was needed.
Budgets exploded, surveillance increased, and freedom took flight. In 2020, it was driven into exile. As with the “War on Terror”, in the “War on Covid” the civilians suffer while the arms dealers get rich.
Of all the phony fights and fraudulent crusades of the last fifty years, the war on a virus is the most destructive, disorienting, and dystopian. Around the world, cultural traditions were upended, social norms overturned, and basic liberties stripped in a malevolent effort to manipulate a molecule to manage the masses.
For the vast majority of people…unless they were fat, sick, or frail…covid was never a crisis. This was obvious by April of 2020. But for essentially everyone, the response to it was. For many it still is. And the devastation was deliberate.
Careers were destroyed, mental health ravaged, and families ruined. Disgusting face fabrics were normalized and universalized, despite ample evidence they did nothing to mitigate a respiratory virus. So why do it? As we asked toward the beginning of this fiasco, cui bono?
It was all of a piece to control the people, turn them against each other, and consolidate power. As with airport snitches, neighbors became suburban Stasi. They ratted on each other for not keeping their distance or wearing a mask. Fingers were pointed and voices raised because grown adults dared to leave their home or not stand on a sticker.
With faces covered and confinement enforced, people’s trust in government rose as suspicion of each other mounted. Eyes stayed down except to peer over their shoulders. Friendships fizzled because one dared go to a party while the other cowered in fear. Families fell apart when some declined drugs others insisted they take.
All around, traditional institutions that provided comfort and cohesion began to crumble when they were forced to close. But one organization thrived, as it always does when it creates a “crisis”.
This is the way the government operates. It’s no coincidence it closed the churches and drove families apart. Religion and the family are natural and historic bulwarks against the omnipotent State. The family stands before the government, and God sits above it. Neither is tolerable to a monopolistic entity that demands assent.
As the smoke clears to reveal unfathomable wreckage from the covid war, new guns begin to sound. “The Climate” is the current “crisis” the government created for the “experts” to exploit.
They’re passing laws to control the temperature. This is how stupid it’s become. The motive is so transparent and the cause so ridiculous that it’s hard to believe anyone would fall for it.
But one of the consequences of the covid calamity is the faith I’ve lost in my fellow man. When panic was stoked and lockdowns began, I was stunned how readily most people bit the bait on the establishment line. Most were indifferent to the hidden hook. They proved they would follow orders, turn on friends, and sacrifice everyone’s freedom so they could feel “safe”.
The government learned from covid how complacent and compliant many Americans will be. They used their latest “crisis” to create new tools to constrain the rubes. They’ve anesthetized people to digital surveillance, random lockdowns, restricted travel, and electronic currency, which can now be used to “control the climate”…and keep us in line.
So the “crises” continue, and the wars go on.
Our best hope is that there are natural limits to how many casualties they can inflict. At some point, it’s in the leeches interest to keep the host alive. As philosopher Alexander Skutch observed, State-imposed “debilitation and deprivation cannot be both habitual and enduring, because they tend to destroy the conditions which make them possible.”
Looks like we’ll have to learn again that he was right. And I don’t think we’re going to like it when we do.
JD
