Paul Rosenberg – Here’s a simple question. Give me the first answer that pops into your mind: What’s the purpose of the state?
Most people would probably answer, to keep us safe. I can argue that this isn’t the state’s true purpose (and I will, below), but it’s clearly its primary selling point.
And so, every war – and there are generally at least 20 of them under way at any point in time – is a screaming condemnation of the state. War is people dying; it is property being destroyed; it is market processes being torn apart. It’s the precise opposite of keeping people safe.
Yes, war is sold as “fighting bad guys elsewhere to keep us safe here,” but it’s boys and girls from here who must do the killing and dying… and there’s a whole lot of damage contained in just that.
Every war is a massive failure of the “keep people safe” system. For modern Americans, it means “your children will have their feet blown off” more than it does “your children will die,” but is that okay? Is that, somehow, “not a failure”?
A Small War Is Worth 30,000 Crimes
War is “unsafeness” on a huge, gigantic scale. Just a small war – perhaps like the invasion of Panama by the US in 1989 – is far worse than garden-variety crime. And Panama, we should note, is a very long way from an enemy of the US… and certainly no threat to Americans.
That little Panamanian war lasted only about a month, including the occupation, and resulted in “only” about a thousand deaths[1] and an unknown (but almost certainly much larger) number of wounded. And as you can see from the photo below, a large amount of property damage.
In the last couple of years, the US has seen a big shift in policies and laws that pertain to illegal substances. With the legalization of medical marijuana in several states, and the permissible use of the drug for recreation being allowed in Colorado and Washington, there has been pressure on the government to balance out some the discrepancies found in the sentencing laws of other drugs.
Jason Liosatos – Every time a presidency, prime ministership or government in the West changes hands, it seems as though all of the previous acts of murder and corruption are wiped clean.
John W. Whitehead – Saddled with a corporate media that marches in lockstep with the government, elected officials who dance to the tune of their corporate benefactors, and a court system that serves to maintain order rather than mete out justice, Americans often feel as if they have no voice, no authority and no recourse when it comes to holding government officials accountable and combating rampant corruption and injustice.
Carolanne Wright – If you believe pharmaceutical corporations hold the health of the general public in high regard, it’s time to reconsider. The industry is filled with examples of wrongful death, extortion, fraud, corruption, obstruction of justice, embezzlement, fake journals, harassment and hit lists that would make even the most hardened Mafia godfather blush. Big Pharma has been fined billions by the U.S. Department of Justice, but these enormous fines don’t curb the corruption, it’s just looked upon as “the cost of doing business,” similar to paying the utilities.