by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
"Befreit von der Angst vor Krieg und Verderben, befreit von den unproduktiven Ausgaben für militärische Zwecke, könnten die friedliebenden Menschen froh in die Zukunft schauen und ein Leben in ungeahntem Glück gestalten." ~ Wilhelm Pieck
Those words of the first and only President of the German Democratic Republic are as valid today as when he first uttered them many decades ago.
In fact one might want to add an “only” in front of the first “freed” or even both, as only then, when the fear and the expenses for the military are removed and the treat of war distant history can humans develop into what they are meant to be and create the society that is meant to be, a society where all are equal, where no one hungers and thirsts and where Mother Nature is valued and cared for too.
When we consider that a single fighter aircraft costs somewhere in the region of half a billion Dollars and each and every single “smart” bomb about quarter of a million plus, then we can, I am sure, soon add up how much for all that money could be done to benefit the people and the Planet.
However, when the economy is in the doldrums then all the governments seem to be able to think about is to put more money in the hands of the military industrial complex and look where to have another lovely war and conflict and then we add to that the “war on terror”, which is never designed to be won and thus becomes a perpetual state of war.
The “war on terror” is indeed intended to be just that, a war that will never end in order to reduce the little freedoms that the people are allowed to have by the powers-that-be, but which shouldn't be, ever more and basically create a live version of “1984”. Orwell's book was intended as a warning and not as a manual, but that is something that they do not seem to realize.
In Britain, while the austerity measures are allowed to tough almost every party of the public services, defense (the military budget), and that of “overseas aid”, are “ring-fenced”, that is to say, they will be given more and more money while everything else has its funding cut.
Peace is not given a chance and the war rhetoric is being stoked again, and Russia, once the Soviet Union, is the great enemy (which it is not) and that because Putin is not playing along with the wishes of NATO and surrender his country to the control of NATO et al.
The aim is regime change, regime change in Russia, and the “new” President has already been crowned at the end of 2014 in Berlin and his name is Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian oligarch who, after having been released from prison and expelled from the country. He was being feted by the German Chancellor Merkel with the comments “the new President of Russian” who, when challenged by members of the media that the Russian people may have other ideas, retorted that the will of the Russian people would be irrelevant as regards this matter.
What is required, in order to bring forth the vision that Wilhelm Pieck saw, is a change of the system, a total and complete change, and not just a change of government via the process of “democratic” elections. As Mark Twain said, and I paraphrase, “if voting would change anything they would make it illegal”, and that, alas, is a fact.
© 2015
It's no news that a large portion of our federal tax dollars goes towards defense spending. But your jaw might drop at the cost of the newest jet manufactured by the U.S. military, and just how much good could have been achieved domestically with the same price tag.
