By Kathleen Wallace / CounterPunch

The headline reads “We Absolutely Need to Escalate in Iran” by the still inconceivably taken-seriously New York Times.

In all these years after a previous century that saw an estimated 231 million people die in wars, we still have to tolerate the drums of war being beaten by those who will not be touched by such wars? It’s grotesque and certainly a mind fuck that the ones who say such things are deemed the grown-ups in the room and those that oppose knee-jerk militarism that benefits nobody but corrupt leaders and MIC stocks are considered to be the impossible idealists.

Every century of late has found more incredibly lethal ways to murder each other, almost all of it has been due to voracious territorial annexation and/or a desire to plunder the resources of others for financial gain. A failure to stop those with plans to annex neighbors or murder others until the situation becomes outrageous is usually a key marker in all of this. When leaders are allowed to guide their nations into war for reasons very different from what they tell their soldiers, it’s almost always about the financial gain for their own class inherent in taking on such wars.

In a time when very targeted assassination are possible, yet you see a nation wantonly bombing massive numbers of civilians to a point that Oxfam says more women and children have been killed in Gaza than in any conflict in two decades—well, I think you know it’s about something that isn’t self-defense. It’s to wipe out an entire people and the seeds of their civilization. In a very anecdotal, but I think telling moment, an Israeli woman was on social media this week stating that the Lebanese are in a made up country. I think we know the blueprints for this one. First you deny a people are “real” because then you can slaughter them with impunity. It’s insanity, of course, but a lot of the crazy talking points find their way to fertile ground and to the, if not active participants, at least active enablers.

The fact that so many of these conflicts could have been averted over the years and in fact were completely manipulated crises to benefit the war pigs that be are obvious. Most know of U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie famously saying we have “no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait” in regard to the proposed Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. And like the dumb war pig he was, Saddam Hussein took the bait. Ta-da! War.

Or the frank provocation and NATO interference in Ukraine. Just the same as the Soviets dipping their toes in Cuba during the Missile Crisis years and we know how freaked out the US was over that. Same thing, open provocation from the US/NATO side and being the war pig he is, Putin took the bait. Ta-da. War.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m placing the massive blame on the provocateurs who sit in wood paneled rooms and come up with these initial plans, but also placing blame on those who respond in such a predictable fashion, always with war as the answer. The sparks lead to infernos, the kindling being those in the lower ½ of per capita individual wealth of all the nations involved.

Now we see a nation that is by all objective standards committing war crimes every single day –on video and often laughing and making Telegraph shorts about it, parading about in dead women’s lingerie, that sort of thing. The UN with its US veto power and jello-like constitution allows for this, even with every indication being that it will escalate and expand (and truly has started to spread). When Israel begins literally poking the bear by bombing Russian interests in Syria we have the makings of a truly worldwide abattoir. Simply shutting off the tap, that is the weapons being lavishly given to Israel, showered down like gifts from a 75 year old pervert to his 18 year old mistress, would stop this. And we aren’t asking for the world in wanting this, simply maybe a move that even freaking Reagan might have done! Ethics aside, I think we have some other things we probably need to be spending money on in this country. I guess it’s a two-fer for child killing, send money for genocide and don’t use it here for health care or disaster relief. This is called a money multiplier, my friends.

It’s clear that this is the way of a failed world, to continue to solve all issues by slaughter, by stealing on a grand scale, to continue to other those not in your space and then to become shocked when you of course become the other and are treated with the same lack of humanity. The tangled mental gymnastics needed to justify the slaughter of children should stop one in their tracks. Right there is as far as you need to go to realize the path you are on is not the way of humanity, and one way or another some concept of karma will come calling on you.

I saw (again forgive me, it’s anecdotal and on social media, but rings so true)–it was comments on how the vast majority of the people in Appalachia are trying to help one another, in many cases in spite of FEMA “assistance” or ICE blasting in to do their thing before true help is given. I’d recommend checking out @magpiekilljoy on Twitter for a really wonderful synopsis of the mutual aid being provided in that region, a small snippet: “I have seem some FEMA equipment arriving and I’m sure some things are happening, but most of the work, it seems, is being done by the same groups that always do it: an interwoven web of formal and informal organizations, and well, just individuals.”

Those who generally care about us are those that we interact with daily. It’s terrifying because the larger powers that be are able to reach many to make them hate their neighbors, to go to war and such, but it’s difficult and requires great propaganda because the natural inclination for most, is to simply help each other. In natural disasters we often see this, those who wouldn’t interact normally feel compelled to assist. Studies have shown that babies with almost no bodily control will actively try to lean in when they realize that motion can help someone struggling in front of them with a task. Despite what those afflicted with sociopathy at the top want us to believe, we are hardwired to help each other. We’ve heard how the military has to work so hard to train killers, to erase that hesitation to kill, and how so many shots taken in war are purposely missed ones. When we see such wanton glee at killing we can bet that an immeasurable number of hours have been spent in the indoctrination of hatred, to erase the inclination for community and mutual aid. It’s like training dogs to walk upright, won’t it feel good when that propaganda is gone? I hope someday humans get to live in such a world. What could be accomplished with a shared sense of good and community is almost unthinkable–we simply are too deep in the mud to even know. Hey, it’s corny to say but I don’t care–maybe someday humanity will be the lotus to spring out of that mud and our true purpose and capabilities will become reality.

But we all know how kids often turn out after living in violent and hate-filled homes and that’s basically what all of us have been toiling under our whole lives. We all know we’ve been propagandized, it’s a constant task that we need to be aware of this fact and we need to recognize things like “passive voice” so popular in newspapers like the New York Times. All these people dying, not being killed! Children being called adult terms to take away our natural gut reaction to their deaths…… I think many have been able to break out of the arrogant decrees that are brought down by religious institutions but still are enamored with the liberal intelligentsia media. If they say it, it must be true and there is no slant to the way it’s delivered. Well, it will take some time and critical thinking for those “esteemed” edifices to be brought down. But for now, New York Times, you can go fuck yourself and your call to war, there’s real work to be done and we don’t have time for your shit.