It’s in times of war that freedom of speech is most endangered, and is most repressed. And we’ve seen this: the sedition act was passed in the period of near-war with France in 1798. People were sent to jail for criticizing the government during The Civil War, or were sent to jail for criticizing the entrance into World War One. And, so on, down to the present day.
Years ago, I read Massey’s Dreadnought and the Coming of The Great War [amzn] and one tidbit stuck in my mind: naval blockades are an act of war. Of course, it’s more complicated than that, usually cutting down to the core of the conflict – war supplies or food.
The Iraqi army got US-made M-1 Abrams tanks (older generation) from the Americans. [stderr] It’s the world’s premier main battle tank; the gold standard of tankness.
Take for instance the arguments of E. O. Wilson, who is a very distinguished biologist at Harvard University who wrote a book entitled On Human Nature. His expertise is in insects, but he jumps from insects to human beings and he talks about human beings as being “innately aggressive.” I go over his book very carefully and show that even though he says that human beings are innately aggressive at one point in his book, and in another point in his book he indicates that human beings have to be taught to be brutal and to kill. That human beings that behave peacefully in one situation may behave aggressively in another situation. In other words whether we, as human beings, are violent and murderous really depends on the situation we’re in. And, if that is so, then it is not simply an inevitable fact of human nature. It means that aggression is one of our potentialities.
Now, when there is a mass shooting incident, a new strategy has begun to appear; it’s a form of “what about-ism” – delaying having to do anything by throwing up a barrage of problems with every possibility that anyone offers.
Warning: I get a bit ranty.
A surrealist is walking down the street, and sees a banana peel in his path; he says, “Mon Dieu! I am going to fall down again!” and keeps walking.
Make the small big and the few many.
Return animosity with virtue.
– Lao Tze
If you knew where all the nuclear bunkers were, and all the targets were, you could plan ahead and be the first to leave your bones and bloody scratch-marks on the outside of the bunker door. Good plan!
The US truly is exceptional. It seems we are the one nation that feels free to bomb anyone, any time.
The US has been working on a series of “upgrades” to its existing nuclear arsenal; it’s a process that was started during the Obama administration, but the research must have been going on for years prior to that.