Defense

I was just thinking about the defense budget. Rich and powerful people seek to influence our elected politicians to further their own interests. I inferred that to mean 'to help local businesses get a government contract' or some such. What I am finally realizing is that some of the richer and more powerful people seek to influence our elected government officials to wage war in some foreign land. It's a big step to look beyond our borders, many people are unwilling to look out there. Things are fine here, we've got food to eat, we've got something to complain about, and someone to complain to. What more could you want? Anyway, that's probably why you don't hear much about it. It's kind of a stretch to even think about it. But right now I am convinced that is the way things are. It's the only thing that makes any sense. In any case, that's the way things and the way things will be for the foreseeable future. No amount of rhetoric is going to change that. Besides, as soon as we have a new and 'improved' system, someone will be trying to game the system and we will soon have something really new and 'improved'.

I'm wondering if there might be reasons for the war in the Ukraine that I have not hitherto considered. For instance we know that the armaments business is very happy with the war. They're making money hand over fist building guns and bombs. And the defense guys are happy, they get to test out all their procedures for getting things done, which means the troops get some exercise, get familiar with their equipment and nobody is sitting around mopin'. It's like perfect for our military. They get to skirt the edges of a real danger zone, and if they are going to do that they need to be fully prepared in case the shit suddenly gets hot. Right now, things are relatively calm, Biden, as far as I know, hasn't called for air strikes on Moscow, and Washington D.C. hasn't been bombed. So, relatively calm.

So we might suspect that our domestic armaments industry and our military are very happy with it. But what if there might be a group of people who want to wage this war for another reason? Well, lemme see what I can come up with. Someone might have grown up in a little village somewhere in the disputed region of eastern Ukraine, and he had some kind of a dispute with a neighbor or a family member, and this grievance festered in him for the last umpteen years, but he is finally rich and powerful enough to smite that lying, degenerate, ungrateful twerp. So he tells the higher-ups in government and presto, the hand of god comes down on that village and smites that lying, degenerate, ungrateful twerp. 

You can make up your own variations to that. Check out the plots of some of the soap operas out there if you need any ideas. They've got some of the most twisted shit on this planet, and you know that truth is stranger than fiction, so, yeah, run with that.

The one the academics tell us about is the quest for resources. I dunno about minerals. Probably got some oil. Ukraine is a big farming country and they were a big industrial country, so I'm not sure what the resources are. The farming country is still there, it's not going away, but the people and the industrial base are taking a big hit. So maybe the war is intended to take the Ukrainians down a peg, make them more docile. I can't see that being a viable strategy, but maybe there's big money to be made in those conditions. All the big land and industry holders would get forced out and new guys would step in. So a zillion Ukrainians and a zillion Ukraine fortunes are destroyed. Your sacrifice is not forgotten, you made me richer than god, and for that I thank you. Well, we shall see if anybody says anything.