March 19, 2010
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Guess the Author
“The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labor power without producing anything that can be consumed. A Floating Fortress, for example, has locked up in it the labor that would build several hundred cargo ships. Ultimately it is scrapped as obsolete, never having brought any material benefit to anybody, and with further enormous labors another Floating Fortress is built. In principle the war effort is always so planned as to eat up any surplus that might exist after meeting the bare needs of the population.”
Comments (5)
i wouldnt have a clue,,, i guess youd know that tho..
afairly accurate description.
what is left out of course is the varying different causes of war.. some wars need to be fought,, altho most do not..
wars,, altho they should be,, but would be impossible to conduct.. should be fought against government policy.
many people,, who are not really involved in government policies are destroyed,,, but on the other hand,, a lot of people brainwashed by government policy escape unscathed because of varying countries desire to not inflict harm on a civilian population..
some warring governments,,, and that is probably misspelled,, elect to kill em all and let god sort them out..
war is a funny thing,,, in a funny sort of way… who should win any given war,, i again dont have a clue.. any involved government would be just as evil as the next..
governments are kinda like churches,, everyone is right and everybody else is wrong…
I remember in the mid 1980s when Larry King was big on late night radio commenting on how arms are completely non-productive assets. That we have them but they don’t do anything for society unless they are used in war. Though that is not the rhetoric that Larry King used, so I don’t think that he is the author. My guess is that the author is President Eisenhower.
http://kevin72.xanga.com/209413843/item/?#viewcomments
Sounds like George Orwell. 1984?
Interesting. I like your music thingy. My last.fm pognyc radio station doesn’t seem to be working too well… I may scrap it… this thing is interesting…
I agreed with a previous poster, Lovegrove, that it is a George Orwell quote from “1984″ (a very prophetic book), so I double-checked on Google and verified that that is in fact the case.