REALITY by Bob Kismet
This year, as we remember the sacrifices of Canadian soldiers, we must not forget our uniformed men and women who are fighting a pointless, undeclared, unwinnable, war in a far off, inhospitable land. We must support them, but not get them confused with the politicians who would equate this support with support for war. We should withhold our support from those politicians. While supporting the troops, be sure to do so by demanding that they be brought home.
It is unfortunate that Canadians have wasted their limbs and their lives fighting wars. When we remember them, we must resolve to never allow another Canadian life to be spent pointlessly ever again. We must demand peace from our elected officials. This is the only way to respect the fallen.
There are a lot of people who consider the soldiers we have sacrificed in the past to be heroes. This is wrong. To celebrate them as heroes is to glorify war. They are victims. If they are not seen as victims, the crimes which claimed their lives will be repeated.
There are only two things that one needs to know about war. First, some people get rich. Second, some people get dead. In other words, rich and powerful people send poor people off to kill each other while profiting from the carnage.
There are no exceptions, and to those who have been trained to jump up excitedly, blindly pointing out how virtuous our efforts in World War II were, and how the sacrifices of our soldiers prevented evil from darkening the globe, … please take some time to consider the other ways evil could have been vanquished.
There is no arguing the fact that Hitler was an evil abomination that needed to be disposed of. The question is, could the war have been avoided?
The German people could have avoided this whole mess by exercising their democratic rights in a more appropriate way than they did when they elected Hitler. It was no secret what his intentions were, as Mein Kampf, which contained Hitler’s blueprint for world domination, including the final solution part, had already been published.
The Catholic Church could have prevented Hitler from consolidating power in Germany by refusing to sell influence within its ranks to the Nazi Party. Without the support of the Church, Hitler could never have suspended the German constitution. It is not a terribly comfortable truth, but the Church was fully complicit in Hitler’s evil machinations.
American bankers could have prevented World War II as well by choosing not to finance the construction of the Nazi war machine. When Hitler was elected, Germany was in a sad state of financial affairs. Luckily for him, international capital saw Nazi Germany as a great alternative to the volatile market economies of Western Europe and North America. Hitler benefited enormously from the influx of international investment capital, and was able to parlay it into massive military spending.
If World War II was so worth the sacrifice of lives and limbs on the part of poor people, should we not ask why the war was not worth the sacrifice of profits on the part of rich people, and corporations? We can also ask ourselves which country would go to war, if no one was permitted to profit in any way from a war effort…
When people use their heads and exert their influence, war is never necessary.
Imagine if all the people, including Italians, Americans, Germans, British, Japanese, and Canadians, who fought in World War II, rather than fighting, killing, and dying on battlefields, would have spent their energy controlling their governments and demanding peace. There would be no war.
World War II is not an example of a good war, it is the best example in history of a war that desperately needed preventing.
We must remember the helpless victims of war on November 11, and resolve never to let our governments, in the service of monied elites, send our boys and girls off to die in the name of war profits.
BOB KISMET
