anthonyhowelljournal

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Conventional once more, Warfare can nevertheless

Take the world as her stage.  A period piece perhaps,

Featuring asymmetric tanks. Nostalgic gear

Of the Great War – what the Napoleonic ones were

To the Victorians. There in the national memory.

We thought nuclear deterrence safeguarded us

From another world affair. But we were wrong.

Anywhere can be the next proxy. Similar to the memory

Of abuse, the memory of war fascinates

Its victims. So should war be viewed as a trauma

The species suffers from, is indeed driven by?

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Boots on the ground. The martial poetry of it all.

Now we have entered the labyrinth, knotted for us by Thucydides.

We’ll lose the next. And most of us know it.

The Rakshas are the mob. They run things.

And they’ve taken over our votes, ridding us of our rights

As they might strip some starlet of her modesty.

War is a racket, yes. And like most rackets

Built on lies. Deterrence is too vast to put a stop

To missiles though. Back to the trenches. Now plus drones.

A murmuration of them fills the sky.

Why are we so driven to make enemies?

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It’s the economy, stupid! Capitalism is based on

Consumption, and built-in obsolescence

Means you dump your fridge or stove or car

Or trainers, but what more quickly gets consumed

Than a bullet? Why, its very aim is to be fired.

Munitions are the best dish the system ever tasted.

No excuse. They have to be replaced.

To get Warfare started, you invest in propaganda.

Fear must generate nightmares for folks to get

Behind the effort necessary to ignite her.

So feed their paranoia, one flag at a time.

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It gets to be addictive. We monitor its theatres:

Parasitic vultures peering through our screens

While people actually perish. Ah, but that’s

Entertainment. Killing enthrals us. Flight or fight

A mechanism that affects our animal reality

So that we move in lock-step towards some massive sacrifice

Believing that our puny act will bring the beast down finally.

It’s a bit like running a gambling joint filled with

One-armed bandits. Those guys and gals

Tugging away at their levers, they have to truly believe

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That the jackpot will fulfil their wildest dreams.

As for the boss and his staff, they know their bonus giveaway

Is as nothing compared to what these bandits reap them in.

War is very chummy, see, with banditry,

Basically she’s ushered into play by the State behaving

As a criminal. And this keeps happening because

The State itself is staged. Yes, it’s a Shakespearian scenario:

Politician puppets glove the hands of the crooks

Who wield the actual power, endowed by the gains

From previous heists committed maybe centuries ago

By ancestors of those who stand to profit most from mayhem now.

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