Peace Is An Illusion

I think Edwin Starr put it most succinctly.

“War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.”

Which in the purest sense is correct. But humans are stupid. They don’t live anything close to a purest sense of anything. They always see there is something to fight for. Power, money, the land grabs, wanting to plunder the resources lying beneath the surface.

It is big business, both from having access to mineral resources, but also the actual business of war. Megalomaniac companies cashing in on selling guns and equipment, bombs, and bullets. Culture Club very poppily said

“War, war is stupid, and people are stupid.”

Which they are because they lap up all this bullshit.

If money isn’t the root of all evil, then it is certainly its main food source. Thousands of years ago someone decided that the shiny metal they found in the ground was valuable, and ever since, every little thing that has been found in, on, or under the ground has been given an arbitrary value. And so, humans now fight over what has been valued by other humans.

Everyone will tell you that gold is more valuable than flour, or milk. But that’s just stupid greed. You can’t feed yourself with gold, it isn’t edible. It can be argued that the gold buys the flour and milk. But that is only because rich greedy knobheads tell you that is the case. And so, they fight for it.

Yet even with the ridiculous amount of war for power and money it is not the biggest cause of war. No, that dubious title goes to religion. Which is even more ridiculous than fighting for money and power. It equates to two bald men fighting over a comb. The rhetoric of “my imaginary cloud friend is better than yours, and to prove it, despite our imaginary cloud friend being all about peace and love, we’re going to kill and main you, and when it’s done, that will show we are right.” is just lunacy.

And what is even worse is most of the religious wars are because they have a different name for the same imaginary cloud friend, or they’ve interpreted the same piece of ancient fiction writing is a different way and are therefore literally fighting over semantics. As with the money and power there is cabal of those at the top of religions. And what is worse than with the money and power is the atrocious sexism involved in so many major religions.

Religions bang on about compassion, but actively discriminate against women (who, on the whole are a hell of a lot more compassionate than men). But if the women had been in charge, then there is a strong likelihood that most of the wars would never have taken place.

On the whole I think we would be better off if REM’s ‘Losing My Religion’ was a suggestion followed by billions all over the planet.