When everything becomes militarized, it becomes destructive. Look at two former military powers, Germany and Japan. Germany and Japan won the economic war of the last 40 or 50 years over the US and Russia and China because they were not spending all their money on militarism as the others were. They put all their genius and technology into consumer products and they made better products and they won the economic war and we all went bankrupt. We always like to say stupidly and proudly that we drove the Soviets bankrupt because Ronald Reagan was such a macho hero. Today, it looks as if we are the ones going bankrupt, joining the ranks of debtor nations. Militarism bankrupts. Peace industries create prosperity and that’s what we have to get back to now. Certainly, in the 21st century, the planet’s own sustainability quotient demands we get back to peace industries, and rebuilding the environment, and rebuilding the agriculture and the economy, and getting the chemicals out of the food chain and out of the water and out of the air, and getting back to a better life for everyone.
Peter Kadzis can be reached atpkadzis@phx.com.
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