Endless War is not Human Nature

John Brinson in his Oct. 6, 2007 article in The Morning Call about why we must have endless war states, “some people are evil, and seek to take from others whatever they want. They will take the property of others, the land of others, the lives of others, the freedom of others.” I couldn’t agree more with this statement, but I totally disagree with his opinion of who these people are.

Growing up in the 60’s and ‘70’s I was taught that Hitler came to power because he was a charismatic person and a great speaker. The assassinations of the Kennedy’s and Martin Luther King very charismatic men and great speakers made me wonder how Hitler got so far toward his patriotic, nationalist goal while these good people were dead. I did some independent research and learned that Hitler had many powerful financial supporters like the notoriously anti-Semitic and anti-labor Henry Ford and the cartel I.G.Farben. I also learned that when people have no jobs and money the way to keep the heat off of the people who have it all whether in Germany in the 1930’s or the US in 2007 is to find a scapegoat. For Hitler it was the Jews and communists, for the US it’s immigrants and the anti-war and environmental movements.

When Franco overthrew the democratically elected government in Spain, in El Salvador in the ‘80’s and during the destruction of Yugoslavia it was necessary for good people to fight. Unfortunately the US was on the wrong side in all of those conflicts. Now it is necessary for good people to fight against those who are using our tax money to kill other people while corporate war profiteers make a fortune. The freedoms that we still have left after the “Patriot” Act were not fought for by men with guns on foreign soil. There were no headlines, “WWI Ends, Workers Win the 8 Hour Day, WWII Ends, Workers Gain the Right to Organize, Korean War Ends, No More Jim Crow.” These freedoms were fought for by ordinary people right here.

Brinson states, “War has always been with us, and as long as human nature gives us human evil, there will be war.” Anyone who is aware of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder will tell you that violence is not a part of human nature. The human evil he should be referring to is the psychopathic need to suck the monetary value out of everything that exists leaving behind nothing but chaos and death. Unfortunately for the evil people who want to own and control everything on the planet chaos and death are preferred.