Reply #61: Profits are one motivation for war, but there is another...

[SteveM]

the Unitary Presidency.

If my reading of this cryptic philosophy is in order, it holds that we Americans have certain rights in the Constitution, but they can be negated by a national crisis. Who can declare a national crisis? Why the president. And what is a national crisis? Why war, of course. And we know how liberally-defined "war" has become: War on Terrorism, War on Drugs, etc. So, the requirement for the Unitary Presidency (which is nothing but straight-line authoritarianism) is to have SOME kind of war, to make this legal charade appear at least plausible. This is why our country must maintain a state of PermaWar.

We can certainly oppose PermaWar, just as some of us oppose the War on Drugs. But we need to get beyond the crass economic determinism that underwrites (and kills off) so much discussion and renders an atmosphere of worldly cynicism and defeat. I find it ironic that even some on the Teabag Right have come to question our wars. Certainly, MSM is not covering war protests much, but opposition to PermaWar has begun to broaden.

Sooner or later, we in the conjured remnants of the "left" will have to talk with the Tea Party movement.