The Pursuit of Knowledge : The purpose of war and conflict

An analysis By Dr. R.R. de Silva

Man’s greatest feat has been his constant pursuit of knowledge. Unlike other sentient beings in the animal kingdom who do to some extent display momentary interest such as when ‘having to gain entry to a container of food’, man has constantly delved on matters of philosophical interest such as where we hail from and where we are headed.  The entire story of humanity then oscillates between not knowing and not knowing.

Within these two anthropological milestones, a few men have discovered a formula for achieving great comforts at the expense of other men. Whether these men come from the East or West, whether they are white, oriental or black although most often white, they have but one objective -  global domination, holding no less than the rest of the population in bondage.

The average citizen has been made too busy to see through the myth. Prof. Herbert Macusse in his essay titled “An essay on liberation” explains in the very first few pages, how the masses are being provided the necessary training to become obedient workers.  These obedient voluntary slaves then become the fodder that fuels the major corporations. Living a life tuned into a rhythm of never ending obligations, the average citizen is programmed through conditioning to feel the need to seek employment,  earn a fair living, pay taxes and keep their heads down while looking after family and friends. This, the citizen is expected to continue until death with no regard to “the virtues of selfishness” that Ayn Rand had so beautifully and succinctly articulated in a book by the same name. The Media first sets the standards that alters your needs into wants. Then using the smallest social unit – “the couple” the corporation drills into the psyche of man, the need to follow the prescriptive path laid out into modern financial slavery.  Unbeknown to many the trap is set as early on as conception as antenatal care costs commence and continue until, as  in some countries such as Japan where the parents’ debt is handed down to successive generations.

Have you ever stopped to ask yourselves the questions – Why does school last 12 years, and not 9 years or 15 years?  Why are the subjects we study the subjects we study? Who chose & defined the syllabus? Why are we forced to attend a registered school?  Why are we punished for truancy? Why are we put into tribal uniforms – when uniforms divide and are the instruments of  mass identity culling.  There is rarely room for individuality among uniformed individuals.

Meanwhile, we experienced to a great extent disruption of life and lifestyle through the grace of the Corona Virus (SARS-CoV -2).  Suddenly there was no rush and the most important people around the world spent time at home, washing their hands & hiding behind masks. One cannot but stop to wonder what rush our lives had been until then. People began to experience solitude. Many, could not handle the loneliness, the isolation. Many could not live with the people they had vowed to spend their lives with – till the day death parts them. But others picked up very fast and engaged in gardening, reading, watching movies and if one had sufficient stocks even a booze.

Home cooking became option-less and many despite the shortage of material did experiment. Life & nature, at least for a short while, had a break. But alas, the race is back on with possible truths labelled as conspiracies, governments across the globe acting in concert with numbers that do not appear to reflect the true position.

The Corona Virus has rendered borders closed and time immemorial advice to stay together has made a 180 degree turn with government public health advice now to socially distance ourselves from our normal gregarious selves. The last such epidemic which may have required face masks and social distancing took place in 1918 at the tail end of World War 1 – the so called ‘Spanish Flu’.  Every war as we know has had a purpose.

In the case of  the Covid 19 Virus, face masks have rendered us asexual and identity-less minimising any form of human interaction, including sexual attraction.  In fact Public Health guidance forbids social contact through enforced social distancing, in some countries even sex is forbidden. How will this affect our population, especially the young and impressionable? Is this a depopulation attempt? The question should cross your mind! Meanwhile, the situation is pushing people towards a cashless society, digitalising the undigitalised, as more and more people are captured by global digital surveillance systems. Pandemic commotion allowing for uncontrolled data harvesting of vulnerable populations by opportunistic governments colluding with corporates.  For instance governments have only hitherto dreamt of citizens volunteering their every whereabout.

The purpose of war has always been commerce.  Imperial colonisation was the beginning of the exponential ascent of money & wealth for Europeans, in particular, the British, funded by their Monarchy of German descent. To understand this let us take a look at an article from no less than the BBC – the British Broadcasting Corporation a media group funded by Her Majesty’s UK Government. Lets review World War 1 because that is what children are most likely to be taught first in world history.   I say that the purpose of this war was profiteering as this article by the BBC also suggests.  After all the British who are now recognized as the frontline saviours of the world in that war actually have German heritage.  This is why the Royal family changed its name to Windsor from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in 1917.

As the bodies piled up in a war known to have been fought in the trenches, technological advancement saw the development of tanks and aeroplanes develop rapidly to be tested on the field while money was being made. However, not enough people were suspicious of this. Why ? you ask. The reason is education – the brainwashing that schools undertake on behalf of their corporate masters whose proxies in legislative bodies around the world prescribe for the average citizenry.  To understand this let us dig deeper. According to Elizabeth Bruton of Leeds University, what a lot of people did not see was how the war drove technologies that we are using today like the development of communication technology. The Marconi Company whose founder was Guglielmo Marconi led the way with transatlantic broadcasts. They developed voice over wireless.  Subsequently Mark Harrison, an economics professor at Warwick University, describes the war as a driver for production. According to this professor, the allied forces/ nations out-produced the Germans. On the other hand businesses such as shoe-makers and shoe polish producers had done immensely well according to Terry Chairman the historian at the imperial war museum.

Though seen as the ‘war to end all wars (referring to World War 1)’ The BBC article cites Smedley Butler then a US marine corps Major General who had written in 1935 that “war was far too profitable to be impossible again” points to the profits of steel and weapons manufacturers. Munitions maker du Pont had had the value of its stock rise 374% from 1915 to 1918 and had consequently distributed dividends worth 458% of the value of each share. Shipping companies also paid dividends of 44.7% in 1915 and 47.5% in 1916. 

Meanwhile, in the public space media promoted the idea of righteousness and noted that outright profiteering that hurt people would be punished heavily. As a result one article in the Western Daily Press reported in November 1917 that Henry Thompson, a Lincolnshire farmer, was fined £1,800 (about £90,000 in today’s money) for selling potatoes above the maximum allowed price.  Does this ring a bell? We certainly do not live too far from that.

Finally the sweeping meant disconnecting from the other side.  For example, “Having a German-sounding name like Schweppes was bad for business and lots of firms made a declaration that they were British through and through. "Lyons Tea sued Liptons for suggesting its board were German. Bovril had it in its adverts that it was all-British and always was British," he says, while hotels and restaurants stated that they had fired their German and Austrian waiters.

And this then is but a part of World War 1’s commercial interests. Did anything in the above paragraphs sound familiar? Well if it didn’t, read on.

According to a research article on the website of the National Bureau on Economic Research, one researcher points out that when World War 1 began the US economy was in recession.  But a 44-month economic boom ensued from 1914 to 1918, first as Europeans began purchasing U.S. goods for the war and later as the United States itself joined the battle. "The long period of U.S. neutrality made the ultimate conversion of the economy to a wartime basis easier than it otherwise would have been," The researcher adds that "Real plant and equipment were added, and because they were added in response to demands from other countries already at war, they were added precisely in those sectors where they would be needed once the U.S. entered the war." Moreover, Entry into the war in 1917 unleashed massive U.S. federal spending which shifted national production from civilian to war goods. Between 1914 and 1918, some 3 million people were added to the military and half a million to the government. Overall, unemployment declined from 7.9 percent to 1.4 percent in this period, in part because workers were drawn into new manufacturing jobs and because the military draft removed many young men from the civilian labour force.”   

Today, a few friends who have had difficulty with their payments on leases for their vehicles have shared with me the institutions from which these leases had been sought had not honoured the so called ‘Moratoriums’ that news telecasts across channels in Sri Lanka have spoken so highly of. Yet in another case several individuals are now having to pay even more so than they had had to. Building owners continued to earn albeit in some cases at discounted rates the rent due for the curfew days of March to June, and now for October and possibly November.

But essentially, people dug into their savings, as their fixed deposit interest diminished & interest rate drops have not been passed on to people’s debt as credit card payments, loan repayments as well as leases pile up with no recognition of the situation.

The banks and financial institutions on the other hand continue to post profits. Makes us wonder doesn’t it?

One only has to take a look at the declarations below.  Let us take a look at a few quarterly, half yearly and in one case previous nine months’ declarations below;  

Bn – 1 Billion = 1,000 Million

PAT = Profit After Tax.

Just look at how profitable the Banks have been albeit a pandemic situation that has brought an economy to a standstill.  If that doesn’t make you think.. What will?

“Minimisation of life’s volatilities is the secret of long term survival”—Dr. R.R. de Silva 2010

References

https://www.hnb.net/media-center/2020/hnb-group-posts-rs-3-3-bn-pat-for-q1-2020

https://www.ndbbank.com/investor-relations/reports

https://www.combank.net/newweb/en/interim-financials

The writer is a doctor of medicine & invites feedback via email to rds001@protonmail.com