Why is it so easy to cow us into war?

[whatchamacallit]

Blind faith? Blinding fear? If the first casualty of war is the truth, how many times do we have to view the smoldering truth wreckage in our rearview mirrors before we stop letting politicians and their handmaidens in the media drive us down this road? Invariably, half of what they tell us ends up being bullshit in retrospect, and yet... Is it an ingrained deference for institutions and authority, from all those early years pledging allegiance and reciting whitewashed history from school texts? It's crazy that despite the endless loop of buying and buyers remorse, one way or another the PTB always get enough support to get their war on.

[leftstreet]

1. Its not. A year ago Obama failed to drum up interest

Airstrikes on Syria, remember?

Brit parliament said Oh HELL no! US Congress flooded with calls/emails over a potential vote. NO!

This time...no talk of a vote, no citizen input...just go for it

[whatchamacallit]

6. The narrative lacked the required focus and gravity to provide the impetus

Maybe it took a year to roll out ISIS.

[former9thward]

2. Genetically we evolved as tribes.

Those tribes killed one another because of the scarcity of food among other things. So we are genetically programmed for war.

[liberal N proud]

3. Fear is a powerful thing

Propaganda sells the fear that fuels the call to war that feeds the machine that is owned by the pigs who own the wolves to make the decisions above all else.

[randome]

4. Don't diss the cow.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]“If you're not committed to anything, you're just taking up space.”
Gregory Peck, Mirage (1965)[/center][/font][hr]

[Orsino]

5. Because we worship the money that orders us to war. n/t

[librechik]

7. it's normal human behavior. The trick is to be different

when everyone else is screaming at you "baaaaaaaaaa"

[valerief]

8. War training from a young age via sports. Us vs. Them rewarded over and over

after physical battling.

[gratuitous]

9. Cow? Not at all

It's our national religion, here in the land of the High Church of Redemptive Violence. We go to war because war is the sacramental occasion for the populace. We believe in war with a ferocity and a faith that would put Torquemada to shame. No matter how long it takes, how much it costs, how many lives it wastes, and how ineffectual it is, the United States' faith in war to solve the world's problems is absolute and unquestioned. We love war. We revel in war. We start getting the jitters when we're not at war for any appreciable length of time. We'll gin up a war over the most picayune reasons or no reasons at all.

We go to war because we must go to war.

[whatchamacallit]

10. Sadly, the record supports your assessment

[raccoon]

11. Because the vast majority of people doesn't perceive that it affects them.

As long as there isn't a draft nor a war tax, that's how they'll see it.

[woo me with science]

12. K&R. Great photo.

[SomethingFishy]

17. +1 Change "Wolves" to "Dogs" and you would have the entire commentary of Pink Floyd's

Animals written on that wall.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

13. Erect Bogeyman, wave flag, start bombing, send troops, and talk about peace.

Works every time.

[whatchamacallit]

14. Ain't that the truth

[woo me with science]

15. kick

[geek tragedy]

16. Or maybe people have rational reasons

for disagreeing with you.

I know, heresy, right?

[Zorra]

18. "Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people,

it is true that most stupid people are conservative." ~ John Stuart Mill

[Octafish]

19. What Reichsmarschall Hermann Wilhelm Göring said.

“Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

[liberal_at_heart]

20. +1

[MinM]

21. Tyler Durden's take

A Simple Primer On "War Propaganda" From An Unexpected Source

Stop us when this becomes familiar:

The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan. As soon as you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided, the effect will piddle away, for the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered. In this way the result is weakened and in the end entirely cancelled out...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-15/simple-primer-war-propaganda-unexpected-source

@zerohedge · US Propaganda Enters Into Insane, Irrational Overdrive In Attempt to "Sell" War In Syria http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-24/us-propaganda-enters-insane-irrational-overdrive-attempt-sell-war-syria …

[Octafish]

22. That guy was a real authority.

A real friend of Wall Street, too.