The Real Price of Peace

So the markets took a real tumble early last week. And more or less globally, from what I understand (and whatever may be the real merits of the non-DJIA recoveries by week's end). 

Not, mind you, that I even begin to grasp all the different, myriad, apparently innumerable factors - both US and global - that have gone into producing this epic volatility. But what I do gather, from what seems to be the dominant narrative, is that whatever the various factors, and however much they may diverge, they are one and all intra-economic. I.e., they're all pretty much both intrinsic and confined to the economic realm, in that they're not in any significant way impinged upon by what one might call extra-economic factors. Like war, for instance. Along with the increasingly near-apocalyptic scales and stakes of our current and emerging wars. Plus the purported truth that, no matter how high-stakes and trans-worldly and potentially annihilational these wars get - why, the only rational and pragmatic (to say nothing of ethical) response is to escalate them still further, and more zealously. 

And confidently.

And that's another thing. (Don't get me started, right?)

Here I had thought that our Neojeffersonian Exceptionalist America - what with its juggernaut Empire of Liberty steamrolling across all corners of the globe, crushing every pocket of authoritarian resistance, etc - was supposed to usher in a more permanently rational, technocratic, apolitically efficient, non-ideologically productive, and profitable, but above all peaceful, world.

Oh darn, that's right: NO PEACE until every last enemy has been placed under our Messianic American feet. I.e., not till Russia, for starters, has been duly and properly attritioned, dismantled, decomposed. Followed by the ever-unpopular Iran (Ezekiel 38 and all that). Or in reverse sequence, if you like. 

And last but never least (but don't let this get out to the Evangelicals and other trusting parties) - yes, Israel. Or rather, in the latter case, no peace till Zion has been - well, not exactly crushed - but rather painted into the appropriately tight corner: one where she at last knows on whose real sufferance, and highly conditional good will, she continues to exist. Which is to say, not just those of "America" or "the West," but above all, of those benevolently disinterested middlemen mentioned in a previous post (par. 5).

In short, not till even the "Empire of Liberty" knows who's (the real) boss.

Carry on.