Ideas from Reading

I'm reading some passages in Understand Power, collection of discussions with Noam Chomsky. On page 241, he discusses the differences in how Japan subsidizes corporations v. how the U.S. does it. In Japan, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry works with corps and banks to plan what will be funded by the government. In the U.S. the Pentagon commissions research under the guise of war, and then the commercial potential is utilized by the corps. Chomsky claims the Japanese system is more efficient, accounting for their greater success in many technological markets.

I realize I'm oversimplifying his simplification, but it's an interesting insight into the industrial war machine. It supports my belief that the primary purpose of invading Iraq was to provide economic opportunities for corps. Another way to think of it is a howler monkey analogy.

Male howler monkeys use their big voices to defend their turf. Howls by one troop are answered by other males within earshot. Every-one starts and ends the day by checking out where their nearest competitors are. In this way, they protect the food in their territory. source

We're howling in Iraq to maintain our resource territory. Animality. Arab Muslims are a different band of monkeys than us. They want our territory. We'll show them.

Howling monkeys routinely scream bloody murder as a group, every morning and every night to notify neighbors of their position. Unexpected encounters with their neighbors (they are rather near-sighted) get resolved by impromptu screaming matches until presumably each group retires to safe ground to nurse aching eardrums and jangled nerves. source

We're engaging in bloody murder to assert our dominance. But I agree with this from the same source above:

I prefer to think of humans as innately greedy rather than mean. I believe we have the option to override this basic instinct. But we are biolgically programmed "to want," to be greedy... source

I've been reading this source and have lost motivation to write anything more in this post.