Motivated by Money
I note that many of you believe that President Bush and his corporate buddies wanted to attack Iraq because of some personal profit motive. You called me naïve for thinking otherwise.
I’ll agree that greed is a prime motivator for people in general, and that there’s no such thing as having too much money. I certainly believe that someone with a billion dollars will try hard to get another billion, even if he already has all the stuff he needs. But that’s not exactly the equation we’re talking about when it comes to creating a war for profit.
If you believe that the ultra rich capitalist overlords wanted war to increase their profits, you have to believe they were willing to kill hundreds of thousands of people to get it. THAT’s the part I don’t buy. There can be sociopath billionaires to be sure, but I can’t see them being the majority force in the government.
I have a theory that only people who have never been rich would believe that the rich are routinely willing to kill enormous amounts of people to get richer. Personally, I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich. And I can speak from first hand experience about how it changes you. I’m far less bloodthirsty than before.
When you don’t have money, you might well be willing to kill a few innocent people to make a million dollars. The payoff in terms of your lifestyle is huge. But once you have your riches, you somewhat automatically start thinking about the bigger picture. It’s the Bill Gates effect. Your thoughts naturally drift toward helping the less fortunate, not killing them. Sure, you still want to shaft your competitors, but that's sport.
How many of you who are already rich (let’s say at least 5 million dollars in assets) would be willing to kill a million strangers to make it an even 10 million?
