Saturday, October 30, 2010
War: A Desire for More Cows
Sometimes hearing something said in a foreign language can give some new perspective.
For example, the word for "war" in the ancient Sanskrit language (dating to 1200 BC) literally means:
A desire for more cows.
Simple. Your neighbor has more cows than you have, you want to take his resources, so you go to war.
Has anything changed in 3200 years?
(Alan Greenspan, John McCain, George W. Bush, a high-level National Security Council officer and others say that the Iraq war was really about oil.)
Similarly, the French word for propaganda literally means:
Brain-stuffing.
People won't go to war to steal more cows for you unless you stuff their brains full of crazy ideas and make up horror stories to demonize your enemies..
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