Where I'm coming from

For the inaugural post in Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars, I feel a bit of an explanation is in order. I've realized recently that there is a war going on that's been raging for 6000 years (give or take), and that we're on the verge of losing that war (or winning it, depending on what side you're on, though in winning, everyone loses). The reason most of us haven't heard about this war is that the perpetrators have had a LOT of experience (6 millenia worth) with getting people who would otherwise be inclined to not be at war to participate unknowingly, and have refined their tactics to ever more subtle and effective means, especially in the last 250 years or so. For a long time, it was pretty easy to not be involved in that war (all you had to do was live somewhere that western civilization hadn't yet reached out to), but around 200 years ago, the last areas that weren't locked in this struggle were finally explored. Now, there's only a very small minority of the world's land that can be said to be free of this conflict, and that's really only because the "generals" haven't needed to get what's there yet.
In case you're wondering what the fuck I'm talking about, let me spell it out: the war I'm referring to is the one that our western civilization is at with the rest of the world. It's the war called expansion. In some ways I use the word war metaphorically, but in some ways I'm being deadly literal, such as in the case of the US government's war in Iraq. There's nothing metaphorical about that.
I'm going to throw out a few basic premises, and expand on them as I go in this blog.
Premise 1. Expansion within a finite space has limits. Seems like a no brainer there.
Premise 2. There are many things that we take for granted that are false. We only take them for granted because we've been indoctrinated to. People who have not been indoctrinated into western culture are universally puzzled by most of our choices.
Premise 3. Western civilization can only continue to function by continued observation of the doctrines mentioned in premise 2.
Premise 4. Capitalism is very good at one thing: concentrating resources in the hands of those who have the most money. It is very bad at just about everything else, with "everything else" defined as providing life, liberty and happiness to the rest of the population.