{"id":16656,"date":"2026-03-05T10:30:46","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T10:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/?p=16656"},"modified":"2026-03-08T12:06:44","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T12:06:44","slug":"bezos-cheerleading-for-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/?p=16656","title":{"rendered":"Bezos title cheerleading for war"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The image below courtesy of the Washington Post (<em>proprietor one <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/news\/story\/jeff-bezos-relationship-with-donald-trump?srsltid=AfmBOorRsR7p4btzBS0R6KmULh-VbUG5iX0-SxUoZMcLVRUBQ8gYBkBd\">Trump-supporting<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2025\/09\/amazon-union-busting-jfk8-labor\">union-bashing<\/a> billionaire rejoicing in the name of Jeffrey Preston Bezos. Ed.<\/em>) came into your &#8216;umble scribe&#8217;s social media timeline this morning.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2026\/03\/wapo_war-600x555.png\" alt=\"Washington Post opinion piece with a headline reading In the long run, wars make us safer and richer\" width=\"600\" height=\"555\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-16657\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2026\/03\/wapo_war-600x555.png 600w, https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2026\/03\/wapo_war-300x278.png 300w, https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2026\/03\/wapo_war.png 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>There have always been those who profit from wars, from spivs operating on the black market (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/?p=5748\"><em>posts passim<\/em><\/a>) to arms manufacturers.<\/p>\n<p>Wars always entail casualties, one of the first being reputed to be <em>the truth<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The Washington Post&#8217;s attitude illustrated in the opinion piece&#8217;s title reminds your correspondent of the quotation attributed to the then British Prime Minister <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Stanley_Baldwin\">Stanley Baldwin<\/a> during a tough spell in the 1930s:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility\u2014the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>No further comment is necessary, save perhaps one sentence from my political science lecturer, the late Elfed Roberts, in a lecture on war over five decades ago: &#8220;<em>War is the <strong>destruction<\/strong> of the fittest<\/em>&#8220;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The image below courtesy of the Washington Post (proprietor one Trump-supporting, union-bashing billionaire rejoicing in the name of Jeffrey Preston Bezos. Ed.) came into your &#8216;umble scribe&#8217;s social media timeline this morning. There have always been those who profit from wars, from spivs operating on the black market (posts passim) to arms manufacturers. Wars always [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,32,15,34],"tags":[36,33,20,35],"class_list":["post-16656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-translation-and-language-related-matters","category-media","category-politics","category-social-media","tag-comment","tag-media-2","tag-politics-2","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16656"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16708,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16656\/revisions\/16708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}