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Comment by gumby | Hacker News Reader

I would not call that being on a "war footing." Sure, tax dollars have gone to blow stuff up around the globe but it's day-to-day impact on the vast majority of Americans' lives is negligible. Horrific for many veterans and their families of course but they are a small proportion of the population. It's been a bonanza for military contractors of all sorts as well.

Compare it to pre-vietnam-war activity: no bond drives, no rationing, no sense that there is an existential threat that needs combating and then all involved can go back to the farm and "study war no more." In fact it was hardly a topic in the 2016 elections.

So no, war is simply another background activity conducted by others and visible on the screen. Its most visible influence in daily life is a made up "war on drugs" and a made up "war on terrorism". Neither of which, of course, has anything to do with improving citizens' life expectancy much less quality of life.

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Sure, we're not rationing food and supplies, but I'd argue that many people think there is an existential threat that needs combating. The war on terror, which you mentioned, can be viewed as another front to the war in Iraq/Afghanistan (or vice versa), and I think you'll find that many people in the US view them as directly related. The threat a lot of people perceive is from "terrorists" or "Islam" or even just "middle easterners". And that was at least part of the reason the current US president was elected. The travel bans in the US are not normal everyday business. They are part of that. The US might not be in a WWII-style war footing, and it might not affect you specifically very much that you're aware of, but it's definitely still in a war footing.

Which brings this full circle: a state of lowgrade permanent fear is created and maintained through jingoistic propaganda in order to control the populace and keep the money flowing with minimal dissent. Since the US doesn't face an existential terrorism threat (compared even to the 70s), the idea of a few have been created -- and are just remote enough that people will be afraid but not ask questions.

Jeez reading that over I sound like a conspiracy theorist. But it in fact is straight out of the playbook.

I guess we differ in our perception of whether the US is at war with anyone or not.

Yep, the us is definitely killing foreigners, and its own people for that matter, but the direct impact on citizens' everyday life is pretty minimal. No war has been declared, and apart from a distortion to the budget and impact on GDP it's essentially invisible.

> no sense that there is an existential threat that needs combating and then all involved can go back to the farm and "study war no more."

That much, at least, I'd call a good thing. A watchful peace, or a world where violence simmers rather than boils, is a realistic goal, but attempts to permanently end war have a history of semi-permanently ending peace instead. Think of the Peace of Versailles, which will be 100 years old in two years...

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