TW! I am an old pacifist and what follows is pacifist in content. You have been warned.

I'm reading "The Machiavellians" by James Burnham. It's dated, but still relevant. At the beginning he uses a historical example to make his point (which is what Machiavelli did in his work "The Prince.") Burnham's point is that politics is about the struggle for power and that a powerful tool for the rulers is the public lie that the slaves believe, that leads them to participate in their own exploitation. I am reminded of how strange it always seems to me that soldiers and their families parrot the idea that somehow being a soldier and fighting for your country is noble, selfless and right. When, clearly, if ordinary people, all of them, simply refused to participate in war, wars wouldn't happen. You know, the question asked in the 1960s and 1970s -- what if they gave a war and nobody came? Anyway, I'm enjoying the book. I found "The Prince" really interesting, too, when I read it. It isn't at all what I thought it was. It's a clear analysis, with the emotional content removed, of historical examples of how people obtained and kept power.