Barbara Ehrenreich’s essay ends on a strangely positive note. She doesn’t adequately consider the human generational aspects in her conclusion. The motivations of war machines to invent new killing machines, new enemies, and new bureaucracies to administer them is directly proportional to their survival instincts and economic necessity. No matter how inhuman and robot-ful war becomes, only human extinction will take out the human factor. Steve Featherstone concluded much the same in his Harper’s essay a few year back (subscription req’d). It’s a rather nice Star Trek sort of sci-fi fantasy though. Have a nice day!