Journal Four - Kendra Lykins

     In Berry's first essay one of the things that really stuck with me was when he said "The aim and result of war is not peace but victory, and any victory won by violence necessarily justifies the violence that won it and leads to further violence." (Pg 7) I had never really thought about it before this but that statement is true. We go to war and hope to get what out of it? Victory. We want to win. We don't hope to make peace with that country because how do you make peace with a country after you've just killed thousands of their soldiers, their people? Instead of making the United States a more peaceable nation, we are instead becoming a more hostile one. We're putting all of efforts, and money into war and weapons, instead of focusing on how to prevent the war and make peace with the other countries. I understand that somethings are inevitable and that some circumstances call for war, however, I agree with Berry and think we are going to war for all the wrong reasons.
      Berry's second essay dealt with a lot of issues as well. However, one that caught my attention was
when he started talking about how we don't really focus of self-sufficiency anymore. We worry more about who can produce the products the cheapest. He goes on to talk about how we focus on the cheapest long-distance transportation, therefore meaning we try to find where we can make the products the cheapest and then try to find out the cheapest way we transport them to the other countries. Berry even goes one to say "Experts such as Stephen C. Blank, of the University of California, Davis, have proposed that "developed" countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom . where food can no longer be produced cheaply enough, should give up agriculture altogether." (Pg 22) This idea just seemed crazy to me. Proposing that the United States give up all agriculture and rely solely on other countries for their needs? It seems to me like we would giving up a large part of our independence to other countries.
     One word that I wasn't too sure about was oligarchic, it's used on page 15 when Berry is talking about the oligarchic forms of economy and their fraudulence. When I looked it up oligarchy actually means a form of government that a few people in a powerful class have all the power. I think knowing the definition of just that one word helps us understand what kind of economies are being fraudulent in his mind.
     A question that I had while reading was in the beginning of the book when Berry talks about how it's hard for us citizens to really know what it going on in Washington D.C. I think citizens often times are left out of the loop about our country. So how much exactly don't citizens know? An article from The Atlantic tells us that many Americans are left in the dark, and many of things we do know is not because the government tells us but through other sources. Such as whistleblowers, or government court cases, or inadvertent hints. Which I think is true, many Americans really aren't sure what is going on in their country. 
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/what-we-dont-know-about-spying-on-citizens-scarier-than-what-we-know/276607/