The Bitter Alchemy of War

W.J. Astore

Turning Bullet Lead into Corporate Gold

As the Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russia grinds on (or falters?), as U.S. disaster relief for Hawaii is tied to more military aid for Ukraine, as depleted uranium shells join cluster munitions as America’s latest gift to a blasted war zone, as calls for diplomacy continue to be muted when they’re not actively discouraged and dismissed, I was reminded of the alchemy of war.

Alchemists of the early modern period were sophisticated experimenters driven by an often quasi-religious quest for perfection. We tend to remember only the most craven part of their experiments: the attempt to transmute lead into gold. This transmutation could not be effected, but alchemy itself transmuted into chemistry as its practitioners, through trial and error, developed a better understanding of the nature of the elements, reflected in part by today’s Periodic Table.

Seeking a divine spark

Yet the business of war succeeded where alchemists failed. In their alchemy, the merchants of death turned bullet lead into corporate gold. And what gold! Yearly war budgets continue to soar in the United States toward the trillion dollar mark. Weapons shipments to Ukraine continue at a pace that promises many more shattered and blasted bodies, Ukrainian and Russian. 

In a sense, dead bodies are also being transmuted into corporate gold.

Transmutation, I was taught as a Catholic, is a miracle. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us (Jesus Christ, the Son of God, of course). We have made the miraculous the mundane, and indeed the profane. We take lead and spill blood which becomes gold. And some even celebrate this as good for business in the United States.

All these weapons: they’re job-creators! So we crucify the Word and elevate the life-takers and widow-makers as gods.

We are far more deluded than the alchemists of the past.

3 thoughts on “The Bitter Alchemy of War”

  2. Very much agree with and appreciate your continuing columns on the overwhelming domination of the MICC in our cultural, socio-economic, and political institutions and populace. Special thanks for referencing
    Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Blood Rites” which I am reading as part of my own efforts to better understand the incredible, nearly ineffable State of the E Pluribus Non-Union that threatens our Republic.
    May I add a sidebar from this old, thankfully retired Psychiatrist in Seattle–In today’s Seattle Times, an independent family-owned newspaper, a lead article (from the NYT) entitled “Medicare spending drop
    leaves many questions” goes into a detailed examination of “this giant federal program” and quotes a professor of health policy at Harvard (he also was involved in developing Obama’s Affordable Care Act)
    “without a doubt, this is the most important thing that has happened to the federal budget in the last 20 years”…Talk about well-educated, accomplished people stuck in silos!! Neither he nor the 2 reporter/journalists utter a single word about the bloated, out-of control and growing Department of
    “Defense” spending history of the last 20 years (and continuing with Bipartisan fervor) that, with
    even a modest annual reduction over time could fund Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security programs
    for decades. That might be a lifesaving way of turning lead into golden years of life around the globe.

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