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War Is a Racket (1933)

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Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#141

Post by jcranmer »

dragontamer wrote: post #128
jcranmer wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the USA declared war when Britain / France did in the late 30s, then France may have not been overrun by the Germans. Uh, no. The US wasn't capable of getting its troops to Europe fast enough in 1939, let alone supplying its troops. The Liberty Ship program only started in 1941. Hitler was already extremely dismissive of the capabilities that the Americans can provide, so any potential future threat the US might…

> Furthermore, how could Japan have turned even a decisive naval advantage into victory against the US? Erm, by conquering the Philippines, China, and Korea. Japan had no reason to invade the US proper, its only goal was conquest of the Asian continent. Japan did conquer the Philippines for a short time, before the US counter-attacked to recapture it. Japan had no reason to conquer the USA. Japan wanted to build the…

> If Japan won the Battle of Midway and finished off the US Pacific Fleet, Japan probably would have created its imperialist dream. US would have retreated from the Pacific, lost the Philippines, and focused on fighting Germany (winning at least in the Atlantic).

You're making the same mistake the Japanese made in 1941. The Japanese assumed that they could kick the US really hard enough, steal a few things, and the US would just go "oh, guess I can't do anything." But in reality, as long as the US had the capability to continue the war against Japan, it would. Even if it had to delay the war with Japan until after Germany was defeated--which was the actual war plans of the US in the 1940s, it just turned out that the US had such insane capacity that it could fight both Japan and Germany--the US still would have brought its inexorable military capacity to bear on Japan.

Wars don't end because the victor has achieved its objectives and want nothing more; they end because the loser has decided not to continue the fight (or, more often, because it finally realizes that it has lost). Britain continued fighting its war against Germany, even when it had no prospects of defeating it (during the Battle of Britain), and it was suffering greatly by continuing the war. Why would the US have decided to quit the Pacific merely from losing its carriers, especially since it would have gained as many carriers as it lost within a few months?

Another point to make: the other two US carriers at Midway were damaged, and the US had four operational carriers in total in the Pacific, even after the Wasp was transferred to bolster the Pacific fleet. Two of these carriers (Wasp and Hornet) would be sunk before the year was out and Essex commissioned. It wasn't until the US started churning out an Essex-class carrier (or two) every month in 1943 that the US had a decisive advantage in the Pacific.

Midway (rather like Gettysburg) is vastly overrated as a crucial turning point in war. It marked the first decisive victory for the winning side, and the start of a seemingly inexorable march to war. But the losing side in both engagements was already dangerously overstretched and would have been unable to actually press its advantage even had it won.

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#142

Post by lukifer »

bakuninsbart wrote: post #73
lukifer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You pay American soldiers and contractor salaries. You buy weapons and technology from American companies. While there are wealthy individuals who profit from the military-industrial complex, it's hard to shake the impression that the majority of our bloated military budget is a federal make-work jobs program (with deaths of American troops and foreign civilians as a negative externality).

It is, and you have whole communities being completely reliant on it for survival. But listen to Eisenhowers speech about the military-industrial complex. This reliance is created by design, and it is making some people extremely rich.

I think it's something of an open secret how much public policy (military and otherwise) is manipulated by wealthy donors and corporate lobbyists. What perhaps goes underexamined, is the extent to which Congress members (even those who grandstand on "fiscal conservatism") are extremely reluctant to cut any federal expenses that would result in a loss of jobs in their state/district (be it a closed military base, or a reduced contract with Lockheed Martin).

Middle-class voters may not actively be lobbying for the perpetual [Military/Prison/etc]-Industrial Complex; but the mere fact of who writes the checks for those voters' salaries and benefits makes the racket extremely difficult to unentrench, above and beyond the already problematic influence of the 0.001% who are shamelessly fleecing the taxpayer. It's a truly wicked problem.

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#143

Post by shantly »

lukifer wrote: post #36
nostromo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much of the money for war flows right back into the American economy. You pay American soldiers and contractor salaries. You buy weapons and technology from American companies. Bribes don't have the same economic effect. For these large dollar amounts, how you spend it matters as much as how much you spend.

> You pay American soldiers and contractor salaries. You buy weapons and technology from American companies. While there are wealthy individuals who profit from the military-industrial complex, it's hard to shake the impression that the majority of our bloated military budget is a federal make-work jobs program (with deaths of American troops and foreign civilians as a negative externality).

> it's hard to shake the impression that the majority of our bloated military budget is a federal make-work jobs program

The majority of it is precisely that. It's the only jobs & wealth redistribution program Republicans are willing to fund (though they never call it that). Pity it's so inefficient for that purpose.

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#144

Post by krapp »

roenxi wrote: post #125
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Long after Hitler has been replaced by the next boogeyman I don't envy the people living in those times. Hitler is one hell of a boogeyman to top.

It depends how you measure it as there were worse people in the same era as Hitler. If I recall the stats correctly it is a much better bet to be led by someone like Hitler over Stalin or Mao. The ethnically targeted nature of the holocaust is the main claim to 'worst of the worst' status, but honestly it isn't obvious to me that a dead Jew is more horrific than a dead anyone else. They are both pretty bad.

>The ethnically targeted nature of the holocaust is the main claim to 'worst of the worst' status, but honestly it isn't obvious to me that a dead Jew is more horrific than a dead anyone else. They are both pretty bad.

What made the holocaust particularly heinous, apart from the ethnic cleansing and antisemitism (the latter of which was not entirely uncommon in Western culture, unfortunately) was the industrial scale and effort applied to it. The Nazis weren't just killing Jews, which would have been bad enough, they set up (possibly the first ever) large scale automated data collection and processing network using IBM tabulators to efficiently process census data and find the Jews to kill, as well as organize and correlate the resources, personnel and urban infrastructure to be able to kill them by the trainload, with the eventual goal of killing every single Jew in Europe.

While it is true that other groups were targeted by the Nazis, the holocaust was still in a class of evil all of its own. It's one of the events that led to the coining of the word "genocide," after all.

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#145

Post by frenchyatwork »

earlINmeyerkeg wrote: post #138
aazaa wrote: post #17

> Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. This was the "war to end all wars." This was the "war to make the world safe for democracy." No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the ships on wh…

WWII had a compulsory draft where it was already established by then that congress had the power to initiate a draft. It was also hashed out that it was a federal issue and not a state one. Which we all know is hot garbage. The government quite literally says, your individual freedoms are not greater than our goal for the country. If you ask me, that sounds NO different than communism! But when you fight for uncle sa…

That issue was already resolved much more poignantly in the American Civil War.

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#146

Post by seagullz »

War is still a racket [0]. Interesting closing reflections from the article:

... not enough Americans know or care about what happens in other countries or what their government and military is doing in their name. Do many Americans know that there are at least 1000 American military bases around the world, or that there is a fast growing Africa Command branch of the military that is involved in almost every country in Africa? Certain politicians would like to cut “discretionary” spending for such unnecessary things as education, health care, infrastructure, and protecting the environment, but over $1 Trillion a year in allotted to the military, secret intelligence, and “homeland security” in order to continue such unholy activities we have seen for over 100 years.

It is telling that such a high profile person like General Butler could give such influential speeches in the ’30’s, and that even a president (who was also a general, perhaps not coincidentally) could warn against the military-industrial complex in 1961. Such a thing has been unimaginable since the Carter presidency. With the possible exception of Bernie Sanders, there are no politicians today brave enough to take on this problem, and certainly none with as high a profile as president. Maybe it’s time for less money in the hands of arms producers and war profiteers. It’s time for less war and weapons in general. Sadly, this means that it must be time for new politicians. Only a citizenry which not only votes, but is also informed and involved, can do this.

[0] https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/15/war-is-still-a-racket/

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#147

Post by yourapostasy »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #135
roenxi wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends how you measure it as there were worse people in the same era as Hitler. If I recall the stats correctly it is a much better bet to be led by someone like Hitler over Stalin or Mao. The ethnically targeted nature of the holocaust is the main claim to 'worst of the worst' status, but honestly it isn't obvious to me that a dead Jew is more horrific than a dead anyone else. They are both pretty bad.

Hitler was horrible. Stalin was horrible. Stalin killed more people. But Stalin had more years in which to do it, and ruled a larger population. If you calculate (total body count) / (people-years ruled), I suspect Hitler was worse. (He might not be worse than Pol Pot, though...)

Famine deaths [1] still outclass genocide deaths [2], and there is still insufficient data on the Native American genocide, though it is likely on the same order as the Holocaust. You are right that the death rate per unit time wasn't as high, and the Holocaust is probably up there on that basis. The Holodomor is pretty on par with the Holocaust for death rate per unit time at the low end of death estimates, and outstrips the Holocaust at the high end of estimates, happened first, but wasn't publicized until relatively recently.

Never underestimate the depths of muderous intent those who wield power can potentially inflict.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_tol...

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#148

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

yourapostasy wrote: post #147
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hitler was horrible. Stalin was horrible. Stalin killed more people. But Stalin had more years in which to do it, and ruled a larger population. If you calculate (total body count) / (people-years ruled), I suspect Hitler was worse. (He might not be worse than Pol Pot, though...)

Famine deaths [1] still outclass genocide deaths [2], and there is still insufficient data on the Native American genocide, though it is likely on the same order as the Holocaust. You are right that the death rate per unit time wasn't as high, and the Holocaust is probably up there on that basis. The Holodomor is pretty on par with the Holocaust for death rate per unit time at the low end of death estimates, and outs…

>The Holodomor is pretty on par with the Holocaust for death rate per unit time at the low end of death estimates, and outstrips the Holocaust at the high end of estimates, happened first, but wasn't publicized until relatively recently.

It wasn't publicized because the New York Times was involved in covering it up.

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#149

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

aazaa wrote: post #17

> Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. This was the "war to end all wars." This was the "war to make the world safe for democracy." No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the ships on wh…

>Had those young men simply decided to do nothing rather than join, the world would have been a better place.

I am not so sure. I think the main reason that decolonization happened is that a whole generation of young men were lost and Europe was too exhausted and poor from the two world wars to keep its colonies.

Without WWI, there would not have been WWII which would have left the European nations as the premier powers in the world who would have held on to their colonies in Asia and Africa.

So without WWI, there would still be a pretty high chance that India would still be a British colony.

Europe may have been a better place, but probably not the rest of the world.

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#150

Post by int_19h »

jcranmer wrote: post #131
enriquepablo wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a result, it's worth cautioning people that just because a fact of foreign policy efforts was true 100 years ago does not mean that it is true today. Perhaps we might say something contrarian to this: if it was something true 100 years ago, the burden of proof is on the side of proving it is no longer so. And I think you will have a hard time at it.

The US no longer has a foreign policy explicitly built on the protection of American commercial interests abroad. If you haven't noticed, we no longer invade countries (e.g., Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela) when they threaten to nationalize industries that the US has a large stake in. If you believe that the foreign policy is built on that premise, but that the government is lying about it, then the burden of proof is on yo…

Well, no, we don't invade them - we subsidize a coup in their country. It's much cheaper that way, when their own troops are performing occupation duties, paid for by the taxes of the people they occupy.

And if those people revolt, then there's a "legitimate government" asking us to help them in a "police action" - not a war, God forbid! And then we train their troops and give them munitions. And if all that fails, then we send our troops to protect the "legitimate government".

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