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War Is a Racket (1933)

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Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#91

Post by pm90 »

steelstraw wrote: post #89
the-dude wrote: post #28

We can clearly hear the drums beating from across the Atlantic. A new adventure was already expected with the change of administration.

Something I don't get: Why is the Ukrainian president less concerned about invasion than the US president? Anyone have a good answer to this?

The Ukrainian President is concerned about invasion, not sure where you’re getting the idea he’s not. His criticism is specifically about the handling so as to not cause panic: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/28/ukraine-russ....

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#92

Post by [deleted] »

steelstraw wrote: post #89
the-dude wrote: post #28

We can clearly hear the drums beating from across the Atlantic. A new adventure was already expected with the change of administration.

Something I don't get: Why is the Ukrainian president less concerned about invasion than the US president? Anyone have a good answer to this?

[deleted]

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#93

Post by mrobot »

phantomathkg wrote: post #88
mrobot wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current lie is that there is a threat of a new invasion. Not even Ukrainian leadership agrees with this, but it doesn't seem to affect planning in the United States. "They invaded 8 years ago" hm ok. Do you know what a US color revolution is? https://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2014/03/11/pierre-omidyar-c...

Most of the countries have two or two choices, align with Russia/China, or align with the West. Back in 2017, 69% of Ukrainian wants to join NATO[1]. It is Putin's own fascination that Ukraine should go back to Russia that starts all this mess[2]. Even if US has sponsored the color revolution, so what? Between two evils, choose the lesser one. [1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-nato-idUSKBN19V12... [2]:…

Lesser of two evils applies when there is a dichotomy of two likely outcomes both of which you see as evil.

In this case, the United States can simply not invade. Then there will be no problem.

The problem is that Jen Psaki is going on television and telling the country a bold-faced lie. It is just a lie, that is all there is to it. Russia is not the aggressor. The United State is the aggressor.

No US invasion, no evil.

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#94

Post by aplummer »

reedjosh wrote: post #73
aplummer wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

What a trivial distinction. Either way you had to go back that far to find another president that didn't start a new war. It would be remarkable if it was 20 years.

You only have to go back to Obama to find a president that didn’t “start a war”.

As Obama only interceded in Libya and other ongoing conflicts.

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#96

Post by lifeplusplus »

landemva wrote: post #64
spaetzleesser wrote: post #51

I started paying attention to this when I lived close to DC around 2002. Bush was cutting the top tax brackets while ramping up for the Iraq invasion, the defense contractors made record profits (I remember one CEO making around 30 million) and the DC metro was plastered with ads touting the patriotism of the defense contractors. I thought "these guys are making record money, are getting their taxes reduced, try to l…

USA loves armed conflict so much it pays the EU to run their junior league fighters NATO. Just can't get enough of it.

money laundering at bigger scale... tax -> war -> defense budget -> military complex manufacturers

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#97

Post by Atlas667 »

This book is a great example of how wrong it is to think that the concept of the state is evil and oppressing. When in reality the state acts in favor of those in power, and i don't mean politicians or the president. It's the capitalists. The ones who control production control society.

We don't have wars because of ideas or justice, we have war because of the hard economic incentives of the powerful. The states mass surveillance isn't based on a corrupt evil, they do it to secure the interests of the powerful. We don't pay taxes solely because 'the states' or politicians want to take from us, they do it to pay subsidies and bailouts to industries.

This book is about capitalists, their state and how they use it to secure profit. To have capital is to have influence, so where are you when laws get written?

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#98

Post by hilbert42 »

The tragedy is that poor unfortunate grunts only get to know it's a racket after it's too late - when half of them are already dead.

Unfortunately, it seems to be a chararistic of the human condition that learning about war is a slow prossess and that the horrors of experiencing it cannot passed down from one generation to the next.

Experience gathered over millennia has demonstrated that it's essentially impossible to teach recruits before they enter the military that war is not only a racket but also it will be the most horrible and devastating experience of their lives.

The fact is, it's impossible to put an old head onto young shoulders.

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#99

Post by rixed »

mrjangles wrote: post #77
dav_Oz wrote: post #58

Beforehand [0] the author of this text, Butler, the most respected general in the US at that time was offered to lead a coup d'etat to overthrow FDR and then to become effectively a dictator. [0] https://bigthink.com/the-present/fdr-coup/

>Remembering when bankers tried to overthrow FDR and install a fascist dictator Ironic considering that FDR's economic reforms were openly modeled on fascist Italy, and FDR was on good terms with Mussolini. He was also in the process of following Mussolini's lead and attempting to overthrow the American institutions that were in his way. He had already gone out of his way to install a KKK member on the Supreme Court,…

This just show that fascism means different things to different people.

There are indeed several aspects to it:

- suppression of labor unions and other political organisations that go against the interests of the ruling class, using mob violence

- a nationalist/religious/wtv ideology portaying anyone discussing orders as a dangerous enemy (dividing the people in the name of unity)

- the will to at least temporarily ignore the rules of normal, consensual arbitration within the society, to face dangerous times (for the ruling class, thus their initial approval/encouragements).

- to various degrees, the new regime goes out of hands and also ends up terrorizing the ruling class.

Many different movements/regimes in history matched with several of those points. Many military coups are called "fascist" despite they lack the "mob violence" aspect, relying instead on the support on some external army's paratroopers. And many exceptional regimes ignoring past laws temporarily to face a dire situation are also labeled as "fascist", despite they make little use of violence.

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#100

Post by petre »

slibhb wrote: post #52
petre wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe what you want but this¹ is a clear indicator that an invasion is inevitable. 10k troops is likely Russian propaganda. I've read the Russian point of view and it's basically "the US has provoked this by extending NATO into Eastern Europe, Ukraine is controlled by fascists". They have failed to install a pro Russian administration in Ukraine, so their only remaining option is "liberating eastern and southern Uk…

Sorry, it was actually 100K which still doesn't seem enough for an invasion. The question is whether the number of soldiers has increased as of late, which the Ukrainians deny. My overall point is that I don't know whether to trust articles like the one you linked or things the Ukrainians and Russians are saying. It's not that I think the American media is lying exactly but it occurs to me that they may be deluding t…

Don't know, but I really wish they are wrong and the Russians are right in their claims that the West is "hysterical". So far all the evidence points towards preparations for an invasion and failure to recognise it as such is just wishful thinking. If they were only amassing troops, it could have been an exercise, but when mobile hospitals start to appear near a conflict area, it means preparations for war. Hopefully this will end like the Russo-Georgian war. Similar military effectives were involved on the Russian part then. To get a better view on this, I'd read what Pavel Felgenhauer has to say about this. He was right in his prediction that Russia was going to attack Georgia in August 2008.

https://jamestown.org/analyst/pavel-felgenhauer/

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