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War Is a Racket (1933)

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Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#151

Post by nickkell »

solatic wrote: post #133

Please read your military history. Soldiers who have never fought are less capable in battle. It doesn't really matter how much they train or how many drills are run. Nothing really prepares you for the trauma of watching your friend of many years die by getting his head blown off next to you, or worse, bleeding out while crying for his mother. There are two kinds of people who witness that: those who curl up and pra…

What does this have to do with the linked essay? The author is claiming that America is the aggressor in these wars. You make it sound like it’s all for practice in case one day the tables are turned

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#152

Post by schwanky »

I believe this racket has only been growing and growing every decade since. It needs to be brought up more often, and people and organisations with large audiences must dare to speak openly about it.

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#153

Post by scyzoryk_xyz »

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…

*some clueless young guys have to go and kill untold numbers of innocent people in another country.

It never ceases to amaze me how citizens of the USA place the vast majority of sympathy to their beloved “troops” and barely any on those who actually get invaded.

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#154

Post by d0mine »

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…

selling guns is just a side business, the actual profit is in: "I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested."

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#155

Post by justatdotin »

solatic wrote: post #133

Please read your military history. Soldiers who have never fought are less capable in battle. It doesn't really matter how much they train or how many drills are run. Nothing really prepares you for the trauma of watching your friend of many years die by getting his head blown off next to you, or worse, bleeding out while crying for his mother. There are two kinds of people who witness that: those who curl up and pra…

thankyou for illustrating the mentality behind usa's wars.

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#156

Post by Simon_O_Rourke »

hilbert42 wrote: post #131
anm89 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe there is some objective thing called "just"?

Pretty simple really. If you are being invaded without provovation and every attempt at diplomacy has failed, and going past form, you know that if your enemy succeeds in overrunning you, then your women wiil be raped and you and your children killed then you've no option other than to fight with all your might. That's the extreme case, at what point on a sliding scale the options change is moot and subject to vigouo…

That's the extreme case, but there's also the argument that the Afghans were fighting a just war from their perspective against foreign invasion. Despite all the horrible stuff they're inflicting on their own people day to day.

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#157

Post by keewee7 »

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 wants to avoid his tax paying population panicking and fleeing to Western Europe.

Ukrainians are very concerned right now.

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#158

Post by vixen99 »

mercy_dude wrote: post #136
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…

The music stops the day USD losses it’s reserve currency status. Which there is a good chance of us seeing in your lifetime.

With respect, you mean 'The music stops the day USD loses its reserve currency status.'.

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#159

Post by hilbert42 »

roenxi wrote: post #120
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…

> Since then I honestly think there should be no profit in making weapons while a war is going. It is an interesting thought but ... if the government tells the industrial chain "you aren't getting paid for this" then there is a pretty high chance the war will be lost. Being optimistic, maybe it could work for one war. Then the next war people ask "where are our weapons?" and the answer is "there are none". There is…

"- someone needs to be held accountable for constantly lying and sleepwalking the US into wars."

I'm forever whingeing on HN about this. The real problem is that much of the citizenry has lost faith and trust in its leaders and in many of its longstanding institutions and rightly so given the never-ending scandals.

We need a new covenant - a formal undestanding - between the Government and the people but I, like millions of others, have little clue where to begin.

Re: War Is a Racket (1933)

#160

Post by keewee7 »

kerneloftruth wrote: post #6

Succinct and timely as we watch the US media and political class breathlessly try to rally us all to go to war with Russia. Even the Ukrainians aren't as eager and worked-up; NATO, in fact, has not stood up any forces so far. It's insane.

>Even the Ukrainians aren't as eager and worked-up

This is so intellectually dishonest. Ukrainian politicians are downplaying the Russian threat because they don't want their population to panic and flee the country.

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