[Peace-discuss] Re: [Peace] "Iraq and Recession" press conference noon today (Thu), IDF, Springfield & Wright

[C. G. Estabrook]

I'm not so sure.

The Third Reich didn't fall apart from the economic effect of its war policies. 
  Just the opposite: it was German rearmament after 1933 that saved Germany from 
the worst of the Depression.  It took the US until the end of the decade to 
catch on.

The New Deal never solved the Depression (of course it was forced by popular 
pressure to do some good things) -- only war spending after 1940 did that. (It 
also produced the Great Fear in American planners after the war: since war 
spending ended the Depression, the end of the war meant the return of the 
depression; the only solution was continued preparation for war.)

What economic health the Bush II era has enjoyed may be due to Iraq war 
spending.  You know that, absent 9/11, the president and Congress would not have 
  spent anywhere near so much money on anything else, especially not anything 
worthwhile.

It is true that there's an argument about diminishing returns in this "military 
Keynsianism"  -- for one thing, a greater tranche is non-domestic than was the 
case 60 years ago -- and there's all sorts of other reasons to condemn how the 
current administration has and hasn't spent money.  But it's at least not clear 
that current war spending is economically ruinous for the US.

The liberal argument against the Vietnam War, 40 years ago, was that of course 
it was a good idea if it could be done, but it was costing too much.  I didn't 
think much of that argument then, and I don't now. --CGE


Stuart Levy wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 11:36:52AM -0500, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>> Suppose the German anti-war movement had the freedom to operate that we do, 
>> and they chose in 1943 to mount a campaign with the theme "The War is 
>> Costing Too Much"...  --CGE
> 
> If they'd succeeded, I'd have been happy to cheer them on.
> 
> 
> If the US falls apart as a result of these ruinous & immoral
> policies, future mainstream historians may well look on us as we look
> now on the Third Reich.  We have that luxury now because the Germans
> had to admit defeat, and were judged by those who defeated them.
> But if the US survives this, who will get the chance to look at us
> that way?  Or better, when will that widespread judgement come?
> Until then we can still expect that many people will oppose war as
> an economic burden, even if too few see it as a burden on their
> consciences as well.
> 
> When Derrick Jensen spoke here a few months ago -- talking about
> the essential violence and essential unsustainability of industrial
> civilization -- one of his comments was that he suspects Bush & co.
> are closet Luddites.  How could they have been more diligent
> in hastening our downfall?
> 
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