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

[Stuart Levy]

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 02:10:31PM -0500, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> 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.

I agree -- but I'm interested in how history judges us -- or how we judge
the Germans of that time, which we can safely do since they were clearly defeated.
Extravagant deficit spending can & has propped up the US for a while, but can't
indefinitely, of course.

And we don't necessarily have to suffer a military defeat to become impotent,
we can trip over our own shoelaces economically too.  When we're down,
others will be more willing to point out our past (present) faults.
Though that may not make *us* any more willing to look at them...

There's a nice short story with one prescient scenario for this, by
Bruce Sterling.  Google "we see things differently" and it's the first link:
    "a 1989 story from the perspective of an Arab visitor to a future,
     run-down America"

> 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

If we can find arguments that will be effective in countering the endless
proponents of war, I hope we will use them.  Even if we know that there is
more truth than is represented in those arguments.

>
> 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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