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

[David Green]

Dean Baker, the best critical economist around,
doesn't fudge the numbers on behalf of ideology. He
insists that war spending is much less central to the
current situation than either balance of payments or
the housing bubble. I'm not sure how advisable it is
to expand the antiwar tent by appealing essentially to
self-interest, even if military funds were to be spent
on social projects in the collective self-interest of
all of us. If we don't have a soul and a conscience,
who will? And if we compromise on those, what is to
guide us?

DG



--- "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu> 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.
> 
> 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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> >
>
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