Solutions to war profiteering?

[yurbud]

Here's an inspirational start from Gen. Smedley Butler, two time Medal of Honor winner and blistering critic of war profiteers.

I like his principle here, and would propose a similar one that all contracts be converted to cost, exec salaries and bonuses frozen, no dividends, no profts for the duration of the conflict.

I would also add that an independent analysis must be done of which business interests will profit from the conflict, and the president be required to read this on television. It be harder to invade Central American plantation states if the president had to say "This one is for the United Fruit Company."

during war:

The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nations manhood can be conscripted. One month before the Government can conscript the young men of the nation – it must conscript capital and industry and labor. Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted – to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.

Let the workers in these plants get the same wages – all the workers, all presidents, all executives, all directors, all managers, all bankers –

yes, and all generals and all admirals and all officers and all politicians and all government office holders – everyone in the nation be restricted to a total monthly income not to exceed that paid to the soldier in the trenches!

Let all these kings and tycoons and masters of business and all those workers in industry and all our senators and governors and majors pay half of their monthly $30 wage to their families and pay war risk insurance and buy Liberty Bonds.

Why shouldn't they?

They aren't running any risk of being killed or of having their bodies mangled or their minds shattered. They aren't sleeping in muddy trenches. They aren't hungry. The soldiers are!


http://www.hackvan.com/pub/stig/anti-govt/war-is-a-racket.htm

[ret5hd]

1. now THAT is an excellent idea...

i haven't read that particular quote of his before.

[yurbud]

4. It's from the book version of "War Is a Racket" check out the link

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. But that would make war so

unpopular!

[toymachines]

3. Butler saved our ass from Fascism

Rather than leading the corporate pack in a coup of presidential power.
Plot to Sieze the WH

[yurbud]

6. Someday, he will be properly recognized for that.

I think most people here hold his whistleblowing in that episode in proper reverence.

[jody]

9. We should award Butler the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously and

tell the whole story. History books used in K-12 and college for mandatory courses rarely talk about the efforts of multinational corporate leaders to establish a fascist government in the U.S.

[yurbud]

11. or our business support for Hitler and European fascism

[yurbud]

12. if it wasn't for Pearl Harbor, FDR probably couldn't have gotten big

business to fight Hitler, or if did want to, they were seeing the short term profit as opposed to their long term anti-democratic project.

[jody]

5. Butler was a Republican. Where are the Abes, Teddys, Ikes, and Smedleys

when our country needs people like them?

The current neocon/Republican leaders with their NWO agenda are betraying our country.

[yurbud]

7. When I grew up in Oregon, we had a fairly ethical GOP Sen, Mark Hatfield

I think the current bunch chased them out. It isn't enough for congress members to be business friendly, they have to literally take orders or hit the road.

[Greyhound]

8. Truly a great American. Does anybody under 40 know who he

was, or what he did? Where are the Butlers and Longs of today?

[jody]

10. I don't find many people under 70 who know what Butler did. n/t

[yurbud]

13. I'm under 70. Someone told me about it, and I told others...

[jody]

16. Wonderful, I also spread the word at every opportunity. Sad thing is some

who teach American History do not know about the plot to steal the White House.

[yurbud]

18. probably most

[Greyhound]

19. I've never seen it in any curriculum, though I'm sure somebody covers it.

[toymachines]

17. Very few

I am 20, and I have shared that link with many. I plan on writing a story about it for the school paper. It is a story worth sharing.

[oblivious]

14. Aren't war advocates always just filled with fucking hypocrisy!

From the business leaders who advocate and prosper from it but never fight in it, to the politicians and media chickenhawks who beat the drums so others can go and fight, to the chest thumping faux tough guys who jump on the propaganda bandwagon, baying about the enemy's evil intentions and about the world being in peril, but whose last thought would be to sign up themselves.

There's nothing more disgusting on earth than a warmonger. If a leader believes war is that important that his countrymen must die then he should lead them into battle. Otherwise he's a hypocrite.

[yurbud]

15. Yep. Bob Dylan nailed it in MASTERS OF WAR:

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

the rest:

http://bobdylan.com/songs/masters.html

[leftofthedial]

20. yep, nationalize the war industry

[yurbud]

21. I agree-- nice way to break the back of the privatization fever

Privatization of government functions is at its core corrupt.

Instead of starting at the edges, go for the heart of the beast.

It would be nice if our government decided when to go to war based on real threats, not the need to payback campaign contributors.

[catmandu57]

22. Tax the living fuck out of them

set up a watchdog, and when the wartime profit starts to look obscene let a 95% tax rate kick in. If they bitch then nationalize their ass and make them supply their product at a reasonable price.

[yurbud]

23. the hard part is defining "reasonable prices" these guys are masters at

accounting tricks a la Enron.