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Sunday, March 16, 2014

Who Said Wars Benefit Capitalists?


Below are just a few snippets from the past century for the working class to ponder on. With these and multitudes of similar quotes readily available why should anyone from the working class be in any doubt as to the motives behind any and all of the conflicts, invasions and wars in progress and in planning right now? The answer lies firmly at our door - a socialist revolution to rid ourselves of capitalism once and for all.
JS

1. In the last thirty years of the nineteenth century Britain added 4.75 million square miles of territory, an area significantly larger than the United States. France added 3.5 million. Germany added 1 million.
By 1878 the European Powers and their former colonies controlled 67% of the earth's surface and by 1914 an astounding 84%. By the 1890s Europeans had divided up 90% of Africa.
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, the leading proponent of an American Empire observed, 'The great nations are rapidly absorbing for their future expansion and their present defense all the waste places of the earth' and urged the United States to move quickly to make up for lost time.
Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick 'The Untold History of the United States'

2. 'The doors of the nations which are closed must be battered down . . . Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process.'
1907 Woodrow Wilson, President of Princeton University

'There is nothing in which I am more interested than the fullest development of the trade of this country and its righteous conquest of foreign markets.'
1914 Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America to the Foreign Trade Convention


3. Re US intervention around the world in the first part of the 20th century:
'I spent 33 years and 4 months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
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 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. 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 . . .
During those years I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.'
General Smedley Butler from his book 'War is a Racket'


4. Republican Senator Gerald Nye of North Dakota led the 1934 hearings on the US arms industry that revealed the nefarious practices and enormous (WW1) wartime profits of American munitions companies.
'The committee listened daily to men striving to defend acts which found them nothing more than international racketeers, bent upon gaining profit through the game of arming the world to fight itself.'

eg 1. the DuPont company's orders between 1915-1918 of $1.245 billion showed an increase over the four years prior to the war of 1,130%
eg 2. Names were released of the 181 individuals who reported incomes exceeding £1 million in 1917 and noted that 41 of them had appeared for the first time, The list included six DuPonts, three Rockefellers, two Morgans and two Vanderbilts.
Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick

And finally, right up to date:

5. A U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (NED) “Resource Summary” for Fiscal Year 2013 says this about its policy toward Europe in 2013:
The objective of the Endowment in most of the countries where it is active in the Europe region is “helping new democracies to succeed.” For Eastern and Southeastern Europe, this goal is best met through these countries’ accession to the European Union and NATO (italics added).
In the same paragraph, the NED lists Ukraine as its first priority in Europe as follows: “In the Europe region, the 2013 priority countries will include Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Kosovo.”
Likewise, a U.S. State Department “Budget Summary” for Fiscal Year 2013 says this about Ukraine:
U.S. assistance aims to promote the development of a democratic, prosperous, and secure Ukraine, fully integrated into the Euro-Atlantic community as it struggles to overcome the effects of the global financial crisis and worsening backsliding on democratic reform (italics added).



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