EQUITY DURING WAR TIME IN AMERICA

I received this email from one of my favorite Congressmen; like Bernie Sanders Representative Grayson reaches out beyond his constituency. I just love this guy:

On May 30, 2010, at 10:06 a.m, the direct cost of occupying Iraq and Afghanistan will hit $1 trillion. And in a few weeks, the House of Representatives will be asked to vote for $33 billion of additional "emergency" supplemental spending to continue the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. There will be the pretense of debate - speeches on the floor of both chambers, stern requests for timetables or metrics or benchmarks - but this war money will get tossed in the wood chipper without difficulty, requested by a President who ran on an anti-war platform. Passing this legislation will mark the breaking of another promise to America, the promise that all war spending would be done through the regular budget process. Not through an off-budget swipe of our Chinese credit card.

The war money could be used for schools, bridges, or paying everyone's mortgage payments for a whole year.  Grayson's Newsletter.

So what has this to do with Memorial Day, almost a Holy Day of Obligation for this nation as a whole? Am I engaging in pure snark?

Thepeoplechoose gave us all a link over the weekend showing George W. Bush for what a warmonger really is:

And he stood up from his chair and got angry. He told me, 'A Marshall plan! No! That's a crazy idea from the Democrats. What needs to be done here, and the best way to revitalize the economy is -- the United States has grown based on wars,' he told me. That's what he told me," Kirchner recounted.

Bush added, said Kirchner, that "all the economic growth that the U.S. had had, had been based on the different wars it had waged

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/27/bush-war-boosts-the-us-ec_n_592444.html

I harped a little on this yesterday. But why we are at war and who has to fight that war are not separate issues.

Remember that w and cheney claimed that we needed a 'war on terrorism'? And the more sane statesmen and pundits had a little problem with this concept. Since the Celts and the Gauls were terrorists in the time of Caesar, since the Norse were terrorists for five hundred years in Europe, since Nathan Hale was nothing but a terrorist as far as the Brits were concerned (after all the Islamic Terrorists regret having only one life to sacrifice for their cause), since ....well you get the picture. A war on terrorism is the perfect vehicle for war mongers like bush and cheney to keep us at war for eternity.

Oh and did you see how W. Bush dissed the Marshall Plan? I mean the greatest single attempt of this country to show the world what we are made of; the greatest single boost to the reconstruction efforts in Europe. And our economy benefited from this plan. And because of the Marshall Plan, Western Europe has not seen a war since 1945. Show me any 65 year period in the last three thousand years where Western Europe has not been involved in war.  (NATO ASIDE OF COURSE)

Peaceful solutions vs. carnage. Thinkers vs. war mongers. I cannot help but see Bush's credo as anything but pure evil. War for money. That in itself is a lie of course because it was not the economy that benefited from this war mongering but the Masters of War who really made a bundle from all this carnage.

There are other considerations for many of us on this sacred weekend.

First of all a war monger will always hide behind the soldiers he is employing to do his bidding. That is a fact.  The soldier risks his life, his limbs and his mind while the politician risks his political position. Not the same thing.

Well screw the Vietnam War. Oh yeah, you mean you refuse to support our troops? Well then you are supporting the World Communist Conspiracy.

Well screw the Afghanistan War. Oh yeah, you mean you do not support our troops? Well then you are supporting Islamic Terrorism.

Well we must remove our presence in Iraq. Oh yeah, you mean you do not support our troops? Well which side are you on anyway; all you are doing is supporting al Quida.

Second, there is the issue of sacrifice for the masses; what do the citizens have to sacrifice for all of this.

On the surface not much this time around.  Let us just make a brief review of sacrifice as defined during WWII.

There were war bonds issued by the United States government. All citizens were asked to participate. If a business refused to involve itself in the thousands of war bond drives, the public came down hard on that business.

There were taxes; special taxes instituted to help finance the war.

Corporations involved in the war supply business were under heavy scrutiny from Congress before and during the war--just ask the ghost of Harry Truman. Punitive measures were instituted against those corporations who were benefiting too much from their DOD contracts.

The nation chose tanks over automobiles. The automobile plants were turned into war plants. Neither rich nor poor could buy a car. People ride shared. People took the bus or the train or the el or the subway or their bikes.

To get a classification and rationing stamps, one had to appear before a local War Price and Rationing Board which reported to the U.S. Office of Price Administration. Each person in a household received a ration book, including babies and small children who qualified for canned milk not available to others. To receive a gasoline ration card, a person had to certify a need for gasoline and ownership of no more than five tires. All tires in excess of five per driver were confiscated by the government, because of rubber shortages. An A sticker on a car was the lowest priority of gasoline rationing and entitled the car owner to 3 to 4 gallons of gasoline per week. B stickers were issued to workers in the military industry, entitling their holder up to 8 gallons of gasoline per week. C stickers were granted to persons deemed very essential to the war effort, such as doctors. T rations were made available for truckers. Lastly, X stickers on cars entitled the holder to unlimited supplies and were the highest priority in the system. Ministers of Religion, police, firemen, and civil defense workers were in this category.[7] A scandal erupted when 200 Congressmen received these X stickers.[8]

Tires were the first item to be rationed in January 1942 after supplies of natural rubber were interrupted. Soon afterward, passenger automobiles, typewriters, sugar, gasoline, bicycles, footwear, fuel oil, coffee, stoves, meat, lard, shortening and oils, cheese, butter, margarine, processed foods (canned, bottled, and frozen), dried fruits, canned milk, firewood and coal, jams, jellies, and fruit butter were rationed by November 1943 wiki

WE WERE ALL IN IT TOGETHER. WE KNEW WE WERE ALL IN IT TOGETHER; RICH AND POOR ALIKE; BLACK AND WHITE ALIKE; IMMIGRANT AND CITIZEN BORN ALIKE.

With money and power there were many who got away with murder during this period of our history. But damn, no conspicuous consumption. None. If you stepped out of line you might be prosecuted but you would surely be shunned in your own community.

And in 2002 what were we asked to do as a nation, as a committed group of citizens?

GO SHOPPING was the request. Of course w bush would issue an inane statement like this because THAT WAS THE POINT OF THE GODDAMN WARS ANYWAY.

Wars WILL cure our economic ills.

What really took place under W. Bush?  First the corporations and the richest 1% were given one trillion dollars in tax relief. Can you imagine? During WWII, the richest and the corporations PAID MORE NOT LESS. And few of these bastards had the guts to bitch about that increased contribution.

Besides that lost trillion in revenue, the corporations received a huge share of the trillion we paid for the war. The corporations received a larger portion of the trillion dollars because of the outsourcing programs instituted by the Department of Defense through Rummy and Cheney.

But did the vast majority of Americans get off scott free during these wars of this decade?

Twelve trillion dollars in debt tells me that the answer to this question is no.

And a lot of this debt was hidden intentionally by the Bush Administration when they instituted the edict that the cost of the wars would not show up in any yearly budget.

And I submit that the wars are a substantial contributing factor to the failure of our banks, our mortgage companies and Wall Street.  I mean deregulation and out and out bribes from corporations to the politicians are also substantial contributing factors to be sure. But these wars directly contributed to the woes of this economy.

But I am not a supporter of terrorism. I am not a supporter of al Qaida. I am not a supporter of the 'enemy' when I write of these things.

There is a beautiful mini memorial to our soldiers a couple blocks from my little place. It is a pretty circle of small stele recording the number of deaths experienced by our soldiers in just about every war we were ever involved in.

292,000 Americans lost during   WWII

33,600 Americans lost during the War in  Korea

58,000 soldiers lost during the War in  Vietnam

And so it goes.

And along with the dead there were hundreds of thousands of soldiers who came back to the States permanently maimed physically. And more than that number permanently maimed psychologically.

I honor those dead and wounded with all my heart.

And I believe that during this decade the richest one percent of our citizens along with the largest corporations have dishonored those same men and women; just as if all the carnage and the blood were lost in order to enrich their interests.

The best manner in which to honor those who sacrificed their lives for this country is to prevent further carnage dallying in conflicts which have nothing to do with us.

God Bless America.

And Goddamn those who benefit from needless war along with those who perpetrate those wars.