To the Americans

[Flashermac]

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

 

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

 

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

 

In the World War a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

 

[color:red]How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?[/color]

 

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few -- the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

 

...

 

 

http://www.horstwisdom.com/wiki/index.php5?title=War_is_a_Racket

[rogueyam]

The poet was...a Brit.

 

I believe the author in question was a Canuckian.

[Flashermac]

 

 

 

 

http://www.horstwisdom.com/wiki/index.php5?title=War_is_a_Racket

[Flashermac]

The poet was...a Brit.

 

I believe the author in question was a Canuckian.

 

 

Could be. In those days the Canucks had no choice. When Britain went to war, so did they. The nation with the largest empire in the world had to fight to "defend the rights of small nations".

 

 

 

 

 

[JayT]

A nice piece by George Will about the last living American veteran of WW1.

 

Numbers come precisely from the agile mind and nimble tongue of Frank Buckles, who seems bemused to say that 4,734,991 Americans served in the military during America's involvement in the First World War and that 4,734,990 are gone. He is feeling fine, thank you for asking.

 

The eyes of the last doughboy are still sharp enough for him to be a keen reader, and his voice is still deep and strong at age 107.

 

Link

[CTO]

nice

[Torneyboy]

107 not out ..well done :thumbup:

[CTO]

I liked this line - really makes you think

 

<>

 

He's halfway between then and now - pretty amazing really

[rogueyam]

He's halfway between then and now - pretty amazing really

 

This guy was in his twenties in the 1920s. As a young man he heard the first jazz and blues recordings by Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith right when they were first recorded, broadcast over the newly-ubiquitous home entertainment system - the radio. At that time he could have spoken with a man in his eighties who had fought in the Civil War as a man of twenty. Now he can see photos beamed back from the surface of Mars. This dude has seen some shit!