Rich man's war, poor man's fight....

Rich Man's War, Poor Man's Fight

Nicholas von Hoffman

Ask George Washington what he thinks about fighting a war on credit. Back in his day, Congress printed money to pay for the Revolutionary War but neglected to tax anybody to back up this funny money of theirs. The bills were called continentals and in due course they lost all their value, hence the once-popular expression, "not worth a continental."

When your money is not worth a continental that means you are suffering from inflation big time. It happened 230 years ago in our War of Independence from the British. We are seeing it beginning to happen now in our war with, well, whoever it is we are fighting. We may not know the names, the whereabouts or the precise whys of the Iraq War but the costs are approaching a trillion dollars.

The Continental Congress was controlled by rich people and rich people do not like to pay taxes. Not then and not now, when we have another Congress controlled by rich people. Different war, same stupidity.

For a long time after the financially disastrous mistakes of the 1776 period, American politicians at least tried to wage pay-as-you-go wars. The Lincoln Administration introduced the first federal income tax in an attempt to pay for the Civil War. It was not enough and thus the greenback, as the paper dollar was called then, rapidly lost buying power (inflation). Gold coins, of course, did not and it was not until a decade or so after the Civil War that the government succeeded in hardening up the greenback and putting it on a par with the gold coin dollar. The hardening was done, however, at great pain to the nation's farmers and factory workers, but ain't that usually the way?

In World Wars I and II enormous efforts were made to pay the costs as the wars were being fought. It was during the Second World War that taxes were first deducted from paychecks. Taxes were hiked very high, particularly on the rich. Perhaps the assumption was that, since they had so much more materially at stake than the other 98 percent of the population and had that much more interest in seeing that the United States won the war, they ought to pay more. A victorious enemy would be confiscating rich people's property, not family farms or factory workers' houses.

The rest of the article is at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060710/howl

...man's wet-dream and a poor man's nightmare which is to say that I agree completely that we always end up with a rich man's war, poor man's fight.

War profiteers now control all three branches of our federal government. I'm shocked there's profiteering! Shocked! (It's no accident that most revolutions follow wars.)

Two birds with one stone: Draft Mary Cheney!

They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight
They leave that all to the poor ... oh lord yeah!

from Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" :headbang:

That's how far back that concept goes. Hell, ancient Rome practically invented the military industrial complex, and we see what happened to them.

The problem is, that empires that use their military to expand, must keep expanding to keep paying off their previously incurred debts from expansion. Once that ball starts rolling it never stops, and the empire in question always gets too large and inevitably collapses under its own weight.

Look at it as a gigantic ponzi scheme on a global scale. They get themselves in a huge amount of debt while invading other nations, and taking their money and resources to pay off the debt incurred from their previous invasion, in the meantime, more debt is accumulated paying off the previous debt, and on and on and on...

The same cycle is happening here as well. China is financing part of our debt now, we owe more money to foreign governments than ever before, and we’re selling national forests and key assets to keep our heads above water.

And on and on and on...

Rich Man’s War

Jimmy joined the army ‘cause he had no place to go
There ain’t nobody hirin’
‘round here since all the jobs went
down to Mexico
Reckoned that he’d learn himself a trade maybe see the world
Move to the city someday and marry a black haired girl
Somebody somewhere had another plan
Now he’s got a rifle in his hand
Rollin’ into Baghdad wonderin’ how he got this far
Just another poor boy off to fight a rich man’s war

Bobby had an eagle and a flag tattooed on his arm
Red white and blue to the bone when he landed in Kandahar
Left behind a pretty young wife and a baby girl
A stack of overdue bills and went off to save the world
Been a year now and he’s still there
Chasin’ ghosts in the thin dry air
Meanwhile back at home the finance company took his car
Just another poor boy off to fight a rich man’s war

When will we ever learn
When will we ever see
We stand up and take our turn
And keep tellin’ ourselves we’re free

Ali was the second son of a second son
Grew up in Gaza throwing bottles and rocks when the tanks would come
Ain’t nothin’ else to do around here just a game children play
Somethin’ ‘bout livin’ in fear all your life makes you hard that way

He answered when he got the call
Wrapped himself in death and praised Allah
A fat man in a new Mercedes drove him to the door
Just another poor boy off to fight a rich man’s war