EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- One American Who Isn't For Sale
- Transcript: Today's Live Q&A With NSA Leaker, Edward Snowden
- Remembering Satyajit Ray’s Hirok Rajar Deshe: On Edward Snowden, Resistance and Inverted Totalitarianism
- Obama Cans Regulator Who Crossed Wall Street
- Pentagon Bracing for Public Dissent Over Climate and Energy Shocks
Popular content
Today's Top News
Wall Street and War
Veterans For Peace has joined in endorsing “Sounds of Resistance,” a concert and protest against Wall Street banks that draws the connections between militarism, Wall Street, the wealth divide and the downward spiral of the wealth of most Americans. The event, on April 15 at 11:00 a.m. in New York City’s Union Square Park, is part of a democratic awakening that more and more Americans are joining.
Americans are recognizing the link between the military-industrial complex and the Wall Street oligarchs—a connection that goes back to the beginning of the modern U.S. empire. Banks have always profited from war because the debt created by banks results in ongoing war profit for big finance; and because wars have been used to open countries to U.S. corporate and banking interests. Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan wrote: “the large banking interests were deeply interested in the world war because of the wide opportunities for large profits.”
Many historians now recognize that a hidden history for U.S. entry into World War I was to protect U.S. investors. U.S. commercial interests had invested heavily in European allies before the war: “By 1915, American neutrality was being criticized as bankers and merchants began to loan money and offer credits to the warring parties, although the Central Powers received far less. Between 1915 and April 1917, the Allies received 85 times the amount loaned to Germany.” The total dollars loaned to all Allied borrowers during this period was $2,581,300,000. The bankers saw that if Germany won, their loans to European allies would not be repaid. The leading U.S. banker of the era, J.P. Morgan and his associates did everything they could to push the United States into the war on the side of England and France. Morgan said: "We agreed that we should do all that was lawfully in our power to help the Allies win the war as soon as possible." President Woodrow Wilson, who campaigned saying he would keep the United States out of war, seems to have entered the war to protect U.S. banks’ investments in Europe.
The most decorated Marine in history, Smedley Butler, described fighting for U.S. banks in many of the wars he fought in. He said: “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and 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 the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might 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.”
In Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins describes how World Bank and IMF loans are used to generate profits for U.S. business and saddle countries with huge debts that allow the United States to control them. It is not surprising that former civilian military leaders like Robert McNamara and Paul Wolfowitz went on to head the World Bank. These nations’ debt to international banks ensures they are controlled by the United States, which pressures them into joining the “coalition of the willing” that helped invade Iraq or allowing U.S. military bases on their land. If countries refuse to "honor" their debts, the CIA or Department of Defense enforces U.S. political will through coups or military action.
Tarak Kauff, Veteran For Peace activist and organizer, stated, "There are trillions for wars and occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and now Libya, billions yearly to support Israel's occupation and oppression of Palestine, again trillions in bailouts to make those at the top of the economic food chain even more powerful, but relative pennies for our children's education, adequate health care, infrastructure, housing and other necessities of Americans. Yet big corporate banks are thriving and, like Bank of America, pay no taxes. But you do, and I do, and working people all across this country pay taxes. I ask, what are we paying for and into whose pockets is it going? The wealth of this country is disappearing down the tubes into the stuffed pockets of the financial/military/industrial oligarchs. Americans are being bled dry while people of the world are literally bleeding and dying from U.S.-made weapons and warfare. Do we not see the connection?"
More and more people are indeed seeing the connection between corporate banksterism and militarism; they are seeing how uncontrolled spending on war is resulting in austerity at home. In a recent interview, Cornel West brought the issues of the wealth divide, Wall Street and militarism together. Prof. West also spoke about Obama, calling him “a cagey neoliberal at home and a liberal neoconservative abroad" who expanded the wars and military while re-enforcing the existing Wall Street-dominated power structure at home, a president who has abandoned the poor and working class and is becoming” a pawn of big finance and a puppet of big business." See the interview with Professor West here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_y3psTDT58&feature=channel_video_title.
Join us April 15 in Union SquarePark at 11:00 a.m. for the Sounds of Resistance concert and protest.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
17 Comments so far
Show AllI love live music. Nothing better than a free concert. The left free concerts and protests. The right back room meetings. The left peace and love. The right bullets,bombs,and money.Wow I wonder who will prevail?
iwonder, too.
Yet another predetermined bust attempt at 'change'. Obviously these people haven't gotten really mad yet.
Thank you, Mr. Zeese, for establishing the deadly, diabolical link between Mammon (bankers) and Mars-rules (MIC). If ever there was a mundane marriage made in Hell, this is it... for this duo is managing to spread misery around, not only to the present generation, but also leaving as legacy, a tainted, mangled genetic set of feedback loops. And all for a mere several trillion dollars! (Not including the price of souls that have cast their lot in the direction of transitory profits in exchange for the living essence of so much!)
The only questionable point in this piece is when Zeese says that Cornel West says Obama "is becoming a pawn of big finance and a puppet of big business." He IS BECOMING no such thing; he's been a pawn and a puppet of these agencies all along.
The sorrows of empire (Chalmers Johnson) simply carry with them the horrors of profiteering by Wall Street banksters and the entire capitalist class. This country decided a long time ago that it's better to ignore those horrors so we can get on with the business of war, which has become just about the only business that sustains this otherwise hollowed out economy. We are War, and our entire economic well-being depends on cultivating as many wars as we can, simultaneously, to answer the interests of our banking community and the war contractors with production plants in every state of this war-mad union. Obama is an obedient servant of this death-dealing dynamic, and he was committed to it long before he even began campaigning for president.
True that Obama has been a willing pawn and puppet. But Kevin Zeese knows this. He worked tirelessly for the Nader campaigns ..... that went nowhere.
What progressive still don't understand is that they are blatantly .......... oh, what's the word progressives use to describe Republicans who vote against their own interests?
Thank you for finally disrobing the EMPIRE of its clothes! I've been waiting for somebody to connect those dots: wars are usually fought for empire, and empire is the playground or gameboard of the oligarchs, "investor" class, corporatists, industrial complexes (medical, media, military) and the privileged wealthy class. Of course, they send of the rest of us impoverished fools to pay for that game and shed blood for them, in order for them to cash in the portfolio profits.
Yes--and let's connect one other dot to the rise of Wall Street funded imperialism. Every empire throughout history that has attempted to expand through endless wars has enslaved their populations to bankroll their warmongering ways. Wall Street has done more than its share to impoverish the middle class. Why? The dismantling of the American middle class is a prelude to even more wars and more empire building overseas.
Specific Suggestion: General Strike
by Garret Keizer
Harpers Magazine, October, 2007
http://harpers.org/archive/2007/10/0081720
This system is corrupt and rotten to core. Those that have gained control will not stop until they have completely impoverished us and the next five generations. The immoral murderous thieving bastards are entrenched and totally convinced they are untouchable. These people are not like you, they don't think like you,they don't care about you. They are not impressed with free concerts and protests. They don't give a damn if your children starve to death in the street. They don't care if you vote for a third party. They have contempt for you and what you think. We have been striped of our constitutional rights, and if they thought your protests could get results they would shoot you down in the street. If we wait until the shooting starts we will all suffer greatly. The time for effective action is now. The street will not work. Organize via the internet while we still have it. On the same day millions sell all stock,or close your corporate bank account or agree not to use your credit cards for one week or a general strike. It time for a massive coordinated action that slaps them in the face before it's to late. They will pay no heed to protests,free concerts,or letters to the editor. If we don't take effective coordinated action now we will see blood in the streets. We need ideals and action now.
Have you ever wondered why these Wall Stret bankers love war so much? After all JFK understood their mindset and tried to talk them into a massive space program that would never end because the universe is practically unlimited. They could have easily transferred the war profits model to the "space travel and exploration industrial complex".
Let me answer that for you, boys and girls.
You CAN conflate war with patriotism to sucker the rubes.
That's hard to do with space travel expenses.
War has always been an elite scam.
Their only actual interest in space exploration is the militarization of space. Boys and girls.
Great article. This would be the central issue of today's politics if the Wall Street banksters weren't so effective at clouding the discussion with their assorted fear flaming.
An historical footnote:
The most acute & astute observer of the situation in The Great War was Minnesota Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh Senior, whose son was approaching draft age. He wrote a book called: "Why Your Son is at War" pointing out the profit motives of banksters et al, and the conscription of the poor. A copy, hot off the press, was rushed to the White House. It was examined by President Woodrow Wilson, who then ordered all copies SEIZED, and BURNED, and the lead printer's plates melted in a refiner's fire.
In England, Bertrand Russell openly counseled youth to evade conscription, for the same reasons. After several months in gaol, Bertie was released with the strange proviso that he must not approach the coastline of England any closer than one mile. Apparently, if you advise youth to avoid war, you might signal a U-Boat with a torch. But I have looked in vain for the damn things.
Trylon
Trylon---
I've read a few books by "Bertie" and several articles about him, but had never heard about the experience your last paragraph describes. Your report is very funny, and I believe it, because the goddam Brits never quite knew what to do with the brilliant man their own culture had created. An iconoclast, high-theory mathematician, and first-order global political activist, in late age he reportedly survived an airplane crash by swimming in the English Channel for about 45 minutes before being rescued.
I also read somewhere that in writing many of his books, he would aggregate his stream of thought and then dictate them to a scribe off the top of his head, without notes.
In the last TV interview I saw of him, in his mid-90s, he said, "Life is a river the banks of which are ever receding." I thought that a very poetic statement about how as we grow older our minds grow wiser, but today I realize that he could also have been saying, All our crap ends up in the oceans, you fucking idiots.
Fukushima can be understood as an alter to his opposition to nuclear power. He also opposed capitalism and wrote a book about the history of The Commons and its destruction.
Thanks for bringing him up on this thread. Esp. in the context of World War I, a true mutual genocide among governments the nature of which I have never been able to deconstruct. (Perhaps too many players...?) WWII seems easier to understand.
Today we have totally computerized economic globalization. At a certain level we have learned how to produce enough "goods and services" for everybody while we have yet to learn how to distribute them equitably. Instead, we create a false scarcity through war and despoilation. This is stupid. It is as though humans have a gene that demands anxiety. (Concomitant here is that the greater the economic security of a nation, the lower the contribution to overpopulation---in the absence of genocides such as Rwanda and Congo.)
We need to reinterpret our past and the nature of who and what we are. We should not be living like this.
-30-
As much as I would like to, I don't have the funds to travel to New York for this concert. I wonder if it will be televised anywhere or if a CD/DVD of the concert will be released? I'd be there if I could.
According to my own investigation, millions of persons on our planet receive the loan at good creditors. Hence, there's great possibilities to find a auto loan in any country.
I received my first credit loans when I was 25 and this supported me very much. But, I require the auto loan over again.