Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center

ty of Americans it was a good war, if there can be such a
thing. People were more mobile and prosperous than ever
before. The demands of the war brought the United States
out of a deep depression, created new cities, new industries,
new fortunes, a new way of life." (3)
Isolated in its Western Hemispheric Empire far
from the main theatres of fighting, U.S. imperialism suffered
relatively little. As the Great Powers were inevitably
pulled into a global war of desperation, each driven to
solve its economic crisis by new conquests, Amerika hung
back. It hoped, just as in World War I, to wait out much
of the war and slip in near the end to take the lion's share
of the kill.
The millions of civilians who died from bombing
raids, disease and famine in war-torn Europe, Asia, North
Afrika and the Middle East have never been fully counted.
The full death toll is often put at an unimaginable 60
million lives. Amerika was spared all this, and emerged
triumphant at the war's end with citizenry, colonies and industry
completely intact. Even U.S. military forces suffered
relatively lightly compared to the rest of the world.
Military deaths for the major combatants are revealing:
Germany-7 million; Russia-6 million; Japan-2 million;
China-2 million; Great Britain-250,000; U.S.A.-400,000.
More Russian soldiers died in the Battle of Stalingrad
alone than total U.S. military casualties for the whole war.
(4)
The war boom kicked Depression out. Factories
were roaring around the clock. The 16 million soldiers and
sailors in the armed forces had left places everywhere for
the unemployed to fill. The general prosperity that
characterized Amerikan society all the way up to the 1970s
began right there, in the war economy of WWII. The war
years were such a prosperous upturn from the Depression
that the necessary propaganda about "sacrificing for the
war effort" had a farcical air to it. Lucky Strike, the biggest
selling cigarette, caught the settler mood perfectly.
when it changed its package color from green to white -
and then announced nonsensically in big ads: "Lucky
Strike green is going off to war!"
Average family income went up by 50% compared
to the Depression years. In New York City, average family
income rose from $2,760 to $4,044 between 1938-1942.
Nor was this just a paper gain. A historian of the wartime
culture writes: "Production for civilian use, while
diminishing, remained so high that Americans knew no
serious deprivations ... At the peak of the war effort in
1944, the total of all goods and services available to
civilians was actually larger than it had been in 1940." (5)
The number of supermarkets more than tripled
between 1939 and 1944. Publishers reported book sales up
40% by 1943. The parimutuel gambling take at the race
tracks skyrocketed 250% from 1940 to 1944. Just between
1941 and 1942 jewelry sales were up 20-100% by areas. By
1944 the cash and bank accounts held by the U.S. population
reached a record $140 Billion. That same year Macys
department store in New York City had a sale on Pearl
Harbor Day - which produced their most profitable
business day ever! (6) Once again, the exceptional life of
settler Amerika was renewed by war and conquest. This is
the mechanism within each Amerikan cycle of internal
conflict and reform. The New Deal was Hiroshima and
Nagasaki as well. Consumeristic Amerika was erected on
top of the 60 million deaths of World War 11.
2. The Political Character of the War
"In the U.S., World War 11 was the principal
cause of the total breakdown of the working-class movement
and its revolutionary consciousness.. .Resistance to
the war would have seemed like simple common sense. If
Stalin gave the order to support the U.S. war effort he was
a fool. In any case, the old vanguard's support should have
been for the people's struggle inside the U.S. "
George Jackson
In its March 29, 1939 issue the Pittsburgh Courier,
one of the major Afrikan newspapers, ran an editorial on
the coming world war that summed up what most colonial
peoples in the world thought about it:
"The 'democracies' and the 'dictatorships' are
preparing to do BATTLE in the near future.
"The referee is IMPERIALISM, who stands ready
to award the decision to the victor.
"The stake is the right to EXPLOIT the darker
peoples of the world.
"The audience consists of the vast MAJORITY of
those who happen to be NON-WHITES.
"They have NO FAVORITE, because it makes
NO DIFFERENCE to them which party WINS the fight.
"They are ONLY interested in the bout taking
place AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
"The audience knows that the destruction of white
civilization means the EMANCIPATION of colored people,
and that explains why they eagerly await the opening
gong.
"The democracies which now CONTROL the
dark world have never extended DEMOCRACY to the
dark world.
"THEIR meaning of democracy is for WHITE
PEOPLE only, and just a EEW of them.
"The dictatorships FRANKLY DECLARE that if
they win THEY will do as the democracies HAVE DONE
in the past.
"The democracies as frankly declare that IF they
win they will CONTINUE to do as they HAVE BEEN do-
91 ing." (7)