Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center

Japan would be forced into a "fairly early attack" to seize
British Malayan rubber and Dutch Indonesian oil, and that
an attack on the U.S. Philippine colony was "certain."
(13)
The New Deal wanted and expected not only an
all-out war for the Pacific, but a "surprise" Japanese attack
as well. Their only disappointment on Dec. 7, 1941
was that instead of concentrating on the Philippines, the
Japanese military struck first at Hawaii. There was no
question of "self-defense" there. The Pacific war was the
mutual child of imperialist competition and imperialist appetites.
To President Roosevelt the prize was worth the
risks. China was his first goal, just as it was for Japanese
imperialism. A friend of the President recalls: "At the
White House, the making of FDR's China policy was
almost as great a secret as the atom bomb. " Roosevelt saw
that the sun had set on the old European colonial rule in
Asia, and that the dynamic expansion of the small
Japanese Empire proved how weak and rotten European
power was. In his mind, he saw that if China were
nominally free but under U.S. hegemony (via the Kuomintang
regime), it could be the center for Amerikan takeover
of all Asia.*
because the war was also a patriotic war of national
defense in some nations. Both China and the U.S.S.R., invaded
and partially occupied by Axis Powers, made
alliance with competing imperialists of the Allied Powers.
There is nothing surprising or incorrect about that. Taking
advantage of this the revisionists claimed that democraticminded
people in all nations should therefore support the
Allied Powers. But why should the anti-colonial movement
in an oppressed nation that was invaded and occupied by
the U.S. (or France or Great Britain) support its own oppressor?
One might just as well argue that the Chinese people
should have supported the Japanese occupation during
WWII because Mexico was oppressed by U.S. imperialism
(in fact, the Japanese Empire advanced such lines of propaganda).
Contrary to the revisionists, World War I1 was
not a war of "democracy vs. fascism," but a complex
struggle between imperialist powers, and between
capitalism and socialism.
The New Deal was prepared to do whatever
necessary to modernize and stabilize U.S. imperialism's
home base, because it was playing for the biggest stakes in
the world. In the Pittsburgh Courier's words: "The stake
is the right to EXPLOIT the darker peoples of the world. "
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, after
meeting with Roos.evelt and his staff, wrote a British
general in some alarm: "I must enlighten you about the
American view. China bulks as large in the minds of many
of them as Great Britain. " (14)
Some confusion about the nature of the Second
Imperialist World War has arisen among comrades here
*FDR was always appreciative of China's potential value
because of his family's direct connection. Roosevelt often
mentioned his family's long "friendship" with China -
on his mother's side, the Delano family fortune was made
through a leading role in the opium trade in 19th century
China.
3. The War On The "Home Front"
As Euro-Amerikan settlers gathered themselves to
conquer Asia, Europe, Afrika, and hold .onto Latin
Amerika, they started their war effort by attacking the oppressed
closest at hand - those already within the U.S.
Empire. In Puerto Rico, the colonial occupation tightened
its already deadly hold on the masses, so that their very
lives could be squeezed out to help pay for the U.S. war effort.
It is to the eternal honor of the Nationalist Party,
already terribly wounded by repression, that it resisted this
imperialist mobilization as best it could.
The Nationalist Party denounced the military conscription
of Puerto Rican youth, who were to be cannon
fodder f ~ the r same U.S. Army that was oppressing their
own nation. On the eve of Selective Service registration in
1940, the Nationalist Party declared: "If Puerto Ricans are
the first line of defense of democracy in America, we claim
the right to fight in the front line and for that reason we demand
that democracy b~ a reality in Puerto Rico, recogniz-
ing our national sovereignty. " (15) The newspapers on the
Island were afraid to print Nationalist statements for fear
of U.S. prosecution - a fear that the U.S. Government
said was well founded. (16)
Some members of the Nationalist Party began
openly refusing to register for the draft. Juan Estrada Garcia
told the jury when he was tried that his concern was for
"the masses who live dying of malaria, hookworm and
tuberculosis for lack of food." (17) This was a just concern.
Puerto Ricans had the highest death rate in the
Western Hemisphere, thanks to the "Yanki" occupation
that robbed them of everything needed for life. Every year
3,000 died from tuberculosis alone out of a population of 2
million. Over half were totally destitute, on relief. (18)
80% of the population had hookworm, and the life expectancy
was only 46 years. Small wonder, when even those
lucky ones who had jobs didn't earn enough to ensure sur-
94 vival - in 1941, the jibaros (the sugar cane workers)