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