$40 billion is still a great deal of money – even in the Biden Thing’s America. Except it’s not going to help Americans. Rather, the Biden Thing has taken $40 billion out of the pockets of Americans, to finance all-but-war with nuclear-armed Russia by arming and abetting Ukraine.
When the government – and the corporations that own the government – want war, they usually get what they want.
Some 108 years ago, the government of Woodrow Wilson and the arms peddlers and financial interests behind Wilson wanted war with Germany – something few if any Americans wanted as they’d be the ones paying for it, in blood and treasure. To drag them into what was then styled the “war to end all wars,” Wilson’s government colluded with Britain’s government and the interests that owned both of them to arrange a pretext. A passenger liner called the Lusitania was loaded with war materiel and provocatively sailed into the war zone. The Germans rose to the bait. A submarine fired a couple or more torpedoes into the Lusitania’s flanks and she quickly sank – resulting in the drowning of about 1,198 “innocent civilians,” which they were.
But the governments of America and Britain weren’t.
They knew that, by goading the Germans into sinking Lusitania, they could feign outrage and cause Americans to actually be outraged. Sufficiently so as to drown out any voices who might raise a hand and ask why Lusitania, a passenger liner (loaded with war material from America meant to help Germany’s foe in the war) was sailed into the war zone, right in front of German subs.
Instead, Americans were roused to blood lust over “the hun” and sent to die (and kill) in a war that was as relevant to them as a wall phone is to a Millennial.
Some twenty years after the “war to end all wars,” another war began. The government – and corporate interests – of the United States were, once again, extremely interested in getting Americans to fight in it. But – chastened by the carnage of the prior war – few Americans were interested.
How to fix that?
First, the same method was tried. All-but-declare war on Germany, by all-but-formally-allying America with Britain. Well, ally America’s munitions industry and so on with Britain. Destroyers and other war materiel financed by Americans to protect America were “lend-leased” to Britain, a very provocative act, as far as the Germans were concerned. American naval vessels helped British vessels track and hunt down German vessels, including the famous German battleship, Bismarck – whose position during the course of its one and only sortie was relayed to the British, who had lost track of her – helping to enable them to eventually find and sink her.
This time, however, the Germans did not rise to the bait.
The government and corporate interests of the United States were stymied. The war – with Germany – would have to wait. But not for long. The government and corporate interests of America were able to get Japan to rise to the bait. Cut off her oil supply and present her with a fait accompli. Japan decided to attack – and it wasn’t a “sneak” one, either. Abundant evidence suggests the American government and the interests that owned it then – and own it still – knew what the Japanese were going to do.
In any event, it was predictable what they would do.
And here we are, again.
The interests that run things want another war – possibly, a nuclear one – for reasons that aren’t fully known but which can be broadly understood, because they are always the same. A war would do what wars always do – in addition to killing people. It silences them. Particularly as regards impolitic questions about what the government has been doing to them.
Here are the post-war words of Germany’s former Reichsmarschall, Herman Goring:
“Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America nor, for that matter, in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. … [V]oice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
And it works very well.
It appears to be working, again. But, appearances can be deceiving. While there is revelatory unanimity on the Left and the Right for risking nuclear war war over Ukraine – in terms of the punditry apparat of Left and Right – do the people who will die as a result of this war, if it comes, agree? It doesn’t appear to be so, for now. But what if the interests that control the government manage to get the Russians to rise to the bait?
How much more baiting will the Russians abide?
And will Americans tolerate it? Will they be fooled by it, if the bear takes the bait?
They will certainly be the ones paying for it, if he does.