War. Who is it Good For?
U.S. is bringing back cluster bombs, land mines and creating new nuclear and hypersonic weapons.
In a February 10, 2020 New York Times article by David E. Sanger titled, “Trump Budget Calls for New Nuclear Warheads and Two Types of Missiles:”
“In the 2021 budget released on Monday, [February 10, 2020,] the administration revealed for the first time that it intended to create a new submarine-launched nuclear warhead, named the W93. Its development is part of a proposed 19 percent increase this year, to $19.8 billion, for the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Energy Department agency that maintains the nuclear stockpile and develops new nuclear warheads. …The budget also proposes $3.2 billion for hypersonic weapons, a 23 percent increase in research and development....For more than 18 years, the war on terrorism—the ‘forever war’ or ‘endless war,’ as many call it—has been used as the basis for an ever-expanding range of military actions: an invasion of Iraq that, by one count, has left nearly 300,000 dead...”
War is capitalisms ultimate tool of oppression and profit
Capitalism is in a constant state of “forever war.” That’s because the capitalist class—those who own the means of production and the raw materials needed for that production—are in constant competition with each other for profits and the power necessary to maintain and increase their profits. The purpose of the government, the military and the police is to support the capitalists and their system.
And, most importantly, capitalism needs a massive, acquiescent labor force to do the work for them, and to fill the ranks of the military, police and the prison industrial complex—all at the lowest cost possible.
Profiting from war
In a February 7, 2020 New York Times article by John Ismay and Thomas Gibbons-Neff titled, “160 Nations Ban These Weapons. The U.S. Now Embraces Them:”
“As of October 2019, the Army had paid $11.5 million to Northrop Grumman and $23.3 million to Textron for the development of new anti-vehicle mines, according to officials at Picatinny Arsenal, an Army weapons research and development center in New Jersey. At that time, the total value of the two contracts was estimated at nearly $60 million. …Cluster bombs and antipersonnel land mines, deadly explosives known for maiming and killing civilians long after the fighting ended, have become integral to the Pentagon’s future war plans—but with little public rationale offered for where and why they would be used. …As of October 2019, the Army had paid $11.5 million to Northrop Grumman and $23.3 million to Textron for the development of new anti-vehicle mines, according to officials at Picatinny Arsenal, an Army weapons research and development center in New Jersey. At that time, the total value of the two contracts was estimated at nearly $60 million.”
We pay for war
All the money to pay for these weapons of mass destruction that enrich and empower the most massive military industrial complex in the world—the U.S. military—comes from the working class through our tax dollars. Not a penny comes from the coffers of the capitalist class itself. U.S. privately owned weapons manufacturing corporations and their CEOs are among the wealthiest in the world—all paid for by the tax dollars extorted from the working class. We do the working and the dying, and the capitalists rake in the profits.
We create the wealth
We are the creators of all the wealth of the world. It is our intellect that they buy on-the-cheap that creates and builds their products. It is our hands they employ to dig the trenches and build the bombs, yet we own none of the profits. And our ever-decreasing wages are determined by how little they can get away with paying us without us beginning to fight back.
Money for human needs, not war
All of the resources that go into the big business of war and incarceration—what the capitalist class needs to stay in power—could be used to build housing, schools, provide universal healthcare, clean up the environment and develop safe, clean and efficient energy resources to rebuild the world instead of blowing it up.
We could share all the wealth of the world that we create through our labor, equally, among everyone—each contributing to the best of their ability, and each receiving what they need and want—while preserving and refreshing our environment instead of wasting it.
Together, we could democratically plan the world’s economy to produce more efficiently according to what is most needed and wanted by all, on an equal basis, instead of maximizing profits for the tiny few and to hell with everyone else.
The capitalist system has to go
Socialism—sharing the world democratically and equally among us all—is the system that can save the planet.
That’s because a socialist society is based upon the idea that the health and welfare of each one of us is dependent upon the health and welfare of all of us.
It is a system that not only benefits everyone equally but is dependent upon a healthy and clean environment for all in order to develop our society to the fullest.
We, the masses of humanity, united in solidarity with those goals, have the power to achieve them.