Another pretty good article from Ryan Zickgraf at Compact. He’s making the case that some unions were against Vietnam while unions are not joining the current antiwar movement.
I won’t argue with the few cases he cites, but I was there at the time and we certainly didn’t feel any support from the working class.
The mass switchover of media and unions happened AFTER Nixon was in office, and it happened BECAUSE Nixon was in office. The movement went mainstream in 1969. Unions opposed the war because it was now a Repooflican-brand war. That’s the only reason.
Zickgraf also cites union opposition to Wilson’s war, which was definitely more meaningful. Harding worked with the unions to push for disarmament, and then FDR continued the non-aggression policy.
Both parties were antiwar from 1920 to 1945.
The switchover between eras happened on one day in 1945, the end of America.
Repeating for the 56528957389674897849th time because THIS IS FUCKING IMPORTANT.
= = = = = START HENRY WALLACE:
Under FDR we imposed controls on the Men Of Monopoly, and these controls worked. We held the line on prices and profits, but the Men of Monopoly were there all the time. Waiting. Waiting.
And when FDR died, they saw their opportunity and they moved in. They moved in on Harry Truman and he welcomed them.
The representatives of the Men Of Greed were his first visitors after FDR’s death. I recall on the train, coming back from Hyde Park where the president had just been buried. Truman’s first callers were Edwin Pauley and George Allen, the errand boys of the big corporations.
A month later Herbert Hoover was called in. The Engineer of the Great Depression helped engineer the about-face in FDR’s policies. Cabinet shifts were made. The men who had stood firm for FDR’s policies were the first to go. The Harrimans, the Snyders, the Forrestals of Wall Street, took over and with them came the policies of Wall Street. With them came the policy of gov’t on behalf of the few, gov’t against the people.
The Roosevelt program of controls by the people on behalf of the people went out the window. And the Hoover Truman Dewey policy of control in the hands of monopolists for the benefit of monopolists, came in.
The gluttons found their answer in the Cold War, an armaments economy. They found their solution in what Dewey glibly calls ‘waging the peace’.
Barrons, leading journal of big finance, pointed out the way back in 1945.
“An armaments boom is the only alternative to a decline in business”.
Barron’s forecast became official policy. Early in 47 and again in 48, prices began to sag. The commodity market declined and the dread word Depression appeared in the business pages.
It was at this strategic moment that the Red Menace was conveniently discovered in Greece. It was at this point in history that the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan and an armaments economy were put over on the people to increase the profits of the few at the expense of the many.
They invoked the frightening word CRISIS whenever it suited their purpose. They wheeled in another Red Danger whenever it was needed to justify a new multi-billion expenditure for their cold war.
= = = = = END AMERICA.
Polistra's Mill 