Corporations that specialize in manufacturing weapons of war are excited about Israel’s war on Gaza, letting their top investors know that huge profits are on the way. Already overflowing with cash thanks to seemingly endless U.S.
[photo above] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu watches a video showing the launch of an Arrow 3 hypersonic anti-ballistic missile. The war against Gaza is using up weapons stockpiles fast. | Menahem Kahana/Pool via AP
This is so fucking disgusting. We ought to be tarring and feathering these execs and their largest investors, then taking their wealth for the public benefit.
Making a personal profit from the suffering of others is disgusting. He’s saying socialize the profits to better society instead of making individuals rich.
Also did you know Dick Chaney our old vice president was the CEO of a weapons manufacturing company right before he was vice president. He was also the one that pushed the weapons of mass destruction dialogue during the Iraq war
It goes back further than that. Major General Smedley Butler wrote a book on it, "War is a Racket", back in 1935 - and I'm pretty sure he wasn't the first, either.
Yes, because that's the whole point of war. Always has been. There might be a tangled web of parties involved, but money is always the consistent thread through it all.
Heavily decorated veteran Major General Smedley Butler was campaigning about this nearly 100 years ago.
People have been campaigning for peace in the Palestine region for longer than anyone's been alive. It's just that people pushing for war, driven by profit, have been far more effective.
What's interesting to look at, I think, is how restraint has been developed over the years. WW1 and WW2 were no doubt a big boon for the war industry, but at the same time because war was everywhere it had plenty of negative effects on the manufacturers and dealers themselves. Now, manufacturing and selling is kept safely away from the actual war itself.
Any product fabrication is so much more than the actual product. For a weapon you need steel, machinery, oil etc. Technically the petrol station near the factory also profits from the weapon factory. Where do you draw the line who can profit from it? Until it is legal to produce any weapon someone somewhere in the chain will profit from it. In a capitalist setting this cannot just vanish.
The part where I'm talking about targeting is manufacture and development. It's not realistic to penalize steel and petrol and other materials because that gets too messy and complicated.
Weapons should be manufactured only by one's government for express use in defense. No one should get paid more than a modest salary (something fair for their labor; I hadn't given it thought enough to say more than that at this time), no one in charge should make huge salaries or bonuses, it should be a thing people do because it pays rather than because of enrichment. Like how no one gets massively wealthy delivering mail or hauling garbage; sure, you can do quite well in some instances, but you're doing it to put food on the table rather than to gain power.
Sorry that I haven't more developed thoughts at this moment. But something roughly resembling this is what I had in mind when I posted the prior comment.
Really it's Hamas's war on the Palestinians and Israelis, funded by Netanyahu. Hamas has been e.g. shooting Palestinian civilians who want to leave the front lines -- the kind of thing Russia does to its draftees.