by Andrew Gavin Marshall
At
a time of such great international turmoil economically and
politically, it is increasingly important to identify and understand the
social dynamics of crisis. A global social crisis has long preceded the
economic crisis, and has only been exacerbated by it. The great shame
of human civilization is the fact that over half of it lives in abysmal
poverty.
Poverty
is not simply a matter of ‘bad luck’; it is a result of
socio-political-economic factors that allow for very few people in the
world to control so much wealth and so many resources, while so many are
left with so little. The capitalist world system was built upon war,
race, and empire. Malcolm X once declared, “You can’t have capitalism
without racism.”
The
global political economy is a system that enriches the very few at the
expense of the vast majority. This exploitation is organized through
imperialism, war, and the social construction of race. It is vitally
important to address the relationship between war, poverty and race in
the context of the current global economic crisis. Western nations have
plundered the rest of the world for centuries, and now the great empire
is hitting home. What is done abroad comes home to roost.
The Social Construction of ‘Race’
500
years ago, the world was going through massive transformations, as the
Spanish, Portuguese, French, and British colonized the ‘New World’ and
in time, a new system of ‘Capitalism’ and ‘nation states’ began to
emerge. The world was in a great period of transition and systemic
change in which it was the Europeans that emerged as the dominant world
powers. The colonies in the Americas required a massive labour force,
“Between 1607 and 1783, more than 350,000 ‘white’ bond-labourers arrived
in the British colonies.”[1]
The
Americas had both un-free blacks and whites, with blacks being a
minority, yet they “exercised basic rights in law.”[2] Problems arrived
in the form of elites trying to control the labour class. Slaves were
made up of Indian, black and white labourers; yet, problems arose with
this “mixed” population of un-free labour. The problem with Indian
labourers was that they knew the land and could escape to “undiscovered”
territory, and enslavement would often instigate rebellions and war:
The
social costs of trying to discipline un-free native labour had proved
too high. Natives would eventually be genocidally eliminated, once
population settlement and military power made victory more or less
certain; for the time being, however, different sources of bond labour
had to be found.[3]
Between
1607 and 1682, more than 90,000 European immigrants, “three-quarters of
them chattel bond-labourers, were brought to Virginia and Maryland.”
Following the “establishment of the Royal African Company in 1672, a
steady supply of African slaves was secured.” Problems became paramount,
however, as the lower classes tended to be very rebellious, which
consisted of “an amalgam of indentured servants and slaves, of poor
whites and blacks, of landless freemen and debtors.” The lower classes
were united in opposition to the elites oppressing them, regardless of
background.[4]
Bacon’s
Rebellion of 1676 was of particular note, as bond-labourers, black and
white, rebelled against the local elites and “demanded freedom from
chattel servitude.” For the colonialists, “Such images of a joint
uprising of black and white, slave and bondsman, proved traumatic. In
the face of a united rebellion of the lower orders, the planter
bourgeoisie understood that their entire system of colonial exploitation
and privilege was at risk.”[5]
In
response to this threat, the landed elite “relaxed the servitude of
white labourers, intensified the bonds of black slavery, and introduced a
new regime of racial oppression. In doing so, they effectively created
the white race – and with it white supremacy.”[6] Thus, “the conditions
of white and black servants began to diverge considerably after 1660.”
Following this, legislation would separate white and black slavery,
prevent “mixed” marriages, and seek to prevent the procreation of
“mixed-race” children. Whereas before 1660, many black slaves were not
indentured for life, this changed as colonial law increasingly “imposed
lifetime bondage for black servants – and, especially significant, the
curse of lifetime servitude for their offspring.”[7]
A
central feature of the social construction of this racial divide was
“the denial of the right to vote,” as most Anglo-American colonies
previously allowed free blacks to vote, but this slowly changed
throughout the colonies. The ruling class of America was essentially
“inventing race.” Thus, “Freedom was increasingly identified with race,
not class.”[8]
It
is out of this that ideas of race and later, ‘race science’ emerged, as
eugenics became the dominant ideology of western elites, trying to
scientifically ‘prove’ the superiority of ‘whites’ and the ‘inferiority’
of ‘blacks’. This would carry a dual nature of justifying white
domination, as well as providing both a justification for and excuse to
oppress black people, and in fact, people of all ‘races’. This was
especially clear as in the late 1800s and early 1900s the European
empires undertook the ‘Scramble for Africa’ in which they colonized the
entire continent (save Ethiopia). It was largely justified as a
‘civilizing’ mission; yet, it was fundamentally about gaining access to
Africa’s vast resources.
Following
World War II, global power rested predominantly in America, the leading
hegemon, expanding the economic interests of North America and Western
Europe around the world. War, empire, and racism have been central
features of this expansion. In large part, poverty has been the result.
Now, the empire hits home.
Global Labour
The
world has almost 6.8 billion people, half of them female. The world
economy has a labour force of 3.184 billion people; of all people
employed in the world, 40% are women. While the world is equally male
and female, 1.8 billion men are employed, compared to 1.2 billion women.
The population of people in low paying jobs, long hours, and part-time
work are predominantly women.[9]
Global Poverty and Wealth
In
1999, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) reported that,
“Although 200 million people saw their incomes fall between 1965 and
1980, more than 1 billion people experienced a drop from 1980 to 1993.”
In 1996, “100 countries were worse off than 15 years [prior].” In the
late 1960s, “the people in well-to-do countries were 30 times better off
than those in countries where the poorest 20 percent of the world's
people live. By 1998, this gap had widened to 82 times (up from 61 times
since 1996).” As of 1998, “3 billion people live on less than $2 per
day while 1.3 billion get by on less than $1 per day. Seventy percent of
those living on less than $1 per day are women.”[10]
Elites
and academics, as well as major social movements in western nations
focus on population growth as being the driver in global poverty,
picking up from where the Malthusians left off; poverty becomes the
problem caused by “population growth” as opposed to a problem caused by
wealth and resource distribution. In 2003, a World Bank report revealed
that, “A minority of the world's population (17%) consume most of the
world's resources (80%), leaving almost 5 billion people to live on the
remaining 20%. As a result, billions of people are living without the
very basic necessities of life - food, water, housing and sanitation.”
Further:
1.2
billion (20%) of the world population now lives on less that $1/day,
another 1.8 billion (30%) lives on less than $2/day, 800 million go to
bed hungry every day, and 30,000 - 60,000 die each day from hunger
alone. The story is the same, when it comes to other necessities like
water, housing, education etc. On the flip side, we have increasing
accumulation of wealth and power, where the world's 500 or so
billionaires have assets of 1.9 trillion dollars, a sum greater than the
income of the poorest 170 countries in the world.[11]
Other
figures from the World Bank report include the fact that, “The world's
358 billionaires have assets exceeding the combined annual incomes of
countries with 45 percent of the world's people,” and “The Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) of the poorest 48 nations (i.e. a quarter of the
world's countries) is less than the wealth of the world's three richest
people combined.” Incredibly, “A few hundred millionaires now own as
much wealth as the world's poorest 2.5 billion people.”[12]
In
regards to poverty and hunger statistics, “Over 840 million people in
the world are malnourished—799 million of them are from the developing
world. Sadly, more than 153 million of them are under the age of 5 (half
the entire US population).” Further, “Every day, 34,000 children under
five die of hunger or other hunger-related diseases. This results in 6
million deaths a year.” That amounts to a “Hunger Holocaust” that takes
place every single year. As of 2003, “Of 6.2 billion living today, 1.2
billion live on less than $1 per day. Nearly 3 billion people live on
less than $2 a day.”[13]
In
2005, according to World Bank statistics, “More than one-half of the
world's people live below the internationally defined poverty line of
less than U.S. $2 a day,” and “Nearly one-third of rural residents
worldwide lack access to safe drinking water.”[14]
In
2006, a groundbreaking and comprehensive report released by the World
Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations
University (UNU-WIDER) reported that, “The richest 2% of adults in the
world own more than half of global household wealth.” An incredible
startling statistic was that:
[T]he
richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000,
and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world
total. In contrast, the bottom half of the world adult population owned
barely 1% of global wealth.[15]
This
is worth repeating: the top 1% owns 40% of global assets; the top 10%
owns 85% of world assets; and the bottom 50% owns 1% of global assets.
The
2009 UN Millennium Development Goals report stated that in the wake of
the global economic crisis and the global food crisis that preceded and
continued through the economic crisis, progress towards the goals of
poverty reduction are “threatened by sluggish – or even negative –
economic growth, diminished resources, fewer trade opportunities for the
developing countries, and possible reductions in aid flows from donor
nations.”[16]
The
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) report stated that in 2009, “an
estimated 55 million to 90 million more people will be living in extreme
poverty than anticipated before the crisis.” Further, “the encouraging
trend in the eradication of hunger since the early 1990s was reversed in
2008, largely due to higher food prices.” Hunger in developing regions
has risen to 17% in 2008, and “children bear the brunt of the
burden.”[17]
In
April of 2009, a major global charity, Oxfam, reported that a couple
trillion dollars given to bail out banks could have been enough “to end
global extreme poverty for 50 years.”[18] In September of 2009, Oxfam
reported that the economic crisis “is forcing 100 people-a-minute into
poverty.” Oxfam stated that, “Developing countries across the globe are
struggling to respond to the global recession that continues to slash
incomes, destroy jobs and has helped push the total number of hungry
people in the world above 1 billion.”[19]
The
financial crisis has hit the ‘developing’ world much harder than the
western developed nations of the world. The UN reported in March of 2009
that, “Reduced growth in 2009 will cost the 390 million people in
sub-Saharan Africa living in extreme poverty around $18 billion, or $46
per person,” and “This projected loss represents 20 per cent of the per
capita income of Africa’s poor – a figure that dwarfs the losses
sustained in the developed world.”[20]
While
the world’s richest regions lie in North America, Europe, and Pacific
Asia respectively, the vast majority of the rest of the world lives in
gross poverty. This disparity is ‘colour-coded’, too; as the top, the
worlds wealthy, are white, while the world’s impoverished, the vast
majority of the world’s people, are people of colour. This disparity is
further polarized when gender is included, as the majority of the
wealthy are men, while the majority of the impoverished are women. This
disparity of a global scale is carried over to a national scale in the
United States.
Race and Poverty in America
In
the last months of Martin Luther King’s life, he focused his attention
to the struggle against poverty. Today, “Sadly, as far as the country
has come regarding civil rights, more Americans live in poverty today
than during King's lifetime. Forty million people, 13% of the
population, currently fall below the poverty line.” In 1967, King wrote:
In
the treatment of poverty nationally, one fact stands out. There are
twice as many white poor as [black] poor in the United States. Therefore
I will not dwell on the experiences of poverty that derive from racial
discrimination, but will discuss the poverty that affects white and
[black] alike.[21]
Today,
“more whites than blacks do still live in poverty, but a higher
proportion of minorities fall below the poverty line, including 25% of
blacks and 23% of Latinos (compared to 9% of whites). Stable jobs, good
housing, comprehensive education and adequate health care are still
unequal, unsuitable and, in many cases, unavailable.” King wrote, “The
curse of poverty has no justification in our age. The time has come for
us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct, and immediate abolition
of poverty.”[22]
In
1995, “Federal Reserve research found that the wealth of the top one
percent of Americans is greater than that of the bottom 95 percent.”
Further, “Wealth projections through 1997 suggest that 86 percent of
stock market gains between 1989 and 1997 went to the top ten percent of
households while 42 percent went to the most well-to-do one
percent.”[23]
Wealth
disparity is not colour-blind. As of 1998, “The modest net worth of
white families [was] 8 times that of African-Americans and 12 times that
of Hispanics. The median financial wealth of African-Americans (net
worth less home equity) [was] $200 (one percent of the $18,000 for
whites) while that of Hispanics [was] zero.” Further, “Household debt as
a percentage of personal income rose from 58 percent in 1973 to an
estimated 85 percent in 1997.”[24]
In
2000, a major university study revealed that the poor were more likely
to be audited by the IRS than the rich.[25] In December of 2009, the
Seattle Times ran an article in which they tell the story of Rachel
Porcaro, a 32-year-old mother of two boys. She was summoned to the IRS
back in 2008 where she was told she was being audited. When she asked
why, she was told that, “You made eighteen thousand, and our data show a
family of three needs at least thirty-six thousand to get by in
Seattle.” Thus, “They thought she must have unreported income. That she
was hiding something. Basically they were auditing her for not making
enough money.”[26]
The
reporter for the Seattle Times wrote that, “An estimated 60,000 people
in Seattle live below the poverty line — meaning they make $11,000 or
less for an individual or $22,000 for a family of four. Does the IRS
red-flag them for scrutiny, simply because they're poor?” He contacted
the local IRS office with that question; they “said they couldn't
comment for privacy reasons.” What followed the initial audit was even
worse:
She
had a yearlong odyssey into the maw of the IRS. After being told she
couldn't survive in Seattle on so little, she was notified her returns
for both 2006 and 2007 had been found "deficient." She owed the
government more than $16,000 — almost an entire year's pay.
[.
. . ] Rachel's returns weren't all that complicated. At issue, though,
was that she and her two sons, ages 10 and 8, were all living at her
parents' house in Rainier Beach (she pays $400 a month rent). So the IRS
concluded she wasn't providing for her children and therefore couldn't
claim them as dependents.[27]
A
family friend who was an accountant determined that the IRS was wrong
in its interpretation of the tax law; “He sent in the necessary code
citations and hoped that would be the end of it.” But the story wasn’t
over; “Instead, the IRS responded by launching an audit of Rachel's
parents.” Rachel said, “We're surviving as a tribe. It seems like we got
punished for that.”[28]
Taxation
is a major issue related to poverty. A major report issued in November
of 2009 revealed that the state of “Alabama makes families living in
poverty pay higher income taxes than any other state.” Thus, “At the
lowest incomes, we have some of the highest taxes in the nation because
our system is upside down.”[29]
In November of 2009, stunning statistics were revealed as a true test of poverty in America:
With
food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once
scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight
Americans and one in four children.
It
has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as
ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use
inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese,
swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with
foreclosure signs.
Virtually
all have incomes near or below the federal poverty line, but their
eclectic ranks testify to the range of people struggling with basic
needs. They include single mothers and married couples, the newly
jobless and the chronically poor, longtime recipients of welfare checks
and workers whose reduced hours or slender wages leave pantries
bare.[30]
The
food stamps program is growing at the pace of 20,000 people per day, as
“There are 239 counties in the United States where at least a quarter
of the population receives food stamps,” and “In more than 750 counties,
the program helps feed one in three blacks. In more than 800 counties,
it helps feed one in three children.” Further, “food stamps reach about
two-thirds of those eligible” nationwide.[31] Thus, there is potentially
18 million more Americans eligible to use food stamps, which would make
the figure soar to 54 million.
In
2008, tent cities started popping up in and around cities all across
the United States, as the homeless population rapidly expanded like
never before.[32] The Guardian reported in March of 2009 that, “Tent
cities reminiscent of the "Hoovervilles" of the Great Depression have
been springing up in cities across the United States - from Reno in
Nevada to Tampa in Florida - as foreclosures and redundancies force
middle-class families from their homes.”[33]
An
April 2009 article in the German newspaper Der Spiegel ran a report on
the middle class in the US being thrown into poverty, in which the
authors wrote, “The financial crisis in the US has triggered a social
crisis of historic dimensions. Soup kitchens are suddenly in great
demand and tent cities are popping up in the shadow of glistening office
towers.” Further:
Poverty
as a mass phenomenon is back. About 50 million Americans have no health
insurance, and more people are added to their ranks every day. More
than [36] million people receive food stamps, and 13 million are
unemployed. The homeless population is growing in tandem with a rapid
rise in the rate of foreclosures, which were 45 percent higher in March
2009 than they were in the same month of the previous year.
[.
. . ] The crisis in the lower third of society has turned into an
existential threat for some Americans. Many soup kitchens are turning
away the hungry, and even hastily constructed new facilities to house
the homeless are often inadequate to satisfy the rising demand.
Many
private corporations across America are withdrawing their funding for
social welfare projects. Ironically, their generosity is ending just as
mass poverty is returning to America.[34]
Crime
was also reported to be on the rise at a dramatic rate. One
criminologist explained that in the face of more Americans struggling in
harsh economic times, “The American dream to them is a nightmare, and
the land of opportunity is but a cruel joke.” Statistics were confirming
his predictions of a rise in crisis-related crime, as April 2009 was
“one of the bloodier months in American criminal history.” A professor
of criminology stated, “I've never seen such a large number (of
killings) over such a short period of time involving so many
victims.”[35]
In
the midst of the euphoria over a perceived economic recovery, which has
yet to “trickle down” to the people, tent cities have not vanished. In
late February of 2010, it was reported that, “Just an hour outside of
New York City, a thriving tent city gives a home to refugees from the
economic downturn.” Many people in poverty “have become so desperate
that they have had to move into the woods.” One woman in this forest
tent city outside of New York had been living there for two years. She
said, “I just went through a divorce. And it was a bad divorce. And I
ended up here, homeless in here.”[36]
Rob,
a 21-year-old who was laid off when the Great ‘Recession’ began, is the
youngest homeless man living in the forest tent city. He said the worst
part is the shame, “The embarrassment of walking out of here, the cars
see you come by and they know who you are. The shame of walking into
town and having people give you dirty looks just for the way you’re
forced to live.”[37]
While
many more millions are being plunged into poverty, the internal
disparities of race, gender, and age still persist. In November of 2009,
it was reported that the jobless rate for 16-to-24-year-old black men
has reached Great Depression proportions, as 34.5% of young black men
were unemployed in October of 2009, “more than three times the rate for
the general U.S. population.” Further:
The
jobless rate for young black men and women is 30.5 percent. For young
blacks -- who experts say are more likely to grow up in impoverished
racially isolated neighborhoods, attend subpar public schools and
experience discrimination -- race statistically appears to be a bigger
factor in their unemployment than age, income or even education.
Lower-income white teens were more likely to find work than upper-income
black teens, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at
Northeastern University, and even blacks who graduate from college
suffer from joblessness at twice the rate of their white peers.[38]
Another
startling statistic in the report was that, “Young black women have an
unemployment rate of 26.5 percent, while the rate for all
16-to-24-year-old women is 15.4 percent.” The fact that these are the
statistics for young people is especially concerning, as “the
consequences can be long-lasting”:
This
might be the first generation that does not keep up with its parents'
standard of living. Jobless teens are more likely to be jobless
twenty-somethings. Once forced onto the sidelines, they likely will not
catch up financially for many years. That is the case even for young
people of all ethnic groups who graduate from college.[39]
With
poverty, food scarcity increases. While many Americans and people the
world over have felt the effects of the recession on their daily meals,
the race disparity persists in this facet as well, as “one in four
African-American households struggles to put food on the table on a
regular basis, compared with about one in seven households nationally.”
Further, “90 percent of African American children will receive food
stamp benefits by the time they turn 20.”[40]
In
March of 2010, a truly staggering report was released by a major
economic research group which concluded that, “Women of all races bring
home less income and own fewer assets, on average, than men of the same
race, but for single black women the disparities are so overwhelmingly
great that even in their prime working years their median wealth amounts
to only $5.” Let’s review that again:
[W]hile
single white women in the prime of their working years (ages 36 to 49)
have a median wealth of $42,600 (still only 61 percent of their single
white male counterparts), the median wealth for single black women is
only $5.[41]
The
research organization analyzed data from the Federal Reserve’s 2007
Survey of Consumer Finances. Wealth, or net worth, in the report, is
defined as:
[T]he
total of one's assets -- cash in the bank, stocks, bonds and real
estate; minus debts -- home mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and
student loans. The most recent financial data was collected before the
economic downturn, so the current numbers likely are worse now than at
the time of the study.[42]
The
study further revealed that, “For all working-age black women 18 to 64,
the financial picture is bleak. Their median household wealth is only
$100. Hispanic women in that age group have a median wealth of $120.”
Black women are more likely to be hit with the responsibility of working
and raising children on their own:
In
a 2008 study of black women and their money, the ING Foundation found
that black women -- who frequently manage the assets of their households
-- financially support friends, family and their houses of worship to a
much greater degree than the general population.
They
also are more likely to be employed in jobs and industries -- such as
service occupations -- with lower pay and less access to health
insurance. And when their working days are done, they rely most heavily
on Social Security because they are less likely to have personal
savings, retirement accounts or company pensions. Their Social Security
benefits are likely to be lower, too, because of their low earnings.[43]
The
poor youth of America are also disproportionately subject to racial
exacerbations of their social situations. In America, “more than half of
all young adult dropouts are jobless. And dropouts are at greater risk
of being incarcerated and having poorer physical and mental health than
those who graduate.” Again, the racial disparity emerges, as “[p]oor and
minority youths are far less likely to graduate from high school than
white children.”
An
October 2009 report released by the National Center for Education
Statistics says 59.8 percent of blacks, 62.2 percent of Hispanics, and
61.2 percent of American Indians graduated from public high school in
four years with a regular diploma in the 2006-2007 school year compared
to 79.8 percent for whites and 91.2 percent for Asian and Pacific
Islanders. Black and Hispanic dropout rates were more than twice those
of white youths.[44]
Many
youths then venture into crime to survive. It is here where another
racial divide rears its head in a clear example of how Justice is not
blind, but sees in technicolour. The incarceration rate, that is, the
prison rate of Americans is colour-coded. Black men are incarcerated “at
a rate that is over 6 times higher than that for white males.” While
black Americans make up 13% of the US population, they make up 40% of
the US prison population. Meanwhile, whites make up 66% of the US
population, yet only 34% of the prison population. Hispanics make up 15%
of the U.S. population, and account for 20% of the prison
population.[45]
The
poor youth are subject to further insults, as new federally funded drug
research revealed a startling and bleak disparity: poor children who
are dependent upon Medicaid, a government health program for low-income
families, “are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four
times higher than children whose parents have private insurance.”
Further, these children, the poor children, “are more likely to receive
the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class
counterparts.” A research team from Rutgers and Columbia posed the
question:
Do
too many children from poor families receive powerful psychiatric drugs
not because they actually need them — but because it is deemed the most
efficient and cost-effective way to control problems that may be
handled much differently for middle-class children?[46]
The
effects are not simply psychological, as “Antipsychotic drugs can also
have severe physical side effects, causing drastic weight gain and
metabolic changes resulting in lifelong physical problems.” Ultimately,
what the research concluded was that, “children with diagnoses of mental
or emotional problems in low-income families are more likely to be
given drugs than receive family counseling or psychotherapy.”[47]
A
study published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry revealed that,
“Children and youth on certain antipsychotic medications are more prone
to getting diabetes and becoming fat,” and that, “the medication has
significant and worrying side-effects.”[48] In America, the prescribing
of anti-psychotic drugs to children rose five-fold between 1995 and 2002
to roughly 2.5 million.[49]
Thus,
we have a situation in which the poor are treated in such a way as to
dehumanize them altogether; to deprive them not simply of life’s
necessities, but to then use them as guinea pigs and to punish them for
their poverty. Hubert Humphrey once said, “A society is ultimately
judged by how it treats its weakest and most vulnerable members.” How
shall our societies be thus judged?
War and Poverty
It
is to our own detriment that we fail to see the relationship between
war and poverty both on a national and global level. War is the most
violent and oppressive tool used by the powerful to control people and
resources. The industry of war profits very few at the expense of the
majority; it does not simply impoverish the nation that is attacked, but
impoverishes the nation that is attacking.
In
April of 1967, one year before Martin Luther King, Jr. was
assassinated, he delivered a speech entitled, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to
Break Silence.” This speech is one of King’s lesser known, yet
arguably, one of his most important. While reading the text of the
speech does it no justice to the words spoken from King’s mouth in his
magnanimous manner, they are worth reading all the same. Dr. King
declared that, “A time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has
come for us in relation to Vietnam.” His words are as significant today
as the day they were spoken, and are worth quoting at some length:
Even
when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume
the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of
war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all
the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the
surrounding world. [. . . ]
Over
the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own
silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have
called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many
persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of
their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you
speaking about war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent?
Peace and civil rights don't mix, they say. Aren't you hurting the
cause of your people, they ask? And when I hear them, though I often
understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly
saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really
known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest
that they do not know the world in which they live.
[.
. . ] I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or
energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like
Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic
destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war
as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.
Perhaps
the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear
to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the
poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their
husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions
relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young
men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand
miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not
found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly
faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV
screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable
to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal
solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they
would never live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in
the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.
My
third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows
out of my experience in the ghettoes of the North over the last three
years -- especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the
desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov
cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to
offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that
social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But
they asked -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They asked if our
own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems,
to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I
knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the
oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the
greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government.
For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the
sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be
silent.
[.
. . ] In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it
seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world
revolution. During the past ten years we have seen emerge a pattern of
suppression which now has justified the presence of U.S. military
"advisors" in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our
investments accounts for the counter-revolutionary action of American
forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used
against guerrillas in Colombia and why American napalm and green beret
forces have already been active against rebels in Peru. It is with such
activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to
haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution
impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
Increasingly,
by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken -- the
role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to
give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense
profits of overseas investment.
I
am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world
revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.
We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a
"person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives
and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant
triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being
conquered.
[.
. . ] A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on
military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching
spiritual death.
[. . . ] The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.[50]
After
delivering such a monumental speech against war and empire, King was
attacked by the national media; with Life Magazine calling the speech,
“demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi,” and the
Washington Post saying that, “King has diminished his usefulness to his
cause, his country, his people.”[51]
War
is inextricably linked to the impoverishment of people around the world
and at home. Inherent within the system of war, racial divides and
exploitation are further exacerbated.
In
the midst of the economic crisis, military recruitment went up, as the
newly unemployed seek job security and an education. A Pentagon official
said in October of 2008 that, “We do benefit when things look less
positive in civil society,” as “185,000 men and women entered
active-duty military service, the highest number since 2003, according
to Pentagon statistics. Another 140,000 signed up for duty in the
National Guard and reserve.”[52]
In
November of 2008, the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) reported that
recruitment into the military had increased by over 14% as a result of
the economic crisis. Interestingly, “The north of England, where the
credit crunch has hit hard, is among the areas where the MoD says
recruitment is at its strongest.”[53]
In
2005, it was reported that the Pentagon had developed a database of
teenagers 16-18 and all college students “to help the military identify
potential recruits in a time of dwindling enlistment.” Further,
according to the Washington Post, “The new database will include
personal information including birth dates, Social Security numbers,
e-mail addresses, grade-point averages, ethnicity and what subjects the
students are studying.”[54]
The
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a report in 2008, which
revealed that there is a dangerous trend in recruiting youth in the
United States. Recruitment of youth 16 and younger is prohibited in the
United States, however:
[T]he U.S. armed services regularly target children under 17 for military recruitment. The
U.S. military heavily recruits on high school campuses, targeting
students for recruitment as early as possible and generally without
limits on the age of students they contact. Despite
a lawsuit challenging its identification of eleventh-grade high school
students for recruitment, the Department of Defense’s central
recruitment database continues to collect information on 16-year-olds
for recruitment purposes.[55]
Various
Army programs and recruitment services target students as young as 11,
which includes a video game used as a tool for Army recruitment
“explicitly marketed to children as young as 13.” Further, “The U.S.
military’s recruitment policies, practices, and strategies explicitly
target students under 17 for recruitment activities on high school
campuses.”[56]
In
2007, prior to the economic crisis, it was reported that, “nearly three
quarters of those killed in Iraq came from towns where the per capita
income was below the national average.” Further, “More than half came
from towns where the percentage of people living in poverty topped the
national average.” The war casualties have disproportionately affected
rural American towns, which make up the majority of military recruits.
Interestingly, between “1997 to 2003, 1.5 million rural workers lost
their jobs due to changes in industries like manufacturing that have
traditionally employed rural workers.”[57] Now, they make up the
majority of war casualties. War and poverty are inherently related in
this example: the most impoverished suffer the most in war.
In
2007, it was further reported that more than 30,000 foreign troops are
enlisted in the US Army, being recruited to join from foreign nations
such as Mexico in return for being granted US citizenship.[58] In 2005,
whites made up 80% of Army recruits, while blacks made up 15% of
recruits. In 2008, whites made up 79%, while blacks made up 16.5% of
Army recruits. However, an interesting statistic is that between 2007
and 2008, there was a 5% increase in the recruit of whites, while over
the same period there was nearly a 96% increase in the recruitment of
blacks. In 2008, 52% of recruits were under the age of 21. For the fifth
year in a row, as of 2008, “youth from low- to middle-income
neighborhoods are over-represented among new Army recruits.”[59]
In
March of 2008, The Nation published an article entitled “The War and
the Working Class,” in which it explained that the American military
operated under an “economic draft,” as “Members of the armed forces come
mainly and disproportionately from the working class and from
small-town and rural America, where opportunities are hard to come
by.”[60] This was even before the economic crisis had really started to
be noticed in the United States.
In
January of 2009 it was reported that, “The Army and each of the other
branches of the military are meeting or exceeding their goals for
signing up recruits, and attracting more qualified people.”[61] In March
of 2009, it was reported that, “Fresh recruits keep pouring into the
U.S. military, as concerns about serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are
eclipsed by the terrible civilian job market.” All branches of the armed
forces “met or exceeded their active duty recruiting goals for January,
continuing a trend that began with a decline in the U.S. job market.”
The
military acknowledged that weakness in the U.S. economy, which lost 2.6
million jobs in 2008 and another 598,000 in January, has made the armed
services more appealing to potential recruits.[62]
It
was reported in October of 2009 that due to the economic crisis,
“Middle-class American youth are entering the military in significant
numbers,” as the Department of Defense announced “that for the first
time since the draft ended and the all-volunteer force began 36 years
ago, every service branch and reserve component met or exceeded its
recruiting goals, both in numbers and quality.” As the economic crisis
“resulted in the largest and the swiftest increase in overall
unemployment that we've ever experienced,” this created a boom for
military recruiting.[63]
In
December of 2009 it was reported that with a record number of college
graduates unable to find work, recruitment soared to record levels, even
in the midst of President Obama announcing the deployment of an
additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. As one commentator put it:
The
United States is broken – school systems are deteriorating, the economy
is in shambles, homelessness and poverty rates are expanding – yet
we’re nation-building in Afghanistan, sending economically distressed
young people over there by the tens of thousands at an annual cost of a
million dollars each.[64]
In
January of 2010 it was reported by the military that many Marines
nearing the end of their active duty are reconsidering re-enlisting due
to the severe economic situation. According to the U.S. Department of
Labor in November of 2009, there were 15.4 million unemployed people in
the United States, with the unemployment rate hitting 10%. “Employment
fell in construction, manufacturing and information industries, while
jobs in temporary help services and health care increased.” Thus, the
unemployment figures are somewhat deceiving, as it doesn’t take into
account all the people that only rely upon part-time jobs, as “People
working part-time jobs for economic reasons numbered 9.2 million. These
individuals worked part-time because their hours at another job had been
cut back or they were unable to find a full-time job.” Hence, “Marines
reenlist for numerous economic reasons.”[65]
In
2007, Obama campaigned on a promise to increase defense spending, and
that he wanted the American military to “stay on the offense, from
Djibouti to Kandahar,” from Africa to Afghanistan. Obama proclaimed his
belief that “the ability to put boots on the ground will be critical in
eliminating the shadowy terrorist networks we now face,” and he said
that, “no president should ever hesitate to use force -- unilaterally if
necessary,” not simply to “protect ourselves,” but also to protect
America’s “vital interests.”[66]
Sure
enough, Obama followed through on those promises. Obama increased
defense spending from the previous year. Alone, the United States spends
almost as much on its military as the rest of the world combined,
including seven times the amount as the next largest defense spender,
China.[67]
In
October of 2009, Obama signed the largest-ever bill for military
spending, amounting to $680 billion. At the same time, he authorized a
spending bill of $44 billion for the Department of Homeland Security. A
sad irony was that, “Obama signed the record Pentagon budget less than
three weeks after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.”[68]
In
February of 2010, Obama asked Congress to approve a new record-setting
defense budget, at $708 billion.[69] Interestingly, “the Pentagon budget
increased for every year of the first decade of the 21st century, an
unprecedented run that didn't even happen in the World War II era, much
less during Korea or Vietnam.” Further, “if the government's current
plans are carried out, there will be yearly increases in military
spending for at least another decade.”[70]
As Eric Margolis wrote in February of 2010:
Obama’s
total military budget is nearly $1 trillion. This includes Pentagon
spending of $880 billion. Add secret black programs (about $70 billion);
military aid to foreign nations like Egypt, Israel and Pakistan;
225,000 military “contractors” (mercenaries and workers); and veterans’
costs. Add $75 billion (nearly four times Canada’s total defence budget)
for 16 intelligence agencies with 200,000 employees.
[. . . ] China and Russia combined spend only a paltry 10% of what the U.S. spends on defence.
There
are 750 U.S. military bases in 50 nations and 255,000 service members
stationed abroad, 116,000 in Europe, nearly 100,000 in Japan and South
Korea.
Military
spending gobbles up 19% of federal spending and at least 44% of tax
revenues. During the Bush administration, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars —
funded by borrowing — cost each American family more than $25,000.
Like
Bush, Obama is paying for America’s wars through supplemental
authorizations — putting them on the nation’s already maxed-out credit
card. Future generations will be stuck with the bill.[71]
Thus,
the American Empire is in decline, spending itself into utter debt and
is at the point of “imperial overreach.” As Eric Margolis wrote, “If
Obama really were serious about restoring America’s economic health, he
would demand military spending be slashed, quickly end the Iraq and
Afghan wars and break up the nation’s giant Frankenbanks.”[72]
So,
while people at home are on food stamps, welfare, living in tent
cities, going to soup kitchens, getting by on debt, and losing their
jobs; America sends forces abroad, conducting multiple wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, expanding the war into Pakistan, funding military
operations in Yemen, Somalia, Uganda, building massive new military
bases in Pakistan and Colombia and providing military aid to governments
around the world. As the empire expands, the people become more
impoverished.
We
cannot afford to ignore the relationship between war, poverty and race.
The poor are made to fight the poor; both are often disproportionately
people of colour. Yet war enriches the upper class, at least powerful
sects of it in industry, the military, oil and banking. In a war
economy, death is good for business, poverty is good for society, and
power is good for politics. Western nations, particularly the United
States, spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year to murder innocent
people in far-away impoverished nations, while the people at home suffer
the disparities of poverty, class, gender and racial divides. We are
told we fight to “spread freedom” and “democracy” around the world; yet,
our freedoms and democracy erode and vanish at home. You cannot spread
what you do not have. As George Orwell once wrote:
The
war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical
society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new
version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In
principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink
of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own
subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East
Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.
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