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From: Melissa Morone
T1: moronem@yahoo.com
Date: 10/22/99
Time: 12:19:13 PM
Remote Name: 130.68.21.144
At this point, it is of little surprise that there was such strong economic ties to American involvement in the Vietnam War. Is not one of the most common and driving factors of the American Dream to make money, to turn a profit? I think that to some extent, we all have experienced this type of motivation. The extent to which we are willing to go to achieve this goal is the question here. Our leaders felt it was justifiable to go to war in order to secure profits and power. Many atrocities were committed for the sake of the capitalist, only .5% of America's population at the time. American investments overseas have been very successful. They have made billions of dollars and placed us in a powerful political and economic position in respect to other countries. I knew that this country owned a lot of business internationally, nut to see the nimbers puts it in quite a different light. What I also found interesting is that the initial money used to invest in overseas business was 30 billion tax dollars, yet the rpofits were not used to help the public. The working class did not reap the benefits of the investments. Furthermore, employment rates were effected by the transfer to overseas exploitation. Once this plan proved money making, as many businesses as could jumped on board. And why not? Isn't the goal of a capitalist to make as large of a profit as possible? Why pay American workers top dollar when you can move overseas and exploit the natives?
Of course this cannot be the image our leaders want to portray to us, so they mask it under ideologic terms like anti-communist. We are in these "underdeveloped" countries to help their economy. To help them out of poverty. The truth is that most often we have put them there. "The U.S. imperialist system has one primary need: to amass maximim profits." I really belive this is the case. Of our "colonies", none have had standard of living improvements, if anything they have gotten worse. Also, the American consumer has suffered as well. Despite all of the money these businesses are saving by cheap labor, the prices of their products have not decreased. Nike, for example, has made no effort to give the consumer a break in cost, even though they are barely paying their workers in Indonesia.
The issue of race was another point I found interesting in this article. As long as the businessmen, those running the show, promote rasism or discrimination they have power. The effects of such treatment is most often felt only in the work place. The tension of those treated unfairly does not reach the businessmen who are inflicting it, it comes out on those whom they work with. This mis-directed anger, divides the workers, they are unable to unite against the imperialist businessmen for their rights as workers. This is exactly what those in control want.
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