In war, you will furnish the Corpses & Taxes,
And others will get the glory—Speculators will
Make Money out of it—that is, out of you!²
They are Pickers of bone, Meddlers in
Other men’s Sorrows—Carrion-Fowl
That grow Fat on war.³
The primary aim of modern warfare
Is to use the products of the machine—
Without raising the general Standards of Living.⁴
Glory to the generals—Death to the privates—
Wealth to the merchants—and Unemployment to the Poor.⁵
Conscription: a Monstrous deed against humanity
In the interest of the Financiers of wall street.⁶
Nobody wants the War—
Only the Money fights on alone.⁷
War: when Money rolls in and Blood rolls out
But blood is Far away from here—money is Near.⁸
Bodies count as Coins—in Accountants’ books.⁹
Guns spell Money’s ultimate reason in
Lead letters on the Spring Hillside …¹⁰
¹ Hayao Miyazaki, Porco Rosso
² Bolton Hall, The Effect of War on Workingmen
³ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
⁴ George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
⁵ Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States
⁶ Charles Schenck, quoted in A People’s History of the United States
⁷ Philip Whalen, The War Poem for Diane di Prima
⁸ Langston Hughes, Green Memory
⁹ L. Renée, Exodus: Gilliam Coal Camp, West Virginia, 1949
¹⁰ Stephen Spender, Ultima Ratio Regum