Just A Whisper

I have a bunch of old WW2 propaganda songs and radio spots. Really fun stuff.

My favorite though is one where the announcer is talking about how we're gearing up the war machine to fight. He names some production numbers like, "Thousands of rounds of ammunition..." and a second guy, almost in the background, says, "Just a whisper, wait until we shout!"

That's still true today! On Dec 8th, 1941 we started converting our economy to war production. For the next four years we almost nothing that couldn't be used to fight. The things that weren't weapons were mostly so that the factory workers could continue to get to work. The debts incurred were massive.

The military we have today with less than 5% GDP spent on it would kick our 95% GDP WW2 military's ass!

We Americans are a disunited mess. We fight among ourselves over things great and small and care not one whit about the rest of the world, unless the world insists we pay attention. Usually it's over something like the price of gas or how many Japanese cars we buy.

September 11, 2001 was something that, briefly, got us united. We quickly reverted to squabbling. GW Bush is no FDR, and by that I mean he didn't/doesn't get us motivated to face the foe and chase him wherever he hides, regardless of who it is and where.

Another 9-11 will get us fired up. Especially if some terrorist pops a nuke. We aren't going to want nuance, we will want BLOOD. We will want glorious retribution and pity the poor sap that stands betwixt us and those we hunt.

The US military at less than 5% GDP can take (if we skip nukes) all the rest of the world all ganged up on us. How long would a war really last if we plunked the whole economy into it? That's $12.31 TRILLION USD kids. ONE THIRD OF THE WORLD'S COMBINED ECONOMY. Just barely 5% of the world's population too.

When making comparisons between WW2 and GWOT be sure to recall we were all in on WW2. We were yelling at the top of our voices, now we've barely cleared our throats.