The Peace Profiteers
Walker, Robert S.
"The Peace Profiteers" He is patient to a fault, tolerates mistakes in others to a fault, and he works too much. He grills a good steak, and he has a good...
...Frank (Fffi) Buccieri at a remote plot in Queen of Heaven Cemetery were Mr...
...Nixon's nod for the Supreme Court...
...Therein rests the operative factor in democratic government...
...2) Some of those same businessmen are associated directly with groups which oppose the official United States policy towards Southeast Asia and also have contributed funds to political candidates who oppose that policy...
...9 By the end of the month many European nations were beginning to move toward...
...I wear baggy pants...
...The A l t e r n a t i v e December, 197] 11 has a heart...
...After all, the fact that defense is a prime national endeavor has not prevented questions about the nature of the military-industrial complex...
...Large and small companies alike are engaged in peace profiteering and their trademark is diversity...
...Today people are different...
...my friend, you will do what pays us...
...The range of products from sweatshirts to postage meters might seem diverse, but consider the following ii~t oi peace products ~aL caa be purchased in any downtown shopping area: kites, slave bands, letter seals, stationery, incense burners, wrapping paper, charms, necklaces, wedding bands, towels, clothing and bedspreads...
...One company, which for ~months fought to keep from having to supply the message "Fight Communism" to a customer for his personal mailing meter, had no trouble providing an anti-war slogan to another customer...
...The goods being sold are meant to appeal to one segment of the American people who hold reasonably uniform opinions regarding military and foreign policy...
...By lending commercial legitimacy to rampant emotionalism, the peace profiteers have helped move the decision-making process from legislative halls to the streets...
...Now the peace profiteers can amend Vanderlip's statement with the observation that an unpopular war is particularly advantageous for accumulating wealth...
...Vietnam - - The Edsel of Foreign Policy" is a clever cliche' from his wear-it-on-yourchest collection...
...efforts to end the Vietnam War because a ceasing of hostilities would hamper their merchandizing...
...department store ran a full page newspaper ad to promote peace jewelry not long ago...
...There's not one candidate's wife on the scene who could hold a candle to Marvelia...
...The Bayh's son Evan attends one of the most exclusive private schools in Washington...
...And they help people when they are in need...
...But I have no right to impose my views on others...
...Divisiveness and intolerance are a means to commercial success for these merchants of mollification...
...He makes $500,000 per year...
...In addition there has been a show of personal dedication to the peace movement within this industry...
...Indeed, because his products stress peace symbolism, he is better called a peace profiteer...
...That's another fault...
...9 Reports persisted that something mysterious was happening in the Celestial Empire, and in Peking Mr...
...Marvella's an excellent hostess...
...Birch on the role reversal: "'But if the roles were reversed and Marvella were the Senator and I were the advisor I think I would be satisfied...
...Joining pallbearers Mr...
...A salesman in a Philadelphia hippie store best explains the importance of identity in selling peace...
...Undershaft ~ would understand and appreciate the activities of the peace profiteers...
...But Japanese relations with the United States seemed to be enteriv~ an alembic...
...According to The New York Times "tribal conservatives" forced those tribesmen complying with the President's orders to actually dine on their new clothing...
...The merchants who supply such crutches do democracy a disservice...
...Some twenty publishing houses formed a group known as Publishers for Peace...
...Throughout history, money-making greed in the armaments industry supposedly has encouraged wars...
...Publishers have flooded the marketplace with questionable anti-war literature, surely with an eye on the millions of potential customers within the "cause...
...People are looking for an easy way to say, "ThiS is me.' People want to embrace the symbol of peace...
...Secretary Connally's position on foreign trade and import surtaxes...
...It's easier and cheaper to buy one...
...THE PEACE PROFITEERS (continued from page 11) sible and is replaced by signs and sloganism...
...It would have been almost un-American if someone had not tried to cash in on the emotional appeal of peace in the midst of an unpopular war...
...Therefore, some of the blame for the failure of reasonable men to achieve national reconciliation should be placed squarely at the door of the peace profiteers...
...People continued to leave East Pakistan and New York, according to the 1970 Census Report hailed as the nation's most accurate...
...Anthony (Big Tuna) Arcardo, Mr...
...Paul (the Waiter) Ricca and an unidentified priest...
...Marvella on her "project": "My project is child development centers...
...All of these and many more can be purchased in a price range of twenty-five cents to hundreds of dollars...
...But the drive to make money at any cost is the same and the effect of his merchandizing may be far more dangerous...
...Leo Manfredi, Mr...
...Something decorated with a dove, V sign or Peace symbol helps individuals identify with the entire anti-Vietnam movement...
...Yet they prey upon and reap rewards from an imPeriling of our national life...
...Felix (Milwaukee Phil) Aiderisio is dead at 69...
...After all, for the profiteers that polarization means cash...
...Not only are antiwar products displayed enticingly on the shelves of many stores, but large sums are spent widely advertising these goods...
...Kosygin was molested while on his tour of Canada, and on 20 October four shots were fired into the New York headquarters of the Soviet U.N...
...Walk in any store and you may find a new "'merchant of death" behind the counter...
...Differing opinions formed in the give and take of politics are resolved through meaningful compromise...
...But, the income incentive is obviously stronger than the democratic ideal...
...Their personal beliefs become a part of a cause when an item is purchased featuring the familiar circle with an inverted Y inside...
...Bumper stickers, posters and the like have promoted peace through sloganeering and, incidently, earned some printing companies a tidy profit...
...Dean Acheson and Sylvester (Two-Gun Pete) Washington, the retired Chicago policeman famed for wearing two pearl-handled revolvers and having killed nine men in his career...
...If the same kind of logic is applied to an interrogation of the peace profiteers as has been used against the militaryindustrial complex, some interesting conjectures emerge...
...The proprieter of another hippie store in that city agrees...
...One of the Senator's rivals for the nomination estimates that Marvella is "'ten times" smarter than the Senator...
...Birch in the throes of agonizing self-appraisah "I like Dairy Queens...I like work, I'm strong, young, energetic and I can take any burden that comes my way...
...The upper classes put their children in nursery schools and the others don't have the opportunity...
...A Washington, D.C...
...While dissent and debate are inherent and invaluable parts of our system for governing, they are political rather than commercial tools...
...The Consensus Price Index went up by two tenths of one per cent in September...
...Their products flood the marketplace - - items like clothing, jewelry and housewares decorated with the peace symbol - - but their greed and their unstated motives have escaped examination...
...Sam DeStefano, Mr...
...Birch on the charge that he is "a lightweight, a Boy Scout": "'This Boy Scout image doesn't bother me a bit...
...Oh, Birch, you're embarassing me...
...Henry Kissinger had tea with Mr...
...Tragedy struck when one of Chicago's most progressive businessmen passed away in a federal building in Marion, Illinois...
...Undershaft states...
...The week beginning 8 November will be Youth Appreciation" Week, the President has declared...
...Marvella on culture: "If Vietnam were over tomorrow "Hair' would be irrelevant...
...3) There is a body of evidence to show that the domestic opposition to official Vietnam policy has prolonged the conflict by inspiring the enemy to continue his fight despite overwhelming odds against him...
...Making money from discord involves using an unpopular war as a catalyst...
...on, Birch, you're embarrassing me...
...But opinions based upon commercial images defy resolution through debate or compromise...
...Perhaps one of the lesser lights on Bayh's staff will have the temerity to suggest that joint interviews are counterproductive...
...Some of the anti-war books which have rolled off presses of leading publishers have achieved the dubious distinction of being bradded as outright distortions...
...And you read so much about venereal disease, these days," says Mrs...
...No doubt, association with as well as supplying to the "'cause" helps assure a better cash inflow...
...mission...
...Rermie Davis, who had been promising to bring 10,000 anti-warites to Washington on 26 October to "evict" the President, failed to keep his promise and found himself in jail on 27 October along with 300 of his cohorts -- about half the overall turnout...
...Someone emotionally attached enough to a cause to wear a peace sign emblazoned sweatshirt proclaiming his beliefs its unlikely to dissent or debate in the democratic fashion...
...There is no concern in these statements, about the fact that such identification is a factor in national polarization...
...Christian charity forbids quoting it: suffice it to say that poetry is not what the Senator does best...
...Marketable goods expressing a viewpoint are necessarily direct appeals to simplistic emotionalism...
...But because the products are designed for one group, they are an anathema to other people holding other opinions...
...Then again, maybe they are not counterproductive...
...But "Marvelous Marv" was the favorite of those persons - - and they were legion - - who did not care a fig for baseball, but who enjoyed the spectacle of a fine art reduced to grotesque parody...
...He grills a good steak, and he has a good voice...
...Bayh...
...The "merchants of death" are, in the traditional sense, businessmen who promote warfare to make money...
...9 'I don't know if it's outstanding like Eugene McCarthy's though," she adds...
...Marvella on the Boy Scouts: "'I think the Boy Scouts are wonderful, anyway...
...William (Smokes) Aloisio and Mr...
...William Rehnquist and Lewis Powell got Mr...
...9 President Nixon announced that Phase II of his economic freeze will be "voluntary," but three hoards will be needed to enforce it...
...Peace profiteering also has hit the postage meter industry...
...Certainly everyone is for peace, but the Peace paraphernalia being widely advertised and merchandized carries with it a special symbolis~n...
...But this kind of callous disregard of the national interest is not limited to hippie shops...
...Of course, no one is accusing the peace profiteers of that kind of thing, but the logic of the argument should be recognizable to anyone who has read some of the recent diatribes against the so-called "war machine" in America...
...One need hardly underscore the depressing similarities between Marvelous Marv's fans and Marvelous Marvella's husband's fans, and between the early Mets and the Bayh campaign...
...4) Therefore, it must be assumed, that businessmen profiting from selling peace have openly conspired to thwart U.S...
...You will make war when it suits us and keep peace when it doesn't...When I want anything to keep my dividends up, you will discover that my want is a national need...
...Chou-En-lai...
...Perhaps we will find that the peace profiteers are the real merchants of death - - the death of a republic...
...Anyway maybe Bayh is irying to implement the Early Mets Theory of Popularity Cultivation...
...The sale of the paraphernalia lends to a climate where rational debate between the two groups becomes impos (continued on page 21) The A l t e r n a t i v e December, 1971 21 CONTINUING CRImS (Continued from page 19) proclaim that "Abdel Nasser is alive he will never die...
...He is not a salesman of weapons in keeping with the traditional meaning of the merchants of death theory...
...For example, consider this logical progression: (1) Certain businessmen are en~aged in making and selling peace products which are marketable because of the deep national division regarding the Vietnam War...
...In the early 1960s, in the Golden Era of the New York Mets, when that team was the incarnation - - the Platonic form - - of Awfulness, the symbol of Met incompetence was a first baseman named Mary Thornberry...
...Instead, the accusation is based on greed which can be measured by an analysis of the bitter divisiveness now confronting this country...
...How many people have the thne or skill to make a peace symbol...
...The weapons manufacturer, Undershaft, in Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara epitomizes the avarice ascribed to these industrialists...
...He is locked into a viewpoint and his clothing is one crutch upon which his opinions lean...
...But, the fact that peace profiteering could be expected should not prevent us from raising questions about that questionable enterprise...
...Long before history recorded an American presence in Vietnam, Frank A. Vanderlip, whose career in finance and government spanned the first quarter of this century, said about another war, "As a result of the war, a million new springs of wealth will be developed...
...By marketing goods which appeal to dissidents, the profiteers lend an air of commercial legitimacy to a movement stressing devisiveness...
...Sex and love are wor~derful and pure experiences and there is no reason to flaunt it," she says...
...I don't want to get into comparisons there," he says, "'but I'll tell you one thing...
...The article contained enough embarassing material to keep all ot Washington laughing all Sunday...
...I don't think I have given enough time in my 43 years to making any money, but we have enough...I'm not a materialist...
...He also writes poettry...
...That message read, "'In the Service of Their Country: War Resisters in Prison...
...There is the former "'surf bum" who has made a fortune selling T-shirts featuring anti-war slogans...
...Neither am I," says Marvella...
...According to the Senator, "'My wife has a better political head than anybody who works for me...
...But death did take the lives of Mr...
...Department stores and specialty shops also are cashing in on peace and polarization...
...They felt it was pretty non-controversial...
...We have such fun with friends but not as often as we like...
...After all," he said, "everybody's for peace...
...They certainly contribute to the public stock of harmless pleasure...
...Judging by the interview, what Bayh does best (or most frequent) is embarass his wife: When they do stay home they like to entertain...
...In so doing, they have helped substitute simplistic slogans for rational debate in formulation of national policy...
...It's a class thing...
...Cuff links, tie tacs, wristbands, neck chains, key chains and key cases featuring the peace symbol are pushed by a big jewelry firm in its nationwide advertising...
...P e a c e It All Together," said the spread which utilized the two-fingered V sign as an attention getter...
...The Bayhs on love: "I'm not for free love," says the Senator...
...But his sincerity again fell under suspicion as he proclaimed the entire month of October as "Country Music Month" -an obvious tactic issuing from his southern strategy...
...There is even a peace flasher -- an electircal gadget which when plugged in flashes the peace symbol in different colors...
...But the worst news came from Kampla, the capital of historic Uganda, where, traditionally nude Karamojan tribesmen were ordered by President Idi Amin to cover themselves...
...It is in the best of the free enterprise tradition that the prices for peace products will be paid because a market has developed for them...
...They oPerate in relative obscurity...
...A call placed to the advertising manager of that store revealed that there was not even discussion about using the ad...
...Large numbers of people who oppose U. S. involvement in Southeast Asia provide a ready market for anti-war products...
...Joseph (Gags) Gagliano, Mr...
...The article included a selection of the poetry...
...It was said that his teammates even refused to give him a birthday cake because they were sure he would drop it...
...they want their feelings known...
...And again: If Senator Bayh decided not to run for President, did he have a favorite candidate...
Vol. 5 • December 1971 • No. 3
