Neolib Hack Robert Samuelson: Determined To See Oldsters Eating Cat Food!

"What's happening is simple: Spending on the elderly is slowly overwhelming the rest of the federal government" - Robert Samuelson

Well, seems that columnist Robert Samuelson is at it again, beating the drums for elderly austerity and more money for the war machine. It seems this guy never gives up. He's thoroughly Neoliberal after all, having committed himself for years (even in a response email to me some 7 years ago) that no one ought to be receiving money just for breathing. (As most seniors do).

In his latest screed ('The Twisted Priorities of a Graying Nation') we're informed "government is being gutted" and "priorities are being skewed" by a reckless,  profligate over-spending on the elderly. Meanwhile, spending is behind on "vital activities" like defense and financial markets - he references their "regulation"- but if you've read any of his past articles it's really about their expansion, i.e. using further globalization such as the TPP. He and we know the GOOps will never allow more genuine financial regulation, especially as they already killed what was left of Dodd-Frank  in the 2014 end of year spending bill. (This was via a poison pill amendment that was stuck in the spending bill, enabling the banks to once again use FDIC monies to back up their risky trades - leaving us open to another 2008-style meltdown)

As usual he harps on the CBO projection that annual federal spending will grow by $2.6 trillion or 75 percent from 2104 to 2025 and "almost 90 percent of the increase comes from three sources: Social Security, health spending and interest on the federal debt."

Why he includes Social Security is mystifying for a number of reasons, including that Social Security. has never added to deficits given its payroll taxes essentially more than fund its outlays. Right now, in fact, the size of the S.S. Trust Fund is at $2.74 TRILLION which exceeds the $2.6 trillion Samuelson cites as federal spending for S.S., healthcare and interest on the debt! And we're not even including  as S.S. revenue  the taxes on Social Security income which none of these austerity nabobs factor into the mix. Namely, that up to one third of your Social Security benefits can be clawed back once you exceed a specific threshold. Why do none of the austerity fetishists mention that? Well, because it inveighs against their "entitlement" cutting agenda!

Meanwhile, a large part of health care spending is on prescription drugs, a little problem that could easily be remedied by allowing Medicare to do what the VA does, and bargain for the lowest drug prices with PhRMA.   As for the large federal interest on the debt, any moron could have informed Samuelson that the main reason for that is too little income, as in revenue - for all the spending that's being done - mainly on the military since 2001 (When ol' Gee Dumbya decided to cut taxes instead of increasing them when he commenced his "war on terror" - that's now sucked up 13 years and nearly $4 trillion)

Samuelson goes on to whine about "the degradation of government"  and points to the National Institutes of Health "losing nearly 25 percent of its purchasing power" in the last decade. Well, whose fault is that, Maestro? It's the fault of the Repukes who cut the NIH (as well as CDC) budgets which money they preferred to spend instead on military toys like the F-35!

In the same breath he also reports:

"The Internal Revenue Service blames budget cuts and reduced staffing for delays in mailing refunds and responding to taxpayer questions"

But again, this wasn't incepted by Social Security but by the Repukes cutting the IRS budgets as "payback" for what they believed to be singling out right wing groups for greater scrutiny, i.e. when claiming any tax exempt status under Internal Revenue code 501(c)(4). As a result, the 'Pukes cut an additional $346 million from the taxman's budget - virtually tying the IRS' hands to assist taxpayers or to expedite refunds. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/01/if-youre-late-getting-tax-refund-thank.html


Samuelson then rightly wails about the "national parks being hit..since 2010 their funding has decreased by 12 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars and the backlog of deferred maintenance has topped $11 billion."

Again, this awful, deficient funding situation has nada to do with Social Security but the same House Republicans and their cruel austerity punks who also de-funded the SNAP food stamps program in 2013 and want to do the same again now. Don't blame the favorite scapegoat of Social Security but rather a bunch that has its own priorities askew and would ten times rather spend on defense and war toys (now taking up 6.3% of GDP) than domestic programs - including out infrastructure which is falling apart.

Instead of lying his ass off about the need to cut Social Security - making it a red herring for Neoliberal austerity groups like "Fix the Debt" he ought to applaud the program's expansion which - if effected- could ameliorate the ongoing low aggregate demand problem that's keeping our economy down. The solution then is not less senior capacity to spend, but MORE! The more senior spending on goods, services - even health care- the more money infused to create more jobs!

But never mind, Samuelson and his ilk won't be satisfied until the elderly are on a permanent cat food (or kibbles) diet!

See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/05/is-robert-samuelson-for-real.html

and:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/richard-eskow/60951/the-republicanclasswars-new-front-social-security-for-the-disabled

Militarism is a Disease And Needs to be Stamped Out

A remarkable article appeared in the June 2014 issue of the American Journal of Public Health.  (Also available as free PDF here.)


The authors, experts in public health, are listed with all their academic credentials: William H. Wiist, DHSc, MPH, MS, Kathy Barker, PhD, Neil Arya, MD, Jon Rohde, MD, Martin Donohoe, MD, Shelley White, PhD, MPH, Pauline Lubens, MPH, Geraldine Gorman, RN, PhD, and Amy Hagopian, PhD.


One of the highlights that struck me was the finding that "since the end of World War II, there have been 248 armed conflicts in 153 locations around the world. The United States launched 201 overseas military operations between the end of World War II and 2001, and since then, others, including Afghanistan and Iraq. During the 20th century, 190 million deaths could be directly and indirectly related to war -- more than in the previous 4 centuries."


Such facts, footnoted in the article, are especially useful now in the face of a current myopic  academic trend in the United States proclaiming the death of war. How did this magic trick get accomplished? By re-categorizing many wars as other things, and minimizing death counts, as well as viewing deaths as proportions of the global population rather than of a local population or as absolute numbers. Using such perverse statistical devices and much artifice,  various authors have thereby claimed that war is vanishing. (One supposes they likely get most of their grants from the Pentagon.)   Obviously we all wish - at least most of us - that war should vanish, but that is only likely to happen if we find the drive and the resources to make it happen. We also need the politicos with enough balls to stand up to the Military Industrial complex as opposed to rolling over for them at every turn and after each election cycle.


:What exactly is this disease of militarism? According to the article:

"Militarism is the deliberate extension of military objectives and rationale into shaping the culture, politics, and economics of civilian life so that war and the preparation for war is normalized, and the development and maintenance of strong military institutions is prioritized. Militarism is an excessive reliance on
a strong military power and the threat of force as a legitimate means of pursuing policy goals in difficult international relations. It glorifies warriors, gives strong allegiance to the military as the ultimate guarantor of freedom and safety, and reveres military morals and ethics as being above criticism. Militarism instigates civilian society's adoption of military concepts, behaviors, myths, and language as its own. Studies show that militarism is positively correlated with conservatism, nationalism, religiosity, patriotism, and with an authoritarian personality, and negatively related to respect for civil liberties, tolerance of dissent, democratic principles, sympathy and welfare toward the troubled and poor, and foreign aid for poorer nations. Militarism subordinates other societal interests, including health, to the interests of the military"


And how, exactly, does the U.S. suffer from it malignant presence?

"Militarism is intercalated into many aspects of life in the United States and, since the military draft was eliminated, makes few overt demands of the public except the costs in taxpayer funding. Its expression, magnitude, and implications have become invisible to a large proportion of the civilian population, with little recognition of the human costs or the negative image held by other countries. Militarism has been called a 'psychosocial disease,' making it amenable to population-wide interventions. . . .


"The United States is responsible for 41% of the world's total military spending. The next largest in spending are China, accounting for 8.2%; Russia, 4.1%; and the United Kingdom and France, both 3.6%. . . . If all military . . . costs are included, annual [US] spending amounts to $1 trillion . . . . According to the DOD fiscal year 2012 base structure report, 'The DOD manages global property of more than 555,000 facilities at more than 5,000 sites, covering more than 28 million acres.' The United States maintains 700 to 1000 military bases or sites in more than 100 countries. . . .
"In 2011 the United States ranked first in worldwide conventional weapons sales, accounting for 78% ($66 billion). Russia was second with $4.8 billion. . . .

"In 2011-2012, the top-7 US arms producing and service companies contributed $9.8 million to federal election campaigns. Five of the top-10 [military] aerospace corporations in the world (3 US, 2 UK and Europe) spent $53 million lobbying the US government in 2011. . . .

"The main source of young recruits is the US public school system, where recruiting focuses on rural and impoverished youths, and thus forms an effective poverty draft that is invisible to most middle- and upper-class families. . . . In contradiction of the United States' signature on the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict treaty, the military recruits minors in public high schools, and does not inform students or parents of their right to withhold home contact information. The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery is given in public high schools as a career aptitude test and is compulsory in many high schools, with students' contact information forwarded to the military, except in Maryland where the state legislature mandated that schools no longer automatically forward the information."

The preceding synopsis discloses a nation without vision, in meltdown mode - or certainly in rapid decline. When militarism holds all the cards and is the central organizing principle of a society, then that society is essentially dead. (Think of 'Oceania' in Orwell's '1984') In effect, the preceding description embodies Eisenhower's January, 1961 Farewell address warning concerning the spread of the Military-Industrial complex.

The analogy to a malignant cancer is spot on because all funds plowed into military BS, whether Raptor jets, new F35 fighters, tanks or drones is essentially money not going to space exploration, education and health care. Not to mention infrastructure repair. Hence, those of us who perceive a massive collapse on the way - in very literal terms - and just like that for the Roman Empire. The worst perversion, obviously, is mandating military indoctrination in high schools and allowing recruiting there. Is it any wonder the U.S. is 26th in math and 37th in science in world wide assessments for proficiency?

Not at all when you consider how the military meme has poisoned the educational well, and moreover enticed tens of thousands to settle for the lowest common denominator in pursuing a military career. As if conceding there are no other jobs they could ever get, or want.

Obviously, none of the above is what these kids are told. Oh no. They're pumped full of BS on how they are "protecting our freedoms" and defending liberty with other nonsense like "Freedom is not free". No, of course not! That's why taxes have been demanded of the people and PAID in real wars! Whereas when Bush Jr. launched Afghanistan and Iraq he told Americans to "just go shopping" and actually CUT taxes!  Can you say derelict? How about insane?

But see, you never get real freedom, or peace, by fighting endless wars - most just to test new weapons for which billions have been spent, OR.... to grab resources (like oil) for the Neoliberal markets. Or better, to keep precious resources expended for endless massive destruction so the population approaches destitution- even if gradually via creeping inequality.

Does the one percent worry about militarism? Of course not! They likely have stocks in defense contractors like Raytheon or Lockheed. They will get rich off weaponry and war even as the rest of us sink. 

The politicians, meanwhile, are all the same with few exceptions (e.g. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren) because the military knows how to intimidate them and shake them down to cooperate with the national perdition. They too, are eventually cajoled into wearing their little American flag lapel pins that stand for allegiance to the military mavens and their tools. 41 percent of the world's military spending and 201 interventions since WWII is the sure sign of a nation off course, and too invested the economic destruction of resources as opposed to their useful management for their citizens.

Alas, as post-Peak Oil conditions progress in tandem with global warming, the economic losses and privation from militarism will grow worse - to the detriment of all except the richest. This is exactly why militarism is named as such a health problem.  The longer it is allowed to progress and wreak havoc on our country, the worse it will be for us all.  Militarism - military thinking and domination - must not be permitted to metastasize to the point its eats away the nation's innards like a cancer.

For every kid bamboozled by a recruiter to join this cancer, we need to be ready to disclose reality and open a chasm in the victim's brain to see the light. And that a military "career" is a dead end and not the boundless future the liars make it out to be!

Proposal to Cut Military Is Rational - But Will Repuke Congress Cooperate?

The proposal to cut the bloated military by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is both rational and honorable. In the current parlous economic climate we simply cannot afford to maintain 4,700 bases worldwide nor use the military as a default "jobs program".  The last is especially egregious as it deflects national resources and effort from creating actual jobs with benefits in the private sector.

Hagel's proposal is said to "reflect the nation's  transition from 13 years of war" (Denver Post, today, p. 18A) but it actually reflects a needed transition from 13 years of unnecessary occupations - which have arguably only inflamed the Middle East further. Iraq was certainly unnecessary, there never was any al Qaeda, and Afghanistan long since turned into a nation building endeavor which the Afghans themselves don't even want as Karzai's recent responses to continued U.S. occupation (through 2024) disclose. (I.e. refusing to sign an agreement for extension and freeing dozens of Taliban from Afghan prisons.)

Our national resources can be much better spent, therefore, with a  trimmed down fighting force - as opposed to a bloated, surplus one -  which poor leaders will otherwise be tempted to interject in unwise military adventures.  Hagel's proposals include:

- Shrinking the active duty Army from 520,000 to between 440,000 and 450,000. This compares with the post World War II low of 480,000 but bear in mind that in that era there wasn't the access to high technology that might compensate for manpower.

- The Army National Guard would drop to 335,000 from 355,000 by 2017.  The Army Reserves would also drop by 10,000 to 195,000

- The Marine Corps would shrink from 190,000 to 182,000

- Changes in military compensation, including: smaller pay raises, a slow down in the growth of tax free housing allowances, and a requirement that retirees and some families of active duty service members pay a little more in health insurance deductibles.

As Hagel said:

"This is the time for reality and the time for explosive growth in military budgets is over."

Indeed, that growth has negatively impacted all aspects of our society - from forcing even more cuts in food stamps on those who already go to bed hungry each night, to cutting unemployment benefits to increase the suffering of families nationwide.

Yet pro-military whores like Doug Lamborn want the burden to continue to fall on the already sacrificed and indigent. In response to Hagel's proposals, Lamborn retorted (ibid.):

"Our national security should not be a budgetary punching bag! Instead the rest of the federal government needs to take some cuts!"

Is this imbecile serious? The national security a "punching bag"? In fact, the national security state has gorged itself at the expense of nearly every other domestic sector. Included in the latter we've already beheld successive cuts in food stamps to the poorest citizens, ending with the latest round amounting to an added $9b in cuts via the Farm Bill just passed. That means 15.9 million kids going to bed hungry each night by one estimate in Mother Jones magazine.. Then add to that the December elimination of long term unemployment benefits and you have even  more suffering.

And this inveterate fool wants the "rest of the federal government" to take MORE cuts! So wait, let's triple the food stamps cuts so that even toddlers will be starving at night, along with parents and older siblings.

But why be surprised? Lamborn is an unrepentant, unapologetic whore, after all. According to  The Denver Post  article('Defense Cuts Put Lamborn in Tough Fight', Nov. 11, 2013, p. 5A):

"Lamborn receives his heftiest campaign contributions from military contractors. Just in this election cycle, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman- both with offices in Colorado Springs - gave him a combined $10,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. He has also received contributions from Honeywell International and Boeing."

Can you spell W-H-O-R-E? No, it doesn't have to be anyone who jumps into bed for pay! It also includes congress critters who jump into bed with their military interests for campaign dough!

In the same article, Lamborn made no bones about  wanting to "go full tilt come January"  when further defense cuts are on the block,  and according to the Post, "intends to find other places to chop, including entitlements like food stamps and Medicare, to shield the military."


In other words, cut from the least vulnerable citizens as opposed to Dougie's beloved warhawks for whom he's clearly ready to do almost anything imaginable.  (Lamborn's also been fighting for a "combat air brigade" for Colorado Springs, equipped with 122 Apache Longbow choppers - amounting to yet another military-industrial pork barrel waste, even as many citizens in this burg remain underfed, homeless and unemployed.)

The time to act is NOW, and Chuck Hagel's solution provides a blueprint. It is time to pare the overly fat Military down to a size that comports with the austerity situation all other citizens must endure.  Not to do so is to invite economic and domestic catastrophe.

But don't look for the military porkers and grafters in the Repuke House to cooperate! They're quite prepared to let the bogus military "jobs' program continue in return for the kickbacks received from their paymasters.

"Cut Them Food Stamps & Medicaid More!"- Doug Lamborn Wants Military Funding Protected

It always amuses me how so-called "fiscal conservatives" ,  numbered among the Repukes,  have no qualms about splurging gazillions on military toys, defense contracts and make -work for those in their districts.  They will be hell-bent against any infrastructure spending - despite bridges, water mains and roads crumbling in front of them - but bring on them F-35 bombers at $600m each! The more the better!

Enter now the city of Colorado Springs, long a shameless suckling on the teats of government to the tune of billions a year for military support and expenditure. The irony is most of its burgers are ideological (social-economic) conservatives who find no irony in bitching, moaning and pissing about the economically vulnerable, kids or homeless receiving food stamps- though they themselves collect hundreds of times as much in terms of fat military contracts, special benefits, pensions or spinoff largesse.....which is essentially the same thing. So while they bemoan the "Nanny" state to which the poor are driven, they overlook the "Pappy" state which sits them on its knees and doles out goodies galore.

The  'doyen'  of the Springs, continually re-elected because of the military welfare he provides,  is Doug Lamborn, who was quoted yesterday in The Denver Post ('Defense Cuts Put Lamborn in Tough Fight'. p. 5A):

"Defense is my top priority. I say that without apology because it's the top priority of the federal government.  When you read the Constitution, defense spending and national security is mentioned more than anything else. It's the highest priority so it will be my highest priority."

Which is bare bollocks, and also provides a nifty cover or excuse to further gut domestic spending - including food stamps for hungry kids - in the next round of the sequester in January.

To me, priority is defined by what comes first. If Lamborn really knew the Constitution he'd also have known that the Preamble comes before all else and it clearly stipulates the government is to PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE.  Not "military welfare" or "corporate welfare" - and that general welfare embodies all those domestic spending components that Lamborn and his ilk would piss on: health care, infrastructure maintenance, social insurance for the poor. Those are also the things, interestingly, that contribute most directly to domestic security. You have a Bird Flu contagion and you really want to see 47 million sick and without care because they can't afford it? Only a nut would argue that is less of a security threat than a localized terror attack.

But this is the shtick Lamborn uses to continually grabbing largesse for his 5th Congressional District, which pulled in $1.2 billion in federal contracts through the 3rd quarter of the 2012 fiscal year, according to the Post article. Moreover, Lamborn isn't satisfied, he still wants more, in the form of  $1 billion for a dubious combat air brigade (CAB) that's putatively there to "support operations in Afghanistan by training Apache helicopter pilots".  

This despite the fact that an ongoing environmental assessment hasn't even been completed, and hey - we're supposed to pulling out next year!  Meanwhile, hundreds of questions need to be addressed, including: How is such a unit to be accommodated on the given location and what will be the training parameters? How many flights per day? At how much social, environmental cost? What if two choppers crash into homes per month? How much fuel can be dumped if need be and where? Who will pay for any damages and what about insurance? What are all the impacts associated with this? Of course, the Army could escape all responsibility despite the 285-odd questions that demand to be addressed by simply issuing a FONSI ('Finding of No Significant Impact').

The Post goes on to note that the bulk of the $1.2 b already provided is tied to the military and  the military contractors. In other words, the Springs is now the "hub" of the Military Industrial Complex like Dallas was back in 1963. This is according to the Center for Effective Government.  This included a $246 million contract to Northrop Grumman and $97.6 million to Lockheed Martin. Meanwhile, Springs' roads are pot-holed, the water mains are 100 years old and haven't undergone major refurbishing, and bridges are near collapse in several places.  Oh, and the schools are over-crowded from having to close several middle and high schools last year owing to lack of funds.

Is Lamborn bothered? Hell no! He wants to go full tilt come January when further defense cuts are on the block,  and according to the Post, "intends to find other places to chop, including entitlements like food stamps and Medicare, to shield the military."

Never mind tens of millions of kids across the nation are already having to go to bed hungry thanks to the existing sequester, now having been combined with the end of a SNAP stimulus Nov. 1. I am sure all those kids, appreciate Dougie's manifest "Christian" concern, not to mention all the seniors on Medicare who Lamborn wants to pay more for their drugs, treatments and therapies. Cancer? Hell, let the old farts throw the dice, we can't afford to allow radiation treatments, chemo or anything else. Better them dead than my military defense contracts!

Speaking of which - and according to the Post (ibid.):

"Lamborn receives his heftiest campaign contributions from military contractors. Just in this election cycle, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman- both with offices in Colorado Springs - gave him a combined $10,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. He has also received contributions from Honeywell International and Boeing."

Of course, this embodies the very core of the corruption Eisenhower warned about in his January, 1961 Farewell address, referencing the "Military-Industrial Complex" and its "undue influence in communities throughout our nation."

Does Dougie care that roads are falling into potholes, that 11,000 kids in the Springs have to go to school every day on empty bellies, or that sewer lines regularly burst because of disrepair or the schools themselves are over crowded? Dougie's predictable response, as quoted in the Post:

"My votes on the military are for national security first and foremost ....and then I think about the district."

Thanks a heap, Doug. It's too bad we have too many stupid fuckers living in this burg who don't realize what side their bread is buttered on and keep voting your sorry, parasite ass into office.

Anti-War? Better Damned Well Believe It!

" Why of course the people don’t want war...But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they’re being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.” - Hermann Goering, Nuremberg, 1946

I admit that if an anti-war gene exists, I was probably born with it. Even from an early age of 5 or 6 going through my parents' 'Book of Knowledge' whenever I came across war scenes and accounts I thought most of them stupid. 

WWII, as I learned more about it, especially from my dad (a WWII vet),  was perhaps the one exception because non- participation wasn't an option given the Third Reich's designs on the entire world.  After I learned (by 1971)  how close the Reich was to a nuclear weapon, thanks to the atomic physicists (like Werner Heisenberg) they had working on it, a pacifist stance would have amounted to ....well, I don't even want to think about it.

But, most wars are tomfoolery, fought under false pretenses and done mainly to fill the pockets of corporate bastards, oil tycoons & companies or shadow government enclaves. Vietnam is a case in point, started entirely on a false pretext via the claim two American ships (the Turner Joy and Maddox  ) were fired on by N. Vietnam. But in 2005, an internal National Security Agency historical study was declassified; it concluded that the Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese Navy on August 2, but that there were no North Vietnamese Naval vessels present during the incident of August 4.

In other words, all bullshit whose only outcome was the deaths of 58,000 Americans, $290b gone up in smoke,  and an unfathomable toll in injuries and disabilities - including from Agent Orange.  JFK had actually planned to pull all personnel out of Vietnam by 1965, using his National Security Action Memorandum 263,  but his assassination prevented that. Once LBJ got in, he issued NSAM 273 to retract Kennedy's order which paved the way to launch a full scale war with over a half million men under arms.  Most of us, in the deep politics arena, believe LBJ acted in accord with the orders of oil tycoons - like Haroldson Lafayette Hunt, and assorted banks - as well as the still growing U.S. defense industry which demanded a new slew of weapons used, bombs blown up, jets shot down - so they could make more. And get more defense contracts, more profits built on blood.

Iraq was an equally bogus intervention and "war" - actually more a blitzkrieg invasion followed by a prolonged occupation. The Bushies wanted to go into Iraq to have a more or less permanent base in the Middle East, and also to punish Saddam - after Bush Sr. was threated by him. Bush Jr. then wanted to exact vengeance.

This perspective is useful in approaching Ann Jones' new book, They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America's Wars -- The Untold Story,. Jones' message is  devastating, and especially when one considers that virtually all of the death and destruction in U.S. wars is on the other side. Yes, while we lost 58,000 in Vietnam - the Vietnamese (not including the N. Viets or Viet Cong) lost more than 2.5 million. Many dead from napalm and Agent Orange an indiscriminate "body bag" hunts - where the war had been based totally on numbers called "body count". But no one ever checked to see how many were really "friendlies" and not Cong.

In Iraq, something like 4,000 U.S. troops were killed but nearly 600,000 innocent Iraqis - according to World Health Organization stats (which I would accept long before any "official" U.S. government stats - when it can't even be truthful about the JFK assassination).

As blogger David Swanson observed re: Jones' book:

Know a young person considering joining the military? Give them this book.

Know a person not working to end war? Give them this book.

Swanson was referring in part to how many soldiers in Iraq, hit by IEDs for example, had to have their genitals cut off-  penises tossed into medical waste bins - after lower torsos were obliterated.  Apart from those gnarly issues, Jones' Introduction alone will get the attention of even the most warmongering nut or brainwashed zombie (okay, perhaps not the latter)

One excerpt is:

"Contrary to common opinion in the United States, war is not inevitable. Nor has it always been with us. War is a human invention -- an organized, deliberate action of an anti-social kind -- and in the long span of human life on Earth, a fairly recent one. For more than 99 percent of the time that humans have lived on this planet, most of them have never made war. Many languages don't even have a word for it. Turn off CNN and read anthropology. You'll see.

What's more, war is obsolete. Most nations don't make war anymore, except when coerced by the United States to join some spurious 'coalition.' The earth is so small, and our time here so short. No other nation on the planet makes war as often, as long, as forcefully, as expensively, as destructively, as wastefully, as senselessly, or as unsuccessfully as the United States. No other nation makes war its business."


Well, no one can argue that! But the question remains:  Why is it that  the U.S, takes the cake in making war its business? I provided some reasons in a previous blog post: http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/09/why-need-for-so-many-military-attacks.html  wherein I observed:

"The more conflicts, attacks that can be expedited the more ordinance, bombs, cruise missiles, etc. are destroyed in the process of attacking and hence the more additional ordnance, bombs, cruise missiles etc. have to be manufactured to replace them! Can't have any inventory building up on the defense contractors' shelves, now can we?"


In effect, endless war enables the most prodigious ideal of the profiteer: endless obsolescence via destruction. Eliminate by war $600 billion in tanks, fighter jets, assault rifles, ships, bombers and you have to make another $600b more to replace them - often more - because of inflation and increasing oil prices. The U.S. then, has honed this endless cycle of "creative" destruction to a tee.

Add in the fact that making all these weapons assures hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country - in both Reepo and Demo districts-  and you have the ideal "capital works" jobs program. Hell, Colorado Springs thrives on it. Take away the military weapons money and support and this little burg sinks into the abyss.

What is more, you ensure almost NO votes from any of these districts against any military actions, interventions, planned occupations- because of course, the economic welfare of their little military fiefdom depends on them! Exactly what Ike warned about when he warned of the spread of the "military industrial complex".

Those who want to gain more insight are advised to get Jones' book, and also try to get hold of the documentary DVD: 'Why We Fight'.

In tandem, they will shake you to your core. And if they don't, well count yourself among the 'Walking Dead'!

John Kass Better Hope He Never Gets Old

Chicago Trib hack John Kass has shot another round to try to launch an inter-generational war with his piece 'Geezer Zombies, Soon to be a Reality' (Denver Post, Oct. 6, p. 5D) While comparing Senate "geezers" (let's recall the Senate is the biggest, most elite millionaires' club in the country) John McCain and Dick Durbin to zombies and even extending the comparison to "the old woman crawling across the ceiling in the hokey horror film 'Legion') he then loses his way entirely by conflating the example with ordinary seniors.

According to Kass:

"The prospect of McCain and Durbin scurrying on the ceiling followed by Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid is horror indeed. So it's a guaranteed money-maker. And that hit will prompt others like 'You Better Kill Everyone Over 30 Before They Drink Your Blood'.

Really, Kass? Why everyone over 30? I can think of select subsets right now that - with stakes driven into their hearts - would make this nation a whole lot better, but you neatly skirt the issue. But you expose your crappy hand when you claim "the real conflict isn't partisan, but inter-generational" then add this claptrap:

"Establishment pols continue bickering over crumbs while refusing to do much about those fiscally ravenous and unsustainable entitlement programs like Medicare, Social Security and Obamacare"

And thereby he places himself in the same category of other Neoliberal rats trying to make us believe seniors can easily do without essential social insurance - thank you very much - while turning a blind eye to the military -industrial- spy complex which is gobbling up massive chunks of the treasury each year.  This Military malignancy has already drained us of over $4 trillion via 2 unpaid for occupations  and it may well be much more, when all the medical needs of the returned Iraq and Afghanistan vets are tended to, as well as their future disability benefits finally paid for.

But does Kass even try to impute the defense -spy state nuts? Oh no, that's off base. But let's take aim instead at ordinary seniors who can end up destitute with one fall, or god forbid, Alzheimers. Instead, Kass piles it on even more, scribbling:

"Unfortunately, the unsustainable federal spending ...will drain today's teenagers and 20-somethings of vital nutrients like cash and jobs. Among the young unemployment rages, job prospects are poor and many figure they will never own a home. Young people know this, or at least feel it as Washington continues to print money."

While Kass appears obsessed with the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing policy ("printing money") he takes his eyes off the real ''ball': vast defense contracts (for toys like the F-35 at $600m each, to build 2,400 of them) and a surveillance state whose budget has now grown to a half trillion a year, including to pay thousands of private contractors to compile meta-data on Americans, and with black budgets.

How can any columnist be so patently blind? Perhaps he willingly does so and wants an inter-generational war on top of the new Civil War brewing now between Southern Tea Party types and northern style liberal governance where all get a piece of the pie.  To confirm this he goes on to spew nonsense about the "baby boomer undead and the teenage zombie hunters" then - to make sure we know he's as crazy as shit house rat, he writes:

"Less than 50 years ago, nearly 30 percent of America's elderly lived below the poverty line. No more. They've switched places with the young and the young don't get it yet. But they will. And if that's not a recipe for conflict, I don't know what is."

So wait, Kass,  you really want to return us to the era of thirty percent elderly poverty?

In fact, the poverty rates for those over 65 and the younger set (21- 34) are nearly exactly the same: 15.6% vs. 15.4% (according to 2012 Census stats) so it's not as if they've "switched places".   Kass' narrative is that greedy seniors are robbing the young blind, but the truth is that the military-industrial spy state is robbing both blind. Rather than put the tail on the military-surveillance expansion it's much easier not to rock the boat of the Neolib paymasters - and blame oldsters instead. Never mind, whatever the predicament of the Millennials now they are much more resilient than the elderly. They have much more TIME and opportunity to bounce back from a setback - economic or physical (especially if they have the sense to sign up for the ACA) than the elderly do. They aren't looking at a prolonged death from Alzheimers, after all, or being confined to a nursing home after a fall. (Or paying more than $4,000 a month to stay under nursing home care!)

Given this, we need to be aware of how the entrenched Neoliberal political Elite continues to make up lies as it attempts to destroy our social insurance infrastructure. If you want to see the real swine behind it go to www.petersonPyramid.org )

The next time Kass or any other overpaid, self-important hack thinks of playing the "generational war" card they need to be reminded of the following:

Seven million children currently live with grandparents - who depend on Social Security to care for them

- 8.5 million other children (including college kids that find themselves jobless and live at home) who live with elder parents that depend on Social Security to make do.

- The tens of millions of 50-plus Americans who, through their tax dollars and Social Security monies, pensions, provide voluntary contributions to support public schools, child health programs, grandparent guardianship programs as well as other charities that care for homeless kids (e.g. Covenant House).

 Concocting war between the generations, pitting young against old, therefore serves no useful or moral purpose. It is merely a cheap, malicious tactic to take attention from the REAL problem: the malignant growth of the Military Industrial Complex to the detriment of all of us outside it!

Meanwhile, the best strategy for right thinking Americans is to fight on for a single payer, Medicare- for- all system, which ultimately would save us at least a trillion over ten years, and eliminate the 120 Americans per day who perish for lack of health insurance. 'Socialized medicine' ? Not any more than the healthcare provided by the VA! 

WHY The Need for so many Military Attacks? It's the Defense Contracts, Stupid!

On the ABC Sunday Morning discussion program with George Stephanopoulos, Mideast  correspondent Martha Radditz noted Obama must proceed cautiously on the Syrian front because he will need another war authorization "in a few months" for an attack on Iran. SAY WHAT?! An attack on Iran? What is this bullshit? How many attacks are we going to be making in the volatile Middle East? Has this country totally lost its fucking marbles?

Actually no, okay let me qualify that! There is method to the madness. The method is that the more conflicts, attacks that can be expedited the more ordinance, bombs, cruise missiles, etc. are destroyed in the process of attacking and hence the more additional ordnance, bombs, cruise missiles etc. have to be manufactured to replace them! Can't have any inventory building up on the defense contractors' shelves, now can we? Oh no! That would mean loss of profits and also, god forbid, that the products already manufactured are sitting there being wasted and unused.  The idea - as with all consumption  - is use, use, USE ....so more have to be manufactured and more paid for!

This is the dirty little secret of our "war" economy highlighted by the key graphic shown above, disclosing how much of the budget the military industrial complex sucks up annually.  Here's another dirty little secret about the "sequester": there are no real cuts to military spending in any absolute terms, but only an estimated "trim down" of roughly 23% in the projected INCREASES in Pentagon spending over the next ten years!

The point here? Contrary to the bloviators' bollocks of "jeopardizing national security", just the opposite is true: the Pentagon base budget will still be larger than it is today by 2021! This necessarily means, given the zero sum resources we have, everyone else will be much poorer. That means an even more shattered and useless infrastructure with crumbling roads, cracking sewer and water mains and collapsing bridges....and a much more likely intolerable domestic environment over all.

Meanwhile, you can just imagine the weapons makers having wet dreams now over this Syria thing. At last a believable excuse has been found in some Youtube images of gassed Syrian civilians to justify firing a thousand Tomahawks at those Syrian bad guys - and letting God sort them out.  He will have to, because there likely will be as much collateral damage - with maybe twice the number as killed in the gas attack, as Syrian forces annihilated.......errrrr.....punished. 

Oh yeah, let's bear in mind it's a "limited strike" maybe a few days at most, maybe 300 or so Tomahawks in all. But what no one is admitting is they will have to go in again if another gas attack takes place, no matter who did it - including al Qaeda operatives trying to snag us into another expensive, long drawn out war. Sounds almost like Oceania in George Orwell's '1984' - endless war, but the purpose of which is not to win...not anything but (in the immortal words of "Goldstein"):

"War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. "

But bear in mind, unstated by Goldstein, is that any kind of war - or even a limited attack as Obama claims he has planned for Syria - has the ancillary purpose of requiring additional stores of munitions, missiles, bombs, etc. to take the place of those destroyed in the attacks - hence means more defense contracts and more profits for the Pentagon-linked parasites who are sucking us all dry. And if more chemical attacks are committed by whatever bad guys? Well, that means we have to go in again and use up more cruise missiles so that when they are blown up, more will need to be made to replace them! And on and on it goes! Since, hell, once in for a penny, we're in for a pound. As long as any sort of "violations of international norms" occur, we will have to come back and bomb the suckers again!

And then, oh yes, a major assault on Iran lies in our future! Think of how those defense contractors must be having orgasmic spasms right now contemplating the new contract bounty from THAT! Hell, maybe 10,000 bombs and cruise missiles will have to be replaced!  And HEY! Since Iranian underground nuclear facilities are fortified with "ultra-high performance concrete" (UHPC) that means the most expensive bombs (at about $5m each) will have to be used!

These, of course, are the Massive Ordinance Penetrators ("MOPS' ), which can break through 60 m of ordinary concrete, but will not necessarily be a walk in the park. That means that an enormous supply will likely have to be available, and also if all those are used up, maybe 1,000 more will have to be made. Oy! Think of the profits!

Well, it is fairly clear who wins in each of these attack scenarios, and hint, hint, it ain't the American people. It will be the MIC and the defense profiteers.

Meanwhile, the American nation is sped into further decline especially if the debt ceiling isn't properly increased next month, but we face yet another showdown.

 Btw, contrary to what some uninformed dummies assert, the 'Commander in chief' is really only a puppet who ultimately must fulfill the will of the militarists who run the Military Industrial Complex.  Their main agenda is consuming the gross domestic product for military use and they will have it done one way or the other.  Read the book, In The Shadow of War, by Michael S. Sherry. JFK's courageous mistake was to buck the militarists by issuing National Security Action Memorandum 263 (to pull all personnel out of Vietnam by 1965), and he paid the ultimate price.

One Sequester Blessing: Army Expansion in Colo. Is Halted

Well, we on the Left were waiting for some signal, some indication that the sequester would bite the ass of the Military -Industrial complex, as it has so many regular citizens: seniors enduring treatment cuts for cancer, others with home care limited or cut, and unemployed facing a 20% cut in benefits - not to mention food stamps programs threatened. So it was refreshing to see the news in yesterday's Denver Post that the Army has conceded that sequester cuts in the budget will force "downsizing" that will prevent growth.

GOOD!

Colorado's ranchers, who were here first (well, okay, after Native Americans) have had to endure decades of Army expansion, grabbing their land - especially in the Pinon Canyon area- to justify "training exercises". As with the FISA laws being altered, our congressional weasels - led by local pro-military whore Doug Lamborn, passed a provision some years ago granting the Army the right to take private land from landowners.

Typical in the proto-fascist land seizure gambit, is the Army would inform ranchers - like Gary Hill when he traveled to D.C. to protest some years ago - that it would give him "$300 an acre" and he
"wouldn't have a choice". He'd have to suck it up, and make the sacrifice for his country. Please! The fact is the Army never needed any of the land it grabbed and it only pissed off thousands of Colorado ranchers.  As Hill made clear in a comment on Tuesday, quoted in the Post (p. 6A):

"We're not at war with our own country! We need land in production so we can feed the people of this nation. At some point in time, the government can't own it all, or we should just move to Russia or something."

But now these callous, reprehensible land grabs appear to be halted by the sequester. At a meeting Tuesday with ranchers, Assistant Secretary of the Army, Katherine Hammack- who traveled all the way from the Pentagon to meet with ranchers and local officials - described the Army in "a state of decline" given the federal budget cuts otherwise known as the sequester. (Recall that the deal with the sequester was that if the budget issues weren't resolved by the end of 2012, then there would be automatic $600b cuts for defense, and for domestic programs. Up to now, most of us have only heard of the latter, or a few private military contractors having to go on weekly furloughs.)

Hammack said that though the Army wanted to provide more training area (they already hold 235,000 acres if you can believe it) readying troops for battle, they don't have the money. She added:

"We're downsizing. We're reducing the number of troops, reducing the number of brigade combat teams."

About damned time! And I have bitched about this shit before, including adding a "combat air brigade" to the Springs at a cost of over $1 billion. In an era of budget austerity - while seniors and kids are having to do without food- this is unacceptable.

And what exactly are these training exercises? Basically, they take a training site (usually precious ranch land or fields with unique flora) and recreate warlike battlefields, including laying waste to whatever ecology exists (and the Pinon Canyon area has a very fragile ecology of plants, animals peculiar to the state.) To make it real, they take thousands of soldiers from Fort Carson with tanks, to create conditions similar to what they'd find in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hmmmmm......I thought we vacated 'Eye-rack', and we're supposed to leave Afghanistan next year. So why the need to keep this training BS up?

Meanwhile, the ranchers are on tenterhooks since the Army - like most of political Washington (including the NSA's prevaricating troglodytes),  seems to be expert in double talk. Even Hammack, while she played up the "downsizing" aspect for ranchers, did not say that the Army was going to drop the waiver (to seize ranch land) completely.  She did say that with federal funds dropping "now is the time to re-evaluate the provision."

Duh!

Meanwhile, at least one legislator - a Repub at that- Cory Gardner of Yuma (whose district includes Pinon Canyon),  got a measure through the House of Representatives that requires an Act of Congress to expand the site. Also, even if Congress  granted approval, the House-approved measure requires the Army to complete an environmental impact study (and receive federal money for it) before it can come to pass.

This is reasonable and protects private property rights of ranchers. It basically slows down the expedient wholesale seizure of land, in much the same way that the original (1978) FISA law was designed to slow down "grab 'em up"  vacuum collection of personal data from innocent Americans - but which a weasel congress retroactively made "legal".

The whole gist of protecting rights, whether those for private property or privacy means the particular government agency or dept. must be deliberately slowed down and made less efficient. Gardner's legislation does that for land here in Colorado, and we now need some people with spine to do the same for the "haystack", indiscriminate collection of metadata.

As for Hammack, she provided one real encouraging sentence for ranchers, property owners in regard to the current Act that allows wholesale land grabbing:

"I think there is a possibility to rescind it. I'm not guaranteeing that will happen, but there is a real chance of that occurring."

Let's hope so!