Of 'White Flags' and the Subjugation of Government to a Corporate Order

Question: When is a white flag (actually a whitened American flag) hung atop a bridge (Brooklyn Bridge) a message by fed up citizens against the corporate -military spy state, and not the act of "terrorists", terrorist wannabes, or artists trying to generate an "art form"- as some in the dopey media insist?  

Well, when the medium used actually can constitute the basis of the message, as Marshall McLuhan first pointed out in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man.  In this case, the message of the bleached out American flag to the point of whiteness, or "surrender" - might well suggest to many of us that the flag raisers wanted us to think of the surrender and subjugation of our actual government to the corporate state and the marginalization of citizens (mostly to consumers) that has transpired since.

Chris Hedges again (Empire of Illusion, p. 166):

"Our government is being wrecked by corporations, which now get 40 percent of federal discretionary spending. More than 800,000 jobs once handled by federal employees have been outsourced to corporations, a move that has not only empowered our shadow corporate government but also helped destroy federal workforce unions."

Hmmmm.....shadow corporate government. But ....what if the 'shadow' becomes so powerful, say in controlling our representatives - either by lobby-campaign money or other  blandishments - that the citizen becomes "Weimar-ized" to use Hedges' term?  That is, useful only very briefly to put the bought out reps into office, after which the infusion of money trumps the votes and the corporate order reigns supreme. In this case the shadow government has de facto taken over the representative one, you know based on "consent of the governed" and it mutates into a nightmare or farce based on "consent of the corporate order".

Maybe, just maybe, that was the message the Brooklyn Bridge flag raisers were trying to send but most Americans, including officialdom,  are too dumb to get it. (Another aspect: the location - as one newser explained last night - is right amidst a bevy of local and federal gov't buildings.)

But we haven't gotten to the most toxic component of the corporate-security shadow matrix, which has extended its tentacles all over the planet.  True, it had existed prior to September 11th, 2001, but following that event it went far beyond any "war on terror". No, it merely exploited the 9/11 event and the pseudo-lingo "war on terror"  to give comprehensive doctrinal expression to an overbearing imperial policy. This came in an official document, “The National Security Strategy of the United States of America,” issued in September 2002. In the world, it stated, only one economic and political system remained “viable”: the American one of liberal democracy and free enterprise.


But as I already noted (previous post) free enterprise has nothing to do with democracy.

As I quoted Chris Hedges (op. cit., p. 185):

Democracy is not an outgrowth of free markets. Democracy and capitalism are antagonistic entities. Democracy...is based not on personal gain, but on self-sacrifice. A functioning democracy must often defy the economic interests of elites on behalf of citizens, but this is not happening.

But see, because the corrupt corporate shadow government, i.e. the "SYSTEM"  e.g.
 http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/09/america-haters-uhhno-system-haters.html

sold us this bill of goods, we've been looking the other way while it's metastasized. Grown to the extent of a malignant cancer. Indeed, in its formalized "doctrine" it makes no bones about asserting that it reserves the right to "henceforth promote and defend this system by the unilateral use of force — preemptively, if necessary." 

REALLY? Neoliberal, corporate governance is that crucial?  Imposing slave labor and indentured servitude to the corporations is THAT important to the nation's security? Evidently it is!

The United States  by its "Bush Doctrine" reserved the entire field of military force to itself, restricting other nations to humbler pursuits- like keeping their cell phones and computers open to NSA snoops.. In the imperious  words of the  National Security Strategy:  “Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States. If the United States is displeased with a regime, it reserved the right to overthrow it — to carry out “regime change.”

“In the world we have entered,” Bush Junior said, “the only path to safety is the path of action. And this nation will act.”


Indeed it will if the nation is entrapped in a ruthless corporate order- and is particularly hostage to the military -industrial complex which needs ever more money from the taxpayers to feed its insatiable maw. From this distorted frame of reference,  Bush's insane doctrine makes sense. Plus the fact that the Neoliberal-Neocon security state is dedicated to removing citizen security - and what better way than to bleed the coffers of government dry, via tax cuts and military spending?

Nothing fixes concepts and arguments better than a graphic, shown above. This ought to make mince meat out of former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' claim this morning that:  "disengaging from two wars - in Iraq and Afghanistan - is tricky - and may lead the world to perceive we are disengaging from the world".

Oh, I think not, sir!  I believe the world would instead exhale in a collective sigh of relief that a newly minted Empire (since 9./11) has finally removed its meddling paws from two places it had no business invading in the first place. But only used the pretext of "pre-emptive" war to try to establish Neoliberal democracies - which tactics we were already warned about in Amy Chua's 'World on Fire'.  As Chua observed,you have to be prepared to live with whatever the result of the democratic outcome - irrespective of how much you may despise it. And if a country's infrastructure won't support Neoliberal markets, well you better suck that up too!

I mean, seriously, does the U.S. REALLY need 702 military 'installations' in 63 foreign countries (it has 4,471 bases altogether), according to the Defense Department's  2012 budget statement? ( Figures that don't include bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.) We're talking about our military presence in nations like Germany, South Korea, and Japan. ALL of these represent redundant costs since the wars that incepted the bases are now more than a half century over! While the total cost of these bases is kept secret, the best analysis I've seen estimates their ten-year cost at approximately $1 trillion. (Some like hedges and Seymour Mehlman - quoted in his book -  put that cost closer to $3 trillion)

Chris Hedges again (p. 165):

"The defense industry is a virus. It destroys healthy economies. We produce sophisticated fighter jets while Boeing is unable to finish its new commercial plane on schedule and our automotive industry goes bankrupt. We sink money into research and development of weapons systems and starve renewable energy technologies to fight global warming....

The massive military spending, aided by a $3 trillion war, has a social cost. Our bridges and levees collapse. Our schools decay, our real manufacturing is done overseas, and our social safety net is taken away. And we are bombarded by the militarized language of power and strength.."

As for Mehlman, as Hedges notes (ibid.) he actually coined the term 'permanent war economy' to describe the American economy.  As he notes, "since the Second World War the federal government has spent more than half its tax dollars on past, present and current military operations. It is the largest single sustaining activity of the government".

The problem is that it's undermining and destroying the nation, leading us to a dangerous precipice. A large part of this is the funneling of desperately needed funds to military programs, and the other part is the mammoth corporate welfare defense contracts afford. As Hedges observes:

"Defense systems are usually sold before they are produced and military industries are permitted to charge the federal government for huge cost overruns. Huge profits are guaranteed."

The Pentagon, Mehlman notes, isn't restricted by the economic rules of producing goods, selling them for a profit, then using the profit for further investment and production. No, it can actually make profits off WASTE.  This may also be why, as former defense spending analyst Chuck Spinney noted in 2002, nearly $1.1 TRILLION still cannot be accounted for by the Pentagon. Consider just the bogus F-35 fighter which has had numerous cost overruns and still exhibits defects and problems that may never be solved. Yet, 2,335 of these white elephants have been ordered at a cost of a third of a billion each (cost still going up). WHY?

Because we think we have a blank check - mainly from the likes of China and other creditor nations - and that gives us license to go on doing this forever. But the jig will soon be up and most of the sad and sorry lot who pass for "citizens" today won't even see it coming.

Hedges again (pp. 187-88):

"The bullet to our head, inevitable if we do not radically alter course, will be sudden. We have been borrowing at the rate of $2 billion a day over the last ten years and at some point it has to stop. The moment China, the oil-rich states and other international investors stop buying U.S> Treasury bonds, the dollar will become junk. We will become Weimar Germany.

A furious and sustained backlash by a betrayed and angry populace, one unprepared intellectually and psychologically for collapse, will sweep aside the Democrats and most of the Republicans."

The proverbial "pitchforks" will then come home to roost.

At that stage, a single raised,  bleached-out American flag over the Brooklyn Bridge will be the least of our security worries.  For make no mistake that an insane policy of unchallengeable military domination over the earth,  wrought at enormous expense to a nation's citizens, and accompanied by a unilateral right to overthrow other governments by military force, is an imperial, Augustan policy destined to end badly. A policy redolent of ancient Rome - and we know what happened to Rome by way of its military overstretch.

Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, according to George Santayana. But is anyone paying attention?

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.

Has Bill Maher Bought into the “Entitlement Spending Crisis”?

A crowd in D.C. two years ago protests against possible Social Security cuts. Bill Maher somehow thinks that cutting "entitlements" like Social Security will free up more $$$ for those under 18. He's dreaming! What needs to be cut - pared down in HALF- is the Military-Industrial Complex and  Military Welfare State.

Bill Maher comes off as an intelligent host of HBO’s REAL TIME, and in most instances his intellect manages to side on the right side of issues. However, in a disturbing few moments last night one wondered if maybe he had too many tokes before his show. In one exchange, which included guest Sam Harris, Bill opined:


“Do we really want to be spending $4 on every adult over 65, to only $1 on every child under 18?”

Guest Sam Harris, a putative, proclaimed liberal, didn’t help matters by suggesting Social Security be “means tested”, so that no high earners could receive benefits.

First, let me hammer Bill before going on to Sam Harris. The issue again, isn’t “ entitlements” such as Social Security, but rather out of control “defense spending” which is really EMPIRE building! I mean, c’mon already! Do we REALLY need 702 military 'installations' in 63 foreign countries with 4,471 bases altogether? This, according to the Defense Department's 2012 annual budget statement.


Clearly, if you’re spending so much on this nonsense there will be little left for humane spending, including on social insurance. Nor will there be sufficient funding for education, teachers. Bill, before disengaging mouth, ought to have considered what spending $0.3b each on 2,335 F-35 bombers would have accomplished for schools, services, paying teachers. Instead, he became an instant Neoliberal moron by parroting their usual lines, almost right out of Bob Woodward’s playbook.


So what Bill actually did with his reckless comment, is disclose being hostage to the false choice paradigm – which he’s often accused others of promoting! Had he done a tad more research, such as into former defense analyst Chuck Spinney’s research, showing that the jump in military spending in 2004-05 by 2% of GDP would mean “war on social programs” – he might have been more temperate. He’d also then have recognized that spending on seniors – whether via Medicare or Social Security, is not counterpoised against spending on education and services for youth. Instead, it is bloated military spending which is gobbling up so much of the budget pie it leaves little for other needs. See also: http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-military-industrial-complex-still.html

Bill also appears oblivious to the fact that aging Boomers in their 50s -early 60s) have actually suffered the most in the past decade and hence need the social insurance lifeline the most. Studies have found that Americans in their 50s and early 60s — those near retirement age who do not yet have access to Medicare and Social Security — have lost the most earnings power of any age group. This according to Sentier Research, a data analysis company.  Their income fell 10% even as their retirement savings and home values fell sharply at the worst possible time: just before they needed to cash out. They are supporting both aged parents and unemployed young-adult children, earning them the inauspicious nickname “Generation Squeeze.”  Meanwhile, a recent study by economists at Wellesley College found that people who lost their jobs in the few years before becoming eligible for Social Security lost up to three years from their life expectancy, largely because they no longer had access to affordable health care.

Does Bill really want to cut the social insurance floor out from under them to save the military industrial complex and defense contractors?  These besieged Boomers – above all- NEED those “entitlements”!


Hence, if Bill had been even remotely with it, instead of Neoliberal grand standing, he’d have been able to offer a REAL solution: i.e. that closing 50% of all the overseas military bases, installations, would save $500 BILLION a year! (DoD estimates put the cost of sustaining all the bases at $1 trillion a year). THAT money would then be more than enough to help all the under 18 segment of the population, as opposed to pissing more good money after bad on useless bases – many of which are in WWII former opponent nations, like Japan and Germany.


Now, as for Sam Harris, while his “means testing” proposal sounds rational and reasonable at first blush, it also shows a disarming lapse in grasping political dynamics. The fact is that when social programs are means-tested, they instantly become altered to WELFARE in political perceptions. And we have already seen what happened to welfare in the 1996 ‘Welfare to Work’ act. Think it couldn’t happen with Social Security? Think again!


Think of this now: when all economic demographics pay in and can also obtain benefits, they will be more likely to see the program as worth preserving. On the other hand, when some of these, especially in the upper tiers, have their benefits cut off by a means –test, they will be less likely to offer further political support. After all, they’re not benefiting, so why should they? To them, Social Security becomes just another "welfare" program to be cut!

When enough economically powerful demographics or quintiles are sliced off, the voting interests also mutate and this will include the directions of money contributions. These political campaign contributions will then pitch toward those enclaves favoring “entitlement cuts” or maybe even balancing access to Social Security with work (The same way my own state of Colo. requires indigent seniors to work in exchange for receiving breaks on their property taxes. For example, if you get a $1500 break on your property taxes you can expect to work for 500 hrs. at $3.00 /hr)

The conclusion is that Sam Harris is just as wrong with his means testing proposal as Bill Maher is with his entitlement cuts to loosen funds for the under-18 year old set.

Hopefully both these guys will move away from their unwarranted Neoliberal enchantment in the near future.

Monstrous Divide Between Military & Civilians? What's the Mystery?

"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

A headline on p. 7A of today's Denver Post blared:

'Gap Between Military and Civilians Grows Wider'

The article was based on recently released Pew Research Center findings which uncovered as dangerous a divide between the civilian population and military forces, as between the wealthiest Americans and the lower 95% (400 billionaires control more wealth than the 150 million lowest two quntiles of the populace).

According to the Pew study, 84% of veterans of the Iraq and Afghan campaigns (total of 712,000 having served in all) believe the non-militarized population has no understanding of the problems faced by the military. Indeed, 71% of the civvie populace shares that assessment. The study traces part of the reason to the fact that less than 1 percent of the U.S. population has been on active military duty at any time during the past decade. In fact, the study noted that for most Americans the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan have been seen only in glimpses - in newspapers or briefly on TV.

But let's back up a bit and assess whose fault all this is...really! First off, the 1 % of the population serving is no mystery because today's warriors operate as a volunteer force. This is radically different from the 1960s, 70s when the draft called young men from all walks of life. Many studies conducted since the military ditched the draft show the main reason for joining is not patriotic but rather economic. Young people leaving high school thus see the military as the only escape to a better future. And make no mistake, all the recruiters hype the benefits but downplay the hazards ....such as possibly finding oneself under attack in a Taliban- held post near the Pakistan border.

My point here is that, like it or not, the military context is different today and there still remains a choice on whether one partakes of military service or not. In the 60s there was no such choice, unless one failed a draft physical as I did (in March, 1965) and was classified "I-Y". Or, one could at least put it off via a college deferment.

As for the non-interest or only casual interest in what the warriors are up to, this also is no mystery.

First, the nation - after 9/11- asked or demanded no sacrifice from the civilian population. People were actually advised (by Bush Jr.) to go out to the Malls and shop. Worse, despite getting involved in Afghanistan and Iraq (the latter actually with no good rhyme or reason other than Bush wanting to get revenge on Saddam for threats to Daddy Bush), at costs now approaching $2 trillion (including projected medical expenses) no demand was made for any higher taxes! Naturally, the civilian population would then conclude neither the Afghan or Iraqi operations were serious if no one was required to pay for them from tax dollars.

By contrast, not one person complained about heavy new taxes during the four years of the U.S. fighting in the Pacific theater, or in Europe during World War Two, or about the drastic fuel and food rationing. Those moves immediately convinced the WHOLE population they were in it together, no exceptions!

Nor did people bitch in the immediate post-war period when the high taxes helped to finance the Marshall Plan - to help pay for the reconstruction of Europe. People were smart enough then to grasp that Europe's stability meant their own - and if they paid NOW (in higher taxes) they would be less likely to pay later in another war.

Indeed, many of those post-war taxes were still in place when the Korean War broke out in 1950. Despite ALREADY high taxes, congress passed new taxes in 1950 and 1951 to pay for the costs of the conflict. They had enough sense to know, unlike the useless miscreant tea baggers today, that if you engage in military actions - especially prolonged- they HAVE to be paid for! You can't keep signing a national credit card and expecting future generations to pay the debt!

Secondly, the real wars fought over those times were brought home to people every night via radio or in theaters via Newsreels. You could not, in any year from 1942- 45, venture into a movie theater and not first see war images from the WWII battlefields in Newsreels of the day. They were always shown before the feature film.

During VietNam, meanwhile, immediate battle images - such as from the battle for Khe Sanh and the Tet Offensive, came into the living room every night - including graphic images of the wounds, and the personal costs. In addition, the military funerals were not shrouded from view as they are now, but shown nearly every night, including the bodies in caskets being offloaded from transports.

So WHO'S fault if there's a lack of public interest, based on only "glimpses" seen on TV or in the papers?

Well, the Pentagon's! They decided after VietNam that they would control all the images - including of the battles, carnage and funerals-caskets- body bags, because they believed in their heart of hearts those images undermined the war effort and stoked the anti-war protests at home.

Quite possibly they were absolutely correct. However, the "war" supporters can't piss and moan now about public disinterest if those images are deliberately concealed and managed like PR material, to try and avoid negative perceptions. You can't have your cake and eat it. You can't have public involvement and caring but at the same time censor the very imagery that would make them care!

The interesting thing from the same Pew Study, is that nearly one third of the vets themselves now consider that the Afghan and Iraq conflicts were "not worth fighting over". They also agree that - after ten years of wasting blood and treasure - the nation is better off focusing less on foreign involvements and more on this country's own affairs, domestic needs. (According to the same opinion survey released Wednesday).

These findings absolutely pose a dilemma for the Obama administration and congress if they seek to further gut domestic programs - including Medicare, food stamps, home heating subsidies, etc. - in order to further extend the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations while adding to the military fat.

People, indeed, are no more likely to tolerate such a situation than they are now willing to tolerate more perks for the rich and Wall Street while the majority face destitution. Hence, the "Occupy Wall Street" theme and march, may well turn into "Occupy the Pentagon" next if military spending isn't pared back, or at least forced to adhere to "payGo" like other budget areas.

As for the Pew's citation of "isolationist tendencies" in the post 9/11 veterans who indicated the country ought to focus on problems at home - no, this is a misinterpretation.

It isn't a case of "isolationism" at all but rather enhancing genuine domestic security. If one's infrastructure is falling apart, and one third of its population are liable to massive biological infections, flus or whatever, and can't access medical care, then that is a national domestic emergency. It also trumps spending on nation-building in faraway lands that secures no benfits at all for the majority of Americans now facing home foreclosures or prolonged unemployment.

The fact is ten years is enough and we need to cut our losses and do so NOW. No more excuses.

This nation is already at the precipice of backsliding into a third world redoubt where only the wealthiest can survive. We ought to have learned our lesson from the British and Russians, in their own occupations, that Afghanistan is the graveyard of nations. Or at least once relatively stable and prosperous ones.

But evidently, we still haven't done so. Let us hope the signs and portents of this Pew poll-survey wake our leaders the fuck up for once. The first sign of an awakening would be an immediate large slice out of the annual Pentagon budget of at least $300b.

"The Military-Industrial Complex" Needs to have Its Plug Pulled!

There is a growing cancer consuming this country bit by bit and which will soon spread its malignancy throughout to the point that all the foundations of true domestic security will be devoured in its metastasizing wake. It is also a cancer we were warned about 50 years ago, by then departing President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his 'Farewell Address in January, 1961. He said:

"Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States cooperations -- corporations.

Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."


Eisenhower knew what he was talking about. Now, as insane pols and Tea Baggers rage against "entitlements" they are blind to the real cancer of the military-industrial complex sucking every last vestige of marrow from the bones of the country - leaving only dessicated detritus in its wake and a vastly impoverished citizenry. And even as efforts are made to cut back this cancer eating away at us, an array of miscreants are trying to fight back to refuse any small real cuts to their profligate ways, e.g.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/8946-the-military-industrial-complexs-war-on-defense-cuts

What fuels this Beast that's laying waste to the land and exacerbating political polarization - even as the wealthy get to keep on getting their tax cuts, while the military-Pentagon can continue to avoid pay-go in any manner, shape or form? The short answer is MONEY. Follow the toxic money trail and you will find who is benefitting from this cancerous malignancy Ike warned us about, and who are the agents for spreading the malignancy.

At the very source of this toxic and malignant sewer of influence one finds lobbyists, more than one thousand one hundred of them representing 375 clients - mostly profiteering defense contractors. This is according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Last year alone, these vermin spent $145.9 million to influence our politics - skewed as it already is toward legalized bribery. In fact, nearly $24 million was contributed in 2008 to the campaigns of political candidates.

Nor must one accept here the canard that it was the Republicans who profited most, as the pro-war, pro-military "daddy" party. (The Dems depicted as the "mommy" party, e.g. for sustaining social insurance benefits etc.) According to the CPR's statistics, the Democrats actually received 54% of all the lobbying largesse, the Repubs, 46%. No wonder, looking at this in retrospect, we see people like Leon Panetta fighting like junkyard dogs to try to protect the Pentagon's spoils from taxpayers. (Recall Panetta last month - in the wake of the debt ceiling increase - calling proposed cuts to the military "totally unacceptable")

NO, Mr. Panetta and fellow slaves of the MIC, what is unacceptable is being responsible for nearly one HALF of the planet's military spending, including five times more than China- and gobbling up 4.8% of GDP annually while 1 in 6 of our citizens (including 22% of all children under 12) lives in poverty and most workers now earn less than their forbears in 1964. THIS IS WHAT'S FUCKING UNACCEPTABLE!!

At the same time, we're being told a "super-committee" may cut military spending if no agreement or consensus emerges. Actually, this is a lie, a bold-faced lie! Most of the "cuts" are not in absolute terms, but rather in the rate of expected Pentagon spending increases. Even a 15% cut in military spending will therefore return the bloated Pentagon budget to what it was in 2007 and still consume 40 percent of all military spending on Earth! This, despite the fact the Pentagon's budget has more than doubled in the past decade and will add on another additional $6 trillion of deficits by 2021. When will Americans wake up to this and start fighting for their nation? That must begin with demading their own representatives cease propping up this bloated empire and turning us into a 3rd world Banana Republic.

And for no better example, go to a certain dickhead named Joe Liebermann (purported to caucus with the Dems) who openly said last month:

"We can't protect entitlements and also have the national defense we need to protect us in a dangerous world"

Translation:

'We can't be expected to deny our lobbyists for the defense industry who contribute to our campaign funds, or our good friends, the defense contractors who keep them and us in business. Let the seniors and others go suck salt. They can afford to die!"

And so this little prick endorsed that we cut Medicare and Social Security, and to punctuate that, immediately proceeded to co-author a bill (with another asshole, Tom Coburn of OK) to raise the Medicare eligibility age to 67, thereby tossing 11 million more people into poverty. But these pricks don't care! All they care about is getting their precious campaign contributions from the vipers who control most of the nation's purse strings - along with Big PhRMA.

Sadly, Ike's warning went too long unheeded and now it seems we're in the maw of a runaway empire and financial den of thieves that will hurl us all over the precipice before it offers one ounce of solid change for the better.

David Petraeus Is No Longer Operating in Reality!

"If we don't need new taxes to fight two wars now, why do we need them for anything?- Frank Rich, in The New Yorker ('One Day: Ten Years')

Of course, New York Times columnist Rich has a point, and one I've made before. In contrast to all other campaigns and wars, we have for some reason stopped paying for them with taxes, and ceased asking the whole populace to contribute! As noted in an earlier blog:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/08/pentagons-credit-card-must-be-taken.html


anyone calling for no taxes during WWII would have been branded unpatriotic at best, and a traitor at worst. So you never heard anyone bitching, pissing and moaning when gas was rationed. Or when income taxes went up! It was manifestly accepted as one's patriotic duty! Not one person complained about heavy new taxes during the four years of the U.S. fighting in the Pacific theater, or in Europe, though we've seen no similar pay-go with over ten years in Afghanistan. Nor did people bitch in the immediate post-war period when the high taxes helped to finance the Marshall Plan - to help pay for the reconstruction of Europe. People were smart enough then to grasp that Europe's stability meant their own - and if they paid NOW (in higher taxes) they would be less likely to pay later in another war.

So what the hell happened?

As Rich himself put it last night on MSNBC's 'The Last Word' with Lawrence O'Donnell, after 9/11 all Americans were united behind Bush - aka Dumbya- and were fully prepared to make any asked for sacrifice. They wanted it and expected it! But what did Bush do? He threw them a dollop of pabulum and utter selfishness by telling them to just 'go out and shop'. He felt that after the most dastardly attack since Pearl Harbor Americans were entitled to blow out their wallets and pocket books in the malls rather than render any monetary sacrifice. By that I mean, paying higher taxes for what would later become an extended military involvement in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

The template choice of either sacrifice or selfishness presented itself, and this "leader" without vision opted for the latter - sending the nation on a path to what Rich called a "cancer of the political culture". This has since led to ten years of enormous debt, a bloated military budget that now consumes 58 cents of every dollar, and utterly stupid "nation building" in faraway Mideast lands while our own nation's infrastructure rots away! (The nation has now fallen from 5th in infrastructure to 23rd and is rapidly careening toward Third World status).

Was Bush's choice deliberate? Did it intentionally use 9/11 as a convenient device to empty the Treasury for any future domestic spending? Many of us believe so. We have known, since the 60s, that the Right has always targeted social insurance programs like Social Security and Medicare and only later understood the only way to attack them was through the back door. Thus, the strategy became "starve the beast". At the top of most Rightist lists for doing so: waging costly and extended military campaigns, and formalizing large tax cuts year after year.

The optimum way to drain the Treasury was to combine both: extended and prolonged military ventures and simultaneous large tax cuts (Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts totalled $2.4 trillion up to last December - including interest. Then, incredibly, they were extended even with him long gone!) Thus, instead of emptying the Treasury in 20 years with just one of them, one could adopt the duo to do it in ten. THIS is exactly what's been done!

We know the military waste is there and has contributed to our dire financial predicament. The latest news, that $60 billion has been wasted in defense contracting (including $124 million to build a prison never used in Afghanistan, and $306 million paid to the Taliban in bribes) is merely the tip of the iceberg. Below it one finds monumental waste which was incepted all the way from the time Halliburton became involved in Iraq contracts, as well as Bechtel. We also know key estimates reveal up to $1 trillion may have been wasted, not only in kickbacks, but also in projects never completed, and other projects done with defects (including a faulty shower system at Bagrom). Indeed, the entire Iraq intervention can be considerd a monumental and singular wasteful exercise in its own right -since Iraq and Saddam were never part of 9/11.

Hence, the etimated total costs of $1.1 trillion can be considered total waste. Add on the likely future medical and other treatment costs for vets, and it may reach $2.2 trillion.

All of this is money the Pentagon either owes us back, as taxpayers, or must face in future budget cuts!

But what do we find? People who ought to know better, like (earlier) Leon Panetta (the new boy at the Pentagon), and now David Petraeus, warning that the military establishment which squandered so much capital (as well as lives) must somehow be protected from any cuts in the forthcoming budget talks. Are they mad, stupid, or what?

At Petraeus' retirement ceremony yesterday, he evidently said ('Gen. Petraeus warns against military cutbacks', Denver Post, today, p. 3A):

I do believe we have relearned since 9/11 the timeless lesson that we don't always get to fight the wars for which we are most prepared or most inclined. Given that reality, we will need to maintain the full spectrum capability that we have developed over this last decade in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere".

Which, of course, is madness, because we can't afford it! As a footnote, ask the UK where David Cameron is already implementing massive military defense spending cuts on the order of 20%! Cameron understands, as David Petraeus ought to, you can't expect to balance the budget on the backs of those already profoundly suffering, and on the ill, the elderly and the vulnerable!

Petraeus also ought to grasp, assuming he was serious in his remarks, the time for ceding that reality was when the front in Afghanistan first opened, and then higher taxes ought to have been called for to PAY for these interventions! But what did his C-I-C say? Go out and shop! Fuggedabout taxes!

So how can we take Petraeus seriously now, or any of his sidekicks and clones? They had their chance, and blew it. They accepted tax-less conflicts, invasions and occupations with a big smile but not once demanded any serious sacrifice for putatively serious "wars"! And now, they piously whine in their patriotic pseudo-fervor and self-righteousness and assert they shouldn't have to give any back! Indeed, the subtext of Petraeus' little speech is that there shouldn't even be a calling to account to build 2,443 F-35 bombers at a cost of $0.5 billion each (figuring in cost overruns from past history). Oh, and by the way, let's not forget the $1.1 trillion the Pentagon has misplaced since 1999, as noted by former defense analyst Chuck Spinney!(As noted on PBS' Bill Moyers 'NOW', televised in August, 2002)

Sorry, pallie, but you don't get it! YOU are the one bereft of reality! The fact is the military sacred cow must be up for cuts and indeed, "gored" like any other programs. You don't get to build your little toys, or pad the pockets of defense contractors while one in 4 kids in this country starves, 24 million remain unemployed or under-employed, and houses are still being foreclosed.

If you don't get that, then spelling it out for you likely won't help.

Still, it's incredible how, in a warped and toxic political culture, minds can so easily become warped, poisoned and detached from objective reality! One would have thought Petraeus - with all his medals - would not be one of those compromised, but then "military intelligence" has always been an oxymoron. His remarks yesterday merely reinforce the perception!