Because 40% of US tax dollars are going to the military industrial media complex, their politics of fear and greed have an "advertising budget" that no other messages can compete with.

The swing voters who determine the outcome of many US elections prefer not to listen to any message beyond the same thirty year old soundbites and they do not want to connect any dots. Until they change, the military industrial media complex will continue to destroy America.

The degree of apathy in 'Murrika is insane. The average sheep just goes along, working his job, doin nothing of any import, waitin' for Obama or Hillary to make a difference...well it may just be too friggin' late by the election and even then who knows what either Democrat can do on this ship of fools, assuming the sheep don't elect McCain, even if he can't tell ya who are the players in Iraq or what a recession looks like.

Until we all learn to walk in the footsteps of others, and accept our differences, there'll never be an end to the madness of wars.

And until a world-wide co-op takes over the world's oil, water and air to purify and preserve and make available to every living being on the earth, there will be those few who continue to plunder and rape for it.

This'war' has long gone beyond a mistake into some bizarre nightmare. Hopefully the Bush chapter of this horror story is coming to an end, I would like to know one thing. What was the motive behind the decision invade Iraq? Did they;
A. Achieve goals they 'really' wanted?
B. Act on incredably moronic decision making?
C. A and B

That's why I think it's absurd to call on Bush to boycott the opening of the Olympic Games in China. Which country is worse off because of an invading country's destructive take-over, Tibet or Iraq?

Papnanook: The average American is right out of the Beatles song: HE IS A REAL NOWHERE MAN.It would be a lot easier if you were brainwashed and naive;as the saying goes, "ignorance is bliss"!

The media will do its best to get their "straight talking maverick war hero" elected. Saber rattling, if not outright warfare, against Iran will be building to a peak just before the election.

Note the blind acceptance and parroting of the "special groups" killing American troops.

The Judith Millers are still at their jobs.

There is nothing better we average folks can do to wind down the Iraq blunder than elect the guy who consistently has called it a blunder. (A curious public-relations plus to him also is that average Muslims everywhere will take note of us actually electing a guy who has Hussein as a middle name.)

There is nothing worse we can do than stand twiddling our thumbs while McCain is elected. He would be a double-dose of inflamation and reinvigoration to every Islam-motivated terrorist in the world. Not only will we be seen as ignorant and dangerous for electing another old white militarist, but when they find out we actually elected the owners of a large wholesale BEER distributorship, many of them will go even further over an edge. Muslims don't do alcohol, and electing McCain would be just another "proof" used by terrorist recruiters that America indeed is the Great Satan. We ought to have enough sense to avoid the McCains on this one point alone.

Future historians will mark the end of democracy in the United States in two stages: 1) The assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, to the stolen election of George Wanker Bush in 2000. The eight years of the Bush regime, coupled with the Goebbelsization of the MSM, then becomes the tipping point leading to 2) 2008 and beyond, when the forces of democracy no longer had the vigor or the respect to resist the creeping totalitarianism and social Darwinism that began under Reagan. Slowly but surely, the indifference, boredom, exhaustion and fear that grips this nation today will leave us looking like a cross between Disneyland and Zimbabwe.

Daniel David April 10th, 2008 12:46 pm

"Not only will we be seen as ignorant and dangerous for electing another old white militarist, but when they find out we actually elected the owners of a large wholesale BEER distributorship, many of them will go even further over an edge. Muslims don't do alcohol, and electing McCain would be just another "proof" used by terrorist recruiters that America indeed is the Great Satan. We ought to have enough sense to avoid the McCains on this one point alone."

I have seen some stupid reasons for voting for or against someone before but this takes the cake. To appease Muslims because one's spouse owns a beer distributorship. Give me a break.

Lobo Gris

Hey Mordecai,

"Goebbelsization" is a five-star term. Brilliant. I may use that in my own writings if you don't mind.

Agreed,

Let's just say Mr. David is having to get "creative" in his support of Obama - because in his friendly comittee room chat with Petraus the other day, Obama gave up all pretenses of being for even a slow/ wishy-washy withdrawal.

And it is a shame that I had to learn from some an obscure publication "Common Wonders" tht US bombing of Iraq increased 500% in 2007. If a ongoing slaugnter happening behind a soundproof wall, is it happen at all?

Bush, Macain, Obama, Hillary - I am agnositic, but please, let there be a Hell, with a place in it's seventh level reserved for them.

No, lobo gris, I won't "give you a break." You have a bad habit of being incredibly rude to other peoples' posts--mine especially--for months on end while (due to intellectual laziness) seldom expressing an original thought that's even worth two cents. Why in heck can't you find something to write about that isn't mere cynical criticism or a take-off on someone else? Do you wish to be seen on this site as a McCain supporter just to slam somebody? That's where you put yourself.

I happen to be RIGHT on this beer thing concerning McCain, whether you have enough farsight to see it or not.

Mr. Koehler,

Would you write an article that breaks down how 40% of our taxes go to the military? Could you provide sources, graphs etc?

We who speak out against war need this information!

Thanks

What little I see of the foreign press suggests that poor people in poor countries are only dimly aware of our presidential elections, who the contestants are and what they stand for.

However, people who are currently having U.S. bombs dropped on their mud huts will come to a quick verdict about a president who once got a medal for dropping bombs on thatched huts.

This isn't about "appeasing" Muslims, it's about making choices that do not feed the arguments of terrorist recruiters.

The better point about the Beer Business is that McCain abandoned his stalled military career (and first marriage) and jumped into politics only by marrying a wealthy Republican "princess".

It was her father's money that got him elected to Congress, not his P.O.W. story.

As for Koeler's article: I'd like someone with a national spotlight to ask the American people what price they are willing to pay for "victory" in Iraq.

This war was sold to us like a subprime mortagage. Those who supported the invasion in 2003 are now desperate to avoid foreclosure.

Sure, we can "win" in Iraq, but we'll have to become Nazis to do it... that is a price too most Americans are unwilling to pay.

Daniel David April 10th, 2008 1:53 pm

"No, lobo gris, I won't "give you a break.""

That was a rhetorical question. And you deserve rudeness with your endless droning on about the Democrats. As far as the beer distributorship issue you insult everyones intelligence with your stupid claim.

Lobo Gris

addendum

Rudeness seems to be the only thing that gets through to you DD. People other than myself have repeatedly politely asked you to tone it down with your endless diatribe in favor of Democrats, to no avail.

Lobo Gris

Thank you Lobo Gris

In case no one has noticed, this war is not about winning.
Its about creating perpetual war. Remember? Thats what G called it from the start. Why perpetual war? Because the planet is exceeding its carrying capacity. The only way for the powerful elite to stay in their position of power, over the long run, is to sow chaos. This enables them to supercede the rule of law with the rule of force, maintain financial control and control of all the resources, eliminate huge numbers of people and competitors for resources, and justify it all with the psychological excuse of "necessity".
The propaganda arm of this effort is as important or more important than the rest, so that the frightened "sheep" can be led to the slaughter. All you "goats" reading this can keep on bleating, but it won't change a thing. Somewhere along the line more predators will be produced ("Terrorists" etc.) and over time the situation will deteriorate into a midevil-like "game" of "Who's stronger?". That is, if we're not all killed off first, by nuclear war, germ warfare, contagion, environmental collapse or some other catastrophe.
I know this is not a very cheery statement, but it looks like the reality that's emerging.

For details of the last Pentagon budget, I know a gentleman named Winston Wheeler has done some good writing on this. I tend to read his stuff at Counterpunch.org, but I'm pretty sure its available elsewhere on the net. I think it was last fall he did a series breaking down the various bits of defense spending (a fair bit of which falls outside the official Pentagon budget).

Here's the search page for his writings on Counterpunch. (please note I broke the line to keep it from being too long here. You'll probably have to put it back together. Or just got to www.counterpunch.org and search like I did to create this.)

http://www.google.com/search?q=wheeler&btnG=Google+Search&domains=
http%3A%2F%2Fwww.counterpunch.org&sitesearch=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.counterpunch.org

lobo gris,

Like I said, intellectual laziness is all you've got! You think I deserve rudeness for supporting Democrats and you're satisfied pronouncing yourself justified to dispense it as your main argument. Pitifully weak. As for calls by you and others for me to "tone down" my passion, I'd prefer to step it up. My answer to you and your hangers-on is very simple: "Shove it."

America needs John McCain defeated. His willingness to get wealthy on the alcohol addiction and alcohol accidents of others is a bright sign of his morality and "leadership" void---POW or not. The real Christians of America will know this instantly (if they're informed--most are not.) If we're culturally careless enough to elect McCain, the real Muslims of the world will come to know it too---and far from "stupid" as you claim, they absolutely will use the "look-at-the-beer-man-McCain" line (if we elect him) against us in fanning the flames of terrorism. You see, they're serious.

It's natural for people like Petraeus and Crocker and Bush to want to believe in what they've dedicated themselves to all these years. We keep pointing to all the cost of this debacle; they don't want to make the admission that all these efforts are futile and ultimately unworthy. Think of the enormity of such a concession. And most of the congress having been swept along, voting to fund the continuation of it. In 2004, sixty million voters approved of Bush's war. I don't believe he was elected, any more than in 2000 -- but that many! All the Repudlicans that fiercely defend the war, even today, are the Administration's moral bulwark, that they can't abandon. We got slim majorities in Congress in 2006, but were left with too many Repuds and Blue Dogs to force any new policy.

How do we digest the totality of this phenomenon? How do we tear down this fabric of wrongness?

We would need to establish a state apart, an economy apart, and abandon the status quo, starve it into impotence. It was never going to be easy to render this huge military irrelevant.

Several reasons why America's ruling elite wants perpetual war.

-- First, it makes money. Bankers, people who supply the military and arms dealers have always made money from war. Check out the $200 million in investments that our congresscritters have in the war machine. And that's just defense contractors and doesn't include banking interests.

-- Second, the entire world view of the American elite is built around this. They see several crisis coming. Over-population leading to poverty, starvation and lack of water.etc. Also, the end of the oil-age and then end of cheap energy it portends. And also just the general fact that the rest of the world is eventually going to be pissed off at being told that they have to be poor, broke serfs doomed to perpetually supporting this wealthy elite.

-- The above leads to a world view from this elite where they obviously are grabbing everything they can grab, and that they expect to have to use force to defend their ill-gotten gains. They obviously picture even an America where they live in gated communities behind private mercenary guards that keep other Americans and the rest of the world away from their hordes of wealth. They obviously are not looking towards solutions that lead to the common good. Instead they are looking towards a future where they use the wealth and power they are grabbing now to try to wage perpetual war against all who refuse to be their slaves.

So, yes, they obviously want perpetual war. This is the future they are planning for. A violent nasty future where they hope to rule the world with their mercenary armies.

The ruling elites alway like a perpetual crisis....sometimes its the terrorist scare, sometimes its the population explosion scare, sometimes its the economic scare, education crisis scare (but please don't let my tax dollars go the school of choice...no liberty there), health care crisis scares (or various sorts), water shortage scares, food price increase scare (last two are both related to the ethanol scam) etc.etc.etc.

andersdl -

Your comments about the military industrial complex having a massive "advertising budget" is very well taken. The ads for the recent NCAA mens' basketball tourney final round broadcast on CBS really brought this home to me.

Now here's athletic programming destined to attract a big swath of the under-30 male population segment. So in an age with no military conscription (thank God), this is a prime market niche for the recruiters to work.

Next time the tube is on football or basketball in particular, just notice how frequent and prominent the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps spots are - sandwiched within and around the latest Playstation video combat simulator game commercials, with a side order of athletic gear chants about "We Must Protect This House"!, all complimented and topped off with abundant testosterone-teasing, good ole boy brewski ads on the side.

Sometime during the first half of the Memphis-UCLA game I'm pretty sure, on came another glitzy recruiting ad that caused me to rise right out of my La-Z-Boy however.

The background was a beautiful, NASA-style globe, the camera looking down from orbit. Revolving from right to left of your screen came a communications satellite, gradually approaching the center of the viewers' range of vision. The voice over (a baritone sounding much like a cross between HAL on 2001 a Space Odessey and the guy who did the infamous anti-Kerry wolves ad during the 2004 presidential campaign) ominously intoned something close to this:

"How would you feel if an enemy some day could wipe out your television, your internet, and your family's cell phone service all at once, high up in outer space, just like that....."

Zap! The satellite abruptly goes up in an angry orange ball of flame, the screen temporarily goes black, only to be restored with a fade-in winged logo, and a pitch to enlist in the United States Air Force - where careers are available for those who qualify, keeping outer space and cyberspace safe and secure for all Americans, yaddah-yaddah-yaddah.....

Anybody who thinks this was an ad just for the Air Force's quarterly recruitment body count is living on the wrong end of the yellow brick road.

This was an advertisement selling Americans on the virtues and the red-white-and-blue necessity of weaponizing outer space - your tax dollars at work, hawking the next couple of generations worth of Star Wars high tech gimmickry under the guise of sponsoring collegiate athletics.

How's that for clever double use of the military industrial complex's advertising budget, Andersdl?

Bill from Saginaw

Daniel David is complete T@%@#%$@ idiot.

He's constantly pushing the outright lies and deceptions of the Democratic party. Whatever the Democratic party tells him is the talking point of the day, that's what he says. So, when the Democratic party wants to try out an utterly stupid and ridiculous trial balloon like this beer distributor nonsense, there's goes Dd just constantly pushing it.

The big lie of the day is to try to personalize all that's wrong first on Bush and Cheney and now on McCain. This is exactly the same propaganda technique the Pentagon and the media use to start wars. All that is wrong is personalized on the foreign leader, who becomes the next Hitler. We've seen this with Milosovic, Saddam and now the President of Iran.

Now we see the Democrats using exactly the same propaganda technique. Personalize everything on McCain. Rant constantly how bad it will be if McCain gets elected, even when there's damn little difference between McCain and Obama. As just one example, McCain and Obama both fully claim that there will be American troops in Iraq in 2012. There are minor technical differences between them on how many troops. And semantic difference in how they phrase it. But, both parties are completely clear if you listen to them that neither will end this occupation.

Now, if you aren't a Democratic fool and sycophant like DD, ask yourself this. Lets say Obama gets elected. Lets say that Obama keeps say 50,000 troops in Iraq even by the end of his term in 2012. He's been very clear that this is his position. If you read the various Democratic party proposals as well, you'd also know that a fair number of the troops leaving Iraq would only be 'redeployed' to other countries in the region. And that such a policy also clearly includes replacing the force of ground troops on the ground with the force of airpower.

So, even DD's Democratic dream plan includes tens of thousands of American troops in Iraq, many more deployed in other countries in the region (with the open threat to send them back into Iraq if WE deem it necessary), and a stepped up campaign of airstrikes, which by necessary would be bombing civilian areas. Does anyone seriously believe that in this scenario the muslim world would love America just because its President never owned a beer distributorship.

The sheer nonsense that comes from the Democratic fools like DD makes the best possible case of why we must stop voting Democrat.

Noam Chomsky has done a wonderful job over the years of pointing out how American policy has stayed effectively unchanged for most of the 20th century and now into the 21st.

The names of the bogeymen we must be afraid of keeps changing. Its gone from Red Scares to fighting fascism to fighting the godless communists to fighting narcowarlords to fighting terrorists. But the general course of the policies that are supposedly needed to fight these dangers stays remarkably the same

two cents worth:

Another reason the "elite" wants perpetual war is that it is all we know how to make anymore. We don't even make our own shoes anymore. What else can we do but make war? They have let all the knowledge and skills dissipate, and the factories rust and decay, while they chase their profits overseas.

America is on its way to becoming a Pirate Nation, unable to build anything itself, and reduced to nation robbing (Iraqi oil, anyone?).

I actually think some of this "elite" may be a bit sorry about what they have done, but really can't see any way out of it at this point. (Okay, maybe not _very_ sorry.)

(Hey, I like that, "nation robbing" as opposed to "nation building". Catchy, eh?)

CoMarc,

If I'm as idiotic as you claim, how come I know that next year you are either going to have one of the two Democrats as president or John McCain, and you don't? Has it escaped you that Republicans are running again?

Daniel David April 10th, 2008 3:30 pm

lobo gris,

"Like I said, intellectual laziness is all you've got! You think I deserve rudeness for supporting Democrats and you're satisfied pronouncing yourself justified to dispense it as your main argument. Pitifully weak. As for calls by you and others for me to "tone down" my passion, I'd prefer to step it up. My answer to you and your hangers-on is very simple: "Shove it.""

You can say whatever you like DD just as I reserve the right to reply as I see fit. So you can take your complaints about my rudeness and "shove it" too.

Lobo Gris

War is peace.

Daniel David April 10th, 2008 4:28 pm

"If I'm as idiotic as you claim, how come I know that next year you are either going to have one of the two Democrats as president or John McCain, and you don't? Has it escaped you that Republicans are running again?"

Everyone knows that one of the three is most likely going to be president DD. What escapes you is that there are many of us, myself included, that don't believe that we have to go along with it just because that is what is going to happen.

Lobo Gris

Daniel David April 10th, 2008 3:30 pm

As for me being "pitifully weak", what is pitifully weak is all of the name calling and slur inferences you are making today.

It is the last refuge of those who have no legitimate argument to make.

Lobo Gris

#
Quality Time April 10th, 2008 4:49 pm

War is peace.

LOL :-)

Could the reason Bush and company want to keep as many troops as possible in Iraq be in order to have them move quickly into Iran when their October surprise occurs?

Commondreams does not allow the posting of the sorts of sentiments I, and hundreds of people I know personally, am feeling about our chances of taking our government back from the multinational finance-media-hydrocarbon-military-industrial complex that has taken over the United States of America. Money no longer talks, but instead yells louder than the sonic boom of an F-16. Bullshit doesn't walk anymore. It drives a limousine surrounded by Secret Service. Truth has all the chances of an honest president in an open car driving down a Texas boulevard. You bought the guns that will be pointed at you, and that goes whether it's the police, the national guard, Blackwater, or Al CIAda doing the pointing.

Daniel David April 10th, 2008 3:30 pm

"If we're culturally careless enough to elect McCain, the real Muslims of the world will come to know it too—and far from "stupid" as you claim, they absolutely will use the "look-at-the-beer-man-McCain" line (if we elect him) against us in fanning the flames of terrorism. You see, they're serious."

If what you say is true DD why did we have the 9/11 terrorist attack? Bush publicly swore off alcohol decades ago and none of his family is involved in the distribution of liquor or beer.

Lobo Gris

To be realistic, it isn't about what Obama says, but what he will do. They all lie to please the american public which is very aggressive. Obama might very well be the biggest liar of them all and therein lies a chance. Of course this means the public would have to be tricked which is undemocratic, but the circumstances warrant it.

kogwonton--your post nails it right on the head. And chills me to the bone.

DD: "Islam-motivated terrorist"

Found the above absurdity in your fear-rousing pro-Democrat diatribe. Islam does not preach terrorism but sir, you are preaching fear and in the very same manner as the Republicans did to attain power.

"." We might as well be calling the air strikes on ourselves."

Hey, he got it. Will wonders never cease. There is hope, well, maybe not, especially if this link is any indication of our future (the elite will get the platinum smart card)

http://users.rcn.com/zap.dnai/nwo-004.htm

Mordechai Shiblikov & ALL -- Perhaps we tend toward the dramatic, too much?

I believe that our American democracy is more liken to an iceberg, where most observers can only see the ~ 1 to 10% above water portion -- and that is the physical world portion of PERCEPTION: rocks being hard and water being wet.

Consider the subconscious and collective unconscious American democracy to be the submerged (and sublime) ~ 90 to 99% portion, which is only faintly felt by a few wise people -- and that is the non-physical world of PERCEPTION: creating unprecedented possibility and the source of LIFE itself (consciousness).

The form and formless are intertwined as the dance of LIFE, and only appear to be separated to those whose EGO sways them toward identification with form alone.

We are spiritual BEINGs living a physical existence, and potentially have the infinite power to create new worlds, with establishment of A New Earth.

Join with us, CHOSE and feel the TRUE POWER of LIFE

Namaste

I've been a reader of CD for years now, but am getting kind of tired of the articles herein collected which lament the, in a general sense, the lack of opposition to the current administration. I feel this is partly partisan: this is a "progressive" website which views the Democratic Party as the only bearer of progressive ideas. I'd urge every reader to check out this video, or search for it on you tube:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/020473.html

Congressman Paul (whether or not you agree iwth his views on immigration or abortion) has been one of the few outspoken critics of this Middle Eastern Boondoggle, and he correctly points out to Petraeus that only the Congress the Constitutional authority to declare war. Of course, the connected observers in the gallery thought this was the funniest thing they had ever heard. But then, they probably have investments in defense firms, and are enjoying htier profits.

Mordichai Shiblikov: We are of a like mind on what has happened to the United States since the early 60´s. I don´t think anything is retrievable at this point. Most of the good developments of the immediate post WWII period which expanded the middle class have been cancelled by the process you outline succinctly. The ignorance of the majority of Americans is staggering and scandalous and probably too late to reverse. Their laziness and incuriosity are also to well-entrenched to reverse. We are poised on the edge of history´s dustbin just waiting for that final shove.

rsossel April 10th, 2008 7:56 pm

"I feel this is partly partisan: this is a "progressive" website which views the Democratic Party as the only bearer of progressive ideas."

I have to disagree with you. There are many on this site, myself included, that feel that the Democratic party is no longer the bearer of progressive ideas and hasn't in a long time. Bill Clinton did the big sell out to the corporatists when he was elected.

Lobo Gris

bakunin April 10th, 2008 9:12 pm

"We are poised on the edge of history´s dustbin just waiting for that final shove."

I think we have already received the final shove, we just haven't fallen completely yet, but we are already in motion and part way over.

Lobo Gris

rssossle

I am a Conservative Repub....I just forgot to drink the koolaid about the time of Bush's reelection...

I won't vote Repub this time...not sure I will vote Dem...

Independent seems to be what my conscience dictates this round.

I have been over to Human Events (Conservative site)...the people who support McCain and the war are just nuts...and rude...and don't do their homework...

I won't follow party lines that lead us into the abyss...

This business of having to choose the least evil has gotten out of hand...

It is time to hook these people up to a polygraph and find out how many felonies they have committed!!! Then prosecute without possibility of a pardon...from anyone!!

Better yet, sodium pentathol....before hearings...and publicize all hearings!!

I wish: Obama's (and Democrats) supporters would wake up from their pipe dreams, and understand that the threat of McCain isn't worth anything anymore. It is time to commit ourselves to revolution! This means: stop paying 40% of your taxes! This means: stop voting for the two party system! This means: stop consuming mainstream media!! This means: stop buying products from companies that support our government's aggression!! This means: overthrow the presidency and the undemocratic U.S. senate!!

A simple question; would love an answer. Is anybody here doing anything other than blah blah blah online to change anything? Anybody volunteering on a campaign? Anybody putting pressure on Congress? Anybody writing letters to the editor? Anybody in a leadership role in an organization for change? Anybody raising money to make change? Anybody contributing money for change? I see well informed, articulate comments in CD, but I don't see many suggestions about how to DO something. Maybe I have missed it; let me know if I have missed something.