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Outsourcing Security Greases Corporate Warmongering
American anti-war activists are turning their sights on the big businesses that are behind their country's military machine. They say that so long as conflict creates cash, there will be no end to US involvement in wars.
In Washington DC the anti-war movement is sick of America's wars overseas. They blame it on the force of the military industrial complex: by definition a system of perpetual war fueled by profit and global expansion.
In his farewell address to the nation, the 34th president of the United States Dwight D, Eisenhower - a decorated military general himself - gave an infamous warning about the dangers of war nearly half a century ago on January 17, 1961. He said, "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 more than the net income of all United States corporations."
"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," Eisenhower said back then.
Today, Eisenhower's chilling message is the reality of America's ongoing military operations worldwide.
War is big bucks, especially for civilian, defense and private security contractors - the vital organs of today's military apparatus.
"Right now on the ground of Afghanistan the US has 140,000 people that are called contractors," Jeremy Scahill, investigative journalist and author, estimated. "Many of them are mercenaries just on the Department of Defense payroll. The State Department has another 14,000. [Barack] Obama during his presidency has doubled the number of armed contractors in Afghanistan. So, what we see is a radical outsourcing of war," Scahill noted.
To put figures into perspective, government records show nearly 70% of the military budget is spent on contractors. Multinational corporations like Boeing Company, Raytheon Company and NorthRup Grumman Corporation, to name a few, are making a killing off of war.
"The whole system is the US addiction to privatized warfare," Jeremy Scahill elaborated.
As a result of the sheer expense of privatized warfare on the US taxpayer, it has driven protestors to demand Congress to pass the "Stop Outsourcing Security Act" - a bill that would drastically downsize the use of corporate contractors in war zones.
It would appear that the anti-war activists are up against an unbeatable force, but most hope that, by holding public teachings, the warning Eisenhower echoed on his last day in office will finally be considered by politicians and the Pentagon.
59 Comments so far
Show AllWhen Dwight Eisenhower made this truthful statement in 1960 some 50 years ago the MIC was nowhere the monster it is today. We now have a Frankenstein monster on our hands, of extraordinary, evil proportions, that is completely out of control. What is needed now from my perspective, is some kind of non-violent revolution to kill this monster that is hated round the world and is the poisonous, disease that is causing the perdition of America. The only antidote for this miasma, is if millions of American citizens, put a stop to it!
However, EIsenjower isn't guilt free. In 1953 he supported a coup that ousted the freely elected government in Iran and re-installed the Shah. In 1956 he refused to allow unification elections to be held in Vietnam because the communists were favored to win. He then sent 1000 Avvisors to SOuth Vietnam.
However, Ike was right about the military industrial complex.
Yes and this 'brave' man waited til he was out of office to say anything. Not while he could have made a difference. I understand why we are called the great saton. We remove elected people and install brutal dictators and sit back and watch. Like the Duviers in HaitiIt is because of us that so many died. And we haven't done jack to help them. They are on their own while foreign corporations come in and rebuild their country for the rich. Not using the Haitians. Sick beyond words.
There is a necessary distinction between Americans and US citizens. Unless this is realised the use of the word Americans in the above is part of the problem.
The USA is the biggest economic entity in the Americas. Its citizens are Americans because they live in the Americas. If the USA is eradicated over time, which is becoming inevitable, the people remaining will still be Americans, but hopefully they will develop into liberated Americans.
Corporations, Politicians and lastly the Pentagon are the problem.
The Corporations are in 99% control of the military,industrial and political systems.
General Strike !
go to facebook and find call for general strike for usa 10 29 10 : )
Isn't it just absolutely astounding that it takes foreign newspapers to publish this material? Here in America there are very few journalists, very few Goodmans and Moyers, whose voices are heard outside the peace and justice movement. Without a free press, no complex society can remain free. We have lost ours to the MIC. In our educational system, there are very few teachers who will - or can - teach about the MIC. Resources exist in plenty. It is courage that is lacking.
Hardly a day has passed this year that I don't hear some "expert" on NPR, PBS and other media telling us how the US deficit will cripple us if we don't control it, and the only way to control it is to cut social security/medicare or increase taxes.
No mention is ever made of cutting military spending.
raydelcamino
"No mention is ever made of cutting military spending"
Well its going to be mentioned my friend. And mentioned before Mr. Obama leaves office. Not by him of course. But by republicans.
"government records show nearly 70% of the military budget is spent on contractors. Multinational corporations like Boeing Company, Raytheon Company and NorthRup Grumman Corporation, to name a few, are making a killing off of war."
How Americans can sit at home and wait for some MIRACLE to take place to end this broad-day robbery of our taxdollars (which should be going to fund schools and keep them open & help our children or to fund a single-payer universal health care plan so we don't have to beg our friends for money to cover brain surgery or help pay for groceries because we are all paying 500 to 1,000 a mo. for "health" insurance) is pure tragedy! We are such GOOD MARTYRS and as long as we have plenty of drugs (alcohol, pharaceuticals etc) we will accept more pain! Sad part is....our children have no way to cope with this situation....they are the ones that suffer the most!!
IMO this is being done on purpose and the pace is getting faster. Population control. Notenough resources if us peasants are still around.
Our UAV drone murders are war crimes. Arrest those who build these things.
"We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations."
that was in 1961.
the corporations have more than caught up and too many have their snouts in the gummint trough.
the coalition of the swilling.
thanks for the warning Ike.
why didn't you do something?
"Stop Outsourcing Security Act."
What? When are you socialists going to realize that profit motive always produces the best product? Unlike some of the tea partiers, tax and spend is fine with me as long as the moochers pay their share and we maintain incentives for corporations to innovate and improve our lives. I wish all the bleeding hearts would just step aside and let capitalism and our historic SUCCESSFUL foreign policy work its magic.
Everyone knows it's coming to the point when there won't be enough oil to go around. Do you want countries like China and Russia to have the last of it and leave us in the lurch? No thanks. And the way to field the best, most efficient military is through the private sector.
Ultimately the "profit motive" produces monopoly and war.
It also produces systematic lying and hypocrisy (public relations, advertising) and peculiar forms of schizophrenia, as yours.
Eugene, I was being facetious.
This is one of the many issues where we see the interests of corporate government parties (both of them), wealth, business, Wall Street, bankers and the mass media all in perfect alignment. Each 'profits' from the continued, insane defense budget increases which require sustained war. None of it is possible without an uninformed and fearful electorate.
As always, I feel compelled to give special mention to Republicans/conservatives/tea partiers or whatever else they call themselves. The sociopaths don't mind tax and spend - they just want the wealthy to pay less, the lower classes more and have most of it go to places where people can make a profit, i.e. programs which don't facilitate the standing of the working class or invest in maintaining their assets.
Dems get a D- for culpability but there are a few who actually oppose empire, however weakly.
Ole Glacier, how you can give the dems a pass on spending is beyond me. They are making the republicans look like pikers. As far as taxing goes, the democrats are equal opportunity taxers, they are raisning taxes on everyone and iyt WILL be the poor who suffer the most, not the richer.
And obviously the Obama regime care little or nothing for the American working man, little at all.
The greatest thing that has happened for the republican party in 50 years is Barak Obama. He has gifted them with a return to power they would never have seen if they had cared about America. He has also awakened a large group of Americans and galvanized them to action.
The electorate is certainly feasrful at this point, but not uninformed as the "enlightened" elite would have you think. They see quite well where the problems are. Its amazing how the progressuive elite can grant themselves such Godlike intellect and see nothing of truth. What arrogant twits they are. I'd suggest you not listen to their old songs.
Veritas, I guess, technically, D- is passing. As I mentioned, there are a few Dems who are anti-war and want to cut Defense. But I have nothing but contempt for their collective continued support of Bush's phony GWOT (I vote Green Party). My point was, as bad as d's are, the r's are even worse. Not one of them is for bringing home the troops or trimming the defense budget.
As far as all us enlightened voters, do you mean the ones who gave us 8 years of Bush, at least 4 of Obama and whose genius intent is to put Republicans back in charge during the coming elections? That's not so much uninformed as willfully ignorant. It doesn't require godlike intellect to figure that one out. Groups like the tea party will be voting close to 100% Republican in November - because the tea party is a REPUBLICAN construct. I realize Libertarians are hoping for a big move but there are zero senate seats they are contesting and few for the House. All others with their philosophy will be running under the R banner. Polls also show that independents are leaning right.
What's your problem with progressive third parties? And if you don't have any, who are these 'progressive elites granting themselves godlike intellect'?
Glacier Worm
Heres a possible answer the old feller might have given you...
He has no problem with progressive third parties, its just they have zero chance of having any impact. Less than zero for a fact. As he pointed out the other day, progressives are less than 7% of the population and even if you add liberals in and herded all those cats in the same direction, there aren't enough to win anything, except local elections.
The progressive elites he mention's are the Academic class like Obama that populate our universities and political circles. They believe themselves to be "enlightened" while the rest of the population are stupid and ill educated and need them to tell the folks what to do and how to do it.
Best example is the bumbling failure of their policies so far, most of which he would have said comes from a simple lack of knowledge as to how business really works and to a mistaken impression that the Goldman Sach's and GM's are American business. This regime has no real experience, they are mostly attorney's.
There are some in both parties that favor bring our kids home and there will be more because Americans are going to insist on it.
The military budget is going to be cut because we are going to HAVE to cut it. And it would be good for the military in any case. A revision of our organizational situation, our methods and make up are long overdue. We could cut 40% of the military budget and have a better military.
"That's not so much uninformed as willfully ignorant"
Not really, the republicans are going to be put back in charge because people do understand what the democrats and Obama have done (or rather...not done)and Bush took great advantage of a climactic event to purchase his 8 years. The next republican will not be a neocon, he will reflect the attitude and desire of the majority for the best interests of all American citizens and that how Republics are supposed to work.
I don't think he believe's the Tea Partiers are a Republican construct, there is no real evidence of it that anyone find's, but I doubt he believe's it makes on whit's worth of difference what they do, its simply that they generally reflect the beliefs of the vast majority of folks that are out there.
Cut spending in all areas, raise taxes because we have to, but not for new spending, regain control of our country, repair our educational system and all of this rests on regaining real jobs, revising our tax and trade policies to favor America not Transnationals, stopping the gamesmanship in Washington and replacing our laws and oversight in our economy for Americans well being.
There will be some new types of Republicans running this fall, some new philosophies forced on the republican party. It will not be the party of Bush or the Evangelicals any longer if he is right.
"The progressive elites he mention's are the Academic class like Obama that populate our universities and political circles."
You think Obama is a progressive? Wow. And be careful with that broad brush re univeristy teachers. You might accuse them of inaction but, IMO, there are plenty who are anti-corporate, anti-war and pro working class. The 'liberal elitist' tag is nothing but a talking point of Hannity and the Heritage Foundation.
"Not really, the republicans are going to be put back in charge because people do understand what the democrats and Obama have done (or rather...not done)and Bush took great advantage of a climactic event to purchase his 8 years. The next republican will not be a neocon, he will reflect the attitude and desire of the majority for the best interests of all American citizens and that how Republics are supposed to work."
OK, now we're getting to the heart of the matter. Correct me if I'm wrong but you are a Libertarian. We can argue the merits of their philosophy but if you think ANY stripe of republican is anything but pro-corporate, anti-tax, anti-regulation and an everyone for themeselves global warming denier, send me a bud of whatever you're smoking. It's as if Coolidge, Reagan, Bush and Friedman's disaster in Chile never happened. Every time we move towards cowboy capitalism, the same results surface: Massive wealth inequites, a shrinking middle class, huge debt (lower taxes on wealth), financial booms and busts and a more authoritarian government. It's as if Libertarians think we don't have ENOUGH unfettered capitalism.
The only check the majority of Americans have on corporate dominance is banding together as an entity called 'the government'. Because we currently have a rotten one, that doesn't mean I want to work to eliminate it. I want to build a better one.
"There will be some new types of Republicans running this fall..."
Care to name any?
Glacier Worm
I am not a Libetarian.
I think Obama is a fool. What most here seem to have trouble with is the fact that the whole rest of the country thinks of leftists/progressives and liberals as one group. They consider Obama a progressive, a socialist, a liberal and they consider this Congress in the same manner. Tarred with the same brush if you like.
"but if you think ANY stripe of republican is anything but pro-corporate, anti-tax, anti-regulation and an everyone for themeselves global warming denier"
Of course there are. Just as there are democrats that fit the profile you laid out, just as there are "progressives that are racist liars and hypocrites. No group I've ever seen is uniformly bad. Not one. And certainly not uniformly good.
Unfettered capitalism is about the worst thing you could have and we have it now. Libetarians won't be happy till we are back with six guns and the only thing the govermnment does is deliver the mail.
"I want to build a better one"
That is exactly what I believe is going to happen.
At the moment, Marco Rubio has been a stand out since he started to run. Paul Ryan is another that is about to step up to leadership. Jeb Henserling has some positions I don't care for, but he is honest which is a swell change of pace.
"What most here seem to have trouble with is the fact that the whole rest of the country thinks of leftists/progressives and liberals as one group."
What? Even if this is true, it just reinforces my contention of uninformed voters. In reality, this is another talking point of the right. Besides, I'm interested in what YOU think since that is who I'm debating.
"At the moment, Marco Rubio has been a stand out since he started to run."
Here's your idea of the 'new' republican running this November:
He's for a balanced budget amendment but wants to ELIMINATE capital gains and inheritance taxes. I guess that 15% on CG was a little too tough on the rich. Ever notice how much folks like Gates and other corporate heavies pay themselves in salary? Not much of their total income. Most compensation is in the form of stock options. Another clever way to avoid income taxes by the wealthy. And you'd like NO taxes on the majority of income declared by top executives? Or the other wealthy sitting in their mansions getting even filthier rich with investments?
Rubio also wants to cut corporate taxes. So now, with all those billions subtracted from the treasury, how to balance that budget? Well you can increase regressive taxes like sales, gas, excise, etc. which puts even more burden on the middle class or you make cuts that Reagan would blush about. I tried to find info about programs Rubio would slash but, as per gutless R's, not a peep. He conveniently avoids commnenting on the biggest hog of all - the MIC. No stance either on that minor thing called the Iraq/Afghan/Pak War.
He opposes card check, just like all pro-business, anti-labor suckholes. One of the main ways for a working class person to improve his wages but that great populist Rick worries about the corrupt union leadership. Again, the mantra parroted by all Fox News watchers.
Energy policy? Drill the Arctic Refuge - yeah, that'll solve our problems. And forget signing any treaties on global warming. He won't even back the flea-on-an-elephant solution of cap-and-trade (I don't either, but for a much different reason).
He's anti-choice.
No stance on privatizing social security but I'll wager he's for it.
One issue Rick wants no ambiguity about is his red-blooded support for the 2nd Amendment. He also goes to the mat for apple pie, babies, freedom and the American Dream.
So tell me, what new vision does he promulgate that's different from mainstream Republican ideology?
How can a free-market fundamentalist like you advocate that the government provide free security to oil companies 7,000 miles from our border? Sounds like you're just another mooch who wants socialism for himself and capitalism for everybody else.
If Russia and China consumed more than we did I might be more inclined to be concerned about their oil consumption. As it is, if their per capita oil consumption doubled it would still be less than half of ours. They have more right to Persian Gulf oil then we do -- not that Russia has any need for Persian Gulf oil since they have their own.
It's good to see you acknowledge the connection between your oil-consuming lifestyle and warfare. As it becomes harder and harder to deny that connection we will see more people make different lifestyle choices, choices that don't lead to war. After all, your children may come to question your judgement when their friends start coming home in body bags because you just had to have a car and they can see that others get along just fine without one.
The US is a predatory Capitalist state.
The US is Communism for the rich, Capitalism for the poor.
The US is from each according to need, to each according to greed.
t_g
Isn't it ironic that a Russian newspaper is writing about the "evil, imprerialist, warmongering-for-profit" USA corporations?
I grew up in Communist Hungary and this was our daily fodder - but we all thought it is rubbish.
I came to live in the West (Austria, France, Argentina and now Australia) in the 70s and have realized slowly that it is the sad truth.
It looks to me, that the capitalist system at it's rawest, most unfettered is ruthless and cruel and that is the system in today's USA. It resembles fascism with the constant surveillance, wire-tapping and profit for some, bugger-all for most.
War has always been profitable: pillage and plunder, no? Some people have always made huge profits on wars. The sad truth is, that even though the technology is progressing with all the latest killing-machines and killer-technologies, we are only propping up industries whose main goal is killing literally and "making a killing" on the stock market.
I'm not sure about strike - I don't think this is realistic in today's USA.
You certainly have been on a journey, and I congratulate and admire you. I journeyed out of the West into the East and joined you for the second part of your journey into the sad truth and like you turned away from from the West. The West will collapse when people in the West turn away from it. It is already happening on a massive scale, and things could get as rough as mutinies do.
It is well demonstrated that "our" captains stop at nothing, destroying our language and using 'democracy' and 'freedom' as killing machines. I think our captains are children living with no reference outside fear, believing as children do that they, and their fears, are the centre of the universe. Reason is out of their compass. It is a dangerous thing to have a bunch of frightened blustering children clustered around one with his finger on a nuclear button all fuming 'Our way or nothing'.
If we live to tell the tale the extremes of their present lies and propaganda will make almost unbelievable stories. And yet we know them already. False incidents including self harm to start wars, deceitful concern and posturing and wild allegations delivered in clear, self serving cynicism come round tirelessly on a spinning wheel. Plentiful destructive signs of murder, mayhem and deceit emanating from these captains are in front of our noses and lets face it, they are bloodily obvious and denied in the most amazingly implausible ways. Only very small children could believe any of it. A balanced five year old would be starting to doubt.
Anyone who believes our Western captains is an idiot. We have a culture, a language and economy, in its death throes busily killing the 'other' while the media ostentatiously talks up such as the astonishingly trite emotional problems of movie stars.
Its all in front of our noses, just as our families, friends and acquaintances are.
Off topic, but that is what the H1N1 thing was all about too. Many that were vaccinated got it anyway. And which high ranking ex creep in Bushes cabinet made a mint.
The for profit industries will kill not just us but the poor innocent animals. Like those in the Gulf. I am sick about how many beautiful animals that will die for greed. I am so sick of these rich pr1cks, socialpaths killing everything for money. I sure hope their is a hell for them
rumsfeld is not an EX-creep.
and it's not just Tamiflu which is making him richer.
he is also responsible for the systematic poisoning by Aspartame.
Yes,this is the monstrous heart of the USA.
Killing this monster is what it is all about. Despite the fact that millions cannot see it, the USA is dead now anyway, in that it is a radically discredited nation.
Having for some time regarded Godzilla as an image of the MIC it is interesting for me to discover that in Japan Godzilla is an image of the Japanese culture that the Japanese see as the ultimate conqueror of the USA. This explains why the movie was such a massive hit in Japan.
I am told by various Chinese colleagues that this illustrates how the USA and Japan are what we would call two sides of the same rather complicated coin. What is really interesting for me is that the Chinese do not trumpet this in triumph or moral disapprobation. The best word in English to describe their attitude is silly in that they think the coin is silly money while in no way forgetting the vicious nature of its value.
godzilla brought down the WTC - according to unconfirmed rumours.
Long before the Eisenhower speech on the dangers to our republic
from the MIC, there was Gen. Smedley Butler.
Excerpt:
"“War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses."
http://rationalrevolution.net/war/major_general_smedley_butler_usm.htm
Forget at your peril:
Israeli "contractors" are in charge of all of your "air hubs".
What all this means is that "Your Face" world-wide is a mercenary, at best(that's not good), or a traitor at worst.
You may call these 140000 people mercenaries but in fact they are very good provides for their families. That is more that people who feed at the welfare trough can say.
So, you are ok with murderers. They're just making a living, right?
Well then, high your self rightous self over there, murder a couple thousand innocent people who are being slaughtered for our greed. Then you can provide'better' for your family. What would you do if those mercenaries invaded your country. Still think that would be hokeydokey? Or are you just a paid troll? Just providing for your family?
dryfruit
I assume what you said was sarcasam. No reasonable person could compare contract killers and that is exactly what Mercenaries are with American citizens no matter their circumstance. They kill for money unlike soldiers serving their country.
Our Marines and soldiers hold these peopple in the contempt they deserve and the only reason for their employment is for Corporations to access the public purse once again.
Those feeding at the Pentagon trough are a huge burden on our society. They consume far more tax dollars than welfare. They threaten our democracy while claiming to protect it. They spread murder, torture and cancerous deleted uranium in their wake.
So dryfruit you are just plain ignorant and brainwashed, like most of the T-party.
It's nothing personal,
It's just business...
''dryfruit April 30th, 2010 9:43 pm
You may call these 140000 people mercenaries but in fact they are very good provides for their families. That is more that people who feed at the welfare trough can say.'
Mercenaries provide for their families off the dead bodies they are paid to kill. Sounds like a form of cannibalism to me. They could come for you at any tick of the political clock.
We are and have been living in a fascist state. The corporate government relationship has been around since the founding of our country(U.S.). Unfortunately, the effectiveness of the control and brainwashing of the U.S. general population has been ramped up over the past 70 years or so, especially so in the last 20 years.
Privatization and deregulation has led us to the place we find ourselves in, nevermind the loss of our elected(?) officials(and thereby all appointees) to corporate profit and power whether in the here and now or as an insurance policy for their own future ... not the democratic future of our entire country ... not for environmental justice ... not for economic justice ... not for social justice ... not for the common good.
Election finance reform is long overdue. A complete overhaul is necessary. Anything less will only continue to serve the corporate government relationship.
Term limits are needed.
The revolving door of government <-> corporate <-> lobby has to be shut down ... completely!
The corporate involvement in war and war-making has to be shut down. There is no impetus to stop the war-making once there is profit and power at stake. The war-making corporations have no allegiance to the U.S.. Their only allegiance is to their own selves and their cronies ... and 'we the people' are not their cronies ... 'we the people' have been reduced to the worker bees, the drones and are expendable.
Are the lives of ordinary people, 'we the people' any less significant, any less important, than the 'life' of a corporation or the 'lives' of governments gone wrong? Where will the future be? Where will the future generations go? Where will the children play?
END WAR NOW!
Democracy without war!
Peace-makers unite!
ORGANIZE! UNITE!
BOYCOTT!
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE!
ECONOMIC JUSTICE!
SOCIAL JUSTICE!
FOR ALL and FOR THE FUTURE! for everyone!
"We must now try to sum up, to draw together the threads of what has been said above on the subject of imperialism. Imperialism emerged as the development and direct continuation of the fundamental characteristics of capitalism in general. But capitalism only became capitalist imperialism at a definite and very high stage of its development, when certain of its fundamental characteristics began to change into their opposites, when the features of the epoch of transition from capitalism to a higher social and economic system had taken shape and revealed themselves in all spheres. Economically, the main thing in this process is the displacement of capitalist free competition by capitalist monopoly. Free competition is the basic feature of capitalism, and of commodity production generally; monopoly is the exact opposite of free competition, but we have seen the latter being transformed into monopoly before our eyes, creating large-scale industry and forcing out small industry, replacing large-scale by still larger-scale industry, and carrying concentration of production and capital to the point where out of it has grown and is growing monopoly: cartels, syndicates and trusts, and merging with them, the capital of a dozen or so banks, which manipulate thousands of millions. At the same time the monopolies, which have grown out of free competition, do not eliminate the latter, but exist above it and alongside it, and thereby give rise to a number of very acute, intense antagonisms, frictions and conflicts. Monopoly is the transition from capitalism to a higher system.
If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism. Such a definition would include what is most important, for, on the one hand, finance capital is the bank capital of a few very big monopolist banks, merged with the capital of the monopolist associations of industrialists; and, on the other hand, the division of the world is the transition from a colonial policy which has extended without hindrance to territories unseized by any capitalist power, to a colonial policy of monopolist possession of the territory of the world, which has been completely divided up. "
Vladimir Lenin
Eugene, where and when did Lenin say this. It is the best explanation of runaway advanced capitalism. You are great at providing quotes. Can you offer links? Buck
Vladimir Lenin, Imperialism:The Highest Stage of Capitalism, VII:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/
many thanks
Thanks. Anyone who hasn't checked it out must.
Lenin really is the tits no matter what you might say about his domestic heavy-handedness.
From the Preface of his little pamphlet written 1916.
"I trust that this pamphlet will help the reader to understand the fundamental economic question, that of the economic essence of imperialism, for unless this is studied, it will be impossible to understand and appraise modern war and modern politics."
Worth reading, esp. Chapter V. DIVISION OF THE WORLD AMONG CAPITALIST ASSOCIATIONS.
70% is a lot of wasted cash to go to scumbags.
In spite of Eisenhower's foreboding on the growth of the military industrial complex it would be wise to remember that he also aided and enabled its growth during his Presidency. The MIC cannot effectively engage its growth strategies without the enabling powers of government. Which is why a more appropriate term for the phenomenon to the growth of military industrial economies is more aptly described as the congressional/military-industrial complex.
How many times post 9/11 have we not witnessed the U.S. Congress roll over and almost automatically approve all the supplemental appropriations to the financing of our current wars of empire tied to altogether unrelated spending Bills in lieu of congressional passage? The fact that Presidential powers have increased as a result of the so-called war on terror with nary a peep of dissension from the U.S. Congress in relation to the constantly increasing amount of tax monies being diverted to wars and its cottage industries casts a cynical shadow over the tragedy of 9/11 given the relentless stepped up expansion in the militarization/police state of American society since.
Obama has managed to make the seamless political transition from "Bush's wars" to exact revenge on the "evil-doers" of 9/11 to the larger template of the use of military force to protect "vital American interests." The original pretext of enacting justice is now a "real politic" posture to make war for empire's sake. In that sense Bush and Obama are two peas of the same pod. With their military policies the congressional/military-industrial complex continues to hum along on its global pace to manufacture wealth for the oligarch classes and their bottom feeders by way of divide and conquer through the bloodthirsty machinery of death and destruction.
Boy, its amazing people are quoting historical figures whose thepories have proved false and inoperable every single time they have been applied, in any country that has tried them and using that persons opinion of our systems as valid! What Chutzpa!
And folks going to extremes as usual just shows a lack of understanding. There is nothing at allwrong with tghe MIC except that it is out of control. Having NO MIC is not an option.
Nor is the United States about to go Belly Up as so many here apparently hope. We may withdraw and let the world rediscover what its like without us, but Europe is in far worse shape than we are, so they would go under long before we would.
"Europe is in far worse shape than we are, so they would go under long before we would."
What do you mean by this, Veritas?
Glacier Worm
I simply mean that by any of the measurements folks are using to predict our decline and collapse, you will find that generally Europe is in worse shape with worse indicators.
Look at their demographics, debt factors, debt indemnified in promised social costs, monetary problems, coming military problems. Even their immigration problems in the overall countries are worse than ours, though not nearly as bad as in our border states, but in overall comparison, they have more of a problem.
Europe has never been the Utopia claimed as the model by many. They will tell you that there are no homeless in Europe, that no one goes without free or universal medical care, that there are no "poor" or uneducated as "everyone" gets a free university education. None of this is true of course, its a tourist or seminar attendee's view.
There are few here that care to acknowledge the truth of American military protection to Europe or the economic contribution it makes in many European countries. Or the fact that Europe would have to furnish their own protection if we withdraw ours (as we should in my opinion, our military spending is far more than needed for our own defense oreven our civic duties to the rest of the world)
It irritates me to see naive posts of "who do we have to fear?" or "who does Europe need defending from"? These are such naive and callow questions its embarrasing. I think it may be because its been many years since we had to really fear anyone and people forget that peace is not the natural state of human kind mores the pity. If people were naturally peaceful and kind we would no need policemen, there would be no slavery or killing, no abuse or theft, no opression or regimes like North Korea or Burma. No exploitation like sweatshops or cheap labor.
Sometimes I read posts on CD and wonder if some of these folks have ever faced a real life choice other than Latte or just House Blend. If they have ever seen anything but videos in some lecture or confuse marching in a demonstration with real actions or helpful work.
Well, that was more than you asked for, but I'm just feeling confused by a lot of the posting since Bush left. Truth and real facts seem to get trampled in the rush to get on board the PC express. Maybe I'm just getting maudlin in my old age.