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Cubicle Mercenaries, Subcontracting Warriors, and Other Phenomena of a Privatizing Pentagon
Seven years into George W. Bush's Global War on Terror, the Pentagon is embroiled in two big wars, a potentially explosive war of words with Tehran, and numerous smaller conflicts - and it is leaning ever more heavily on private military contractors to get by.
Once upon a time, soldiers did more than pick up a gun. They picked up trash. They cut hair and delivered mail. They fixed airplanes and inflated truck tires.
Not anymore. All of those tasks are now the responsibility of private military corporations. In the service of the Pentagon, their employees also man computers, write software code, create integrating systems, train technicians, manufacture and service high-tech weapons, market munitions, and interpret satellite images.
People in ties or heels, not berets or fatigues, today translate documents, collect intelligence, interpret for soldiers and interrogators, approve contracts, draft reports to Congress, and provide oversight for other private contractors. They also fill prescriptions, fit prosthetics, and arrange for physical therapy and psychiatric care. Top to bottom, the Pentagon's war machine is no longer just driven by, but staffed by, corporations.
Consider the following: In fiscal year 2005 (the last year for which full data is available), the Pentagon spent more contracting for services with private companies than on supplies and equipment -- including major weapons systems. This figure has been steadily rising over the past 10 years. According to a recent Government Accountability Office report, in the last decade the amount the Pentagon has paid out to private companies for services has increased by 78% in real terms. In fiscal year 2006, those services contracts totaled more than $151 billion.
Ever more frequently, we hear generals and politicians alike bemoan the state of the military. Their conclusion: The wear and tear of the President's Global War on Terror has pushed the military to the breaking point. But private contractors are playing a different tune. Think of it this way: While the military cannot stay properly supplied, its suppliers are racking up contracts in the multi-billions. For them, it's a matter of letting the good times roll.
What a Difference a War Makes
As we prepare to close the book on the Bush presidency, it is worth exploring just how, in the last seven-plus years, the long War on Terror has actually helped build a new, privatized version of the Pentagon. Call it Military Industrial Complex 2.0.
Consider fiscal year 2001, which conveniently ended in September of that year. It serves as a good, pre-War on Terror baseline for grasping just how the Pentagon expanded ever since -- and how much more it is paying out to private contractors today.
Back then, the Pentagon's top 10 suppliers shared $58.7 billion in Department of Defense (DoD) contracts, out of a total of $144 billion that went to the top 100 Pentagon contractors. Number 100 on the list was The Carlyle Group with $145 million in contracts. Keep in mind, of course, that this was the price of "defense" for a nation with no superpower rival.
Fast forward to 2007 and the top 10 companies on the Pentagon's list of private contractors were sharing $125 billion in DoD contracts, out of a total of $239 billion being shared among the top 100 contractors. The smallest contract among those 100 was awarded to ARINC and came in at $495 million.
In those seven years, in other words, contracts to the top 10 more than doubled, the size of the total pay-out pie increased by two-thirds, and the lowest contract among the top 100 went up almost four-fold.
Just as revealing, almost half the companies on the Pentagon's Top 100 list in 2007 were not even on it seven years earlier, including McKesson, which took in a hefty $4.6 billion in contracts and MacAndrews and Forbes which garnered $3.3 billion.
And here's a fact that makes sense of all of the above: Given the spectrum of services offered and the level of integration that has already taken place between the Pentagon and these private companies, the United States can no longer wage a war or even run payroll without them.
These have been the good times for defense contractors, if not for the military itself. Since September 2001, many companies have made a quantum leap from receiving either no Pentagon contracts or just contracts in the low hundred millions to awards in the billion-dollar range. Here are just a few portraits of companies that are booming, even as the military goes bust.
URS Corporation: This engineering, construction, and technical services firm based in San Francisco employs more than 50,000 people in 34 countries. A publicly-held firm, which recently acquired Washington Group International, it had numerous reconstruction contracts in Iraq. More than 40% of the company's revenue ($5.4 billion in 2007) comes from the federal government. Between 2001 and 2007, its Pentagon contracts increased more than a thousand fold (by 1,400%) from $169 million to $2.6 billion.
URS began the War on Terror at number 91 on the Pentagon's Top 100 list. It is now number 15.
Electronic Data Systems Corporation: Founded by political maverick Ross Perot, EDS is a global technology services company headquartered in Plano, Texas. In March, the Pentagon awarded it a $179 million contract to provide information technology support services to the Pentagon's Defense Manpower Data Center, its central archive of all kinds of data on personnel, manpower and casualties, pay and entitlements, as well as the whole gamut of financial information. The company -- which employs 139,000 people in 65 countries -- boasted $22.1 billion in revenue in 2007. Computer giant HP bought EDS in August 2008.
In 2001 the company occupied slot 71 on the DoD's Top 100 list with $222 million in contracts. By 2007, it had climbed to number 16 with $2.4 billion in contracts, an increase of almost 1,000%.
Harris Corporation: This communications and information technology company is headquartered in Melbourne, Florida, and employs 16,000 people. Harris boasted $4.2 billion in revenue in 2007, with more than one-quarter of that ($1.6 billion) coming from Pentagon purchases of communications and electronics capabilities like Falcon II high-frequency radio systems.
When the Global War on Terror began, Harris had a modest $380 million in Pentagon contracts (and was number 43 on that top 100 list); over the last seven years, it has steadily risen in rank and now is number 30.
KBR: Gaming the System
The United States first heard the phrase "military industrial complex" during President Dwight David Eisenhower's January 17, 1961 Farewell Address. As he left public office, our last general-turned-president warned that the "conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience" and its influence -- "economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government...
"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."
If, in many ways, Ike's comment is still applicable, in the last 47 years the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) he described has evolved in startling ways -- and massively. Today, it does more than wield influence; it has created unparalleled dependence and unrivaled profit.
What this means in practice can be illustrated by KBR, a privately-held company that does not publish quarterly reports. Nonetheless, its recent history provides an object lesson in what the MIC 2.0 can do for the profitability of a private contractor.
KBR has shadowed the U.S. military every step of the way through the invasion and occupation of Iraq: first as Kellogg Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton (for which Dick Cheney was once CEO), and then as KBR, an independent company. It has, in fact, made its corporate fortune on the Pentagon's now infamous "no-bid," "cost-plus contracts." Since December 2001, KBR has been working for the Pentagon under the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) -- a multi-billion dollar agreement that guarantees the company those cost-plus profits for fulfilling contracted tasks.
This huge and sweeping contract was awarded without the rigors of the competitive marketplace. Its "no-bid" nature was a sign that KBR was anything but a run-of-the-mill Pentagon contractor. A second sign lay in the Pentagon's acceptance of that cost-plus arrangement. A rarity in the business world, "cost plus" means that the more a job costs, the more profit the company pockets. Professor Steve Schooner, a contract expert at George Washington University Law School, commented, "Nobody in their right mind would enter into a contract that basically says, 'come up with creative ways to spend my money and the more you spend the happier I'll be.'" Under this contract, the Pentagon has doled out $20 billion to KBR to build and staff facilities for military personnel in Iraq and provide food and other necessities to U.S. troops there.
Ironically, the Pentagon isn't even getting what it paid for... not by a long shot. KBR's fraudulent activities have, according to the Government Accountability Office, included the failure to adequately account for more than a billion dollars in contracted funds; the leasing of vehicles to be used by company personnel for up to $125,000 a year (despite the fact that these vehicles could have been purchased outright for $40,000 or less); the purchase of unnecessary luxuries such as monogrammed towels for use in company-run recreation facilities for military personnel; the overcharging for fuel brought into Iraq from Kuwait for military use; the charging to the Pentagon's tab three to four times as many meals as were actually consumed by U.S. military personnel; and the provision of unclean water for U.S. troops.
All of these abuses came to light thanks to investigations by Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), the Pentagon's own Office of the Inspector General, and others, but Halliburton and its former subsidiary got off with little more than such wrist slaps as the revocation of the fuel supply contract and of KBR'S exclusive LOGCAP contract for Iraq. That was recently divided into three parts and put out to bid. KBR was, however, allowed to join the bidding, and is now sharing the contract with DynCorp and Fluor Corporation. Each company has received a $5 billion contract that includes nine one-year options for renewal that could be worth, in total, up to $150 billion, according to Dana Hedgpeth of the Washington Post.
The most recent of many black marks against KBR came when members of Congress and investigators charged that substandard electrical work by company employees in showers at military bases in Iraq had resulted in the electrocution deaths of 16 American soldiers.
To understand what privatization means in action at the Pentagon, consider just one modest example of the corruption that infects KBR and how it was addressed. In 2004, the company submitted requests for reimbursement on more than one billion dollars in charges that Army auditors deemed "questionable," in part because they weren't backed up by reliable records. Charles Smith, the Army official managing Pentagon contracts, refused to approve the payments and threatened to levy fines against the company if it did not get a better handle on its spending. Later, he told James Risen of the New York Times that KBR had "a gigantic amount of costs they couldn't justify. Ultimately, the money that was going to KBR was money being taken away from the troops."
Despite his 31 years with the Army, and without notice, Smith was transferred from his post, while the requested payments were subsequently sent to KBR. According to the New York Times, the Army argued that "blocking the payments to KBR would have eroded basic services to the troops. They said that KBR had warned that if it was not paid, it would reduce payments to subcontractors, which in turn would cut back on services."
In other words, the Pentagon -- in charge of hundreds of billions of dollars and more than a million personnel in and out of uniform -- was essentially held hostage by a company which threatened to withhold services that (just to be clear) had been pretty shoddy to begin with.
Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) saw the problem: "We have found ourselves dependent on profit-oriented companies for even the day-to-day basics of feeding and housing our troops, [and] for carrying out a myriad of other functions of the mission, including security. These kinds of contracts opened the door for every manager to game the system in order to maximize profits."
And game the system they do. For example, the sort of corruption that seems endemic to KBR has created a profitable new market for another kind of private military corporation -- one specializing in oversight and accountability.
After the Army replaced Smith, it hired RCI Holding Corporation to review KBR's records. Smith says the private company "came up with estimates, using very weak data from KBR," while ignoring audit information gathered within the Pentagon. While KBR was subsequently awarded high performance bonuses and a portion of that new 10-year contract with the Army, Serco (RCI Holding's parent company) also received a new contract -- to continue to oversee KBR's contracts.
And so dependency begets deeper dependency, while corruption, incompetence, and callous indifference become ever more ingrained in the military way of life.
During his first presidential campaign, George W. Bush identified Christ as his favorite political philosopher. But as the first American President with a Masters of Business Administration (and from Harvard, no less), he has done a much better job of applying the profit-first principles of Donald Trump and Jack Welch than exemplifying the man from Galilee who promised the rich young man "treasure in heaven" once he sold all he owned and gave it to the poor. As president, Bush has brought a corporations-can-do-no-wrong perspective to the Oval Office and quickly sought to give the private sector an ever freer rein over a smorgasbord of public works and services. Today, the military sector leans remarkably heavily on private corporations to perform what used to be their basic functions, from war to disaster relief to washing the dishes. KBR is just one multi-billion dollar example of the MBA presidency's legacy.
Beyond Blackwater: The Pentagon's Cubicle Mercenaries
The new Complex 2.0 regularly employs companies whose job it is to send armed mercenaries into action beside U.S. soldiers or to guard U.S. diplomats and high military officers. Fighting wars for hire has become an essential part of the Pentagon's MO since 2001, and the Blackwater employee gunning through Baghdad in a Kevlar vest, a kafiyah, and wrap-around shades is the ultimate symbol of the new moment.
But there's another dimension of the Bush era's privatization surge at the Pentagon that has gotten far less coverage: Private military firms are also doing the paperwork of war. According to a March 2008 GAO report, Additional Personal Conflict of Interest Safeguards Needed for Certain DoD Contractor Employees, in offices throughout the Department of Defense, cubicle mercenaries in startling numbers are working shoulder-to-shoulder with uniformed military staff and federal employees.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) looked at 21 different Pentagon offices and found that private contractors outnumbered Department of Defense employees in more than half of them. In the engineering department of the Missile Defense Agency, for example, employees from private contractors made up more than 80% of the work force. The GAO found that contractors were responsible for carrying out a wide range of tasks and were not subject to federal laws and regulations designed to prevent conflicts of interest -- including the rules that concern personnel who want to take positions with companies they had awarded contracts to as federal employees.
Another March 2008 GAO report assessed the Army's Contracting Center of Excellence where private contractors made up less than 20% of the workforce. The average hourly cost of an employee from a private contractor, however, was more than 26% higher than that of a government employee. Similar disparities in pay can be seen even more starkly in Iraq, where a soldier is paid little more than minimum wage, while a private military contractor can earn well above $100,000 a year tax-free.
For perhaps the ultimate contrast in military privatization, consider this: Testifying at a Congressional hearing in July, Blackwater CEO Erik Prince offered a ballpark estimate for his annual salary -- "more than a million." He assured Representative Peter Welch (D-VT) that he would "get back" to him with a more exact figure. Welch noted at the time that General David Petraeus -- then responsible for more than 160,000 U.S. military personnel in Iraq -- earned $180,000 a year.
Privatization at the Bottom
Once private companies take on military and war-making tasks, where does the buck stop? It is not uncommon, for example, for a company hired to perform a service for the Pentagon to subcontract part of the job to another company, which may then subcontract part of its task to a third. Who, then, is in charge? When something goes wrong, who is culpable?
A recent investigation by Craig and Marc Kielburger, Canadian co-founders of the NGO Free the Children, and Toronto-based journalist Chris Mallinos found that KBR has subcontracted to more than 200 different firms -- many based in Kuwait -- to transport materials into Iraq.
One result of this: The United States has ended up paying companies that are essentially enslaving Filipinos, Sri Lankans, and other "third country nationals" who drive supplies into Iraq. In a recent article in Epoch Times, the trio recount a series of fact-finding trips to Kuwait to meet with dozens of South Asian and Filipino men "recruited to the Middle East with the promise of good jobs, only to be hired by Kuwaiti transport companies driving into Iraq." A Filipino described how Jassin Transport and Stevedoring Company -- one of KBR's sub-subcontractors -- took his passport, nullified the contract he had signed in the Philippines, and issued him a new contract written in Arabic. Employees were "given an ultimatum: sign or be abandoned." Then they were handed the keys to unarmored tractor-trailer trucks and told to drive fast along roads known to be dangerous. The authors concluded that these companies "openly flout U.S. labor laws by using cheap imported labor, withholding employee passports and housing workers in decrepit conditions."
Officially, nothing like this is supposed to happen. The Philippines, Nepal, and other countries bar their citizens from taking work in Iraq. In 2006, the Defense Department actually issued stricter regulations forbidding such labor trafficking, and KBR and other companies pledged that they and their subcontractors would follow local labor laws. But regulations or no, the truth is that the Pentagon is no longer really in control of the process, and sub-sub-subcontracting is how you make the big money in places like Iraq.
Oh... and despite hearings, investigations, and legislation, Congress isn't in control either. In an attempt to address the privatization of the military, for example, the Senate's Democratic Policy Committee has held a total of seventeen hearings on waste, fraud, and corruption in Iraq. Representative Henry Waxman's Oversight and Government Reform Committee has made the role of congressional gadfly respectable. Hearings in both the House and Senate have offered riveting, sometimes shocking, inside-the-Beltway theater, but subsequent legislation created to make decent Pentagon reporting and oversight a reality, close gaping loopholes in accountability, criminalize fraud, and curb some of the worst abuses of private contractors has proven well-meaning but hopelessly weak and ineffective in practice.
Is MIC 3.0 in our Future?
President Bush will leave office boasting that the United States has the most powerful and professional military machine in the world. We have paid dearly for this machine in the past seven-plus years. The bill for all that might and muscle comes to more than $3.8 trillion since 2001 -- plus another $900 billion plus for actually flexing it in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
And if the U.S. military machine is now both oversized and staggeringly expensive, it is also more prone to breakdown in a more dangerous and unstable world. So think of George W. Bush's legacy to us as a Pentagon bloated almost beyond recognition and crippled by its dependence on private military corporations.
As for Bush's legacy to the Lockheed Martins, the KBRs and the Pentagon's whole "Top 100" crew, it's been money beyond measure, enough to leave them all hard at work on Military Industrial Complex 3.0. They naturally want to make sure that the money continues to pour into their ever upgrading war machine, no matter who takes over the White House in 2009.
89 Comments so far
Show Allsnydly
Want to end war?
Take the profit out of it.
Hoa Binh, I like your comment -- and wholly agree.
Privatizing the military is happening for many reasons besides just supposedly saving money. Another goal of privatization is the elimination of enlisted combat personnel. At least eliminating it as far as America citizens are concerned. The vast majority of body bags coming home from our wars contain enlisted personnel. If they can be taken out of the equation then it eliminates many big problems for the government in prosecuting its wars. They won’t have to try and hide the body bags and military funerals. There will still be dead bodies but they won’t be US Soldiers. They will be employees of private companies and maybe not even citizens of America. They come home as individuals and with no connection to the government at all. This is happening to some deceased Blackwater employees today. Grieving families will be told to accept their losses in the name of a safer world. Our politicians will no longer be sending our sons and daughters off to war. As a society we can be taken off the hook and given justification for accepting something we know is wrong.
No more enlisted personnel will also eliminate the need for the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) since most needy vets are former enlisted personnel. No more VA Hospitals or homeless vets to diminish the wickedness of the masters of war. No valuable air time for stories of local boys or girls dying in a foreign country so our corporations can be more profitable. It makes it easier to hide wars when the body bags are filled with employees of a private company, not a US soldier. Privatization makes it easier for our government to select war as an option but it doesn’t seem to understand that a privatized army lacks the required motivation to win a war.
Take away the fighting for your country and what do you replace it with?
Maybe we shouldn’t be fighting in the first place.
Hoa binh
commoner 3,
I can see you're having trouble sorting out the presidential candidates once again. Will this help? One is hip, bright, aware, and even a sharp politician. The other is a somnambulist (a sleepwalker) who thinks our presence in Iraq saves us from larger conflict when actually it brings that closer every day. He also thinks that THE SURGE is more delicious than peanut crunch when actually it should be renamed HOUSE ARREST of all Iraqis in the vicinity of Americans. The Iraqis can't go to their doctor, their grocery store, their anybody if the person providing service isn't located in the same few city blocks to which the person is relegated. No wonder General David Petraeus keeps warning that all progress in Iraq is so easily reversible.
THE SURGE; i.e., THE MASS HOUSE ARREST, is a flimsy, arbitrary structure designed only for show like a Hollywood western small town facade. Take away the American bribes and strictures and props and all will crash down-- but would this be a bad thing? We encourage isolation and sectarianism. We are a root cause of Iraqi problems.
Will Al Qaeda still have interest in Iraq if we are completely gone? Only if it wants to go bowling in the 29 buildings of the American Embassy.
You wrote:"One is hip, bright, aware, and even a sharp politician. The other is a somnambulist (a sleepwalker)".
But what will this hip, bright, aware etc .. will do differently. He just has declared that the surge was a great thing. He is following the same script that McCain and Bush is following. He flipped on almost every position he has taken in the primaries.
As I mentioned below he NOW even supports faith-based initiatives and off-shore
drilling.!! What a farce.
Commoner3: Right on!!
The definition of insanity: voting for the same ol same ol third party and expecting a different result.
The definition of insanity: voting for the same old same old two-parties and expecting something different that what we've already got.
War is the ultimate, obscene insanity. And yet we allow it to continue. 6 BILLION of us do not want war. About 6000 of us do want war. Why do we allow them to continually lead us into war?
-- EKATON --
Urgency compels me to put this at the top:
Thomas More wrote:
"I'm afraid the Barrigans by burning draft records, planning kidnapping and violence fall outside civil disobedience."
This is ABSOLUTE SLANDER to the memory of Phil (father of the author of this piece) and the of the still active Daniel. The porported FBI-produced letters (the actual contents being unavailable) almost certianly never contained a serious plan to kidnap Kissinger, who deserveds a fate much worse than kidnapping (there, I'm now a murder conspirator) or do you believe he was just honorably serving his country too? Phil Berrigan was acquitted of any conspiracy charges in spite of $2 million spent by teh gov. to convict him.
As comitted pacifists, they were and are absolutely opposed to violence of any sort. The burning of paper isn't violence.
PLEASE APOLOGISE NOW!
Our apologies good friends
for the fracture of good order; the burning of paper
instead of children, the angering of the orderlies
in the front parlor of the charnel house.
We could not so help us God do otherwise
For we are sick at heart - our hearts
give us no rest for thinking of the Land of Burning Children...
- Dan Berrigan
Mr. "More" (do you admire this relic of even more violent, pre-enlightenment times), why do you come here shilling for a system that has failed humaniy again and again?
USAn
I'll take your word for it. That was when I was out of the country and thats what I read.
Please accept my absolute apology. I have great respect for those that protested in a non-violent manner. They were just trying to get us out of there and stop the insanity.
As to Henry....well its a good thing he stayed in the States along with McNamara.
commoner3
There is no REAL difference between the Democrats and the Republicans.
There is no REAL difference between Obama and McCain. Both of them
are war-mongers and are beholden to big Money/Business.
Vote for the Green party. It is the start of a viable third party.
It will take a while until people wise up and start abandoing the Democrats
and Rupublicans and vote for a third party. But there is no other choice.
Voting for the lesser of two evils will solve nothing and will perpetuate the
current deplorable situation.
I'm sorry, but after your Green vote goes to electing McCain you and your party will go into hiding for another four years, along with the Naderites. Then you'll emerge once again with a new saviour-of-the-month (or a 78-yr-old retread), disavowing responsiblity once again for the travesties of a regressive administration you helped put in power, and telling us that our voting for the lesser evil is responsible for the greater evil. Doing the same thing over and over (voting for a third-party presidential candidate) and expecting a different result (defeat of the MIC duopoly) is the definition of stupidity. It may be noble, but that doesn't make it any less stupid.
A fringe third party cannot start at the top. When you find a way to make your candidate viable, come on back. Until then, your Progressive protest vote is a vote for the regressive party of privilege and power.
The definition of insanity: voting for the same ol same ol and expecting a different result. Vote third party.
The definition of insanity: voting for the same ol same ol third party and expecting a different result. Vote Democrat.
commoner3
Okay, let us assume we vote for Obama and he wins. What do your expect to be different from GW Bush. Obama voted for each funding for the Iraqi war. He voted for FISA. He said he will expand the army and expand the war in Afghanistan.
He speaks from both sides of his mouth about the war in Iraq and a wiithrawal.
He joined the chorus of threats against Iran and Pakistan. He went down on his knees in front of AIPAC and Israel. No universal single payers health-care. He got more campaign contributions from Wall St. than McCain got. Yes, he is a gifted orator and of course a skillful bull-shit artist but believe me he will be no different than G W Bush.
And if you are worried about abortion and gay rights, please do not worry because
these issues will never go away. They are good wedge issues to "rally the troops".
Although you didn't address my points about the non-viability of third-party candidates and their effect on elections, but rather chose an anti-Obama screed, I will reply. Disclaimer: I was never an Obama fan; among the Democratic primary candidates he was my fourth or fifth choice.
First off, I agree with you on abortion and gay rights and other hot-button items - the duopoly cannot afford to resolve these wedge issues one way or the other. If they ever did USA voter turnout would be around 15%.
I also agree with you about Obama flip-flopping, deserting the progressive left, and having undesirable donors. His FISA vote angered me almost as much as Hilary's flag-burning proposal. His current Mid-East policy is appalling. I agree that there is not a lot of difference between the MIC duopoly parties.
Where I don't agree is that Obama is no different from Bush. What I don't see is that a Democratic administration would be no different from a Republican one. That was the canard that Nader used to damn Gore in 2000. This ship turns slowly, and the only way to get it to turn at all right now is by electing the Democratic Party presidential candidate. A vote for anyone else helps keep that ship on the same iceberg-ramming course. The Democrats would change its course a little, but in important ways. Government agencies would start doing their jobs without foxes guarding the regulatory henhouses. The executive branch would start making decisions using intelligence, thought, and planning. They results may not always be what we'd want, but they will at least be reasoned responses to the world situation, not non-blinking ideologic fiat. If you can't see the differences between Republicans and Democrats you are missing the forest for the trees. Passing off the two parties, however similar they may now appear, as "the same" is a dangerous oversimplification which sabotages any chance we have of improving the American experience, however slightly, over the next cycle.
commoner3
You wrote:
"The ship turns slowly, and the only way to get it to turn at all right now is by electing the Democratic Party presidential candidate. A vote for anyone else keeps that ship on the same iceberg-ramming course. The Democrats change its course a little, but in important ways".
You see what are you looking for and not what is up there. On what basis do you have this conviction. May be you are talking about the old Democratic party, the party of Rosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. But that Democratic party is already dead. What we have now is the new Democratic party, the party of the DLC and Bill Clinton. Clinton was a Wolf in a sheep skin. He shoved NAFTA down our throat and deregulted the financial institutions and markets. The current financial mess is due to that. He deregulated the telecommunications industries which gave total power to corporate news media. And on and on ..
By the way I forgot to mention that "your hero" Obama is NOW supporting off-shore
drilling and faith based initiative??!! What a f**#$ joke.
If you want change you have to do something different. Keeping doing the sameold things will not do. It have been tried before and it failed miserably.
Vote for the Greens. Yes, it is a start in a long and difficult road.
I guess that's the end of intelligent discussion with you. Despite my explicit statements to the contrary you call Obama my hero. If your comprehension skills are that poor here I guess they are not so great elsewhere and have partly resulted in your flawed conclusions.
Your quest for instant gratification (dynamic change) has been proven impossible. Clinton did and supported many things I didn't agree with, but to deny that his presidency was as bad for the left as the Republicans have been is just blind ignorance. Electing Clinton changed the ship's direction leftward, even if only a little. Electing Obama will do the same. By you doing the same thing over again, voting for a non-viable candidate instead of a Democrat, the results will be the same. My method achieves some positive change; yours, none.
Peace.
You insulted me and then you say peace. It was obvious I was just teasing
you when I wrote that "Obama is your hero". Do you feel uneasy or ucomfortable
about something??!! Did I come too close to home??!! Whatever it is, you owe me
an apology, buster!!
I apologize if I misunderstood your teasing; it's often difficult to understand emotional nuance on these blogs, and some of my sarcasm has been misconstrued by others in the past. No insult intended.
Peace.
It is not just MIC 2. In reality, it is military-industrial-congress-corporate-media-church complex. Geezas Christ has to be in on it too, otherwise why then pedophilic church leaders keep mute? Silence is consent.
I also understand now why the Republicans constantly call for a small government. They want to enrich themselves and their corporate friends. It is now easy to see why our second class is vanishing like an ice cube in hell. I'm sure the entire US regime has contracted itself out, thus people have no real representation.
Let’s see what kind of reception would be given when mercenary soldiers return home after the war, assuming there is an end to the war.
Representative democracy just isn't working.
FREE AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY (DIRECT) DEMOCRACY
ah,.. and this is news?, come on, apparently most americans think making profit the motivating factor in the fate of someones health, is ok.
think hmo's etc. paper pushers paid to find excuses to cut costs and maximize profit, even if this practice leads to a death caused by the stress and financial costs of ligating a claim to an objectionable ( read expensive), procedure or drug regiment.
privatizing basic needs and services such as medicine,food and water, are proven to be sustainably costly to the people they serve.
look at the countrys the 'merican gov doesn't want you to like, say france or even cuba.. look into their health care systems, focus on the cost to service ratios for both the private( americas) and public run systems of these two countries... and realize the people next to NOTHING,out of pocket for any illness, regaurdless of cause, or pre-existing condition.. and receive services and recovery rates, that ecceed private sector care significantly in every measure.
unaware of how the "private sector really sticks it to the people" why would the idea of privatizing the unpleasant business of invasion and occupation for oil, be considered out of bounds?
simplify now .. avoid the forced rush :)
I guess most of us know that human citizens can show patriotism, corporate citizens don't have such sentiments in their vocabularies.(Altho, the tv ads of some of the weapons manufacturers try hard to suggest that)
Didn't William Manchester, in his history of the Krupp steel family, include the anecdote about the Krupp firm trying to sue Vickers Royal after World War I for royalties on each shell the British fired at the Germans?
I betcha even Vulcan looked forward to wars...made enough drachmas to buy an extra estate or two in Crete.
Small point: the other night I heard a CBC radio programme on erosion of rights in USA of late. An example had to do with a university prof. Slipped in was the info that Ike had wanted to use the phrase 'military-industrial-academic complex.' But he was asked to drop 'academic'becuaes of the venue in which he was speaking. So he did; and now we've been letting an institution off the hook.
Yes, the educated are always the root of our evils - just like in Russia and Germany in the 1930s and China and Cambodia in the 1950s-70s.
from Wikipedia:
"In the penultimate draft of the address, Eisenhower initially used the term military-industrial-congressional complex, and thus indicated the essential role that the United States Congress plays in the propagation of the military industry. But, it is said, that the president chose to strike the word congressional in order to placate members of the legislative branch of the federal government."
I think that the current problems with the American stock exchange and banking system as a whole might have something to do with these amazing amounts of money being magically produced by the US govenment and then sent out into the world economy to do nothing more than increase global political instability. This instability leads, logically, to ever more economic instability, no? Sad.
Bill Clinton escalated privatization. Obama will continue it.
Recognize that when you say, well the Dems are better. They're not.
Barack Obama was for single payer before he came out against it.
If you want a draft, then vote Obama.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/obam-s13.shtml
Obama went on to make his most direct statement of the campaign about expanding military service, declaring: “But it’s also important that a president speaks to military service as an obligation not just of some, but of many. You know, I traveled, obviously, a lot over the last 19 months. And if you go to small towns, throughout the Midwest or the Southwest or the South, every town has tons of young people who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s not always the case in other parts of the country, in more urban centers. And I think it’s important for the president to say, this is an important obligation. If we are going into war, then all of us go, not just some.”
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
No draft.....not again.
I really think a draft discussion in America will kill support for the disastrous Mid-East military adventure once and for all.
I hope it does kill it, but I'm not so sure. These guys in charge don't want to end the wars. But they can't keep hitting the stop loss button either. Bush couldn't bring the general draft without bringing election disaster upon his own party.... but.... after the election, that's a different story. I guess if you're the puppet master, you just gotta pick the right malliable candidates and make sure they stick to your 1st draft script.
I think if they bring the draft... they will do it in ways we've never seen before. There's already been word that they have all their extradition agreements with Canada lined up like ducks in a row. They'll break up the domestic protests with microwave crowd dispersal cookers. They'll RFI tag everyones driver's license and pick you up to ship you out, one by one. They'll FISA your cell phone and arrest you at your own action committee meeting. Essentially they're gonna hit the big button labeled "1984" which they've only been beta testing up till now.
Good article and great comments that followed.
It is obvious to anyone with a brain that the MIC has substituted a government representing the citizenry for a government representing narrow, corporate interests. However the average American still hasn't gotten the message.
This is because corporate America has very cleverly seized the mainstream media (MSM), a media that the public relies on for accurate information. In fact the corporate media has been so successful in shifting the blame from corporations, that a majority of Americans still believe that we have a 'left wing media'! Why corporations would ever deliver a message that is anathema to their existence is beyond me. Nevertheless the corporate system of misinformation has been extremely successful in dumbing down the population.
The answer therefore is in getting the truth out, the truth being that our democracy has been high jacked by a few, special interest groups with no other objective in mind except for maximizing profits regardless of the consequences to the average citizen. But if we managed for example to collect the neccessary funds from an enlightened few for the sole purpose of placing large ads in the newspapers or T.V. networks, those same publishers & networks would simply not allow it.
Instead we must use other means to educate the public. Our mangled democracy still offers an out thanks to a few brave mavericks like Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney, but any American who depends on the MSM for their political awareness, is bound to fall into the two party, corporate trap.
I have in my possession an email list that contains over a hundred million email addresses. Perhaps the readers and contributors of Common Dreams could help me forge a letter that is sent out to basically every American just prior to the election exposing the warped system and explaining why a vote for Obama or McCain only plays into the hands of the Neo-Con agenda.
The letter would urge every reader to A) vote and B) enlighten at least one other person to vote on Election Day to end this corporate tyranny. The "one-hundredth monkey theory" is applicable here in which a point of critical mass is reached in a very short time and suddenly monumental changes can occur virtually overnight.
The greatest difficulty in getting the message out, has been corporate America's ability to stifle debate, ignore core issues and misdirect the populace in identifying the root causes of our current predicament.
Does anyone think that this plan has a hope in hell of making a difference?
Please don't spam me.
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
I understand the thought, but it will take more than 1 email.
Have you ever heard Noam Chomsky talking about being on NPR. It hasn't happened since the 1991 Gulf War, but even then he describes it as something like the following.
He'd get two or three minutes to be on the air. In that time, he used to say, all he could do is sound like a man from Mars. That's because after all the waves of propaganda, in fact after an NPR show where most of the hours are devoted to the conventional wisdom\myths, if he tried to go on and explain what is really happening to someone in one two minute spot, there was no way he could sound like he was making sense.
Your email would have the same problems. Even if it gets past spam filters, even if the recipient opens it and tries to read it, then its either going to be way too long if it tries to explain everything, or like Prof. Chomsky, you'd sound like a man from Mars because there is so much that you know and understand that your readers would not.
Your heart is in the right place. And somehow convincing and education a majority of Americans is what we've got to do, but its going to take more than one email.
One problem is everyone looks for the easy answer. The magic wand that instantly solves the problems. But that's not how the world usually works. Instead, what we need is a long hard slog of a lot of hard work to really and truly educate and convince at least a 100,000,000 Americans as to what you want to tell them. Everyone should do that any time that we have someone willing to listen to us. This should be a constant goal. Just realize that its not going to be one magic email that does this, but a lot of hard work.
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
The important point to remember is that the increased spending by the US military is completely unjustified. Therefore the parties that acted to "surge" military spending, both general and incidental, and the parties that allowed it with self-serving motives, own the bulk of the debt. The implication is that military dissenters (the majority) are owed a credit. We will confiscate what is due to us by seizing ownership of production from the militarists. This serves the public interests in several key ways: It wipes out destructive resource consumption/production, weakens the political power of the militarists, and benefits the people in numerous ways through increased equity stake.
This is a debate that's been going on in a lot of the rest of the world. If the leaders of the country, especially ones who are not truly democratic representatives of their people, run up a large debt on military hardware and power, is that debt the responsibility of the people of the nation once those leaders are gone?
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
i fear the author misses the real horror of the situation: americans are funding the construction of a mercenary army which is loyal to none but the highest bidder, which will not be us when the collapse of the 'system' forces our rulers to resort to naked violence to control us, and we try to respond in kind.
I found this article very disturbing but not surprising. Frida Berrigan says what needs to be said to all America.
The U.S. is now a privatized corporate Military State and established by the capitalistic powers that be to launch a New World Order. But it always astonishes me, how can the oppressive forces of corporate capitalistic rule and military power think they can defeat terrorism when these same forces of oppression are the root cause of terrorism and world wide social unrest?
Guns and bombs can never defeat a rising universal power of a spirituality that hungers for freedom from institutional oppression.
For the survival of our species, the U.S. must become a healing force in the world, not a destructive force of Empire.
But unfortunately, before there is such a transformation, the U.S. Empire will no doubt self-destruct. Then there will be no bailouts for failed institutional capitalism as in the past. It will be left for future generations to adopt a radical change in values and a higher social consciousness.
Bring America Back !!!! Sir Riley, your post exudes so many rhetorical
questions, that by your last sentence, you've answered all on your own !
*****You've seen the Destructo Movies==with NYC & LA smoldering in mere
ashes. Then, years later the Mole People emerge from their
underground caverns, try to find some animal life to eat, and try to
re-invent the wheel !! Presto===The New World Order !!!!
No, I don't buy that. I am more hopeful, not for today, but further into the future.
There is in fact a higher consciousness emerging in the world for a more just, sustainable and compassionate world. It is best expressed in the Earth Charter, produced by the greatest social minds in the world via the World Social Forum.
The Earth Charter was voted down by the United Nations, primarily by the U.S., as a threat to Western Industrial Capitalism. The war on terrorism has only sidelined the Earth Charter initiative.
Global capitalism is the problem, and a drastic change in values and more democracy is the only solution
I don't agree we will be eating rats in a wasteland, only to see the rise of Empire again. I believe our evolutionary destiny as a species is to mature and work in community to heal our broken world. Otherwise, yes, it could be a World Fascism never imagined before.
One of our biggest problems is that so many people think nothing can be done today.
One hint. If you look at poll numbers, about 60% to 70% of the country says we are heading in the wrong direction.
Another hint. The way the nation went nuts and rallied to Obama when he just mentioned the words 'hope' and 'change', even though he's never proposed any real change.
The two show how ready for a change of direction this nation really is. These things can happen fast. How long do you think it was between a time when the Soviet Union was a police state and there seemed to be no prospects for change, to the fall of the Soviet Union. It wasn't more than 2 or 3 years, tops.
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
What you say is very true. I am so tired of, "well, we cnat just....". "yeah, that's be great, but some other time...". If not now, when. If not us, who?
&YYY&
Not a single member of the Vampires Club profit takers,
Would lift a finger to help stop the war and terror makers.
In the Vampire States, making money is the way of success,
Being a hero means stealing the money without redress.
Cost plus means print and pour money into black holes,
Pay Cee Eee Owes Salaries and give to the richest share holds
With special tax free status without a fair accounting,
Thats why McCain and Obama have friends who like warring.
The worlds biggest thief, seeking supplies of ever more cash
thats the Vampire States Corporate, leaving blood and body mash.
Every villager that gets blown up, by missiles their tissues blended,
Feeds a score of corporations, for logistical services rendered.
When running out of Afghanis, or the Taliban or terror invaded Iraq,
Because a finite cash flow does not keep up with the suck.
There comes a time of need, to attack another nation,
Maybe Pakistan or Iran will provide for the Vampires Salvation.
The Jesus Warriors and nine eleven cry for vengeance without rest,
The great oppressor Israel , the Holy Zionists of conquest,
From their rabid pulpits spit fire, hate and holy war
So that the cash can flow unhindered into their opened corporate maw.
Bring America Back !!!!
**I agree that Frida Berrigan has a first class, most excellent study,
compilation, and extremely accurate conclusory base. Facts, support
and timelines are all right there to behold !
**Who would've thunk a Republican President and a war hero 5 star General,
Pres Eisenhower, would warn us on the manifest dangers of a growing
military industrial complex ?? I was around in 1961, just going into
college, but I sure don't remember Ike's farewell speech.
**Collectively, America became enamored with JFK and Jackie and the
heady Camelot era we could experience with living room television sets.
Then there was the big distraction of getting in and out of Vietnam,
and the getting in and out of Tricky Dick Nixon. So if there was a
morality lesson or a contemporary mindset to be had from Pres. Ike,s
parting remarks, they were easily lost in the fog of events.
**Still, we try to rationalize why our system did not hold up, and
self correct, and how indeed, 'The Complex' came into major power.
Our forefathers never, in their wildest imaginations, thought that the
Presidency could be bought with massive amounts of wealth and great
big campaign $$$$$ funds. HOw could our Founding Fathers ever dream
that that same $$$ could purchase control of all three branches of the
constitutional government they created ??? At Freedom Hall, I just
know the original conventioneers would have wildly applauded Dennis
Kucinich and Ron Paul for their stand-up speeches of truth be told !
But those two patriots can't even make it to the final election
games because the Two Party Plan funnels all its larder on those with
already the big bucks in their coffers. So we descendants of the Pilgrims
muck along figuring out the lesser of two evils and watching the TV
circus which insults most of us with a brain. I find it fascinating to
behold, four years ago and for the first time since JFK & Nixon, the
declared winner of the TV Presidential Debates lost the election ! The
headlines were: "Kerry, More Presidential than the President", and
Kerry was then on the fast track to Pennsylvania Avenue. But, as fate
has our history written in stone, KIng George pulled a fast boat, then
snuck in the back door to his Re-Election.
**The signers of the Declaration were sure that the 'checks and balances'
of the 3 Branch Government were a fail-safe system to insure against the
ravages of Tyranny, Despotism, and Monarchy takeover. They cannot be
blamed for failure to consider Nukes, laser-guided missiles, assault
weapons of every kind, and the resultant arms race to Oblivion !
**But, Ike Eisenhower saw it coming. He wanted his farewell speech to be
a warning to his country, a legacy on what NOT to do.
**So where in Military Complex 301 do we finally learn the lessons we
need to bring America Back to its beloved roots ?? From my observations,
a certainty is that John McCain is surely no Dwight Eisenhower !
Our Founding Fathers never dreamed of the power of corporate capitalism. President Lincoln was the first
Thomas Jefferson said, "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
Time to get our butts out into the streets! nothing else will stop the madness...
Bring America Back !!!! Right kickapoo,,,,,, get out in the streets , to
quote Elton John....'like candles in the wind'.... & you saw what the
Jackbooters did to the candles in Denver and St Paul, a week ago. Nice !
*****I say stay on the internet, Dude, suport whatever Blogs and Groups
and Individuals which are not worshipping at the great altar of money $$$$$.
Seems to me Eisenhower warned us about the Military/Industrial Complex. Even before that an author named Smedley Butler wrote a book during or shortly after
WW-I
True....but remember, it was Eisenhower that engaged us in Viet Nam.
well that engagement was less then 5000 troops at first... the big shit went down later. I wouldn't give Eisenhower credit for that if that's the only juice you have that leaves a stain on his military industrial complex warning.
I think BushCheney et al think that Eisenhower was RECOMMENDING it!
Its an outrage.
Nothing will change.
The country is dying.
Who gives a shit as long as we have our high definition televisions and our SUV's?
-- EKATON --
One fact that jumped off the page of this article is tha fact that Mercenaries don't pay taxes. Is this true and if so the big question is WHY??? Or better yet, why NOT???
They do not and its a part of who pays them and where. Just as many Corpoprate profits from overeseas are not taxed unless they are brought home.
Did Bill Clinton start this in the modern age when he gave Halliburton a big military services contract in 1996? (At the time Halliburton was headed by Cheney.)
An excellent analysis by Frida Berrigan!
For the sake of future generations, this criminality must be stopped and punished.
I decided to ask Independent Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader about this issue during his recent discussion at Memorial Hall here in Cincinnati. I asked Nader if he would speak to the significance of the growing influence of private contracting firms with tasks that have traditionally been run by the government. Nader stated that this is “another step towards fascism” in today’s society. “There should be a group whose purpose it is to put Blackwater out of business,” Nader continued, “There have got to be indicators when a society is on their way to fascism...these are the indicators.”
I also recently wrote about this issue on the anniversary of 9/11. You can find the full article at this link:
http://www.cincinnatibeacon.com/index.php/contents/comments/9_11_01_seven_years_later_where_do_we_stan...
For more independent views you can visit:
http://www.cincinnatibeacon.com
http://chriscommons.blogspot.com
welshTerrier2 September 15th, 2008 2:10 pm
since1492 September 15th, 2008 2:56 pm
These folks along with this article make excellent points and highlight the real dangers we face with this kind of military.
The privitization of war would bring things like since1492 point's out "There will still be dead bodies but they won’t be US Soldiers. They will be employees of private companies and maybe not even citizens of America. They come home as individuals and with no connection to the government at all. This is happening to some deceased Blackwater employees today. Grieving families will be told to accept their losses in the name of a safer world. Our politicians will no longer be sending our sons and daughters off to war."
If we don't have ourselves involved, if its not our son's and daughters involved we run the real risk of using military force with no oversight. The moment you no longer have an army composed of citizens you no longer are a Democracy or a Republic, you are indeed on the road to Empire.
The current practice of contractors is simply a way to funnel money to private companies. We don't need these people nor should we have them. A perfect example is the inexcusable deaths of some of our boys in the shower from electricution. If this had happened when Army Engineers were responsible, it would simply have been fixed, with private contractors, they have no interest beyond profit.
As far as saving money, privitization does not. Its far more expensive.
An Army composed of citizens is both needed and required for our nations freedom. An Army of mostly contractors, controlled by Corporations, including the troops would indicate we should not survive.
I most strongly agree with (most of) the sentiments expressed here. This is a road we need to avoid at all costs.
Hoa binh indeed!
"...maybe not even citizens of America."
Some of our military's soldiers now, and some who have died, were not American citizens. They are Guatemalans, Mexicans, Ecuadorians and various others (usually lumped together by the right as Mexicans) doing the jobs Americans won't do. Maybe we should put up a wall to keep them out - their undercutting-the-minimum-wage job stealing is ruining our economy. Putting up a multi-billion dollar war along the Rio Grande is a such a better use of funds.
These honorable soldiers are in our country legally and volunteered to serve. They hope to earn citizenship and I would certainly welcome them.
I'm sure you didn't mean to insult them, that you were just trying to make a point about illegal immigrants. Just not thec same thing at all. Its in our traditions as far back as I know for non-citizens to serve in our military. Not mercenaries, but residents of course.
You DO realize I was being tongue-in-cheek about immigrants and the utterly stupid wall plan. I wanted to point out to the USA! USA! chanters here and elsewhere that it's not just good ol' white country plowboys serving in our military.
When I visited the Alamo a few years back, that Holy Shrine of Texas-As-The-Root-of-American-Freedom, that monument to the hatred of the godless Mexicans, the grounds were being lovingly and impeccably swept and policed by people who were clearly of Mexican descent - immigrants. It was an interesting juxtaposition and a real commentary on the hysteria over "the immigration crisis". This "crisis" was invented about four years ago by Republican right-wingers to divert America's attention from the disgraceful failures of the Bush administration and the Republican Party across every aspect of governance and American life.
I was fairly sure it was tongue-in-cheek.
We've got some immigrants serving certainly, but our military is made up mostly of Americans and we come in all colors and flavors I'm proud to say. We all know that a lot of the illegals must go back, but a lot of guys around here would tell you we'd like to keep a bunch of them and send some of our multi-colored trash back instead
Do you really think that the Alamo is a shrine to hatred? Its not. Many Mexicans fought there with us. And many Texans are of Latino decent.
There is no immigration crisis. There is a very real illegal immigration crisis. More real than you can believe. The economic cost is staggering for Texas and the vilolence is beginning to surge over the border. Other parts of the country are beginning to feel the costs.
Last year big business and their shill's like LaRaza put out a lot of disinformation thats mostly been discredited. (check and see A. how many real members they have and B. where their funding comes from, for La Raza, MALDEF, LULAC and others) From your tone I think you might not have thought much about it lately. Please do. They are exploiting these folks unmercifully and using them to bring wages down.It truly has nothing to do with diverting attention, it is a crisis.
My God, who could have missed the "disgraceful failures of the Bush administration and the Republican Party across every aspect of governance and American life."
By the way, most Texans, especially on the border don't favor the fence. We all know we need more boots on the border. The violence and drugs are a terrible problem thats growing.
Pax
Am I sick of listening to American military vets, telling the world how sacred is their "service".
A military imperialist fascist government of gangsters, in the business of global organized crime, got you to voluntarily go to the other end of the earth and perform acts of state terrorism there, and your fellow Americans, and the world, is supposed to applaud and respect you and your "service"?
Just because you believe in something that made you join up (some delusion of what America is or should be), doesn't mean it is there or it is true. If you serve a lying gangster, you are part of the lie. The Mafia and the Triads also treat their brothers with honour that does not make their deeds and the deeds of their gangs honourable.
You are not defending anybody; you are working an offensive global terror machine. Enough of this self glorifying pride and the glorification generally of military service, it is just another tool of the Military Industrial Complex; a nationalistic brainwashed group think for sheep.
You again must be one of the very, very young ones and certainly never faced a draft.
Don't speak about something you know nothing about. Better men than you arent here.
I understand your view and your need to believe in something but don’t let it out in self serving rightiousness! The draft has nothing to do with today's military which is 100% voluntary. I understand that the draft was a very hard commitment for many people.
A draft or conscription is feasible only in a democracy that works and for a military which is purely defensive in nature. But America is a plutocracy of/for corporate gangsters with a paid public/private global hit squad of the largest ever industrial killing machine of perpetual war ever established. Your military forces are not defending you, your country or your people when they act as enforcers for this fascist regime.
Better men than me and you have opened their eyes to the fact that this military service crap is horse shit for blind and loyal cannon fodder, and to allow bankers and politicians to profit from imperialism and aggressive war.
By the way I'm probably older than you if you were in Vietnam and have seen a great deal of the world and its wars and their horrendous effects. So your assumptions are very wrong and foolish. I understand your point of view and feel you abore war too, but I cannot bear any "glorification" of war or the propaganda of nationalism that goes with it.
I should have said the Alamo is used as a rallying cry for those who favor bigotry and hatred.
As an investigator for the USDOL I saw the exploitation of workers, legal and illegal, firsthand every day. Granted, that was in the NE and not on the border, and any immigrants I encounted were actually doing the work "Americans didn't want to do."
I am very suspicious how immigration appeared on TV as a national emergency virtually overnight, just when Bush was running for president again. Like all large problems, immigration requires thought and work, as you say, not sound bites. Because of the exploitation, I do not believe immigrants are the drain on American society that we are made to believe. Someone is benefiting from them being here, but as usual it's the corporate rich. Because they pay no taxes or insurance for undocumented workers, the taxpayer foots the bill, not for the immigrants, but once again for bailing out Reagan's corporate capitalists.
Someone is benefiting from them being here, but as usual it's the corporate rich. Because they pay no taxes or insurance for undocumented workers, the taxpayer foots the bill, not for the immigrants, but once again for bailing out Reagan's corporate capitalists.
Thats it!
You're right Thomas I would never intentionally insult a veteran. I am a vet and know the honor the veteran earns by serving his society. They are all our brothers.
Hoa binh
I was sure of it.
Hoa binh
I'd like to think that people like the Berrigans and in plowshares participants who sacrificed career, security and livlihood to engage in civil disobiedient actions - facing felony sentences for their actions, going back to Thoreau, were serving their society too...
I would say that if some one thinks something is wrong, its their duty to engage in legal protests.
I'm afraid the Barrigans by burning draft records,planning kidnapping and violence fall outside civil disobedience.
Violence because you believe its right, does not make it so. My opinion.
Sorry, but that would make any military, aywehre, illegal, would it not? A pacifistic military is one bound to be ineffective.
Burnign draft cars or flags, is not violent. They are just symbols.
Woah! Dont slam me, dude. YOu can make more flags. You cannot make more people.
Wearing (or flying ) a flag doesnt make you a patriot, anymore than wearing a cross makes you a Christian.
Wearing a cross, is sortve like wearing an electric chair , isnt it? Just musing.
Nope, the actions of a soldier and of a civilian are completely different.
"Wearing (or flying ) a flag doesnt make you a patriot, anymore than wearing a cross makes you a Christian."
Never thought it did.
Just don't burn our flag in front of me. It's your right to do it, but it would upset me.
(and once again, thanks for your help in the hospital for my brothers)
"I much prefer a man who burns the flag and wraps himself in the Constitution to one who burns the Constitution and wraps himself in the flag."
If the burning of a piece of cloth upsets you, the Bush administration must give you apoplexy....
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Obama's talking alot lately about 'civic duty', 'giving something back to the community'.... he even said if there was another war he would like to volunteer, but ofcourse he can't. Get ready for the draft friends... it's coming and it's got democrat AND republican written all over it.
I would argue that the re-institution of the draft would be the last thing the powers that be would desire. Involving American families in such numbers in dirty little wars instead of the relatively few now involved would awaken our sleeping giant of an electorate, and they sure do not want that!
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Bring It On! The Draft would end this war in a heartbeat, as the children of privilege, the children of flag-waving, the children of ignorance and apathy will suddenly have their lives on the line. The Draft would get the "war" off the back burner and it would clean out congress of the war party and their enablers.
Privatizing the military is happening for many reasons besides just supposedly saving money. Another goal of privatization is the elimination of enlisted combat personnel. At least eliminating it as far as America citizens are concerned. The vast majority of body bags coming home from our wars contain enlisted personnel. If they can be taken out of the equation then it eliminates many big problems for the government in prosecuting its wars. They won’t have to try and hide the body bags and military funerals. There will still be dead bodies but they won’t be US Soldiers. They will be employees of private companies and maybe not even citizens of America. They come home as individuals and with no connection to the government at all. This is happening to some deceased Blackwater employees today. Grieving families will be told to accept their losses in the name of a safer world. Our politicians will no longer be sending our sons and daughters off to war. As a society we can be taken off the hook and given justification for accepting something we know is wrong.
No more enlisted personnel will also eliminate the need for the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) since most needy vets are former enlisted personnel. No more VA Hospitals or homeless vets to diminish the wickedness of the masters of war. No valuable air time for stories of local boys or girls dying in a foreign country so our corporations can be more profitable. It makes it easier to hide wars when the body bags are filled with employees of a private company, not a US soldier. Privatization makes it easier for our government to select war as an option but it doesn’t seem to understand that a privatized army lacks the required motivation to win a war.
Take away the fighting for your country and what do you replace it with?
Maybe we shouldn’t be fighting in the first place.
Hoa binh
The "Security Industrial Complex" is draining our economy. I don't know how much we pay our soldiers today but i'm sure it's less than "for profit" corporations. Since graduating engineers are being pushed out by foreign cheap labor, changing tires may be a trade worth learning. I don't know how to end wasteful Pentagon spending. As I understand it, 25% of our Pentagon spending is for obsolete weapons. The Pentagon says they don't need them and don't want them, yet they still get budgeted. THAT'S POWER.
"They naturally want to make sure that the money continues to pour into their ever upgrading war machine, no matter who takes over the White House in 2009."
Yes, that's the most insidious aspect of the "War, Inc" machine...it is designed for perpetual motion.
By the way, War, Inc. is out on DVD... it received heavy right-wing criticism and staunch pressure to limit release... so if you did not have the opportunity to view at a theater, it's a pretty good black comedy... way over the top, but it needed to be to find anything funny about the US corporate war machine.
Much more truth in it than CheneyOilCo wanted you to see.
Ms. Berrigan's article does an excellent job highlighting the corruption, inefficiency and lack of oversight in MIC 2.0. Greed is running rampant in this privatized, unregulated ripoff of the American taxpayer.
We must not, however, make such corruption and inefficiency our primary focus.
The context of any discussion about the use and abuse of the American military and the budget that funds it must be a discussion on whether "the people's government" is serving the best interests of the country or serving the best interests of massive corporations and their shareholders.
The issues of corruption, inefficiency, no bid contracts and all the rest of it are secondary to the larger issue of national defense policy. Even if the corruption were eliminated, the privatizing of the national defense were terminated and oversight of military contractors were ensured, Americans would still be burdened with the propaganda of fear, wars fought for illegitimate purposes and the endless pursuit of empire.
Put simply and succinctly, national defense policy is being conducted for the sole benefit of massive, multi-national corporations. The core problem we face is a government that has sold out America and Americans (and the rest of the world as well) to serve their corporate masters.
The article uses 2001 as a benchmark and quite rightly blames the Bush administration for many abuses of national defense policy. The problem, however, is that it's not at all clear the Democrats are offering an alternative. Ask yourself this: has Obama called for the cutting of even a single penny from the "defense" budget? If Obama and the Democrats agree with the premise that the trend toward privatized services has led to massive waste, fraud and abuse, surely the "massive" savings that could be realized could be used to reduce defense spending. I ask again: have Obama and the Democrats called for even a single penny reduction in the defense budget?
Corporate greed is a given. While highlighting the greed and the inefficiencies and the corruption is always a worthwhile exercise, we must not lose sight of the more critical reality that our government cannot serve two masters and that the current master is corporate America. Until the American people make a conscious choice to reclaim control of their government and prosecute the traitors in both parties who enable MIC 2.0, or MIC 1.0, or any other MIC, nothing will change. Greed isn't the central problem; it's greed enabled by government that is.
I would echo your praise for this well researched and professionally presented piece. I would also comment that your response is equally well conceived and your conclusions quite accurate.
Many of us have seen this growing power over our treasury and written and spoken out about it, but until we the people awaken from our slumber it will continue. I assume that things are simply going to have to get really, really bad before that awakening occurs...a real pity that.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Sure explains (ugh!) why there's no money for the things the nation and its peole actually NEED. And what a karma for all this make war = profit. Disgusting! Imagine if photos of their achievements, poor buildings half completed, battered babies were included for "the price."
With the subdividing of contracts to 2nd/3rd/4th parties involved in the business of war, how much safer are the troops? Every link in the chain offers more chances for the wise to find cracks in military security.
If the military cannot be described as secure... then the homeland?
Does this mean no more KP duty as punishment?
Until the Military Industrial Complex is SHUT DOWN, GOD WILL CONTINUE TO PUNISH AMERICA WITH MORE POVERTY AND TERRORISM !
why would he bother--we're doing it all by ourselves. Why would he pick certain people to punish? So he lets mf'ers like Bush, Rummy, Cheney--live and be prosperous, but children in the Twin Towers and innocent elderly ladies in New Orleans perish! Gee..what a god.
As Caulfield said, "If there is a god--he's a real shit".