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Stopping Orwell's Nightmare
The God of War doesn't dine on raw shank bone or bellow orders quite like he used to. When he talks to Congress, say, it goes more like this:
"And, oh, while you're up, I'm going to be needing, uh (cough, cough) . . . $159 billion this go-around, you know, for the troops. Thanks."
It works.
With the war on terror in its ninth year and disappearing from even the pretense of national debate, let alone outrage and protest, and with the President of Hope prosecuting it so quietly most of us no longer notice, we could be at an eerie national transition point, beyond which war is no longer controversial or a big deal but just the way things are: "normal," like background noise. And the enormous transfusions of cash it requires - well, nice people don't talk about it.
Oh Lord.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Then along comes Alan Grayson, freshman congressman from Florida, who has some fresh ideas about how to forestall this Orwellian transition. He introduced one of these ideas in the House last week. It's called H.R. 5353: The War Is Making You Poor Act. It's steeped stunningly in common sense and common knowledge, appeals in a blatant, teabagger sort of way to self-interest and everyman's taxation phobia - and strikes me as the focal point, almost Gandhiesque in the clarity of its outrage, of a reborn movement to end our wars in Asia and halt the spread of American hubris.
"The purpose of this bill is to connect the dots, and to show people in a real and concrete way the cost of these endless wars," Grayson wrote. "War is a permanent feature of our societal landscape, so much so that no one notices it anymore."
H.R. 5353 directly addresses the war's current "emergency" spending bill, which is about to come up for a vote and will - of course! of course! - pass as usual, with little debate, with perfunctory media mention. The current White House request, part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 2011, is for $159.3 billion.
The War Is Making You Poor Act plucks that number out of anonymity and screams, "Wait a second!" This is an enormous amount of money, almost beyond calculation, and we must not make a decision about it transfixed in financial numbness.
The bill mandates that our operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan be funded out of the regular Department of Defense budget, which in 2011 is $549 billion. The $159.3 billion in special funds would be used instead to eliminate the federal tax on every American's first $35,000 of income (or $70,000 for married couples). And that still leaves $16 billion for paying down the national debt.
Yeah, I know, it's crazy. You can't mess with the system like this. The War God's funding machine grinds with bipartisan inevitability. I've watched the process over the years in mounting despair. Our elected reps are, at best, helplessly polite in the face of this inevitability. Dissent is token. We're on a permanent war footing in this country and will be till hell freezes over. Thus it is written. Read the New York Times.
Grayson's bill comes from so far outside the Beltway consensus I felt instant enthusiasm for it. My guess is that others will, too. Within a few days of the bill's introduction, nearly 24,000 people had signed the congressman's online petition endorsing it. For starters, I'd like to see that number hit six figures. Why not seven?
The bill right now has seven co-sponsors: Dennis Kucinich, Lynn Woolsey, John Conyers, Barbara Lee, Bob Filner and two Republican mavericks, Ron Paul and Walter Jones. Call your rep and urge him or her to support it as well. This is the only way it's going to happen, folks - we have to make our numbers felt on Capitol Hill. We have to break the unwritten rules that make even honest debate over these hellish wars impermissible.
Mainstream coverage of Grayson's bill has been skimpy and dismissive. The big news outlets crossed over long ago into Orwell's nightmare and, at their privileged remove, fully embrace it. As Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald notes: "The decree that we are ‘at war' has been repeated over and over for a full decade, drummed into our heads from all directions without pause, sanctified as one of those Bipartisan Orthodoxies that nobody can dispute upon pain of having one's Seriousness credentials immediately and irrevocably revoked."
I submit that it's time to reclaim our country - $159 billion at a time.
91 Comments so far
Show AllWait a minute! How in hell can we win service medals and ribbons if we don't have wars?
Join the Boy Scouts.
PACHAMAMA
AWAKENING THE DREAMER
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaZRQCnXveo&feature=related
4H club.
Joe
Alan Grayson's bill, outrageous by the corporate media's standards, but entirely logical by any rational standards, is invigorating. Yet, I fear it's too little, too late. Amerikkka is an avalanche of corruption and greed that is inexorably descending into oblivion.
The empire is dead; it just hasn't toppled yet.
- With the war on terror in its ninth year -
- "The decree that we are ‘at war' has been repeated over and over - (just like the author repeats it)
So, we're at war but we're not at war.
Which is it?
I suggest yet again that the correct strategy is to understand that we are trapped in an insane war that cannot be won.
It's the fault of Congress.
It's the responsibility of Congress.
It's a Congressional election year.
- Just days after 9/11, Congress authorized the use of force against al Qaeda and those who harbored them -- an authorization that continues to this day. -
US Pres., 12/01/09
an authorization that continues to this day.
End the authorization and this insanity ends.
Ignoring Public Law 107-40 for 9 years has failed us.
We can achieve peace this year.
If we stop ignoring the law that started this madness and drives it ever onward.
Locust,
Have you signed the petition for stopping the nightmare?
Funny really, how their being all the way around the world is "protecting us" meanwhile 15 MILLION unregistered people have managed to sneak into this Country, for Gods know what reason, I certinally know a lot of them hold fidellity to a forigen flagg, Many more sew confusion by never learning english. Thes insurgents are not cought and delt with no they are encouraged to roam free through our communities flouting our laws and coluture. I don't feel any safer, (Bring the Army home I say) Restore Americaan peace and freedom in America.
Let's see. Seven co-sponsors to the bill. Out of 435. If everyone puts enough pressure on their congressman, we should be able to coax 2 or 3 more into signing on. The rest will remain under perpetual war hypnosis and keep authorizing all the funding the Pentagon demands. The nightmare will go on, Orwell will keep being quoted, our hollow men in Washington will keep whimpering there's nothing they can do. Mars rules. Morally retarded America will continue sliding into oblivion, oblivious to the whimpering end.
Sioux Rose
EPHRAIM: As per Mars rules (thanks for mentioning it), it works best as a gerund. I could say Mars' rules, of course, granting possession to Mars for all the misdeeds done in the name of war, vengeance, or pure horror. Yet by instead leaving off the apostrophe, the ACT of ruling is granted to Mars. I believe the intended indication works both ways.
Anyone who has not been totally disgusted and radicalized by this Orwellian state by now either is not paying attention or is one of the ruthless predators benefiting from its depredations.
Or blinded by the non-stop militaristic propaganda that emanates from the mass media. I suppose that qulifies as not paying attention.
Yea, I was thinking that if one were really paying attention one would quickly recognize that contradictory drivel for what it is.
"Reclaim our country?"
What does that even mean?
The Founding Fathers were privileged assholes who worked for their own interests. And their main claim to fame, the overly hallowed US Constitution, sucks and is no more than the codification of property owners holding rights superior to those of the peasantry.
This country was never "ours" to begin with and eliminating it should be the goal not "reclaiming" it, which insinuates that it was once something worthwhile and has somehow just been forcibly heisted and altered into some aberrant form.
We are awash in fear mongering to the point that we are all half-crazed.
The government is owned lock stock and barrel by corporations.
All of the politicians are a bunch of blood sucking vampires.
We are enslaved. We really, actually are. Walking and driving around and shopping blah blah is all window dressing. We are in prison. It is a big prison. "Seal the borders" for security? Hah. We are being sealed in.
We are in crazy land here, and ANYTHING we do to break out of that is worthwhile - almost nothing is happening to break out of it now - and we have absolutely nothing to lose.
People here are miserable - they are in pain and suffering.
We are intentionally being kept sick, demoralized, and fearful.
We can't see the trouble we are in, because we have nothing to compare to.
The national political discussion is a joke.
The Democratic and Republican party politicians should all be tarred and feathered and run out of town.
America is a society gone completely mad. We live in a big prison. It is pathetic. Fear keeps us locked in. We are so saturated with fear, that it would not be off the mark to say that fear is the only thing happening here, and that anything else is ruthlessly suppressed and punished. And we are all trustees. Anyone refusing the role of trustee is isolated and viewed and treated as a pariah. That is not to say that we cannot overcome this - not in the least. We have to fight, though, every hour of every day and break the spell.
Demoralization coupled with fear - all of the thinking and speaking around us everyday is just laced with those two.
Let's smash it up. Let's never rest until we do. Nothing else is anything but a waste of time.
mcoyote -
I share your angst over the multiple depravities of our current historical moment, but disagree with your sweeping condemnation of the Founders' "overly hallowed Constitution" which you say "is nothing more than a codification of property owners holding rights superior to those of the peasantry."
Rich Caucasian men of property (such as Founding Father Thomas Jefferson the slave owner) were not the constituency which primarily benefited from Bill of Rights provisions which banned cruel and unusual punishment or excessive bail, or provisions guaranteeing the right to free speech, a free press, free exercise of religious expression, and the right to peaceably assemble and collectively petition the federal government for redress of popular grievances. The hated colonial writs of assistance were outlawed by the Fourth Amendment's search warrant requirements not because Monticello or Mount Vernon were high on the hit list to be ransacked by British magistrates, soldiers, and tax collectors, but because small scale merchants and subsistence farmers were being arbitrarily targeted by these unreasonable searches and seizures.
One of the most remarkable things about the Bill of Rights is that the restraints it places upon historic abuses of the criminal justice system were for the benefit of those most likely to be on the receiving end of the long arm of the law - the peasantry, the little guy, the upstart rabble rouser who otherwise could be stuffed away and deprived of life and liberty without a public jury trial, access to legal counsel, or the due process of law. Rich, literate white boy insiders didn't have to worry about such injustices. Primarily the middle and lower classes (like the veterans of Washington's Continental Army, who got to vote on ratifying the US Constitution whether they owned property or not) benefited most, and most directly, from having a constiution which contained a specific Bill of Rights.
Let us not toss out the baby with the bathwater wholesale.
Bill from Saginaw
hey, Bill!
I wish the constitution provided the citizenry with the ability to directly remove presidents, senators, representatives and judges...among other things...
I have deep issue with the concept of private property...
we're entering unknown territory as a species, and as a planet...viable resources, and possibly timelines of survivability, are waning...
the structures laid out historically do not appear to be serving the best interests of, well, anybody, if health is seen as a best interest...
time to change the rules...some things will probably worsen, but the fight is becoming desperate, no?
the other side is preparing...and the earth is dying...
peace, brother Bill!
I believe we will all be becoming much more personally involved in our lives, soon...as it should be...I just hope we're not too late...
Not sure how you get that reading of the Constitution/Bill of Rights.
Bill, the fact of the matter is that baby you allude to is a monster and the first step in understanding this is understanding the birth.
An interesting study in all of this is to go back and look at "who was there" and understand what they wanted. This forum is not the place for that, I'll just say it sounds to me like you place an unfounded faith in the so-called "founding documents."
And we're not even getting into the small matters of genocide and slavery which are the real cornerstones of this country.
You go right on trashing the Constitution, mycoyote.
See how many supporters you get for that one.
From a legal standpoint the protections in the Bill of Rights are among the few legal benefits that the common people have. This is not changed by the fact that the founders were racists.
So no, the Bill of Rights is not a monster. On that you are just plain wrong if not deranged.
Constitution: trash it along with the union. Smaller units can re-form to bring government closer to home. New constitutions can be written that glean the good and discard the chaff. Confederations can still be forged by like minded people.
Strangely enough, I think if this bill had surfaced in the latter days of Bush (knowing that Grayson wasn't even there yet, of course) I think it would have had a lot more co-sponsors. The effect of Obama and the continued reverberations of the passage of Obamacare. Notice how everyone has basically gone to sleep since that fiasco passed? Or is it just me that's noticing that.
Very true. Just as under Clinton we got wars and reactionary "reform" far beyond Reagans or even Goldwaters wildest dreams, we will see continued reactionary lurches under Obama/Hillary/Gates/Holder. It is all just a big, good-cop/bad-cop game on all of us.
But W's invasion of Iraq far surpassed anything that we had seen under Clinton.
Now Obama seems intent on surpassing even W's militaristic depravity.
What's next...?
Obama, with his pretty and soothing speeches, is a most effective narcotic.
I expressed strong support for this bill in past days, but the idea that in order to make the bill even worthy of reading on the floor the money saved has to go to a mid-to low income tax break is rather unfortunate. Federal income taxes are already low to a negative value for low income households. (although they could be easier on single poor poeple without children). Think of all the schools, public works and transit, and renewable energy support this money could provide? And all of these things generate good-paying jobs.
I agree with you that there is plenty of admirable potential social spending for the money saved, but don't be mistaken, this would be a HUGE tax break for the middle class. The first $35,000 for EVERYONE: That would be about $10,000 (real money) back in our pockets.... for any family making less then a couple hundred thousand... that is huge. It could help some people stay in a home or buy a home, take a vacation, pay tuition, pay medical bills (these are things that make us "middle class"). When we repeal the Reagan and Bush tax cuts for the rich, than we can pay for the social programs you mentioned and pay down the debt.
I think the idea behind the tax cut angle is to try to make the bill appealling to those outside the ghetto of progressive politics.
It also vividly illustrates just how much money is being wasted on these wars.
"Call your rep and urge him or her to support it as well. This is the only way it's going to happen, folks - we have to make our numbers felt on Capitol Hill."
Sorry Rob but this isn't Europe where pols would actually listen and take people's points of views into consideration. The pols in Washington don't listen to Main Street no matter the ideology. I would presume that we have all tried to contact our pols only to be given put down letters that don't match what the pols are really thinking. At some point, we have to draw the line and realize that contacting them is likely to be futile. If the pols that get elected really had a heart and an open mind like us, we wouldn't have to carry the burden of having to keep them in check. It is a shame that they get reelected despite going against what the voters thought they hired them to do. People would get fired in normal jobs but not pols it seems.
Jennifer is correct to say that contacting your 'rep' is a waste of time. Our elected officials are all in the pay of the corporations and don't give diddly squat about their constituents. That said, we need to figure out how to fix things so we can have just a little bit of democracy in this land.
First, you have to recognize just how bad things are. VERY BAD. Then we have to have a plan to change things---and I suggest that it is not to vote for the same corrupt persons in office now, or the two corporate political parties they rode into Congress.
There is not a degree of evilness to be measured between the democraps and the repukelicans. BOTH BAD!
Vote independent or for so called minor parties. Vote, but not for anyone in Congress now. Look at their record. Voted for war after war. Voted to give trillions of dollars to Wall Street for collapsing our economy. And put single payer 'off the table' to please the insurance corporations.
Don't get mad at one corporate political party and vote for the other. Don't you get it? THEY ARE THE SAME. They just take turns screwing us.
I agree with you about voting independent or third party like the Green Party. Vote out all those who are in Congress now and bring in the new blood that we need.
Both parties are the problem and will not be part of the solution. What I don't understand is how can Progressives still defend Obama? Instead of standing up and saying I made a mistake in trusting this guy, they still try and blame everything on Bush. This is Obama's watch!!!!! It just makes me think he is not an honorable person when he blames others instead of looking in the mirror. Some of the comments Obama makes are so out of line, that I wonder if he is living in reality or if he is in la la land. He sure doesn't care about the gulf of Mexico and helping the local people who live there with their building a sand bar by getting them that permit that they need to start building their defense against the oil. Not one skimmer boat is out there in some of these marshes that are dying. Yet, Obama is out making jokes at a fund raiser for Barbara Boxer.
Other Progressives may forget what has happen since April 20, by the time he is up for re-election, but this Green Party member will not forget. I spent a lot of time in LA and I came to love the South and the families who have lived there for generations who are loosing their little slice of paradise. These are salt of the earth people and their hands are being tied by our government and can't get their permit to start building their sand bar. They are angry!!!! If Obama has any honor than he will do what is best for this country and not run in 2012 so that a real Progressive leader who can lead will have a chance to run. Obama has shown me time and time again that he doesn't have the right stuff to be President. I still give him a D- so far on the Environment. He is quickly falling to an F, if he doesn't give the people in LA their permit so they can start building their sand bar, if he continues to not bring in the tankers to suck up the oil in the water before it hits the coast, and continues to be a little boy doesn't have President Truman's attitude of the buck stops here with the President. Obama's attitude is "it is not my problem" but is BP's problem.
We can only fix ourselves, and that aint easy. Not near as easy as WAR WAR WAR. Why plant and grow when you can lay around til harvest and pillage?
We can only fix ourselves, and that aint easy. Not near as easy as MOAN MOAN MOAN. Why introspect when there is so much out there to whine about ?
We can only fix ourselves, and that aint easy. Not near as easy as CONSUME CONSUME CONSUME. Why meditate when prices are so dam low?
I am trying to fix myself, and it aint easy. But I had fought, cried, and consumed enough to realize that the problem was between my ears - and so here I sit.
At times I pass among the normal, but am not. I am broken and cannot be fixed to perform in any of the social, political or economic events that I once believed so strongly in. I cannot even speak properly or in public anymore.
Orwell - who was very important to me in my teens, had placed the signs that led me swiftly through the course of rejecting the status quo - but gave me nothing to replace it.
For that I had to listen to the wind and watch the water.
beat-on:
Keep on listening to the wind and watching the water. In fact, listen to the water too. It has alot of useful things to say.
Peace,
tj
Sioux Rose
BEAT ON: There is a beauty to balance... in all of its applications. I think it's wonderful when any individual works on him/herself; but as some in this forum have related, in most instances the individual's acts do little to change the overall structures of society. BUCK pointed out that such a one can become a beacon, or fine example. In my view, life requires both. We are intended to improve ourselves, read and study to keep the mind exercised, and also take up some physical form of self-renewal. That varies from person to person. I like to bike. Retaining an open heart, one capable of feeling what others feel is a blessing and a curse in a world as angry and wounded as this one. Yet it is the path through which LIGHT enters the being.
If all efforts begin and end with the self, then energy directed into the larger constellations that draw our lives into dances of relatedness stops prematurely. One person may write a song that moves an audience, another may teach young children to read. There are thousands of contributions that can and are being made that DO make a difference. No one is an island. The web of life connects every strand. A site like this is a bee hive where a great many strands intersect. Perhaps honey of a sort is being generated?
Retaining an open heart
For some it's not an option
February 10
a blessing and a curse
Trees are healing friends
and homes for bees
Sioux
BUCK: To the extent the link between forgiveness and personal transformation has been articulated by a number of spiritual teachers/masters, I am not sure I can accept your notion that "for some it's not an option." Trees are great friends to me, too, and always have been. Many years ago when I lived in Puerto Rico a neighbor cut down an amazing tree because he got tired of sweeping up its ocean of falling leaves. I wrote a poem, an obituary to that tree, and it was published in The San Juan Star. My 2nd published item... that was 30 years ago. People would stop me on the street in Old San Juan and thank me for that poem. Deep inside of all healthy human beings the child still plays, and every child who has not had the love of nature hammered out of them, still lingers inside of every adult. I will still occasionally climb a tree or hang a rope swing on one... and I love it when there's that perfect size branch, just the right height and width to toss my legs over so I can suspend upside-down. Excellent stretch for the back! And it also affords a reversed perspective on one's life, useful in times like these!
Sioux Rose,
Forgive me for being unclear. I was wary of disclosing too much on an open forum, so used a "code" hoping you would figure it out. Evidently, I'm not good at improvising codes, so screw it. I was hinting that some can't turn empathy off. It's built in and acts as a magnet to troubled people, an apparent curse. If one has a dedicated devotion to Nature, then Nature works as a purging system and their experiences can transcend the identified senses. I believe it was the driving force behind Curly, The Strange Oglala, commonly called Crazy Horse. He didn't partake in the usual tribal celebrations and festivities, preferring to wander off by himself to visit the Mother. John Muir, a man attached to Nature like no other, wrote of such experiences as did many other dedicated Nature lovers. It is true that a balance is imperative, work the body and mind hard, and it happens naturally. By embracing it then working at it, it can become a skill,
the gift.
Peace and goodwill, Buck
You might think you're broken, but you definitely can speak well _ you're translating what you hear in the wind & water.
Was Orwells "1984" inevitable.? By this I mean if he did not write that vision of the world would someone else have because it so obvious that (at the time of the writing) , the world headed in that direction?
How could he be so bang on accurate? The book is akin to prophecy.
It was written in 1949.
What did Orwell see in the Human Condition and the state of society in 1949 that lead to that book? How many others saw it coming? Why is it the media or our Political leaders rarely cite that book yet will readily do so with Ayn Rands "Atlas Shrugged" ?
ONE of those two books was pure fable yet it the one the political and economic leaders "claim" they believe in.
But isn't "Atlas Shrugged" exactly what Big Brother would want you to read and believe in? It wouldn't do for Big Brother to tell the population that it is under the control of Big Brother.
"How could he be so bang on accurate? The book is akin to prophecy."
I doubt you would have said "How could we have ended up such a good cake after reading the cookbook? It must be prophecy?"
Well, for some "1984" wasn't a cautionary tale, it was a blueprint.
The greedy always like books that say greed is good.
"Atlas Shrugged' is the soap opera version of Ayn Rand's "The Virtue of Selfishness".
In 1949 there were two roads to go down. The so called Neo-Malthusian overpopulation road and to begin planning for the eventual overpopulation of the planet when something could actually be done about and avoid the consequences, or the Adam Smithian American capitalist ever growth road. Orwell was wise enough to see what the consequences would be if we took the Adam Smithian American capitalist ever growth road. Then all he had to do was use a little imagination and wallah. 1984
Congressman Grayson wishes Obama's "emergency" spending bill to be used for other means. I am perhaps, to use Congressman Grayson's phrase, not connecting the dots here but according to the article, "The bill [Grayson's H.R. 5353] mandates that our operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan by funded out of the regular Department of Defense budget, which in 2011 is $549 billion." It would seem that even though Grayson is calling attention to the fact that Obama's request for $159.3 billion could be put to much better use, his proposal does nothing in attempting to cut off the funds which Grayson acknowledges is still being being run by the Department of Defense. It would seem that Grayson's proposal, while being well intentioned, is still not addressing the core issue of the problem and that is that as long as Congress allows that $549 billion to flow unimpeded to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, more innocent civilians will end up being slaughtered by 500 lb. American bombs and drone missiles.
Sioux
ERROLL: I think his strategy is based on beginning to chip away at the armor of the beast. If you by chance recall a piece posted on CD about a month ago, it referred to the military budget as a SACRED COW. Grayson realizes that he can't attack this behemoth head on, so the "nice and easy does it" approach appears to be what he's wisely elected to attempt. It would be a GREAT step, even if it only manages to open up dialog about the great taboo. Why, when the nation is struggling and so many are out of work, should so much treasure be wasted on ridiculous overseas imperial fantasies that benefit so few at such vast loss to so many?
You need a Department of Peace in order to stop the world's nightmare, which is brought to world by the American military-industrial complex. War is now a part of our daily lives and culture in America. What used to happen every few hundred pages in a history book now appears nightly on TV.
Hoa binh
Since 1492
I have to disagree with your last sentence as the problem is that, compared to the Vietnam conflict [which was called the Living Room War back then], Americans today are not seeing the carnage that is going on in the Middle East especially, again, as compared to when the networks back in the 1960s and early 1970s showed a lot more realistic films of soldiers dying in combat as well as the Vietnamese being shot, and more of it, as compared to the almost non-existent footage that is seen today regarding soldiers and civilians being ripped apart in a war zone on the cable and television news programs in the United States.
Where is the image of the coffin containing the 1000th casualty in Afghanistan? How many even know that dubious milestone had been reached?
Yet another example of the continuation of Bush administration policy.
We're working on it. See http://www.thepeacealliance.org/content/view/76/68/
H.R. 808, 71 co-sponsors to date.
this link provides the text of the bill in pdf format:
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h808ih.txt.pdf
see also www.thomas.gov, search on bill number H.R.808
thanks
ed
is it legal for a representative to put forth a resolution regarding ending the war(s)TM, and getting our citizens out of these other countries immediately?
maybe he could do that...
or one removing marijuana from bad lists so we could enjoy it freely...
he could do that...
or shortening the work week, or refinancing mortgages and subsidizing housing based on realistic outlooks?
he could do that...
or actually transferring these same monies from the Middle East takeover to 'healthcare' and local food production...
I wonder how many here are too mad at Ayn Rand to support this bill...
jus sayin
Excellant comment Coyete. We really are a stupid nation. We bomb the hell out of other nstions then wonder why they retaliate.
Off topic but Obama thinks it is ok for Priests to abuse children.
How much longer are the sheep going to go along with our social safety nets gutted while we spend trillions in other countries? Isreal, Mexico and all the other governments we prop up while our nation goes down the shi&&er?