This reminds me of when the health care debates had just started raging and most liberals were still talking about getting single-payer health care. Meanwhile, the corporations and their whores in the White House and Congress were looting the AmeriKKKan treasury with bailouts for the banksters and tax cuts for the greedy rich.

I predicted then that there would be no meaningful health care reform because the crooks had already stole all the money available for health care. Now, once again, the same scenario is underway as the military industrial komplex is stealing whatever is left.

God damn AmeriKKKa!

Engels 1844: "Political economy came into being as a natural result of the expansion of trade, and with its appearance elementary, unscientific huckstering was replaced by a developed system of licensed fraud, an entire science of enrichment."

The science of enrichment was developed at NASA.

Marx 1867: "Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks. The time during which the labourer works, is the time during which the capitalist consumes the labour-power he has purchased of him."

'You will have to pry these cookies from my cold dead fingers.'

...and in Wisconsin and Ohio public workers are fighting for the right to be at the table when the crumbs are divided because:
....If you aren't at the table, you'll be on the menu.

The CEOs and generals attend the same cocktail parties. You can distinguish them by their shoes.

Four ideas for the budget:

1. Support the troops
2. Government hands off Social Security
3. Across the board cuts
4. End the bank bailout once and for all time

A Tea Party screed? Hardly. Progressives should stop beating their heads against the wall and rally around an idea that might actually get something done, and we do need to consider making common cause with true conservatives. Conservatives like the sound of "across the board cuts."

The arithmetic discussed here by Flanders is exactly why we should go this way at the moment. If we asked for an equal percentage to be cut from each part of the discretionary budget, we could save Planned Parenthood, restore most of the proposed cuts to the EPA, etc. The 60 billion proposed by the Republicans could be doubled (or more) and we'd still only be talking about less than a 10% cut to our favorite programs.

First, we adopt the "support the troops" mantra that has been used to stifle dissent against US military wars of aggression. By all means, support the troops: keep every bit of the million dollars per year per soldier in the war budget (something like 110 billion total). Bush wrote the wars out of the military budget but that could come back to haunt him and his cronies. No other exceptions.

Second, remember that entitlements are not part of the discretionary budget.

Third, cut everything else at a fixed percentage including especially the pentagon budget. (Also we'll have to service the debt--500 billion or so--since we want our creditors to keep lending us money. That is not really discretionary either.)

The final part of our proposal could be to end the Wall Street bailout since Tea Partiers would agree to that too. (I'd advocate for re-upping the jobs part of the stimulus as part of a Main Street bailout as well but don't want to get too complicated.)

Barbara Lee's heart may be in the right place arguing that the wars are bankrupting us, but in fact they are a small part of the overall military budget. Furthermore, what she is proposing has been proposed many times before with no results except to distract progressive, which is of course the Democrats' job. Others say just tax the rich or just cut the military or just end corporate subsidies or end funding for Israel, or stop funding factory farms, etc. These are all fine ideas but for the most part they can be shot down on the bases of jobs, the economy, and such. The arguments against would not be valid, but they would be believed. Again.

Progressives are once again flailing while the public gets fleeced by the MIC and friends. Remember we only have less than a couple weeks until the budget gets passed. Instead of trotting out all of our favorite complaints about the world, why not unite behind a message that could actually go somewhere?

i think it's critical for us to understand that the current fiscal dilemma that the federal government, states and municipalities find themselves in (to say nothing of the fiscal dilemma most of us average peasants find OURSELVES in) is a direct result of our slavish devotion to insuring those rivers of cash keep flowing to those already super-rich elites whether they be defense contractors, bankers or hedge fund managers... the full extent of the nasty picture is only beginning to dawn on the american people but, ya know, it ain't that difficult to see if you only bother to look...

http://takeitpersonally.blogspot.com/

Laura Flanders has it right. So here is the solution.

Just go where the money is! Given that the military budget accounts for over half of our nation's discretionary budget, and shows no signs of being significantly reduced, let's internally redirect some of this enduring resource.

Everyone should agree that a strong national defense originates from a strong base. Thus, a military priority should be a well educated, healthy, productive population with a sense of self worth, in part due to possessing a job of value.

I propose we assign the military the jobs of many of our socialized (tax supported) activities, e.g. teaching our children, road construction, water and sewage system rebuilding, university research, health care, waste disposal, park system operation, public transportation, housing, urban development, border control, natural resource management, jobs corps, public broadcasting, etc. Some of these activities could even be farmed out to ‘contractors’. Call it all domestic ‘nation building’ if you will.

Guns or Butter; can't have both. Cut the military budget to the 90's levels by reducing military bases worldwide, by accelerating the pull out from two wars, by severely cutting foreign contractors, and by minding our own business. Add several new high bracket marginal tax rates, and implement gradual tax increases, about an additional 10% per million dollar bracket, or so, to increase marginal tax rates to about 90% for the super rich. Switch subsidies from dirty energy to clean energy, and stop providing grants for trains and other expensive dubious novelties without clear cost savings. Use the savings for infrastructure repair. Do these things until we return to the debt level as a percent of GDP of the Carter years.

In short undo the insanity started by Reagan, look at long term strategic directions, and spend wisely.

Always pluck low hanging fruit before climbing the tree. Take care to maintain or create as many domestic jobs as possible.

Against whom are all these weapons going to be used?

Oh happy day! The EMPIRE reaps what it sows. The American people are getting what they deserve, just like a drunk in the gutter. The sooner the whole rotten thing caves in the better.

Gee, Laura, thanks for the world-shaking revelation.

Now, do you have anything to actually add to the discussion? Such as a possible solution?

The only solution I see is a working class-based political movement, a labor party, to fight the rich cats of both capitalist parties.

Bloggers rarely mention this. They applaud the Winsconsin workers, but offer no ideas for a strategy to protect the working class long-term.

If the Right can organize a Tea Party, surely the Left can organize a labor party. But they have to want to try. It doesn't help that none of you writers ever talks about it.

The joke is good but the numbers are all out of proportion.
Let's be accurate.
The average American CEO makes between 344 times
what one of his company employee's makes (2007 data:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2008/11/15/GR2008111500247.html

So to be truly accurate, the joke should say:
A union member, a CEO and a Tea Party member are sitting at a
table with '344' cookies. The CEO grabs 'All except for 1',
turns to the Tea Partier and says “The Union's out to take your
cookie!”

The original joke "hides" the magnitude of the problem.

Also remember the old saying: "It's easier to get a camel through the
eye of a needle, than it is to get a rich man through the gates of heaven."
Another example of the pitfall of short term, or no, planning, particularly
of one's LIFE.