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Today's Top News
The Decade's Biggest Scam
The Los Angeles Times examines the staggering sums of money expended on patently absurd domestic "homeland security" projects: $75 billion per year for things such as a Zodiac boat with side-scan sonar to respond to a potential attack on a lake in tiny Keith County, Nebraska, and hundreds of "9-ton BearCat armored vehicles, complete with turret" to guard against things like an attack on DreamWorks in Los Angeles. All of that -- which is independent of the exponentially greater sums spent on foreign wars, occupations, bombings, and the vast array of weaponry and private contractors to support it all -- is in response to this mammoth, existential, the-single-greatest-challenge-of-our-generation threat:![](/sites/commondreams.org/files/imce-images/md_horiz_1.jpg ""The key to sustaining this Security State bonanza," writes Greenwald, "is keeping fear levels among the citizenry as high as possible... and that is accomplished by fixating even on minor and failed attacks, each one of which is immediately seized upon to justify greater expenditures, expansion of security measures, and a further erosion of rights." (Wikipedia)")
"The key to sustaining this Security State bonanza," writes Greenwald, "is keeping fear levels among the citizenry as high as possible... and that is accomplished by fixating even on minor and failed attacks, each one of which is immediately seized upon to justify greater expenditures, expansion of security measures, and a further erosion of rights." (Wikipedia)
"The number of people worldwide who are killed by Muslim-type terrorists, Al Qaeda wannabes, is maybe a few hundred outside of war zones. It's basically the same number of people who die drowning in the bathtub each year," said John Mueller, an Ohio State University professor who has written extensively about the balance between threat and expenditures in fighting terrorism.
Last year, McClatchy characterized this threat in similar terms: "undoubtedly more American citizens died overseas from traffic accidents or intestinal illnesses than from terrorism." The March, 2011, Harper's Index expressed the point this way: "Number of American civilians who died worldwide in terrorist attacks last year: 8 -- Minimum number who died after being struck by lightning: 29." That's the threat in the name of which a vast domestic Security State is constructed, wars and other attacks are and continue to be launched, and trillions of dollars are transferred to the private security and defense contracting industry at exactly the time that Americans -- even as they face massive wealth inequality -- are told that they must sacrifice basic economic security because of budgetary constraints.
Despite these increasing economic insecurities -- actually, precisely because of them -- the sprawling domestic Security State continues unabated. The industry journal National Defense Magazine today trumpets: "Homeland Security Market ‘Vibrant’ Despite Budget Concerns." It details how budget cuts mean "homeland security" growth may not be as robust as once predicted, but "Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Boeing and Northrop Grumman . . . have been winning more contracts from DHS"; as a Boeing spokesman put it: "You’ll still continue to see domestically significant investment on the part of the government and leveraging advances in technology to stand up and meet those emerging threats and needs.”
Of course, the key to sustaining this Security State bonanza -- profit for private industry and power for Security State officials -- is keeping fear levels among the citizenry as high as possible, as National Defense expressly notes, and that is accomplished by fixating even on minor and failed attacks, each one of which is immediately seized upon to justify greater expenditures, expansion of security measures, and a further erosion of rights:
Polls still show that there is increasing public concern about another terrorist attack. It is this fear and an unrealistic American perception of risk that will continue to propel some aspects of the market, analysts say. . . .
Small-scale attacks, whether successful or not, will continue to prompt additional spending, the market analysts at Homeland Security Research Corp. say. They point to the failed 2009 Christmas plot of a man trying to blow up a flight to Detroit with explosives sewn into his underwear and the attempted car-bombing in Times Square early the next year. Though unsuccessful, these events led to immediate White House intervention, congressional hearings and an airport screening upgrade costing more than $1.6 billion.
The LA Times, while skillfully highlighting these wasteful programs, depicts them as some sort of unintended inefficiencies. That is exactly what they are not. None of this is unintended or inefficient but is achieving exactly the purposes for which it is designed. That's true for two reasons.
First, this wastefulness is seen as inefficient only if one falsely assumes that its real objective is to combat Terrorist threats. That is not the purpose of what the U.S. Government does. As Daniel Weeks explains today, the Congress -- contrary to popular opinion -- is not "broken"; it is working perfectly for its actual owners. Or, as he puts it, "Washington isn't broken -- it’s fixed":
Our problem today is not a broken government but a beholden one: government is more beholden to special-interest shareholders who fund campaigns than it is to ordinary voters. Like any sound investor, the funders seek nothing more and nothing less than a handsome return -- deficits be darned -- in the form of tax breaks, subsidies and government contracts.
The LA Times, and most people who denounce these spending "inefficiencies," have the causation backwards: fighting Terrorism isn't the goal that security spending is supposed to fulfill; the security spending (and power vested by surveillance) is the goal itself, and Terrorism is the pretext for it. For that reason, whether the spending efficiently addresses a Terrorism threat is totally irrelevant.
Second, while the Security State has little to do with addressing ostensible Terrorist threats, it has much to do with targeting perceived domestic and political threats, especially threats brought about by social unrest from austerity and the growing wealth gap. This Alternet article by Sarah Jafee, entitled "How the Surveillance State Protects the Interests Of the Ultra-Rich," compiles much evidence -- including what I offered two weeks ago -- demonstrating that the prime aim of the growing Surveillance State is to impose domestic order, preserve prevailing economic prerogatives and stifle dissent and anticipated unrest.
Read the full article at Salon.com
Comments
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72 Comments so far
Show AllAn intelligent, well-written article. So why are the majority of comments from nut cases who think the US government engineered 9-11? A "false flag" operation on that scale is wildly improbable--the odds that it would backfire are simply far too great--it's not a rational option for a ruling elite as smart as ours. No, our government doesn't have to create pretexts, it just has to take advantage of them as they arise. Opportunism is the key to success--today just as much as back when the Reichstag burned.
By advocating foolish theories, you discredit yourselves, and blunt your just criticisms of the real evils--a power-hungry state that uses every excuse to frighten its people and make them obedient, and persuade them to accept vastly expensive but pointless wars. Wars that sustain industries that would be unable to compete, were it not for the huge inflow of government "defense" contracts.
Reynardine- So are you suggesting the Reichstag just caught on fire? Or was it those damn trade unionists that lit the Fire? How about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident? "Remember" the Maine? I am sure the Phillipinos do, even if you do not. You are advocating foolish theories, which do not hold up to the light, or to historical precedence. Your insulting dismissal indicates you would like to derail the conversation, so here is a lifeline- What do you think of the article?
I think the point is that it does not matter who burned down the Reichstag. "Cracking" that "case" would have contributed nothing to the fight against fascism.
Reynardine,
You must have been spoon fed the ‘official story’ for the last ten years. I couldn’t begin to list all of the reasons why the official story could not be true, but most importantly is physics. Those three buildings came down by controlled demolition. That means that someone had to meticulously plant those explosives. Building 7 contained the NY offices of the CIA, FBI and other nefarious acronyms. It was a highly secure building. Government clearance of some type would have been necessary to prepare the building to implode on its own footprint. Who exactly do YOU believe ordered NORAD to ‘stand-down’? Why did Congress allocate more money to investigate Bill Clinton’s cum stain then it did to investigate 9/11? If you believe the official story then I’m afraid that reflects on the value of your opinion about that day. I suggest that some reading about 9/11 truth is in order.
to Reynardine
Its not about conspiracy its about accountability the US empire created Bin laden, not the AFGHANI PEOPLE, NOT THE IRAQI PEOPLE, they created him used him armed him, gave him the legal & diplomatic necessary states, used him to do the horror they perpetrated wolrd wide and ELIMINATED him when his expiring date was due. The same goes with other leaders, dictators & regimes.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Here's an analogy, bin ladin was a gun the us assembled, got the bullets, used the gun for settling accounts with old friends (soviet union) among others, than dumped the gun in the middle of the street fled the scene BUT KEPT WATCHING. The rest is history.
I hold DOD, CIA, NSA, MOST REP & DEM far more ANSWERABLE & ACCOUNTABLE for the incommensurable crimes that took place and events that followed that lead to the Afghani young man & woman that are falling for no reason of their own, not to mention young American, Australian, German soldiers dying for no cause or glory.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
They have done it in LATIN AMERICA for 60 years & never faced the music. They are f.....g starting the pattern in Africa.
On every single level the MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX & DOMINANT CORPORATIONS ARE THE SINGLE GREATEST THREAT, not some little girl in Pakistan or boy in Afghanistan.
THE FIRST THING AMERICA MUST LIBERATE IS ITSELF (whatever America means).
Start with the WORKERS.
it ain't the American people or the Afghani people.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
If we are to point at china about Tibet, than we have to face the 120 Tibets IMPERIALISM has ransacked.
That include the US, ISRAEL & the other four or five YES SIR governments MINUS THE PEOPLE.
No terror no torture just truth
What happened to Building 7?
Why was there no airplane crash debris in Pennsylvania, but just hole in the ground?
Hi Reynardine, "Foolish theories," really? For others reading this, don't let Rey's dismissive labels keep you from looking at the evidence.
More than 1500 credentialed architects and engineers and more than 12000 others, including physicists, metallurgists, chemists and people with a variety of science and other backgrounds, have signed a petition calling into question the NIST reports regarding the destruction of the WTC highrises.
9/11 was a criminal act. We must look at the evidence. The way to peace is back through 9/11. Now is the time. www.ae911truth.org
'Frankly, they own the place.' Sen. Durbin. 2009
But here's the thing - 'They' have nothing to worry about. We The Obese, Lazy, Passive, Terrified, Stupid Majority hate each other, and we will never, ever, ever organize significantly enough to pose any sort of serious threat to Them.
We have been permanently divided and, hence, permanently conquered.
We have only one option left: surrender.
Take it all, Upper Class - we give up. We're tired of getting the shit beat out of us 24/7. You did it - you won the Class War. You own everything. Happy? Good.
Now what?
" fighting Terrorism isn't the goal that security spending is supposed to fulfill; the security spending (and power vested by surveillance) is the goal itself, and Terrorism is the pretext for it. For that reason, whether the spending efficiently addresses a Terrorism threat is totally irrelevant."<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
At last, the light goes on.<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The corporate business form is at the root of all this insanity.
Good article which will be ignored by the "herd" who are known for their "Amerkan exceptionalism"; the most exceptional bunch of craven cowards who ever splattered some Afghan family all over their living room walls with one of our "brave drones"!!
May my last sight on this earth be of these bozos looking down the barrel of one of those Bear Cats and wondering how he suddenly became a Terrorist for marching to restore his Unemployment or Medicare benefits, or have that Reactor yonder closed before it kills him/her and the kids too! Then Bloowy !!
Thank you Glenn! You are always an important voice.
I assumed that it was never about terrorist threats. I didn't even think so ten years ago. It just all seemed quite obvious to me. Like that gun running scheme that the feds have been working in Mexico.
Which is why i can't stand those voices out there who are either pretending or actually are so bought into the fact that the u.s. is the good guys, that they make fun of the way things just don't quite work well, because the assumption is that the intentions are always honorable, underneath it all.
It has become obvious to all but the willfully ignorant that the burgeoning Homeland Security apparatus is meant for us, not 'terrorists'. Private and public entities which study probable outcomes from policies in business, health, climate change and other sectors can easily read the tea leaves on wealth inequality.
Just as the Pentagon war games 6 moves ahead in their insane chess match with China for Mideast resource control, so too do the domestic enforcers with the eventual, mass unrest here. And a military-heavy budget will obviously continue - both foreign and domestic.
Not only do the trillions enable empire and the status quo, the incomprehensible sums of money go directly to name-your-cost corporations. Unlike those egalitarian slackers at the post office or EPA or countless other public employees, corporate managers at Lockheed, Boeing, GE, etc, are free to ladle themselves as much of the gravy as they please. What other way can you guarantee investors billions in 'sales' and dividends EVERY SINGLE year but through the false flag of defense and patriotism? I'd like to see a spread sheet on the ten largest defense contractors and what percentage of their bubble/recession-proof stocks are owned by the top 5 percent of wealth. And no group is more guilty of this heist than those filthy generals who cycle out of the military and into cushy lobbyist gigs with contractors.
“Don’t hate the media: Become the media!”
- Jello Biafra
Alright folks, READ ALL ABOUT IT! -- Low Power FM (LPFM) radio station license applications for non-profit organizations in medium and large-sized cities to commence summer of 2012. This is the first time that’s been done by the FCC in thirty (30) years. Get’em while they’re hot!
This the idea I've been pushing on CD for five years now. This opportunity won't come again. Non-profit progressive groups (including labor interest groups) need to get those licenses while they're hot.
Enough of these stations blanketing a medium-sized or large city with contiguous broadcast ranges could potentially mimic the audience market penetration of large commercial FM stations—ONLY WITHOUT CORPORATE CENSORSHIP.
These stations could become part of a nationwide, populist progressive information cooperative network that airs local programming most of the time but cooperates to concentrate on regional and national issues of importance, averting or responding to crises, and covering independent progressive candidates during election cycles.
The other good idea to get around the Establishment right now is Americanselect.org. Check it out. Via this online idea, anyone can become a citizen delegate and nominate whomever they want and, so the site operators say, get on the ballot in all 50 States. This would circumvent the Dem/GOP/Federal Election Commission lock on the nomination process.
If we had both these ideas, low power FM and citizen delegate nominations in all 50 States—independent of corporate media and the Dem/GOP/FEC nomination Machine, respectively, then we could use the LPFM stations to educate the masses about OUR CANDIDATES and get OUR IDEAS out without having to go through corporate "mainstream" media filters.
CARPE DIEM! Start talking these ideas up in your family, church, community resilience circle, or other progressive group and research what it takes to get these stations up and running. This is a once in a generation-and-a-half opportunity and if we don’t seize it, sooner or later the right-wing will.
So, get off your fat carbo-potato monkey butt and sweat your old agitator mind and body for a change! You progressive retirees who still have your health: There’s no excuse not to. Let me tell you, I’ve worked in radio before and it’s a hell of a lot of fun. It will be even more fun to use radio to help build local community resilience and resistance and stick it to all those creeps who’ve been screwing us locally and nationally since Reagan. And we can use our own media voices that can’t be silenced by corporate media to help locally and nationally organize our own politics to go around theirs!!
"V" for peace and victory over our true oppressors!
to metal with a laughter .
A/men to that.
The Chance for Peace
by Dwight D. Eisenhower
April 16, 1953
Washington, D.C.
(Excerpt of speech}
"What can the world, or any nation in it, hope for if no turning is found on this dread road?
The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated.
The worst is atomic war.
The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealth and the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement.
We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. These plain and cruel truths define the peril and point the hope that come with this spring of 1953.
This is one of those times in the affairs of nations when the gravest choices must be made, if there is to be a turning toward a just and lasting peace.
It is a moment that calls upon the governments of the world to speak their intentions with simplicity and with honesty.
It calls upon them to answer the question that stirs the hearts of all sane men: is there no other way the world may live?"
_______________________________________________________
Our Government and Leaders didn't learn A Fkn thing from this mans words of wisdom...How many of our previous presidents since JFK have known the horrors of war-How many CEO's????
http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/speeches/ike_chance_for_peace.html
SMART METERS IS THE SCAM OF THE DECADE AND MAYBE THE CENTURY.
MUST-SEE 4-minute youtube video on Smart meters:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8JNFr_j6kdI
GG does usual yeoman's work, but this is old news to those paying attention. The fact that you can find out about the rubber boat and other "inefficiencies" ia akin to the criminal owning up to a lesser crime to hide the murder. Since 9-11, DHS has funneled over 40 billion dollars to local law enforcement, with a two-prong agenda; 1) upgrade the surveillance equipment, and 2) engender loyalty from the 'C' students.
Anyone else see the blurb about the Ohio school teacher who sued over being watched through her computer?
The Fourth Reich has won WWIII without even firing a shot. What the hell are we all doing here talking?
Why don't we just give the contactors the money and not make them build any of this junk? Look at all the natural resources and material we can resevere for when the goons are gone. Do you think they would say, "No, we are not in this for the money"? Well let's try.
It is great to have a Glenn Greenwald, Amy Goodman, Ralph Nader, Chris Hedges saying these things.
But, the number one problem is why is it that none of these folks are on national news media coverage enlightening this ignorant country of ours? Hmmmm.
Is it the MIC that controls the media?
In 2011 CNBC took note of the economics-related war-games planned by the Pentagon, including the recent Unified Quest 2011, which will actually be looking at what happens domestically when the financial systems breakdown and how to handle the subsequent civil unrest.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232/?video=1653093678&play=1
While Domestic militarization plans are strategically programed:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/pentagon-has-been-war-gaming-for-economic-disaster-since-early-09/ ; (Quote:
“Army officials met outside Washington last week for a thought experiment about the implications of a large-scale economic breakdown that would force the Army to absorb significant funding cuts and prepare the service for an increased role in keeping domestic order amid civil unrest,” InsideDefense.com reported on the recent games.
The article says officials chose the global financial collapse scenario because “it was deemed a plausible course of events given the current global security environment.”
“In such a future,” it reports, “the United States would be broke, causing a domino effect that would push economies across the globe into chaos.”
The latest game included a grim outlook: cuts in defense and international relations, fragmentation of power, and consolidation of “common functions, like logistics, training, medical services and information systems.”
But there was one “sliver lining” according to the article: “The Army would have an influx of qualified recruits as the result of an unemployment rate between 25 percent and 30 percent.” (end quote)
…And those “recruits” will be your new enforcer …cold to Freedom, Liberty and Democracy as we understand it.
June 18, 2911
http://www.alternet.org/world/151291/the_militarization_of_america%3A_how_the_military_mindset
_is_permeating_our_political_culture_and_society/comments/
Thanks Glenn. I hope you woke up some more people.
The minuscule amounts of treasure and blood expended upon these petty wars and false security, shall pale in comparison to the vast and insurmountable challenges which mankind is about to face... Especially in the wake of your inability to learn from the past in order to prepare for the future... This is not prophecy it is the simple mathematical odds of your current situation... as nature reclaims the ground needed for global climate cycle... And so those who respect the continuum of change, adapt to survive the inevitable... and thus are not affected by that which is perceived as catastrophe by others...
C.H.A.O.S.