The war industry, a state within a state, disembowels the nation, stumbles from one military fiasco to the next, strips us of civil liberties and pushes us towards suicidal wars with Russia and China.
The war effort required selling war bonds during WWII. The only way to continue to participate in that war and to pay for it was to sell bonds. Some "clever genius" decided to create an entire taxpayer-funded enterprise (DOD) in order to circumvent the need to "sell" the warring enterprise culture for citizen approval. It is estimated that three million American children go to bed hungry every night while Republican (mostly) Members of Congress want to reduce the cost of SNAP programs. In that thrives a certain depravity and moral disconnect. The Air Force ordered eight F-15EX fighter bombers for $150 million a unit in mid-2020. That's a lot of ham & cheese sandwiches along with a bowl of hot soup. Or. a bowl of warm cereal just before bedtime.
LOL sincere AFTER WWII ended and we weren't under threat anywhere, but rather WERE the threat to the rest of the world through the rabid anti-communist foreign and domestic policies enacted at the same time as it was renamed? It was never accurate to call a fucking war department the Department of "Defense."
And the Constitution's reference to "provide for the common defense" did not mean to engage in war around the world to be in charge, not to become the Roman Empire that collapsed under its own weight trying to do that...
Such clarity - and the statistics to confirm the understanding - but how to break through the iron wall of censorship which exists. This should be billboard omnipresent - front pages of mainstream media outlets - print, radio/TV - other - but not so - the stranglehold of the military industrial complex and its servants is almost total - and yes - Hermann GOERING was right when he stated how easy it was to corral "the people" into supporting whatever war the "leaders" wished to promulgate. As well as to sideline as fifth columnist/traitors those wishing to stand up against the wars... Thanks, Chris Hedges!
First time I read a piece calling this fact out: The U.S. is run by its Military Industrial Complex. The U.S. is NOT a democracy. Not even close. This is immediately obvious if you follow the obscene amounts of money spend unproductively on military infrastructure, weapons, the quasi-socialist military/security-state personnel benefits AND the organizations (such as NATO) whose sole purpose is to feed ever more weapon order to the MIC. I am not a fan of C.H's flowery language, sometimes infused by medieval catholicism, but this piece is as true as anything he has written so far, imho.
C.H. doesn't use "flowery language" - his writing is ornately cutting-edge crystal clear - precise, concise - not as we might say in Australia - of "weasel " verbiage (ref. Don Watson "Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words, Contemporary Clichés, Cant & Management Jargon" - also the author of "Death Sentence" and "Bendable Learnings") And interesting that you might call his Presbyterian/Calvinist moral centre "mediaeval catholicism". Otherwise, however, I am with you in your general assessment of his importance in exposing the M.I.C. of the US.
Just like the "most dangerous man in the world" Daniel Ellsberg. In a very interesting interview at democracynow.org yesterday, Ellsberg said "..There’s increasing information that one year ago, in early April 2022, Zelensky and Putin essentially had an agreement, were within very close to an agreement, on prewar status quo, returning to a prewar status quo in Crimea and the Donbas, in relation to NATO and everything else, but that the U.S. and the British, Boris Johnson, went over and said, “We are not ready for that. We want the war to continue. We will not accept a negotiation.” I would say that was a crime against humanity. And I say that with all seriousness to the idea that we needed to see people killed on both sides in order, quote, “to weaken the Russians,” not for the benefit of the Ukrainians, but for an overall geopolitical strategy, was wicked.
And however the war started, and, I think, with both incredibly bad judgment by Putin, and aggression and atrocity, and, on the other hand, provocation by the United States, in the sense of policies that were consciously foreseen to increase the probability of a Russian crime of this sort, tells me that I think there were a lot of Americans who wanted this war. And they got exactly what they wanted, even better than they could have imagined — huge arms sales to our allies, the U.S. again having an essential role in Europe with an indispensable enemy, an enemy that we could not run the world without, Russia. And Russia stepped into that role very willingly..."
Visit democracynow.org for all our interviews with Dan Ellsberg.
I wasn't making any statement about Catholicism being mediaeval or not - simply that Chris Hedges is not Catholic. (Though if he were - it might possibly be in the tradition of Óscar Romero and liberation theology - made Archbishop of San Salvador in El Salvador at age 59 in 1977 and gunned down while celebrating Mass in a chapel attached to a hospital - three years later - when he was 62. I remember positive news reports about his ministry around the time of his being Archbishop and a sense of shock at his assassination. I was NOT a Catholic myself - in fact an escapee of a US-style fundamentalist Protestant sect in which child sexual abuse occurred, too. Not peculiar to Catholic priests et al.)
The US is run by the financial elites via the FIRE sector which also happens to include numerous stakeholders in the MIC which serves as their mafioso hitmen and muscle worldwide. But you're correct and the USA is not a democracy but rather a republic ruled by corrupt oligarchic plutocrats. An inverted totalitarian corporate/bankster state.
Re: quasi-socialism of the military, that pales in comparison to the socialism doled out to the likes of Wall Street and billionaire investors whose money was in SVB and the other recent "community" banks that failed. That's where the real money is, although I'm not saying it's a bad gig to be a majority shareholder or C-suite denizen at Lockheed Martin et. al.
We are seeing the end result of endless wars and endless colonization, including the 50 states of the USA that are colonies of Washington as the seat of empire. They are being cannibalized just as Western Europe has been by blowing up Nord Stream. Not only are leaders infantilized with their moral compasses shot to hell, so too are populations.
The tragedy is far from being merely American. It is global as this is WW lll at a time in history when a highly integrated over populated planet with immense challenges to be faced simply cannot afford war.
There are two options now: leave the US to just grind down to being an impotent failed state ( with great collateral damage to the rest of the world): or, the world community taking a much stronger diplomatic effort to let US know its belligerence is no longer allowed. The US has to been weaned off the idea that war is a solution and cannot be the only language speaks .
It is very unfortunate the UN is in Washington's hip pocket as it could be playing a much stronger role. As it stands the UN is going to end up like its predecessor the League of Nations, useless and abandoned .
The West really is its own worst enemy refusing to face the consequences of its own bad decisions and policies. Scapegoating Russia and China is utterly infantile and the delusional ambition of breaking up those countries is absurd at this point in history and utterly Pyrrhic.
We need good old common sense where there is none to be had. Statesmanship in America ended with FDR . The great decline began with the CIA, \ the Dulles brothers and the assassinations of JFK and others.
Getting a handle on reality starts with knowing history. It is who we are and where we are headed.
"There are two options now: leave the US to just grind down to being an impotent failed state ( with great collateral damage to the rest of the world): or, the world community taking a much stronger diplomatic effort to let US know its belligerence is no longer allowed. "
The USA doesn't care about diplomacy. The only answer I can see is more of the world joining the BRICS group. If Europe goes its all over. This is quite possible, as with Nordstreem the USA more or less declared war on Europe and is making every efforts to suck out their wealth.
War is Hell. War is a Racket. War is the health of the State. War is "just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind" War is sociopathic elites gambling with resources and other people's lives to try and get even more power and wealth for themselves.
We’re like the children following the Pied Piper, a military drunk on its inflated power complex and its paranoid, desperate need to control. I wonder about the level of psycho- spiritual awareness among these people who must mirror some inner deficit in us. Otherwise why would we (be so blindly acquiescent with)put up with this madness that impoverishes us all? I cannot also help but wonder at what might be the lack of personal agency with which the majority of the citizenry live their lives that compensation is sought unconsciously in the military (and owning personal guns). And that the military’s track record is suggestive more of impotency feels terribly ironic. It seems the USA collective cannot accept some essential truth about life/death/life , existence. We allow ourselves to be run by the military and the empty fancy suits and Italian shoes corporate fraternity, the ‘ruling’ class.
How is it that the years long bombing campaign on Laos, eventually dropping 2 million tons of bombs on straw houses, a number equal to WW2 bombing in both Europe and the Pacific, doesn't rise to the level of My Lai massacre? One must assume as you go down the ranks you encounter greater morality. That the worst, the most immoral must be the President and their cabinet.
A great friend and mentor was a former Minister for the Economy & Planning in Laos from the early mid-1960s till US destabilisation via bombing had permitted the rise of the Pathet Lao and its takeover decade later. His studies out of his Lycée in Ha-Noi and a PhD from the Sorbonne saw him return to Laos and immediately appointed as Director-General of Education in 1962 - with strategies designed to protect the countries cultural heritage while implementing new systems of educational progress - moving into politics as a means of controlling the finances required for that implementation and to bring recognition to the ruling elite of the importance of the rural farming communities - among which he had himself grown up. I was privileged to work with him - in early 1979 - and to have been a friend over all the years since - last seeing him at a Lao New Year baci in Sydney just two years ago.
Yes, We know and have known now for more than a year. The appropriate question is, "What can we do and what are we doing to combat it?" Granted, there are organized doctors and lawyers, scientists, smart investigative journalists, a few courageous politicians, all working toward legal and political rebellion. It is like a get-together of chickens after the fox enters the hen house. What is really significant are the millions of people who have been awakened by aforementioned valuable professionals and explosive online videos (an estimated 32 million have seen "Died Suddenly"). To expect an awakened majority, given propaganda and years of dumbed-down education, is unrealistic and counter productive. As we approach the magical 25% figure for a "saving remnant" of civilization, we wisely must look toward outspoken massive dissent, the same type of activism that finally stopped the Vietnam war in the 1960's and 1970's. Of course, we must support outspoken scientists, lawyers, and medical professionals. They, in turn, must support a generation that responds to revolutionary sentiments and activities such as described at wisebird.com
CHRIS HEDGES IS THE GREATEST PROGRESSIVE AND HONEST WRITER OF THIS CENTURY. GOD BLESS HIM. AND WE ALL CAN THANK GOD FOR A CHRIS HEDGES. HE IS A TRUE PROPHET WITH AN AUTHENTIC SPIRITUALITY FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE FOR ALL ON THE PLANET. LIBERATION FOR ALL. ACCOUNTABILITY FOR ALL- FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC.
Of course, both Team R and Team D compete as to whose rhetoric is more rabid, whose aggression is more unhinged (this word is typically pronounced "tough") and both Team R and Team D look for any opportunity to paint the other as craven cowards.
It gains votes. It doesn't help that many millions of voters (how many?) depend either directly or indirectly on military spending. They aren't going to vote for a pay cut. Not to mention the widespread love of weapons. When I lived in northern Michigan the grocery store sold 25 different magazines about hunting and 25 about guns. The idea that the only good foreigner is a dead one is common.
Correct. Unfortunately there are millions of middle class PMC and affluent workers who benefit greatly from the war machine. They are as much a problem as the Power Elite. We are contending with powerful propaganda machine saturating us with images and feelings of American righteousness and exceptionalism. Nearly everybody has consumed an entire lifetime of propaganda telling us the US is a noble force for good in the world. We would never ever drop the entire tonnage of bombs dropped during WW2 on multiple different countries a couple times over, or support military dictator after military dictator across the globe. Yet that is what we did and continue to do. You can factually say that the US and our proxies have killed well over 20 million since 1945 - we've committed the holocaust a couple times over. We even have our leaders going on television saying "The deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children was 'worth it.'" The cognitive dissonance required to be an unplugged American is insane.
It ain't just the PMC. A lot of factory workers depend on a bloated Pentagon for their jobs.
Any time a major new weapons system is pitched, the manufacturers try to distribute subassembly and subcontracting in as many Congressional districts as possible, thereby to secure Congressional approval.
Right you are Feral, the oligarchy hooked them just like a heroin dealer does, with an army of low level dealers. They designed a strategic national gun belt around the USA. Hooking state after state on military spending. Which made them addicts of war and the compulsive need for more wars. The only real trickle down economy. The same one John Kenneth Galbreath described , "you feed the horse oats and the sparrows get to pick out what comes out the rear end". Then to top it off, patriotic sparrows who's parents worked for the MIC go out and kill or be killed by the products they made. The same products that paid for mortgages, school, food, clothing and sport programs. Reminds me of "Johnny Got His Gun" where the shell with Johnny's name on it, was being simultaneously assembled while in training.
It is astonishing that an entire generation of Americans has grown up with the country continuously at war somewhere in the world. This is passed off as normal, routine, and not subject to discussion or debate. Militarism on this scale is a sickness.
Imperialists used to call it the "white mans burden". At a time when it was a given that white people were superior. Mark Twain wrote an essay in 1901 called "To the Person Sitting in Darkness" describing Imperial hegemony and the spreading of "democracy". Twain serves a stinging ridicule that he does so well "Extending the blessings of civilization to our "brothers" who sit in darkness has been good trade and has paid well.....most of those people that sit in darkness have been furnished with more light than was good for them or profitable for us". "The blessings of civilization are all right, and a good commercial property; there could not be better, in a dim light, in the right kind of a light and at a proper distance, with the goods a little out of focus, they furnish the desirable exhibit.... LOVE, JUSTICE, LAW AND ORDER ,LIBERTY, GENTLENESS EQUALITY CHRISTIANITY, HONORABLE DEALING, MERCY, EDUCATION, TEMPERANCE, EDUCATION and so on. "There is it good? SIR IT IS PIE". "this brand is strictly for export...privately and confidentially, it is merely an outside cover, gay and pretty and attractive, displaying the special patterns of our civilization which we reserve for home consumption, while inside the bale is the actual thing that the customer sitting in darkness buys with his blood and tears and land and liberty. That actual thing is, indeed, civilization, but is only for export". At the time of his writing the Boer war, Spanish American war, the Philippine war and the Boxer Rebellion were raging. I will leave you with his example of war from a British Soldier from the Boar War. "we tore up the hill and into the intrenchments, and the Boers saw we had them, so they dropped their guns and went down on their knees and put up their hands clasped and begged for mercy. And we gave it to them --- with the long spoon ( a bayonet). A hundred and twenty years later the same maniacs' run the world!
P.S. there are two versions of Twains article the original included descriptions of NY's east side, and the hypocrisy of Rev. Ament . Including a racist joke of the indemnities paid mostly by China's poor. "Taels we win, Heads you lose". Especially his own Christian doctrine of revenge "the soft hand of the American is not as good as the mailed fist of the Germans". "Sometimes an ordained minister sets out to be blasphemous. When this happens the laymen is out of the running; he stands no chance." "Shall we? That is shall we go on conferring our civilization upon the peoples...or shall we give those poor things a rest? Would it not be prudent to get our Civilization-tools together, and see how much stock is left on hand in the way of glass beads and theology and Maxim guns and hymn books and trade gin and torches of progress and enlightenment and balance the books and arrive at profit and loss, so that we may intelligently decide whether to sell out the property and start a new civilization scheme on the proceeds?" The answer in 2023 is a resounding NO!
We cannot blame the soldiers for the failures in our war efforts, or the engagement in everything since Korea just for politics and money. I served in the US Army from 1971-1983, did three years in the Korea forward area (forward area air defense--Hawk), three years in Germany (which included 9 weeks on Crete), and the rest of my time was spent at Ft. Bliss, Texas. My experience back then taught me a lot of lessons about what the motives were for various actions (with nothing really to win anyway) around the world, and even why so many of our weapons systems cost way so much more than they should. One of my sons served on the Pakistan border (FOB Salerno) and I learned from him so many things about the Afghanistan thing. The failures and totally inexcusable conflicts our government has encouraged and engaged in are the direct responsibility of top military leadership, Congresspeople controlled by corporate funding, and the complete lack of accountability for military-industrial profits and CIA actions. The American people have been led to believe there are reasons for where we are involved, and far too much of it is all lies.
If past is prologue, we don't have much to look forward to. Add in now-unstoppable covid and biosphere collapse ("climate change" for the soft-headed), and...what a show!
Chris, this mourning’s ‘Democracy Now’ included the truth of “The Quiet American” Empire’s insane death dance -- as Daniel Ellsberg clearly articulated from his dying plea to stop the “War-Ginning Insanity” as never before. We are faced with two presidential pawns in voting for either the Megalomaniac or the Empty Suit. Ellsberg detailed the insanity of more and more War since the ‘Silent Coup’ of Henry Wallace, FDR’s brilliant democratic socialist sitting VP -- who was torpedoed and physically blocked from taking the podium when over 65% of the delegates roared for his succession beyond April death of FDR.
Ellsberg, even dying from pancreatic cancer, is still, “The Most Dangerous Man in the World” against “The Quiet American” EMPIRE of War and self destruction by planned insanity of the War Gods in our name.
As reverend Wright said -- “Not God Bless America” -- but “God Damned America”
As my double-sided demonstration signs simply say with 90% favorability in Portland Maine and Portsmouth NH:
Chris, I am now upping-up with my newest simple double-sided demonstration signs to the approval of over 60% of Portland Mainers since I ran against Chellie Pingree:
It was at least more honest when between 1789 and 1947 it was called The Department of War.
The war effort required selling war bonds during WWII. The only way to continue to participate in that war and to pay for it was to sell bonds. Some "clever genius" decided to create an entire taxpayer-funded enterprise (DOD) in order to circumvent the need to "sell" the warring enterprise culture for citizen approval. It is estimated that three million American children go to bed hungry every night while Republican (mostly) Members of Congress want to reduce the cost of SNAP programs. In that thrives a certain depravity and moral disconnect. The Air Force ordered eight F-15EX fighter bombers for $150 million a unit in mid-2020. That's a lot of ham & cheese sandwiches along with a bowl of hot soup. Or. a bowl of warm cereal just before bedtime.
Great interview between: Col Doug Macgregor and Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom
Ukraine & the Globalist War Mongers -
It was sincere at the time of 1947. Now I think they should rename it the Department of Freedom.
LOL sincere AFTER WWII ended and we weren't under threat anywhere, but rather WERE the threat to the rest of the world through the rabid anti-communist foreign and domestic policies enacted at the same time as it was renamed? It was never accurate to call a fucking war department the Department of "Defense."
And the Constitution's reference to "provide for the common defense" did not mean to engage in war around the world to be in charge, not to become the Roman Empire that collapsed under its own weight trying to do that...
Yup.
Such clarity - and the statistics to confirm the understanding - but how to break through the iron wall of censorship which exists. This should be billboard omnipresent - front pages of mainstream media outlets - print, radio/TV - other - but not so - the stranglehold of the military industrial complex and its servants is almost total - and yes - Hermann GOERING was right when he stated how easy it was to corral "the people" into supporting whatever war the "leaders" wished to promulgate. As well as to sideline as fifth columnist/traitors those wishing to stand up against the wars... Thanks, Chris Hedges!
First time I read a piece calling this fact out: The U.S. is run by its Military Industrial Complex. The U.S. is NOT a democracy. Not even close. This is immediately obvious if you follow the obscene amounts of money spend unproductively on military infrastructure, weapons, the quasi-socialist military/security-state personnel benefits AND the organizations (such as NATO) whose sole purpose is to feed ever more weapon order to the MIC. I am not a fan of C.H's flowery language, sometimes infused by medieval catholicism, but this piece is as true as anything he has written so far, imho.
C.H. doesn't use "flowery language" - his writing is ornately cutting-edge crystal clear - precise, concise - not as we might say in Australia - of "weasel " verbiage (ref. Don Watson "Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words, Contemporary Clichés, Cant & Management Jargon" - also the author of "Death Sentence" and "Bendable Learnings") And interesting that you might call his Presbyterian/Calvinist moral centre "mediaeval catholicism". Otherwise, however, I am with you in your general assessment of his importance in exposing the M.I.C. of the US.
Agreed. This is a minor point, best ignored. Let's do so.
Which also accounts for why he's blacklisted from US corporate media. His kind of clarity is not welcome.
Just like the "most dangerous man in the world" Daniel Ellsberg. In a very interesting interview at democracynow.org yesterday, Ellsberg said "..There’s increasing information that one year ago, in early April 2022, Zelensky and Putin essentially had an agreement, were within very close to an agreement, on prewar status quo, returning to a prewar status quo in Crimea and the Donbas, in relation to NATO and everything else, but that the U.S. and the British, Boris Johnson, went over and said, “We are not ready for that. We want the war to continue. We will not accept a negotiation.” I would say that was a crime against humanity. And I say that with all seriousness to the idea that we needed to see people killed on both sides in order, quote, “to weaken the Russians,” not for the benefit of the Ukrainians, but for an overall geopolitical strategy, was wicked.
And however the war started, and, I think, with both incredibly bad judgment by Putin, and aggression and atrocity, and, on the other hand, provocation by the United States, in the sense of policies that were consciously foreseen to increase the probability of a Russian crime of this sort, tells me that I think there were a lot of Americans who wanted this war. And they got exactly what they wanted, even better than they could have imagined — huge arms sales to our allies, the U.S. again having an essential role in Europe with an indispensable enemy, an enemy that we could not run the world without, Russia. And Russia stepped into that role very willingly..."
Visit democracynow.org for all our interviews with Dan Ellsberg.
I wasn't making any statement about Catholicism being mediaeval or not - simply that Chris Hedges is not Catholic. (Though if he were - it might possibly be in the tradition of Óscar Romero and liberation theology - made Archbishop of San Salvador in El Salvador at age 59 in 1977 and gunned down while celebrating Mass in a chapel attached to a hospital - three years later - when he was 62. I remember positive news reports about his ministry around the time of his being Archbishop and a sense of shock at his assassination. I was NOT a Catholic myself - in fact an escapee of a US-style fundamentalist Protestant sect in which child sexual abuse occurred, too. Not peculiar to Catholic priests et al.)
The US is run by the financial elites via the FIRE sector which also happens to include numerous stakeholders in the MIC which serves as their mafioso hitmen and muscle worldwide. But you're correct and the USA is not a democracy but rather a republic ruled by corrupt oligarchic plutocrats. An inverted totalitarian corporate/bankster state.
Re: quasi-socialism of the military, that pales in comparison to the socialism doled out to the likes of Wall Street and billionaire investors whose money was in SVB and the other recent "community" banks that failed. That's where the real money is, although I'm not saying it's a bad gig to be a majority shareholder or C-suite denizen at Lockheed Martin et. al.
We are seeing the end result of endless wars and endless colonization, including the 50 states of the USA that are colonies of Washington as the seat of empire. They are being cannibalized just as Western Europe has been by blowing up Nord Stream. Not only are leaders infantilized with their moral compasses shot to hell, so too are populations.
The tragedy is far from being merely American. It is global as this is WW lll at a time in history when a highly integrated over populated planet with immense challenges to be faced simply cannot afford war.
There are two options now: leave the US to just grind down to being an impotent failed state ( with great collateral damage to the rest of the world): or, the world community taking a much stronger diplomatic effort to let US know its belligerence is no longer allowed. The US has to been weaned off the idea that war is a solution and cannot be the only language speaks .
It is very unfortunate the UN is in Washington's hip pocket as it could be playing a much stronger role. As it stands the UN is going to end up like its predecessor the League of Nations, useless and abandoned .
The West really is its own worst enemy refusing to face the consequences of its own bad decisions and policies. Scapegoating Russia and China is utterly infantile and the delusional ambition of breaking up those countries is absurd at this point in history and utterly Pyrrhic.
We need good old common sense where there is none to be had. Statesmanship in America ended with FDR . The great decline began with the CIA, \ the Dulles brothers and the assassinations of JFK and others.
Getting a handle on reality starts with knowing history. It is who we are and where we are headed.
"There are two options now: leave the US to just grind down to being an impotent failed state ( with great collateral damage to the rest of the world): or, the world community taking a much stronger diplomatic effort to let US know its belligerence is no longer allowed. "
The USA doesn't care about diplomacy. The only answer I can see is more of the world joining the BRICS group. If Europe goes its all over. This is quite possible, as with Nordstreem the USA more or less declared war on Europe and is making every efforts to suck out their wealth.
War is a defeat for humanity.
War is Hell. War is a Racket. War is the health of the State. War is "just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind" War is sociopathic elites gambling with resources and other people's lives to try and get even more power and wealth for themselves.
We’re like the children following the Pied Piper, a military drunk on its inflated power complex and its paranoid, desperate need to control. I wonder about the level of psycho- spiritual awareness among these people who must mirror some inner deficit in us. Otherwise why would we (be so blindly acquiescent with)put up with this madness that impoverishes us all? I cannot also help but wonder at what might be the lack of personal agency with which the majority of the citizenry live their lives that compensation is sought unconsciously in the military (and owning personal guns). And that the military’s track record is suggestive more of impotency feels terribly ironic. It seems the USA collective cannot accept some essential truth about life/death/life , existence. We allow ourselves to be run by the military and the empty fancy suits and Italian shoes corporate fraternity, the ‘ruling’ class.
How is it that the years long bombing campaign on Laos, eventually dropping 2 million tons of bombs on straw houses, a number equal to WW2 bombing in both Europe and the Pacific, doesn't rise to the level of My Lai massacre? One must assume as you go down the ranks you encounter greater morality. That the worst, the most immoral must be the President and their cabinet.
A great friend and mentor was a former Minister for the Economy & Planning in Laos from the early mid-1960s till US destabilisation via bombing had permitted the rise of the Pathet Lao and its takeover decade later. His studies out of his Lycée in Ha-Noi and a PhD from the Sorbonne saw him return to Laos and immediately appointed as Director-General of Education in 1962 - with strategies designed to protect the countries cultural heritage while implementing new systems of educational progress - moving into politics as a means of controlling the finances required for that implementation and to bring recognition to the ruling elite of the importance of the rural farming communities - among which he had himself grown up. I was privileged to work with him - in early 1979 - and to have been a friend over all the years since - last seeing him at a Lao New Year baci in Sydney just two years ago.
Yes, We know and have known now for more than a year. The appropriate question is, "What can we do and what are we doing to combat it?" Granted, there are organized doctors and lawyers, scientists, smart investigative journalists, a few courageous politicians, all working toward legal and political rebellion. It is like a get-together of chickens after the fox enters the hen house. What is really significant are the millions of people who have been awakened by aforementioned valuable professionals and explosive online videos (an estimated 32 million have seen "Died Suddenly"). To expect an awakened majority, given propaganda and years of dumbed-down education, is unrealistic and counter productive. As we approach the magical 25% figure for a "saving remnant" of civilization, we wisely must look toward outspoken massive dissent, the same type of activism that finally stopped the Vietnam war in the 1960's and 1970's. Of course, we must support outspoken scientists, lawyers, and medical professionals. They, in turn, must support a generation that responds to revolutionary sentiments and activities such as described at wisebird.com
CHRIS HEDGES IS THE GREATEST PROGRESSIVE AND HONEST WRITER OF THIS CENTURY. GOD BLESS HIM. AND WE ALL CAN THANK GOD FOR A CHRIS HEDGES. HE IS A TRUE PROPHET WITH AN AUTHENTIC SPIRITUALITY FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE FOR ALL ON THE PLANET. LIBERATION FOR ALL. ACCOUNTABILITY FOR ALL- FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC.
Of course, both Team R and Team D compete as to whose rhetoric is more rabid, whose aggression is more unhinged (this word is typically pronounced "tough") and both Team R and Team D look for any opportunity to paint the other as craven cowards.
It gains votes. It doesn't help that many millions of voters (how many?) depend either directly or indirectly on military spending. They aren't going to vote for a pay cut. Not to mention the widespread love of weapons. When I lived in northern Michigan the grocery store sold 25 different magazines about hunting and 25 about guns. The idea that the only good foreigner is a dead one is common.
Correct. Unfortunately there are millions of middle class PMC and affluent workers who benefit greatly from the war machine. They are as much a problem as the Power Elite. We are contending with powerful propaganda machine saturating us with images and feelings of American righteousness and exceptionalism. Nearly everybody has consumed an entire lifetime of propaganda telling us the US is a noble force for good in the world. We would never ever drop the entire tonnage of bombs dropped during WW2 on multiple different countries a couple times over, or support military dictator after military dictator across the globe. Yet that is what we did and continue to do. You can factually say that the US and our proxies have killed well over 20 million since 1945 - we've committed the holocaust a couple times over. We even have our leaders going on television saying "The deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children was 'worth it.'" The cognitive dissonance required to be an unplugged American is insane.
It ain't just the PMC. A lot of factory workers depend on a bloated Pentagon for their jobs.
Any time a major new weapons system is pitched, the manufacturers try to distribute subassembly and subcontracting in as many Congressional districts as possible, thereby to secure Congressional approval.
Right you are Feral, the oligarchy hooked them just like a heroin dealer does, with an army of low level dealers. They designed a strategic national gun belt around the USA. Hooking state after state on military spending. Which made them addicts of war and the compulsive need for more wars. The only real trickle down economy. The same one John Kenneth Galbreath described , "you feed the horse oats and the sparrows get to pick out what comes out the rear end". Then to top it off, patriotic sparrows who's parents worked for the MIC go out and kill or be killed by the products they made. The same products that paid for mortgages, school, food, clothing and sport programs. Reminds me of "Johnny Got His Gun" where the shell with Johnny's name on it, was being simultaneously assembled while in training.
I have heard the term "military Keynesianisn" used.
Pity that they couldn't spend tax dollars on projects that don't deliver a negative return on investment.
Yep. Those well paid often Union workers I'd describe as 'affluent workers'. Workers making 75k plus/year.
It is astonishing that an entire generation of Americans has grown up with the country continuously at war somewhere in the world. This is passed off as normal, routine, and not subject to discussion or debate. Militarism on this scale is a sickness.
Imperialists used to call it the "white mans burden". At a time when it was a given that white people were superior. Mark Twain wrote an essay in 1901 called "To the Person Sitting in Darkness" describing Imperial hegemony and the spreading of "democracy". Twain serves a stinging ridicule that he does so well "Extending the blessings of civilization to our "brothers" who sit in darkness has been good trade and has paid well.....most of those people that sit in darkness have been furnished with more light than was good for them or profitable for us". "The blessings of civilization are all right, and a good commercial property; there could not be better, in a dim light, in the right kind of a light and at a proper distance, with the goods a little out of focus, they furnish the desirable exhibit.... LOVE, JUSTICE, LAW AND ORDER ,LIBERTY, GENTLENESS EQUALITY CHRISTIANITY, HONORABLE DEALING, MERCY, EDUCATION, TEMPERANCE, EDUCATION and so on. "There is it good? SIR IT IS PIE". "this brand is strictly for export...privately and confidentially, it is merely an outside cover, gay and pretty and attractive, displaying the special patterns of our civilization which we reserve for home consumption, while inside the bale is the actual thing that the customer sitting in darkness buys with his blood and tears and land and liberty. That actual thing is, indeed, civilization, but is only for export". At the time of his writing the Boer war, Spanish American war, the Philippine war and the Boxer Rebellion were raging. I will leave you with his example of war from a British Soldier from the Boar War. "we tore up the hill and into the intrenchments, and the Boers saw we had them, so they dropped their guns and went down on their knees and put up their hands clasped and begged for mercy. And we gave it to them --- with the long spoon ( a bayonet). A hundred and twenty years later the same maniacs' run the world!
P.S. there are two versions of Twains article the original included descriptions of NY's east side, and the hypocrisy of Rev. Ament . Including a racist joke of the indemnities paid mostly by China's poor. "Taels we win, Heads you lose". Especially his own Christian doctrine of revenge "the soft hand of the American is not as good as the mailed fist of the Germans". "Sometimes an ordained minister sets out to be blasphemous. When this happens the laymen is out of the running; he stands no chance." "Shall we? That is shall we go on conferring our civilization upon the peoples...or shall we give those poor things a rest? Would it not be prudent to get our Civilization-tools together, and see how much stock is left on hand in the way of glass beads and theology and Maxim guns and hymn books and trade gin and torches of progress and enlightenment and balance the books and arrive at profit and loss, so that we may intelligently decide whether to sell out the property and start a new civilization scheme on the proceeds?" The answer in 2023 is a resounding NO!
Mark Twain was a real one. See also Randolph Bourne "The State", written 1918.
We cannot blame the soldiers for the failures in our war efforts, or the engagement in everything since Korea just for politics and money. I served in the US Army from 1971-1983, did three years in the Korea forward area (forward area air defense--Hawk), three years in Germany (which included 9 weeks on Crete), and the rest of my time was spent at Ft. Bliss, Texas. My experience back then taught me a lot of lessons about what the motives were for various actions (with nothing really to win anyway) around the world, and even why so many of our weapons systems cost way so much more than they should. One of my sons served on the Pakistan border (FOB Salerno) and I learned from him so many things about the Afghanistan thing. The failures and totally inexcusable conflicts our government has encouraged and engaged in are the direct responsibility of top military leadership, Congresspeople controlled by corporate funding, and the complete lack of accountability for military-industrial profits and CIA actions. The American people have been led to believe there are reasons for where we are involved, and far too much of it is all lies.
If past is prologue, we don't have much to look forward to. Add in now-unstoppable covid and biosphere collapse ("climate change" for the soft-headed), and...what a show!
Chris, this mourning’s ‘Democracy Now’ included the truth of “The Quiet American” Empire’s insane death dance -- as Daniel Ellsberg clearly articulated from his dying plea to stop the “War-Ginning Insanity” as never before. We are faced with two presidential pawns in voting for either the Megalomaniac or the Empty Suit. Ellsberg detailed the insanity of more and more War since the ‘Silent Coup’ of Henry Wallace, FDR’s brilliant democratic socialist sitting VP -- who was torpedoed and physically blocked from taking the podium when over 65% of the delegates roared for his succession beyond April death of FDR.
Ellsberg, even dying from pancreatic cancer, is still, “The Most Dangerous Man in the World” against “The Quiet American” EMPIRE of War and self destruction by planned insanity of the War Gods in our name.
As reverend Wright said -- “Not God Bless America” -- but “God Damned America”
As my double-sided demonstration signs simply say with 90% favorability in Portland Maine and Portsmouth NH:
DEMOCRATIC
SOCIALISM
LOVE FOR
PEACE
Chris, I am now upping-up with my newest simple double-sided demonstration signs to the approval of over 60% of Portland Mainers since I ran against Chellie Pingree:
LOVE
OVER
VIOLENT
EMPIRE
and on the other side:
DEMOCRATIC
SOCIALISM
vs.
CAPITALIST
CANCER
Incendiary writing, and absolutely spot on. Will share widely.