Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Our nation has become a military empire analogous to ancient Rome, another Republic that lost its bearings because it became the mightiest fighting force of its time. That we owe this to having spectacularly won what could be called “The Last Just War”, World War II, merely ironically underlines our descent into become the World’s most bellicose nation. This bellicosity has been masked by propaganda that makes us out to be the one nation responsible for ensuring “freedom and safety”. In this strife torn Earth, that idea cannot be supported since the truth is that we are the chief threat to peace in the world today. Now in truth, the use of the United States military to intervene in this Nation and other Nation’s affairs is not simply a phenomenon that began with World War II as you can see from this timeline linked here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations . What World War II marked though was the absolute dominant position in world military power which our country attained during our participation in that war. Given the magnitude of its scope it is easy to forget that for the United States World War II lasted only a brief four years. However, the incredible mobilization of troops and the supporting materiel of war were accomplished via a total mobilization that in the end fully turned the vision of Corporate America towards the great profits and benefits to be derived by American military dominance. Indeed, for generations to come there was a fluidity of personnel between leading corporate entities and the Department of Defense.
Since 2001 our Armed Forces have been totally engaged in two major, unjustified wars and various minor “peace actions”. A child born in 1990 in the U.S. grew up in a world where there has been constant warfare and warfare’s necessary companion glorification of military service. The admixture of America’s warlike behavior and the faux glorification of the nobility of our military has become a constant in that young persons mind, only to better make them future cannon fodder for our dominant Corporate/Military Industrial Complex. Sadly, the less educated that young person is the more they are gullible to the siren call of that propaganda of military glorification. As the Great U.S. General Smedley Butler said so long ago: “War is a racket”.
In truth we honor our soldiers far more in words than in deeds. “America’s Greatest Generation” as establishment mouthpiece Tom Brokaw put it, was also the one generation of military personnel that was actually very well treated in the aftermath of their service. The World War II returning troops were educated via the generous G.I. Bill, had their homes financed through special discount programs and entered the marketplace at a time of phenomenal growth of the U.S. economy due to our country’s new position as the World’s dominant power. Every generation of returning veterans before and after World War II was treated rather shabbily in comparisons, despite the lavish praise given them for their service. The huge backlog in receiving benefits and medical treatment for our latest generation of returning veterans is masked by our presumed “honoring of the troops”, which is constantly accomplished merely in words, with a paucity of actual services delivered.
The reality is that the only real bi-partisanship that exists in our politicians today is that the overwhelming majority of both Democrats and Republicans are enthusiastic supporters of American military hegemony and bought stooges of the Corporate/Military Industrial Complex. That many beyond their corporate donors are indeed true believers in American military supremacy is no doubt true. The fact is that if you were born after let’s say 1960, your view of the world was shaped by American interventionism and American military supremacy. Barack Obama was born in 1961 and one can count him as one of those who for the most part supports America’s military interventionism. The proofs of my assertions are simple. In this time of supposed budgetary crisis, there is barely minimal support for cutting anything out of our Military and Intelligence budget. I lump Military and Intelligence together because there has been such a blurring of the lines between these two formerly discrete government entities, that today it is impossible to distinguish boundaries.
When it comes to my premise for this piece which is that this country will soon be involved in its “next” war, let me explain my reasoning. First of all there is the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room of American politics that almost no one that I’m aware of talks about. We are mired in a recession with countless American unemployed. If we bring our troops home and cut our defense budget we will add hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people to our jobless rolls. Truly, the military has been the escape for many with otherwise poor employment prospects into obtaining a respectable job and the semblance of a future career. By cutting the military/intelligence budget, as things now stand economically in this country, we will recede from “recession” into “depression”. However, without something to justify the existence of our military budget, the U.S. spends more on our military budget than the next thirteen countries combined military expenditures, the truth that we are squandering the riches of this country to support the profits of private corporations becomes obvious. Therefore we need something to justify this unnecessary expense and that is another war.
As I see it there are three good prospects for that coming war, though I won’t preclude that we might fight all three at once. The first prospect is that ever handy, oil rich, example Iran. The justification would be similar to that of Iraq, which is “weapons of mass destruction”. The idea is that we can’t allow a country as unstable as Iran to have nuclear capacity. Underlying this justification is that Iran has a massive supply of oil riches and so would be a prize similar to Iraq and the oil leases we forced Iraq to agree to. Naturally, a partial excuse would be its threat to Israel, but in truth that is merely a convenient overlay for Saudi Arabia’s competition with Iran for dominance in the Muslim world.
A second possibility is intervention in Syria for humanitarian reasons. The Syrian dictator Assad is no doubt a brute, but we live in a world where a great many country’s are ruled by brutes. The “humanitarian” interest in Syria is its strategic location, the presence of American military bases close by and the various economic benefits to be supplied by controlling that country.
Now a third possibility rearing its ugly head comes from the clownish dictator of North Korea. Again we find a nuclear threat involved and also this is paired with the “humanitarian” need to rid this unfortunate country of its hereditary dictator. That North Korea is a failed state, unable to feed its people and geographically located next to one of the World’s great powers China may be ignored because the silly posturing of its’ “dear Leader” can be propagandistically twisted into a “threat” to our country.
It must be noted that possibly the most unstable country to possess nuclear capability in the World today is Pakistan, yet that ill-governed country is somehow never cited as a threat to the U.S., even with its harboring of Osama Bin Laden and of the Taliban, next door to the country we are currently deeply involved in.
These are my reasons for my believing that quite shortly our country will be involved in another war. Unless thinking by both parties in Washington changes drastically, which I don’t see as likely given the gravy train our politicians are on, we will receive the same propagandist buildup as a preparation of the American people for yet another war. We will squander the lives of our troops and the wealth of this country maintaining our role as the “Leader of the World”. We will move ever closer to Rome’s example as a republic turns to empire and the empire is ruled by military heroes and so it goes.
The reader will note that I used no links to back up my suppositions and in truth this guest blog was my meditation on the militaristic character that has prevailed in our nation. However, my musings are not merely the product of a fevered brain this morning, but actually a continuation of an ongoing theme of a portion of my guest blogs. The links below supply the information and detail that have influenced my feelings and a the combination of work that both Gene Howington and myself have produced in the past year or so.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
http://jonathanturley.org/2013/02/09/petraeus-the-problem-with-heroic-hagiography/
http://jonathanturley.org/2013/02/02/why-they-hate-hagel-and-american-mythology/
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/09/15/this-changes-everything/
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/09/08/the-drum-beat-goes-on/
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/08/25/lest-we-forget/
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/06/23/missing-the-point-when-the-point-is-obvious/
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/06/17/propaganda-102-holly-would-and-the-power-of-images/
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/05/20/propaganda-101-what-you-need-to-know-and-why-or/
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/04/01/defending-our-freedoms/
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/03/17/a-real-history-of-the-last-sixty-two-years/
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/02/25/hypocrisy-democracy-whats-going-on/
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/01/07/americas-transcendent-issue/
http://jonathanturley.org/2011/09/24/as-we-careen-towards-a-dream-of-armageddon/
http://jonathanturley.org/2011/09/10/the-president-has-been-afraid-of-what/
Elaine – thanks for the link. This is such a huge story but very few cover it. Everything describe by you, occurred under a Democratic administration – an administration who has refused to prosecute even on single bank executive for anything. Not for activities during the financial crisis – not even for laundering money – billions of dollars to terrorists in the recent case of HSBC who got a fine and a deferred prosecution agreement under Obama’s justice department.
This will not change until “we the people” start to realize that both of these traditional parties are equal partners in this. They talk different games but they do the same things. Whenever I discuss this with friends, especially Democrats, I get in response “but he’s far better than George Bush or Romney”. My response is, “you’ve answered the wrong question” — the right question is “are either right for we the people” — the only reasonable answer to that is “neither” — we need another option.
And, even comparing to George Bush, is he really better ???? Look at Elaine’s post. If you are a banker or corporate CEO, you may very well answer yes, he is better than George Bush. If you, like me, are part of we the people, I think the answer is no, he is not better than George Bush. He is the same.
Eric,
Big Banks’ $76 Billion Per Year Federal Subsidy And What We Need To Do About It
By Avery Goodman
Jul 4 2012
http://seekingalpha.com/article/701081-big-banks-76-billion-per-year-federal-subsidy-and-what-we-need-to-do-about-it
Excerpt:
According to Bloomberg News, the top 18 banks in America are receiving what, in practical terms, amounts to a welfare check in the amount of $76 billion dollars each and every year. This number is approximately the same as the entire profits of the banking industry over the past 12 months. About $14 billion went to JP Morgan Chase alone. Tens of billions went to Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS), Wells Fargo (WFC) and many others.
These numbers do not include extraordinary benefits given during the bailouts of 2008, such as FDIC insurance guarantees on bank-issued bonds, Fed purchases of then-nearly-worthless mortgage backed bonds at much higher than market rates, near zero interest loans directly from the Fed, etc. Add all that and the number would be a lot bigger. The $76 billion arises solely out of the implicit guarantee that the government will not allow “too-big-to-fail” banks to go under. A study by the IMF, cited by Bloomberg, showed that the expectation of government support shaves about 0.8 percentage point off large banks’ borrowing costs.
Using the sum of assets owned by the 18 biggest banks in the USA, the collective government welfare check, each year, amounts to about $76 billion. For those of us who believe in free enterprise, markets and fair competition, this is disheartening. How banking executives can justify typically excessive pay rates, when all their profits are coming from the government? They are, essentially, the highest paid “civil servants” in the history of the world. Some bank CEOs are pulling down “civil service” salaries of $20-$60 million a year!
Recent banking scandals have brought this issue into the light of day, but it is nothing new. The banks have been subsidized for many decades. But, the extent of the subsidy has gotten bigger and bigger over time. Banking “entrepreneurs” like JP Morgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon and his underlings, as well as others with similar propensities, abuse the subsidy even more, by gambling big with taxpayer backed FDIC guaranteed deposits. They’ve learned that they can flip the coin, and tell us: “heads I win, tails you lose. We keep the profits. You keep the losses.”
Mike – great article. Outstanding. You have provided the last “leg” in a theory I have been noodling on – why our governement has been doing certain things — even though they do not seem be working as to the stated purpose. Here’s my theory:
1) Both parties support the very low interest rates we have right now. These have not generated any jobs but they do a couple of things;
– devastate savers, especially older and lower income Americans with bank accounts and CDs instead of stocks (these people are of no use nor the concern of either party anyway.
– corporate exec’s can borrow at very low rates thus keeping profits up despite falling revenues due to the global recession (these folks are important to the pols in both parties)
– bankers are able to borrow at record low levels with the added benefit of the “too big to fail” insurance on their debt. They are not lending this money to small business to hire folks or generate economic growth but they are able to generate large fees from capital markets activities fueled by the cheap money. (these folks are also important to the pols in both parties)
– the cheap money is generating lots of m&a activity — fees for bankers and huge pay days for corporate execs (the folks both parties really care about) — alas, no jobs, or even job reductions for the poor folks (who neither party cares about)
The ONLY PROBLEM, with this, is that it leaves more and more poor folks out of work, and that needs to be handled or we will have social unrest endangering the political and banking/corporate elite.
The solution, as you have so aptly reported, A WAR. How freaking perfect is that. We are doing God’s work, protecting the great republic of the Untied States of America — hell, saving FREEDOM itself. When you get on the plan in your uniform, people will all clap for you as you walk down the isle (your still sitting in the back), and, as you so aptly point out, you will return to poverty, or, if injured, a lifetime of care in a VA hospital that would not pass muster in a third world country.
Oh those poor dumb bast__ds who put on the uniform and rush off to die for people who could not care less about them. And us, who pay taxes and continue to vote for them.
Elaine: To me the problem with globalization, and and argument for strict controls on importations, is that foreign countries set their own laws on the treatment of workers, wages, taxation, workplace safety, worker abuse and endangerment, etc.
Exploitation of workers is profitable, that is why we had to fight a war over slavery, and why we had violent conflicts over unions, and had (and still have) resistance to various laws requiring fair pay, non-discrimination, safe workplaces, etc.
Thus globalization gives large corporations an easy way to bypass OUR laws (using near-slave labor in other countries) and still sell the fruits of their exploitation in the USA.
That makes it impossible for the USA to compete without regressing our workplace regulations to the least common denominator, which is always (and still is today in some countries) abject slavery and no protection at all.
Because if the corporations don’t like a law we pass, they can use some corrupt government somewhere that doesn’t have that law, or is willing to not enforce it for a suitable bribe. It allows large corporations to shop for a set of laws that results in the least cost of production.
What our laws should do is say that if you sell in the USA (or in a state) then all your production must be in accord with the laws of the USA (or in the state you are selling in). I don’t care how hard that might be on corporations. Small companies (like a one-store restaurant) do not get to shop for the laws that apply to them, neither should a large company, certainly if each of them can afford to comply with the laws within their state, so can a much larger company afford to comply with the laws in each state they wish to sell in.
I say the same thing should apply to incorporation: I think if you want to do business in a state, you should be required to incorporate in that state and comply with all the laws of that state; you should not be allowed to avoid taxes, fees or regulations of a state by incorporating in Delaware instead of that state.
I think if you want to do business with the citizens of New York, you should be required to do it by their rules with their protections, as determined by their elected lawmakers.
whats funny is how the left on here speak of the Military Industrial Complex and how evil the government is and willing to get us into wars over and over…..and then……… they want to disarm the citizens and leave us at the mercy of this corrupt MIC/Corporate government.
Now how the hell does that make any sort of sense…….Really people….. Do you really think the government will become better and more trustworthy with an unarmed population?!?!?
“whats funny is how the left on here speak of the Military Industrial Complex and how evil the government is and willing to get us into wars over and over…..and then……… they want to disarm the citizens and leave us at the mercy of this corrupt MIC/Corporate government.”
Felix,
No. What’s really funny is how you stereotype people’s views based on your uninformed pre-judgments of who and what are Right and Left. I for one support the Second Amendment ad have written about that for years here. At the same time I’ve written that politically I am neither “Right” or “Left” because I think those are false terms used by corporations to confuse us.
On the other hand those you probably approve of as being on the “Right” have been the ones to support incursions into peoples private lives in sexual matters and in religious freedom. They have also been the greatest supporters of government welfare for Corporations.
Your problem is I think that you have swallowed much propaganda whole without really trying to understand in depth what is really going on in this country. It was the “Right” under George Bush that supported ignoring the Constitution with its “War on Terror” and they did so with the help of most of the “Left”. Time for you to wake up and begin to understand what’s really going on.
Mike,
“The solution lies not in political philosophies, but in a widespread understanding that with the exception of the 1% we’re all in this together.”
We have members of the wealthy elite and their lackeys who want to keep Democrats and Republicans/liberals and conservatives fighting against each other in hopes they won’t notice what is really happening in this country.
“Paths of Glory” was an outstanding movie!
Mike S.,
I read “The Guns of August” when I was in college. It had an impact on me. I also found Tuchman’s book “The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam” interesting and informative.
Mike S.,
Friedman is one of the entitled elite in this country. He has no clue how we average Americans live–just like many other members of the MSM. I get so upset when I hear so-called “liberal” members of the media talk about how we have to cut social programs like Social Security and Medicare in order to do something about the deficit. Cutbacks in these programs won’t have a negative impact on their lives. They make plenty of money.
“I get so upset when I hear so-called “liberal” members of the media talk about how we have to cut social programs like Social Security and Medicare in order to do something about the deficit.”
Elaine,
I share your upset with those folks. This is why I find it funny when I find myself called either a “Progressive” or a “Liberal”. I deem myself an iconoclast, since I feel all political philosophies expressed by those who would guide us, are masks for egotists. Though there is a difference between the two parties, they both are corporate entities. One believes in “let them eat cake”, while the other believes in “let them eat table scraps”. We see the result in this past election, Romney would as President now be destroying Social Security, while Obama is only taking a bite out of it to mollify the other party. Both solutions are bad, but Romney’s would be more bad. I voted for Obama only in the hopes of delaying the process of fuedalizing this country, in the hope we could marshal ourselves to mount an opposition to corporatism.
The solution lies not in political philosophies, but in a widespread understanding that with the exception of the 1% we’re all in this together.
Mike S.,
This poem is for you:
The End and the Beginning by Wisława Szymborska
April is National Poetry Month. Here’s one of my favorite anti-war poems. It was written by Wilfred Owen.
Dulce et Decorum Est (Favorite Poem Project)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMxeHgBE7ws
******
Wilfred Owen
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/305
Excerpt:
He was wounded in combat in 1917 and evacuated to Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh after being diagnosed with shell shock. There he met another patient, poet Siegfried Sassoon, who served as a mentor and introduced him to well-known literary figures such as Robert Graves and H. G. Wells.
It was at this time Owen wrote many of his most important poems, including “Anthem for Doomed Youth” and “Dulce et Decorum Est”. His poetry often graphically illustrated both the horrors of warfare, the physical landscapes which surrounded him, and the human body in relation to those landscapes. His verses stand in stark contrast to the patriotic poems of war written by earlier poets of Great Britain, such as Rupert Brooke.
Owen rejoined his regiment in Scarborough, June 1918, and in August returned to France. He was awarded the Military Cross for bravery at Amiens. He was killed on November 4 of that year while attempting to lead his men across the Sambre canal at Ors. He was 25 years old. The news reached his parents on November 11, the day of the Armistice. The collected Poems of Wilfred Owen appeared in December 1920, with an introduction by Sassoon, and he has since become one of the most admired poets of World War I.
Elaine,
Thank you for the poetry, which is quite moving and exposes the stupidity and cupidity of almost all warfare. Owen’s work was poignant to me because he died in the horror of WW1. I remember when I was much younger reading Barbara Tuchman’s “Guns of August” and for the first time questioning the basis of that insane and incredibly brutal war. That it laid the groundwork for WW2 makes the futility of its occurrence even more starkly illustrative of the fact that “war is a racket”. Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece “Paths of Glory”, which I saw in my teens, also informed my feelings about WW1. That this film classic was considered “controversial” in its’ time indicates how much this country has been infused with the martial spirit ad how its establishment blocks criticism of that martial spirit.
“America is getting dangerously close to not having a war …”
Yeah, and I might add that war is profiitable to Halliburton, Cheney and car dealers.
Yeah, when Junior comes back from Iraq then the Harolds feel guilty about all the nightmares he is having and goes out an buys Junior a new SUV. I hear it from the car dealers having coffee at t Dennys over in Palm Beach. They now feel guilty about not sending Junior off to Junior College right up the street and now that they made a Man outta Junior and he is seeing the shrink they wanna make him happy with an SUV.
Elaine M. 1, April 13, 2013 at 11:44 pm
…Off topic–but on the subject of Thomas Friedman:
Thomas Friedman and Wealth
By Norman Solomon, the author of a dozen books including “War Made Easy.”
Posted: October 30, 2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman-solomon/thomas-friedman-and-wealt_b_32837.html
…
Friedman’s great wealth is a frame for his window on the world. The Washingtonian reports that “his annual income easily reaches seven figures.” In the Maryland suburbs near Washington, three years ago, “the Friedmans built a palatial 11,400-square-foot house, now valued at $9.3 million,” on a parcel of more than seven acres near Bethesda Country Club and the Beltway.
Throughout his journalistic career, Friedman has been married to Ann Bucksbaum — heiress to a real-estate and shopping-mall fortune now estimated at $2.7 billion. When the couple wed back in 1978, according to The Washingtonian article, Friedman became part of “one of the 100 richest families in the country.”
====================================================
The royal plutocracies of Europe always “married well.”
The non-royal plutocracy which functions as a multinational epigovernment composed of owners of incestuous international corporations also like to “marry well.”
They own the media financial structures and they also own Friedman who is a mouthpiece for their machinations.
So, your comment is really not off topic, seeing as how they are the ones planning the next war Mike S posted about.
I agree with Dredd regarding Elaine’s comments re: Tom Friedman. He has become one of the main spokesman for the Corporate Military Industrial Complex and I would suggest that it is his privileged life and those who he therefore intersects with that informs all of his ignorant opinions. When I first mentioned him I used the adjective execrable with full descriptive intent. Also when Gene H. and I write about propaganda and mythology it is with men like him in mind. Those who follow him slavishly as a knowledgeable pundit either are basking in his praise for their class, or blissfully ignorant of the failure of his predictions.
Conversation overhead at Denny’s:
Wifeypoo: But Harold, he’s only a Freshman, and he’s doin fine at the Junior College.
Harold: College is expensive. Be reasonable. The Marines will make a Man out of him. The recruiter says he can get into officer candidate school.
Wifeypoo: A Man! Did it make a man out of you to go to Nam? Huh, Harold? Learn how to smoke! Cant look down a manhole cause there might be a gook.
Harold: There’s little war action now. We’re leaving Afghanistan. College is expensive. it will make a man outta him.
[ Generation, after generation, after generation. Whether White Castle or Denny’s or MacDonalds. ]
Coming soon, to a theatre near you.
Bomb, bomb, bomb, Bomb bomb Iran.
Oh, Bomb Iraaaan.
I’ll take my staaaand.
Rockin and a rollin, rockin and a reelin,
Bomb Iran!
– Roseann-RoseAnn Adana, Saturday Night Live, 1979.
Has anyone read the story of Russia blacklisting U.S. officials in response to our blacklisting 18 Russians:
(Russia Blacklists Torture Architects). Since we the people in either nation can’t seem to get our governments to adhere to the treaties both nations have signed regarding torture and other human rights violations, perhaps these pressures will assist us in that direction.
Ok. Spring has sprung. Follow your dream in two thousand thirteen.
No more Merkel, done with France, end the Euro, hitch my pants.
Greece gets Drachma, end the trance. Exit Cypress, reveal past.
Denmark, Finland, stick with Krauts. Those for Siesta, mingle South.
“The huge backlog in receiving benefits and medical treatment for our latest generation of returning veterans is masked by our presumed “honoring of the troops”, which is constantly accomplished merely in words, with a paucity of actual services delivered.”
http://thesaurus.com/browse/lip+service
Main Entry: lip service [] Show IPA
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: empty talk
Synonyms: duplicity, empty talk, hollow words, hypocrisy, hypocritical respect, insincerity, jive, lie,lip devotion, lip homage, lip praise, lip reverence, lip worship, mouth honor, mouthing,sham, smooth talk, sweet talk, token agreement, tokenism, tongue in cheek,unctuousness