The ‘defense’ budget is three quarters of a trillion dollars. Profits went up last year well over 25%. I guarantee you: when war becomes that profitable, we’re going to see more of it. –Chalmers Johnson
Until it is no longer the case that Most US Citizens Have No Idea What Our Government Does Or Who It Serves, I am just going to continue to insist that #muchniwogdowis is simply the GREATEST ACRONYM EVAR™!!!11!!!
Today’s demonstration of its awesomeness is an Op-Ed in The Nation by former Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) entitledWhy Is the Foreign Policy Establishment Spoiling for More War? Look at Their Donors. He is “fed up with the DC policy elite who cash in on war while presenting themselves as experts, at the cost of other people’s lives, our national fortune, and the sacred honor of our country.”
It’s kind of adorable that Kucinich thinks our country has some sort of “sacred honor” going for it. Nevertheless, I have always liked this d00d.
Kucinich brought Articles of Impeachment against Dick Cheney and George W. Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors in connection with the Iraq war. His efforts went precisely nowhere (“impeachment is not on our agenda.” -Nancy Pelosi). When he ran for president in 2008, Kucinich’s platform included: single-payer universal health care; bans on offshore drilling, toxic pesticides and privatizing Social Security; legalizing pot and ending the War on Drugs; and—my personal favorite—creating a cabinet-level “Department of Peace” to foster international cooperation. That last one naturally made him the laughingstock of the beltway press, punditocracy and Congress. There’s no money in peace FFS! Well, not for the right people anyway. NO ONE WANTS THAT. When Kucinich ran for a newly redistricted House seat in 2012, he was defeated in the Democratic primary by Squirrel Person Marcy Kaptur (D-Forced Birth Brigades).
the Brookings Institute in particular. He notes that Brookings, “in a report to Congress, admitted it received $250,000 from the US Central Command, Centcom…Pentagon money to think tanks that endorse war?” And the Generals’ preferred war policies isn’t the only thing Brookings is shilling for: as Kucinich notes, the Food and Drug Administration, the US Department of transportation and the US Department of Health and Human Services all give money—taxpayer money—to Brookings, which in turn promotes these agencies’ preferred policies to Congress and the press with the sheen of academic gravitas and objectivity.
He says in the piece:
“It is our patriotic duty to expose why the DC foreign-policy establishment and its sponsors have not learned from their failures and instead are repeating them, with the acquiescence of the political class and sleepwalkers with press passes.”
Why? Because from their perspective these are not failures—not at all. See, what informed, rational citizens who value the security and wellbeing of humanity here and around the globe might call “fucking epic foreign policy disasters,” are instead for the bipartisan DC establishment wicked smart, wildly successful, solid business decisions.
Dennis Kucinich knows this of course; the point of his article is to shed some light on the real winners of our wars, and some of the dynamics at work that virtually ensure their continued victory. He’s just connecting the dots into a picture that anyone can see if we cared to look. Generally speaking, we don’t. It’s an ugly picture.
I think I’ll just close with the hallowed words of preeminent 20th century philosopher Boy George:
War is stupid, and people are stupid
And love means nothing in some strange quarters.
Have a nice day.
Word.
Lately I have been trying to organize my thoughts on politics and in the past few days I’ve had something of an epiphany (although lack of sleep over the past few days means this epiphany is equal odds sheer brilliance or absolute stupidity).
Namely, I see the world engaged in two separate and largely unrelated wars. There’s the culture war – the struggle for social equality, liberty, respect, and dignity. This is a war of ideas, where Donald Trump and his like are the enemy. Orthogonal to this, there is the political war. This is the war of economics and power, the war against corruption and inside trading. This is also the war against literal war – the war against the F-35, the war against spending $20 billion a year manufacturing nukes, the war against oil pipelines in dangerous places. In this war, Hillary Clinton is an enemy. Donald Trump isn’t even a player, and may not be aware that this war exists.
I think the culture war is already being won. Sure, we have a long way to go, and a lot of damage will be done before we get there. But we are on the winning side. In the political war, though, things do not look as optimistic. In the US, as it is elsewhere, politicians trick people into thinking they’re on the Same Side, just because they fall on one side or the other of the culture war. And then the politicians (on less than $200,000 salary) go on to become millionaires, and they perpetuate the system that feeds the billionaires. And that system just happens to drop bombs on third-world countries.