In the 1960s, the silver-tongued leader of the Senate Republicans, Everett Dirksen, is reputed to have said, "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you're talking real money." According to a recent article by Chalmers Johnson, "Going Bankrupt: Why the debt crisis in now the greatest threat to the American Republic," we may have to replace Dirksen's "billion" with the Pentagon's "trillion." By Johnson's accounting, the military is now spending over $1 trillion a year.
At the same time, Bob Herbert has been arguing for a serious committment to rebuild our physical infrastructure:
The country has been hit hard by lost jobs in manufacturing and construction. As government and political leaders are scrambling for ways to stimulate the economy in the current downturn, infrastructure improvements would seem to be a natural component of any effective recovery plan ... We appear to have forgotten the lessons of history. Time and again an economic boom has followed periods of sustained infrastructure improvement.
The way I see it, we need to understand three things: the nature of the military budget, the needs of the current infrastructure, and how infrastructure renewal could be used to create a green economy.
First, how much of the military budget could theoretically be transferred to civilian work? According to Chalmers Johnson, quoting other experts, in fiscal year 2009 the Department of Defense wants to spend $766.5 billion for "salaries, operations ... and equipment" ($481.4 billion), as well as to fight "the two on-going wars" in Iraq and Afganistan ($141.7 billion), "hitherto unmentioned war costs in the remainder of 2007" ($93.4 billion), and an "allowance" ($50 billion).
Then there's the "$23.4 billion for the Department of Energy [that] goes toward developing and maintaining nuclear warheads; and $25.3 billion in the Department of State budget" for "foreign military assistance." There's a couple of extra billions for various expenses (why count those?), and another $7.6 billion "for the military-related activities of NASA."
Thus, there is about $825 billion in direct expenses, and also another $230-billion-plus that is used to repay interest on past military expenditures and payments to veterans, and also the $46 billion for Homeland Security; but let's use the $825 billion as the available pot of money.
The second area to understand is the current needs of the infrastructure. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, we need to spend $1.6 trillion in the next five years in order to bring the infrastructure up to an adequate level. So that's $320 billion a year for five years, or about 39 percent of the available military budget.
Now, Johnson quotes Thomas Woods, to the effect that between 1947 and 1987, the U.S. military had spent enough money that the entire network of factories and infrastructure could have been rebuilt instead. Woods is a libertarian economist who once contacted me concerning the work of the late Professor Seymour Melman, a friend of mine.
Melman was, according to Johnson, "The pioneer in analyzing what has been lost as a result of military Keynesianism," that is, the use of military spending to try to keep the economy moving; Melman wrote several books and many articles backing up his assertions with in-depth research and analysis, and published several op-ed pieces in The New York Times showing the trade-offs between expensive military programs and critical infrastructure needs in the U.S., such as education and housing.
At the rate we're going, then, the military budgets will preempt the building of a green infrastructure and economy. Unless the military budget is reined in, it will be very difficult to find the resources to create the "green engine," to quote Barack Obama, that "can drive growth for many years to come."
As Miriam Pemberton showed in a recent report for the Institute for Policy Studies, there is an enormous gulf between spending for the military and spending to reverse global warming.
The third major consideration I proposed was greening the economy. Including the $320 billion that the ASCE advocates spending on infrastructure, what could the $825 billion military budget be used to for? Here are a few ideas, which I will grandly call the National Program of Economic Reconstruction and Environmental Restoration:
- A high-speed rail network among all of the bigger cities;
- Light rail networks within most cities
- Bus rapid transit between cities and near suburbs
- Bike lanes with physical barriers along most city streets
- A program to put solar panels on most rooftops
- A program to put geothermal exchange units under most buildings (for heating and cooling)
- A federally owned, or at least regulated, national high-voltage DC electrical grid, hooking up to:
- Environmentally sensitive wind farms
- Environmentally sensitive solar thermal farms, and
- Environmentally sensitive deep geothermal plants
- A policy of encouraging organic, permaculture-like farm belts around most cities;
- A policy of encouraging the building of walkable communities in cities and near suburbs
- A national policy of no more than 15 students per classroom, with:
- Universal pre-kindergarten, starting with one-year-olds, and
- Universal health insurance, of course
- Contribution to Lester R. Brown's global plan for alleviating poverty and environmental destruction, as laid out in his book, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civiliation
As they say here in the Midwest, "Well, alrighty then!" I hope to elaborate on these points in the weeks ahead, particularly addressing this question: How much would each of these cost? Any help would be appreciated.
Cash for Clunkers brought us ... more clunkers!
A $4 billion push to make affordable housing green
Comments
View as Flat
Hal 9000 Posted 7:49 am
04 Feb 2008
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wildleaf Posted 7:53 am
04 Feb 2008
Unfortunately coming up with a list of Keynesian alternatives to military spending isn't the difficult part. The difficult part is to pry the cash out of the hands of those imbeciles entrenched in the government giveaway that defines our military spending. We can't even stop our government from spending money on landmines, a product that almost every developed nation other than ours has condemned.
Bush just came out with his three trillion dollar budget that slashes money from every domestic program. Yet the war sucks onward. The point I'm making is this article is not addressing the problem, so who cares what great ideas you have?
I know a way to get a small percentage of that money on green infrastructure, require all new infrastructure rebuilt in Iraq to be LEED certified buildings. Make all new school buildings there have to be platinum. Justify it by saying it is good for our commitment to reducing carbon and that insurgents might not blow up a modest and efficient, yet elegant, building. Do it in Iraq because you can't do it here.
If you want green infrastructure here expect a real fight. They won't give up their posh government checks without one. Their is little to distinguish the industrialists from the government that gives them the money. If you want to beg reason of the military industrialists then you yourself are engaging in an unreasonable task. It is not in their interest, and therefore the interest of our government, to let your ideas take away what they consider to be their money.
The Black Car Project Killing cars before they kill us!
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Jon Rynn Posted 8:07 am
04 Feb 2008
However, that idea came up in the 1960s, when people were still thinking thoughts like, "maybe the military doesn't need all of that money". Even with the collapse of the Cold War, the public has seemed mesmerized by the Pentagon, and it has become exceedingly difficult to even read statements from progressive groups about using Pentagon money for various worthy causes.
So, now that I've painted myself into a corner, why bring up the issue? Because I think the first step is simply to bring up the issue. It should be a first response of a progressive organization to say something like, "we'd like to do such-and-such, and the money should definitely come out of the Pentagon budget", with various qualifications as to the political possibility coming after that statement. Unless people go for the popsicle idea, of course.
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Gar Lipow Posted 8:12 am
04 Feb 2008
The secret:
U.S. red tape is about three times medical red tape in nations with government insurance. (Sometimes you higher figures, but those assume away certain administrative expenses common to all health care systems.) Eliminating the difference between U.S. and French or Canadian administrative costs would save one in every five health care dollars.
Price differences: we pay more for the same pharmeucitcals, more for equivalent medical equipment and supplies than other nations.
3)Prevenative care: because people move from insurer to insurer, even though insurers do cover some preventative care, we have less prevenative coverage than other nations. Also people without insurance get treated in emergency rooms, usually after their problems are much worse than they would have been if caught earliers.
Between these three things, a switch to public health insurance can save us 25% to 33% of each health care dollar, most of it in the short term. Replace core coverage by private insurance with core coverage by public insurance would save money and improve health. Private insurers could still offer supplementary insurance of various types.
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Gar Lipow Posted 8:13 am
04 Feb 2008
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Jon Rynn Posted 8:23 am
04 Feb 2008
But even that could be cut out of the Pentagon's hide -- although I am not advocating, in this political environment, burdening a universal health plan with that baggage at this point, since there seems to be some kind of consensus to move forward with universal coverage.
The other obvious place to get revenue, by the way, is from repealing the tax cuts, in fact, repealing the Reagan tax cuts to the wealthy, and by filling the loopholes that allow huge corporations to file virtually no taxes. Needless to say, trying to get money out of the military, corporations, and most wealthy is the most difficult part -- but they control their ill-gotten gains exactly because they are so powerful.
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Gar Lipow Posted 8:37 am
04 Feb 2008
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bookerly Posted 9:41 am
04 Feb 2008
Hi Jon,
I spent some time on military conversion, say, oh 30+ years ago.
While it seems like a good idea, what happens, in fact is somewhat different than expected.
Instead of going along with changing direction and converting their military base into a civilian base with no loss of jobs or revenue, presto chango, they instead decide to keep the military base and expand their overall base to include the new civilian projects!!
So, they fight to keep the military going on, and they fight to get the lion's share of any increased civilian spending (hey, we can always cut schools and aid to the poor to make up the difference!).
That seems to me to be the problem with conversion (I would love to be convinced otherwise!).
Part of it is, that the military program is incredibly corrupt. Which means that lots of people make lots more money than they really should. And they know it.
It is one thing to ask people to give up one kind of honest labor for another, but damn hard to ask them to give up a corrupt gravy laden system for honest labor.
Maybe the best way to work conversion would be to promise them that they could bring their corrupt practices with them to the civilian projects.
cynically yours,
patrick in Beijing
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wildleaf Posted 9:51 am
04 Feb 2008
It might also be a good comparison for the political economist to start the comparison between the likely recession beginning and the Great Depression. The similarities are many but the differences are where any good work of writing will avail. The biggest difference is that the federal and state governments generally understand that only government spending can hedge a giant recession. This bodes well for cutting the coffers at the Pentagon by a democratic president, ending the war and proportionately supporting massive infrastructural changes at home.
Ultimately an economic recession that is large enough could be the only thing that can support the draining of funds used by the military industrial complex. Americorps programs, single payer healthcare, and mass transit improvements could all benefit from a recession. The reason why transit alternatives to cars might begin to gain momentum is because US car manufacturers could be capable of providing these alternatives as they increasingly lose out to companies from abroad on car manufacturing.
Let us hope that the downturn in the economy opens the gateway for social change that it potentially could. When "hope" is so tied to "change" like it is now, the power of the elite may face the greatest weakening we have ever seen.
The Black Car Project Killing cars before they kill us!
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GreenMom Posted 9:59 am
04 Feb 2008
It's all going to have to be very specifically targeted, and maybe we should be focusing the candidates and next year's new Congress on such specifics, in the same way we're trying to get green spending in the stimulus package now.
BTW, this is a silly point, but I love the quotations and can't resist -- I'm pretty sure Everett Dirksen said "...a million here, a million there..." in the 1950s, and then Fritz Hollings upgraded it to "...a billion here, a billion there.." in the 1970s or 80s. I haven't actually googled this to confirm. :-)
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Sam Wells Posted 10:34 am
04 Feb 2008
The Department of Defense and DHS runs the largest welfare system in the US.
The amount of money spent on failed weapons systems is truly astounding. Have to heard about the Coast Guard ship that costs billions but they can't take it out so sea because it would break in half?
-sammie
Onward through the fog
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Jon Rynn Posted 11:19 am
04 Feb 2008
Sure does sound good.
Patrick, my colleague Jonathan M. Feldman is much more of an expert on economic conversion than me -- but he's asleep in Stockholm, I don't know where you are in your sleep cycle in Beijing, and I'm bushed in Chicago, so this might be a staggered conversation, but we've done that before!
Wildleaf, you might be interested to know that one of the main things Melman was working on at the end of his life was the effort to try to revive the subway industry, which doesn't exist here anymore. He actually wrote a letter to the car company chairmen, they all said no thanks. They also, particularly GM, did their best to destroy the streetcar network of the U.S. But it should still be possible, but it might come from new firms.
As far as starving the beast, that will be an interesting question. Historically, as empires destroy their productive base, eventually the military establishment must fall also, but they tend to hang on for dear life. Actually, Britain is one case of the fairly rational consciously planned decline of their military -- but it may come as a shock to Americans that they can't afford both guns and butter -- sort of like the shock that cheap gasoline is not forever. However, like public transit, it at least has to be out there in the public discourse so that people have the opportunity to grab onto these ideas, I think.
Sammie, Seymour was one of those guys that first talked about the $5,000 toilet seats, etc, and he knew the whistleblowers who knew all about it. To get back to one of Patrick's points, Seymour, as an industrial engineer, was able to analyze the bad habits that engineers in military firms learn (like, cost is no problem, complexity is fine), and this leads to those huge, expensive, unreliable systems. Basically, the largest economic sector in the world that is still centrally planned and not open to market forces is the military-industrial complex, with all of the consequences you would expect.
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Pompey Road Posted 12:45 pm
04 Feb 2008
Ike Warned about the Industrial military complex in 61.
No bid clause for the drugs stuck in the medicare prescription drug bill, now who would have thought that this would become a runaway unfunded liability. I am for the program, just get the drug lobby out DC, this program would have worked if you could stop the drug lobby from writing legislation.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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ids Posted 1:05 pm
04 Feb 2008
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/18/opinion/main372 ...
Funny how supposedly jobs have gone overborder because of health costs and environmental regulations.
Bejing Patrick has a point- see how Montana Dem Gov Schweitzer and Air Force are teaming for CTL
Depressive Black Cat might consider Klein's Shock Doctrine.
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ce1907 Posted 1:32 pm
04 Feb 2008
much of what we believe is tied to identity and tribal affiliations
if you link common sense ideas for Green infrastructure to changes that much of the public will consider radical or contrary to their ideas/identities/tribe [i.e., shrink the military]
then you simply tell them not to listen to your common sense ideas
nibble and move what people consider to be normal slowly left
forget about rational plans for paying for it; let people figure that out later (our usual way)
otherwise, you will quickly and easily be marginalized by cynics supporting the status quo
too bad; I like your specific proposals
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amazingdrx Posted 2:59 pm
04 Feb 2008
Terrorism funded and impelled by mid east oil reliance. So take 5% of the military budget and devote it to independence from oil. Security obtained for a fraction of the cost.
And with clean kwh it costs only 75 cents to go as far as a gallon of gas would take you. Or with a solar panel on your roof, in a few years of money saving payback of the initial cost of the solar system... free kwh for your car.
The tribe protected from terrorism and economic decline due to high gas prices.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Jonathan M Feldman Posted 7:30 pm
04 Feb 2008
What we need is a political process to make it a reality. Something between the Democratic Party (which with a few notable exceptions has done nothing much about it in recent times) and a Third Party (which has pluses and minuses):
http://counterpunch.com/feldman01082008.html
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Jonathan M Feldman Posted 9:22 pm
04 Feb 2008
First, the idea that conversion does not work.
This is basically nonsense. Badly designed conversion does not work. Defense firms have succeeded and failed in moving into civilian markets. I have documented both through case studies of firms in the USA, Sweden and the UK. I can send the very interested reader references. Just contact me at the http://www.economicreconstruction.com home page.
Or, look at my prior posts.
The political will is absent argument is faulty for five key reasons. First, if we continue to spend on the military like we have, the US economy's accelerated downward spin into a Third World economy is guarateed. This means greater outsourcing of white and blue collar jobs. This means greater than the 17% poverty rate in the USA (I don't have the last figures). This means more backlash terrorism and military interventions and wasted spending and accelerate depletion because cutting the military weakens the forces of those engaging in military adventurism.
Second, the limits to military power, its failure to achieve security, creates a political opening for conversion and demilitarization.
Third, all new social programs will be limited by debt and budget shortages. We are ALREADY BORROWING BILLIONS FROM the Japanese and Chinese to pay for the military budget. Those who don't want to cut the military budget are basically saying they want a subsidize Japan and China program. You want to raise upper class taxes fine. But, the debt is too big probably to just do that. Why not enlist the upper class elites to cut the military budget.
Fourth, the real question is not taking on the military industrial complex but changing the strategies of those already against the military industrial complex and warfare state. The wrong strategy is to make an alliance with the Pentagon, just google "The Strange Political Economy of Death in the South."
Fifth, Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire by only about 8,000 votes. Why? Well her votes on the military and foreign policy questions were not really explained. She and Obama have pluses and minuses, but as a peace candidate, Hillary Clinton would have a lot of work to do I think. For evidence, go here:
(1) http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=13675&t ...
(2) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-scheer/obama-clinton ...
(3) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-scheer/hillarys-calc ...
So, it would have been logical for peace organizations to rally in New Hampshire to ask her challenging questions. That step would not have required the miltiary industrial complex to be dismantled first or even for the Pentagon to give up a single dime. This strategy would require the readers of blogs to actually organize, rather than do what amounts to exchanging a few emails and sitting on their hands. If you want details, go to the http://counterpunch.com/feldman01082008.html
blog.
The basic fatalism of some people that nothing can be changed is at least being tackled by Obama even if he is elected and does not do much. He is putting the idea into peoples' heads that they make a difference. That is very important.
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314159265 Posted 10:08 pm
04 Feb 2008
Siemens is a German company with a century of unbroken experience in manufacturing stuff like this. They actually invented the electric tram.
Is there similar experience remaining in the U.S. military industrial complex? Is there any skill remaining to produce civilian stuff other than airplanes? U.S. can't even produce decent automobiles anymore (without help from Japan). Military industry conversion needs to be able to compete with foreign companies like Siemens.
Methinks the only way to conversion is collapse.
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Jon Rynn Posted 11:47 pm
04 Feb 2008
If the US had an industrial policy like Korea, this is what we'd do: invite Siemens, etc., to set up factories here for light rail, etc., under some very strict preconditions, especially, train US engineers (this is something the Chinese do as well), and perhaps even stipulate that the factory would revert to American ownership (ideally to the employees) after a period of time. At this point, politically, Americans don't think we're in the same position as developing countries, but we are.
ce1709 -- again you point out an important problem -- how do you bring up the problem of military spending, the 600 pound gorilla of policy? Basically, most policies are checkmated unless you bring this up.
I myself am torn about this, for exactly the issues you raise, but I think it's time to at least try to bring up the issue of bringing down the military budget. Time is getting late, and also , as politically grating as it might sound now, we need to at least get the idea out there.
What would happen, in any case, is that some organizations (say, most big enviros) wouldn't mention it, it would be up to other groups to bring demand pentagon cuts anyway. All I'm proposing, really, is to have a full spectrum of political dialogue, as opposed to what passes for discussion in the mainstream media. After all, that's what is encouraging about the blogosphere/internet, no?
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314159265 Posted 12:27 am
05 Feb 2008
I guess this is the way to go for non-U.S. companies if they want to make bucks from U.S. market: The dollar is falling and quite surely keeps falling. So Europeans will find it difficult to sell their stuff in Euros. Better produce in U.S. and sell for Dollars.
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314159265 Posted 3:07 am
05 Feb 2008
This scenario of rebuilding a civilian U.S manufacturing industry does not involve the military industrial complex (MIC). But the MIC would not idly stand by and watch itself deflate. (Before that it would arrange for another presidential assassination...)
Looks like the U.S.-as-we-know-it could well be eaten up by its MIC like the S.U. got eaten up by its MIC (due to Reagan's "ingenious" politics).
The U.S. is a cold war dinosaur that miraculously had survived the cold war (unlike its S.U. twin) - so far.
--Flori (weirdly numbered German)
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amazingdrx Posted 3:16 am
05 Feb 2008
Oil war drives up oil prices, uses up oil supplies, and puts oil at risk from nuclear weapons. Radioactive oil will not be good. It creates and expands new jihad movements daily, further eroding security.
Powering cars and trains on clean kwh instead of oil. That's a dividend for your security seeking tax buck.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 3:18 am
05 Feb 2008
A 10 year plan to be foreign oil free, by switching to clean electric plugin hybrids and electric commuter rail. that's doable. Right here on planet earth, USA.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Skyscraper Posted 3:20 am
05 Feb 2008
We can manifest positive change only if constructive alternatives to the current paradigm are articulated and discussed. In this presidential election year, we have a great opportunity to bring about a quantum leap forward by being proactive in the idea generation department.
Protest has a very short shelf-life, and many times resistance fosters momentum for exactly the issue the protest is against. Opposition can prop up even the most indefensible position as benefactors of that position become more solidly entrenched as a reaction to protest.
Showing people how to move to the next level and outlining the benefits to society and individuals is the key to societal movement.
I have a complementary discussion on my blog - the New American Village - under the heading of "Stimulating Proposition."
http://newamericanvillage.blogspot.com/
James Polk, Architect and Neighborhood Planner
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Jon Rynn Posted 3:47 am
05 Feb 2008
Since the US is much richer, and hasn't had a dictatorship (at least, not yet), it's been harder to preempt quite as much of the economy into the military. But that process proceeds apace; Melman's first book about this phenomenon, "The depleted society", came out in 1965.
And, yes, the military-industrial complex, the largest and greatest political machine in world history, would continue what it's always done -- scare the devil out of the American public. But it's really self-defeating, because unless they wake up and smell the coffee (and Melman would occasionally lecture at various War Colleges), the military will eventually decline as well.
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Pompey Road Posted 4:11 am
05 Feb 2008
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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bookerly Posted 8:04 am
05 Feb 2008
Dear Jonathon,
I will look at your page, and contact you for reports, thanks!!
I should make myself clearer. I am 100% in favor of conversion. I consider the military industrial complex one of the major obstacles towards solving our problems (environmental, social, you name it).
And I agree with you 100% that one of the things people should do is get off the net and organize (I used to post about this, but gave up, not much interest in discussing the subject).
I became more cynical about the chances of conversion happening after the US Senate voted 99-0 in favor of continued funding for Star Wars Research in the late 1990's. And of course, post 911, things got worse (hard to imagine!).
As the real US military budget approaches 1 trillion a year, we begin to end up with a really scary economy.
Has anyone ever added up the total portion of the US governmental spending (at all levels) spent on military-industrial, homeland-security, police, prisons, private security firms and anything I might have left out?
patrick in Beijing
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JMG Posted 12:29 pm
05 Feb 2008
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=174889
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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Jon Rynn Posted 1:43 pm
05 Feb 2008
and as far as a sane budget is concerned, as the dollar tanks and china et al. get sick of buying the Federal debt, something will have to give. I just hope it's not the North Korean solution, as reported in Dale Allen Pfeiffer's "eating fossil fuels", in which millions starved while the military was kept intact. I think it'll be closer to the British model, a more graceful exit.
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JMG Posted 1:58 pm
05 Feb 2008
Tomgram: William Astore, In the Military We Trust
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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Jon Rynn Posted 2:00 pm
05 Feb 2008
Yes we can...replace all coal plants with solar/wind/geothermal energy.
Yes we can...build a high-speed rail network between our cities, and light rail networks within them
Yes we can...plow over the outer suburbs with small-scale organic farms
Yes we can...rebuild our cities with new housing and better schools
Yes we can...have a single payer national health system paid for by rolling back tax cuts of Bush and Reagan
Yes we can...rebuild our manufacturing base by constructing green infrastructure
Yes we can...work with other rich countries to create prosperous sustainable economies throughout the world
"we need you to help us prove that ordinary people can still do extraordinary things in the United States of America"...oops, that was actually Obama, OK, goodnight
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Jon Rynn Posted 2:13 pm
05 Feb 2008
The main point I would like to make in response to the Lieutenant's article, is that I think one of the most devastating problems for many of those considering military service has been the collapse of the manufacturing sector. Many of the poor/lower middle class -- while still supporting the military, I admit -- were able to gain the self-respect, etc., of having a good job in a good plant. That is no longer available, and the military has become the employer/career of last resort. This is a very dangerous situation.
As the author stated, There could be many opportunities for our young men to assert their masculinity in non-military and nonviolent settings -- fixing our nation's roads and bridges, rebuilding our inner cities, rescuing places torn apart by disaster, natural or otherwise, like New Orleans; and from these, too, funded educational openings and future career possibilities could arise. And even green collar jobs, no?
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caniscandida Posted 5:17 pm
05 Feb 2008
I very much wish you were one of my choices in the voting booth, yesterday!
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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ids Posted 11:27 am
06 Feb 2008
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Jon Rynn Posted 1:34 pm
06 Feb 2008
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amazingdrx Posted 3:12 pm
06 Feb 2008
I caught a great documentary on Sundance today about the demise of Lake Victoria because of an invasive species, the nile perch.
http://www.sundancechannel.com/videos/230057968
Grist ought to review this one. It would make a great blog topic.
Anyway my point was... a night watchman (armed with poison tipped arrows) explained to the camera crew that people like him prize military jobs. The word "civilian" is a curse. Civilians starve and are targets of massacre.
Soldiers get payed. The film maker asked, "Do you fear war?" The guard said he did not, that war meant he could get a good job and feed his family. He made a dollar a day as night watchman.
Is that what this empire is becoming? a place where people actually look forward to war. As the only source of a job and survival? pretty frightening. This documentary finally really explains these horrors.
The fish are flown to Europe as high priced fillets, the locals eat only the heads and carcasses, stinking with maggots and flies. Guns and ammo for the endless wars are shipped back on the russian planes, flown by russian crews that use the many prostitutes available from the starving, dying local population.
This is a stark warning about what the kind of corporatist government we now have here does to humanity.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Colin Wright Posted 3:42 pm
06 Feb 2008
But what if the U.S. military was instead converted into a real peace-keeping force by installing solar plants in all the countries we have abused. Penance, so to speak. (John Perkins, Diary of an Economic Hit Man, has talked a little about a different sort of American Empire.)
Did anyone else see Stuart Staniford's proposal on the Oil Drum for a massive global solar project that would involve piping solar energy from the bright-side of the Earth to the dark-side of the Earth.("Nighttime electricity use is only about 30-40% of the daily peak"). That's the sort of Marshall Plan I'd like to see (under U.N. auspices of course.)
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amazingdrx Posted 3:57 pm
06 Feb 2008
Ford raised the wages of his workers above the norm... so they could afford to buy a Ford.
Follow that model of prosperity, spreading manufacturing into every local area. And empire is assured.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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caniscandida Posted 4:02 pm
06 Feb 2008
Colin,
that is an interesting observation about military service and the opportunity to travel. The "counter-recruitment" poster is one of the great bits of satire in our culture.
My late great-uncle, who served in the Army in Europe during WWII, and was an amateur historian and political scientist, used to say that the widespread military service in the US during that war brought the nation together, mingling all sorts of relatively recent immigrant groups with older, more established types. Hollywood made it something of a cliche', to include a Southern farmboy and a Brooklyn ethnic guy in the same outfit.
Of course, the mixing of races was a no-no.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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spaceshaper Posted 10:23 pm
06 Feb 2008
Of course that was a product of a near-universal draft, very different from the cultural profile of our current military. 'All-volunteer' has such a pretty ring to it, covering some quite objectionable realities.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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