Why is it that there is always plenty of money for military spending, approved by Congressional members on both sides, even when the nation is already in deep debt from fourteen years of US invasions in the Middle East? How, then, can the federal government afford to keep the wars going? You don’t have to be a Pulitzer Prize winning economist to see the obvious: our national debt has soared because of funded and unfunded military and intelligence undertakings. These are common sense issues that many US voters have been asking for the last decade. But when it comes to funding job-creation projects that include the development of clean alternative energy, providing tuition grants for college students, or finding humane solutions for the growing number of families who are homeless (as some examples) - such programs are dismissed as budget busters by many of the corporate media pundits and the Ayn Rand acolytes in DC. The question of endless spending for endless wars also demonstrates what many voters have in common: wanting an end to military intervention. As journalist James Risen put it, think of the post-9/11 war boomlet as the largest robbery in history. The last thing the industrial oligarchs want is for Americans to be unified on common issues and for voters to unite against policies that enhance wealth for the few. The two parties serve as a strategy to divide Americans and to keep them occupied with sensationalist and superficial emotional issues that create distractions from a government that is abusing its power to govern on behalf of the people. After ISIS, then what? There is always the creation of a new enemy to keep the oligarchs infinitely rich and infinitely powerful at the cost of destroying not only our economy, but also our fundamental principles, our constitutional rights, and our reputation of being a humane society. Beginning with the Bush administration, the symbolic connotation of the Statue of Liberty has been reduced to a begging old woman in the darkest of nights. Her message of light, liberty and sanctuary has been replaced with something unspeakably sinister, ugly, violent, and perverted—something akin to a dystopian world symbolized by Orwell’s 1984 image: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.” “Before the war on terror,” wrote James Risen in his new book, PAY ANY PRICE, in the chapter, “The War on Decency,” “the U.S. military had a well-earned reputation for the humane treatment of prisoners of war. During the postwar years, the United States was a driving force behind the 1949 Geneva Conventions, codifying the rights of prisoners in armed conflict…Bush’s decision to abandon the Geneva Conventions changed everything.”
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 23:22:23 +0000
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