2/3rds of Us Are US War Machine Beneficiaries (Raimondo thinkin up a new AntiWar rally)
Mort Zuckerman
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Subject: 2/3rds of Us Are US War Machine Beneficiaries (Raimondo
thinkin up a new AntiWar rally)
Date: Nov 25, 2009 4:36 AM
ARTICLE BELOW
===============================
I don't think you will rally a
movement because
1) 1/3 of the US Workforce work as
dot guv employees. None of them will
give up what they got, because dot guv
employment is a cult. Once a member
of the cult, it becomes all about how
you can further milk the system.
Remember, I, um lived with them for
8 months. I over heard their conversations
with each other. So this goes on not
only at the level of the FDA, but among
the "mental health workers" and the
prison guards - employment types
that require no college education; only
a brother or a cousin who also "works
for the State." Nepotism, for short.
2) 1/3 are homeless, incarcerated,
or successfully hiding against incarceration
for being poor (with their kids, but
that will continue only until DCF finds
them and charges them with whatever
imaginary thing that really means:
"Either the money is going to you
or it is going to me, so Guess What?"
http://www.ctkidslink.org/pub_detail_203.html
(^^^Worth reading because that's like
an indictment for FRAUD against the
federal govt, written by a Yale lawyer).
These ^^^ people used to be the machinists
and factory workers. (Same with the prison
guards.)
3) 1/3 Defense Industry jobs, which
probably was always the case, since
WWII.
So, the one third who do not benefit
from the American War Machine, are not
able to create their own posse's or their
own militias. They have no education,
knowledge, or even CONCEPT that they're
supposed to be watching what goes on.
They were raised on TV.
Additionally, the Left Wingers, the
Progressives, take to attacking the
Catholic Church, and while at the
same time as making legitimate, fair,
sensible democratic claims, always
inject the Gay stuff.
JFK wasn't right when he said the religions
should have no moral influence on politics.
That makes no sense.
Here is what *is* True:
First you have the Morality. Then you
have the Policy. The truth about
Gays is that no one *cares* what anyone
else does in their bedroom. JUST KEEP
IT TO YOURSELF!
As for abortion, the real deal with
the Catholic Church and their stand on
it is the devaluing of human life. At
one time this nation opposed Communism
for the same reason.
*We,* to this day, think it is BAD for
the Chinese to kill people for their
organs.
Get it?
Catholic Church says, "THINK; what happens
after one set of humans are devalued?
Who is next?"
You can't cut corners and be sloppy
about dogma.
Nowhere is there an un-hypocritical,
morally sound Progressive News Site.
They're all corrupted by the gay
rights (which they always had; think
about it), and the "women's right"
to, um, take care of the extramarital,
um, humans problem. <<< And that is for
sure a silly one, given how many women
want babies who can't have them, especially
due to, um, endometriosis, which is caused
by, um, a sexually transmitted disease.
??
Think.
Kathleen M. Dickson
http://www.actionlyme.org
=================================
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/11/24/who-will-protest-obamas-war/
Who Will Protest Obama’s War?
Libertarian youth must take the lead
by Justin Raimondo, November 25, 2009
Email This | Print This | Share This | Comment | Antiwar Forum
Here we are on the verge of a momentous announcement – President
Obama’s unveiling of his "comprehensive plan" for escalating the war
in Afghanistan – and where is the so-called antiwar movement? Missing
in action, as this news report reveals:
“‘There’s this trust that he’s going to fix it all,’ said Shara
Esbenshade, 19, a sophomore at Stanford University and member of
Stanford Says No To War. She says there are no antiwar marches on her
campus, only vigils, educational events, and occasional protests
against Condoleezza Rice, who has returned to Stanford after serving
as George W. Bush’s secretary of state. ‘We’d really like to start
doing more about Afghanistan,’ she added. ‘But students here rising
up? I really don’t see that happening.’"
No need to ask who "he" is: it’s the Dear Leader, of course, the Big
O: He Who Can Fix Anything. Well, I’ve got some really, really bad
news for you, Shara, honey: he is getting ready to send somewhere
between 30,000 and 40,000 more troops to the Afghan front, and not
only that, but he’s come up with a brand-new strategy, one that means
they’ll be sending a lot more troops that way pretty damned soon.
What it boils down to is this: saying no to war entails saying no to
Obama – and I have the distinct feeling that, forced to make a choice
between their ostensibly antiwar sentiments and their devotion to the
Dear Leader, Shara and her privileged, politically correct friends
will reflexively choose the latter. Indeed, they already have, which
is why Stanford Says No to War is lazing around, only stirring itself
when a Republican rolls into view. But for how much longer can they
rank on Condi Rice, who may indeed be a reprehensible warmonger but
has, since the end of her tenure at State, been rendered relatively
harmless?
Oh, but it’s too easy to go after a clueless 19-year-old: after all,
why should it fall on Shara’s fragile shoulders to challenge the
dominant political orthodoxy? Why blame her for the unlikelihood of
her fellow students "rising up" anytime soon?
Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems Ms. Esbenshade and her confreres are
generally on the Left, and what’s left of the Left has a political
conflict of interest when it comes to opposing U.S. military
intervention overseas, as the above-cited article makes all too sadly
clear:
"Mounting economic and academic pressures on today’s youth,
intimidation by authorities, online distractions, and conflicted views
about the ‘good’ war in Afghanistan, not to mention other causes such
as health care and slashed school budgets clawing for attention, have
conspired to snuff out antiwar activism on campus, experts and
students say.
"They acknowledge, too, that U.S. President Barack Obama has
paradoxically hampered the movement because many of the largely
leftist protest groups haven’t wanted to openly oppose him so early in
his first term."
Intimidation by authorities? Really? Will their professors give them a
failing grade if they go out in the streets with signs proclaiming
"Stop Obama’s War"? You’d think we were living in China, where all
expressions of dissent are illegal and an unauthorized demonstration
can earn you a free trip to the gulag. Yet even if there were indeed
some real intimidation, then wouldn’t that in itself provoke a wave of
defiant protest – as it has, say, in Iran?
No, this is excuse-making: the piece is closer to the truth with its
invocation of "the good war" as a phrase that meaningfully relates to
Afghanistan. As we begin to hear more and more about the potential
goodness of this war – e.g., from feminists, such as Code Pink, who
have now decided that withdrawal from Afghanistan would not be good
for the cause of equal pay for equal work – we begin to hear more
about the war’s potential usefulness in advancing the Obamaite big-
government agenda. Here’s Matt Yglesias, over at the Center for
American Progress – the epicenter of Obama worship – musing over the
prospect of a "war surtax":
"I’d like to see Paul Krugman or other advocates of more stimulus
weigh-in on whether debt-financed escalation of military effort would
have a beneficial impact on the labor market situation. I think it’s
deplorable that U.S. political culture tends to regard military-
related appropriations as exempt from normal budgetary considerations,
but it’s possible that that’s a loophole worth taking advantage of in
this case. All those new weapons purchases the Pentagon doesn’t want
to estimate are manufacturing jobs for someone, right? Obviously this
shouldn’t the primary consideration in dictating military strategy,
but I do think a comprehensive look at the macroeconomic impact of
defense policy choices – both the costs and benefits of hugely
expensively military undertakings – is a necessary element of the
strategic consideration."
How to balance the costs of the Afghan war – the thousands of Afghan
and American lives lost, the horrific destruction wreaked on Afghan
society, the screams of the horribly wounded, and the tears of
mourners – against what Yglesias and his fellow Keynesians imagine
will be the "benefits" of spending all that government moolah and
doling it out to their political allies and corporate patrons?
These soulless policy wonks may believe this kind of calculus has no
moral import, but for the rest of the human race the profoundly
immoral and frankly repulsive nature of this arithmetical exercise is
readily apparent. Yglesias himself has criticized our policy in
Afghanistan and is skeptical of plans to escalate the conflict, yet he
unhesitatingly unpacks the doctrine of military Keynesianism in order
to advance his big-government agenda. He may think this is harmless,
but as John T. Flynn presciently pointed out as World War II was
ending:
"The great and glamorous industry is here – the industry of
militarism. And when the war is ended the country is going to be asked
if it seriously wishes to demobilize an industry that can employ so
many men, create so much national income when the nation is faced with
the probability of vast unemployment in industry. All the well-known
arguments, used so long and so successfully in Europe … will be dusted
off – America with her high purposes of world regeneration must have
the power to back up her magnificent ideals; America cannot afford to
grow soft, and the Army and Navy must be continued on a vast scale to
toughen the moral and physical sinews of our youth; America dare not
live in a world of gangsters and aggressors without keeping her full
power mustered … and above and below and all around these sentiments
will be the sinister allurement of the perpetuation of the great
industry which can never know a depression because it will have but
one customer – the American government to whose pocket there is no
bottom."
The economic benefits Yglesias points to, however, come with some
strings attached. As Flynn accurately predicted:
"Embarked … upon a career of militarism, we shall, like every other
country, have to find the means when the war ends of obtaining the
consent of the people to the burdens that go along with the blessings
it confers upon its favored groups and regions. Powerful resistance to
it will always be active, and the effective means of combating this
resistance will have to be found. Inevitably, having surrendered to
militarism as an economic device, we will do what other countries have
done: we will keep alive the fears of our people of the aggressive
ambitions of other countries and we will ourselves embark upon
imperialistic enterprises of our own."
Keynesian militarism means a foreign policy shaped by a constant
propaganda of fear. In order to justify outsized military spending, it
is necessary to conjure threats of comparable stature, but once we
take this path, there is no return to normalcy. For our own economic
normalcy will come more and more to depend on generating a constant
stream of foreign crises and an ever ready supply of enemies who
cannot be safely ignored.
There are, in the long run, no net benefits to be had from the policy
of military Keynesianism: our debt-driven military buildup can only
end in bankruptcy and universal ruin. Yes, in the short run, certain
workers and employers do indeed derive benefits from our foreign
policy of unrelenting aggression, but their "jobs" are not in any
sense productive: indeed, they are engaged in the "business" of
wholesale destruction – of human lives and resources – so while their
"work" benefits them, it hurts the rest of us immeasurably.
Of course, the Keynesians will have none of this. They believe that if
the government pays us to build pyramids, blows up the finished
product, and pays us to rebuild them, then they’re "kick-starting" the
economy. So why not start a world war – wouldn’t that deliver a swift
kick to our stubbornly mulish economy and save the Obamaites’ rapidly
sinking political fortunes?
Well, because that would be morally indefensible, now wouldn’t it? Yet
that is precisely what the administration is getting ready to do, as
the announcement of Obama’s Afghan "surge" looms closer. The president
won’t argue that the war will be good for the economy; he’ll leave
that dirty job to his proxies over at the Center for American
Progress, who, if they do good work, just might get invited to the
latest "must attend" White House event.
All in all, we face a depressing prospect: the Left brain-dead with
Obama idolatry, the Right neoconized beyond redemption – and no one
left to oppose a futile, draining, and horrifically destructive
conflict, a war we cannot afford and which directly contravenes our
real interests as a nation.
No one, that is, except a clear majority of the American people, who,
according to polls, think the battle for Afghanistan is not worth it.
Here is a clear instance in which ordinary, everyday Americans are
radically out of sync with partisan activists of both the Right and
the Left – thus creating a huge opening for libertarians, particularly
the campus arm of the movement..
The premier libertarian youth organization, Young Americans for
Liberty (YAL), is the fastest-growing political group on campus, these
days, and no task would suit them better than assuming the leadership
of the moribund, leftist-dominated antiwar movement. As Obama’s zombie-
like cult follows him down the road to war – a war on a scale the much-
reviled Bush administration never dared attempt – YAL can fill the
vacuum, swell its own ranks, and, more importantly, dramatize the
moral and political bankruptcy of the current administration, while
drawing a clear and very dramatic line of demarcation between
libertarians and Sean Hannity-type conservatives..
I have my issues with the organized libertarian movement, such as it
is, and I have never endorsed any organization. YAL, however, is a
different story: born out of the surge in libertarian activism
generated by the Ron Paul campaign, it exemplifies the same staunch
anti-imperialism married to (and derived from) a hard-core libertarian
economic perspective. What I love about Rep. Paul is his obvious
delight in mixing in denunciations of Obama’s domestic boondoggles
with his informed and trenchant opposition to our global empire-
building project.
If we’d only give up the empire, Paul averred during his presidential
campaign, the savings would give us the resources to repair our
decaying infrastructure, fund healthcare, and ameliorate a good many
of the ills liberals say need fixing. Rather than do that, however,
liberal Democratic members of Congress want to impose a war surtax and
make us pay for the war on top of all the other nonsense.
Liberalism, in its modern incarnation, is intellectually bankrupt, and
has been for quite some time, but it took the ascension to power of a
decidedly liberal administration to highlight the demise of its moral
authority. Young people looking for a comprehensive view of life, a
principled perspective on the events shaping their world, are not
going to find it in the cost-benefit analyses of dried-up Washington
policy wonks who balance the economic "benefits" of mass murder
against the weight of the dead.
Nor will they find it in the cynical pontifications of neoconservative
militarists, who think they can pursue a "freedom agenda" while
supporting a foreign policy that requires a huge and highly
centralized federal Leviathan, one that eats up a good portion of the
national income.
Libertarianism alone represents a coherent alternative to the tired,
worn-out ideologies of the Right and the Left, and the war issue can
underline this uniqueness like no other. If any organization has the
spirit, and the numbers, to attempt this, it is YAL: growing by leaps
and bounds, springing up on campuses coast to coast, its principled
opposition to overseas intervention is exemplary.
Don’t wait for the sleepy-eyed Left to wake from its slumber. That may
be a long time coming. If there are other groups on campus you can
work with, fine, but libertarians must take the initiative – not only
to make political gains, but because it is a moral imperative that we
act.
Don’t be taken in by the "no one cares" meme, which invariably pops up
in journalistic accounts of how the antiwar movement is in the
doldrums. There is a populist anger out there that is easily attached
to any issue, whether it be healthcare or the Afghan war. The "tea
parties" showed us that.
Don’t wait for lightning to strike. You can start a prairie fire all
on your own. The sagebrush is dry, and the weather is amenable: what’s
needed is a spark. Has anybody got a match?
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
"[Real] scientists are *fiercely* independent. That's the good
news."-- NIH's Top Fool, Anthony Fauci