Regarding social security etc.
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Defense Budget Wrecks Middle Class Economy. Permanent War Threatens Our National Security and Well Being.
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Mon, 07/12/2010 - 5:51pm. Guest Commentary
JACQUELINE MARCUS FOR BUZZFLASH
We are told by Congressional leaders that we must sacrifice. Republicans want to end Social Security. Schools haven’t the funding to stay open for five days in most states. Seven hundred or more national parks have been shut down because of lack of Federal funding. Most states are broke. Millions of children are starving in our country, but there are billions of dollars available for the Defense contractors. Defense Secretary Robert Gates just asked Congress for $33 billion dollars in addition to the $10 billion dollars a month and the $700 billion before that—and the $500 billion before that…Perhaps Mr. Gates would like to strip the elderly from their Social Security funds for that $33 billion, and then kick them out on the streets so that the defense contractors can continue to live the extravagant life they’ve grown accustomed to?
Indeed, no one insists that weapon contractors sacrifice for the economic sake of the country. On the contrary, whatever amount they ask for—they get.
There is something terribly and morally obscene about this picture.
History has shown that when the few rich and powerful rulers horde most of the wealth, it inevitably produces extreme poverty for the masses. A country that is dirt poor is an ugly and dehumanizing sight. To make a long repetitive history short, this form of unequal distribution of wealth nearly always results in a two class system: The few get rich and the masses are left with nothing. No one, however, admires the rich under these circumstances. They are despised and hated.
What made the United States the envy of the world, the beacon of light to other countries was our middle class economy.
I suppose my generation, growing up in the 1980s, was the last generation to witness the strength and prosperity of the middle classes. Then came Reaganomics, policies that virtually took a sledgehammer to the middle class way of life by favoring corporate welfare at the expense of safety regulations, humane social services, jobs, unions, workers’ rights, health protection and worst of all, our environment.
Our natural parks were turned into natural gas and coal drilling mines, our national forests were opened to the lumber industries with the green light to clear-cut for quick profits, our beautiful oceans were turned into oil wells. This industrial, greedy attack on our national forests, rivers and oceans didn’t create jobs. What it did do is pollute our streams and lakes; the Gulf of Mexico oil spill proves the tragic point.
Through the 1980s-1990s, it appeared as though our middle class workers were doing well. President Bill Clinton’s policies of providing more educational college grants, promoting high tech professions over the polluting industrial energy companies and balancing the budget certainly gave a boost to the economy. But there are long-standing complaints about his decision to go with the fast-track NAFTA trade deal, which he later regretted because of its lack of safety regulations to protect workers and the environment; it ended by making things worse for American workers because, once again, this agreement benefited big corporations, no environmental regulations, at the expense of American middle-class jobs easily outsourced to countries such as China, India, the Philippines…
Despite the pro-corporate hammers that have been steadily hacking away at our middle classes, the worst sledgehammer that is virtually obliterating the middle class economy is the all consuming Defense funding for the weapon contractors: Boeing, Raytheon, Halliburton, Lockheed, to name just a few.
While states are going belly-up from lack of Federal funding for our schools, roads and infrastructure, which would provide new jobs, while millions of Americans are desperately falling into poverty, while Congressional leaders think of new ways to cut Social Security and other public services, and while millions of children are going hungry, Defense Secretary Robert Gates is threatening Congress “for $33 billion to support the added financial costs of President Barack Obama's new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, now the longest conflict in U.S. history.”
The request is based on deceit and exploitation. It is not used to defend or to protect the soldiers. The “new strategy” is the same strategy: Make the weapon contractors billionaires.
Mr. Gates: Do you know how many starving children in the United States we could feed with that $33 billion dollars? Do you know how many schools and hospitals we could build with that money? The cost of one weapon alone could feed every hungry child in this country.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger reduced Government workers’ salaries to minimum wage because the state has a $30 billion dollar debt. Everyone’s mad at the Governor but no one talks about the real reason why the state is in debt: No Federal funding. Eighty percent of our Federal tax dollars is going straight into the pockets of the super rich weapon contractors in the name of “Defense”. It’s the biggest and most sinful hoax ever played on the American people in the history of this country even when times are good, but draining the budget to maintain their extravagant lifestyles when our country is sinking deeper and deeper into poverty, when the middle classes are being forced out of work and their homes—is disgusting and shameful. It’s beyond greed. It’s unspeakably cruel.
When the Federal Government provides sufficient funding for the states, jobs are created for rebuilding our infrastructure, schools, parks, highways and hospitals, which in turn stabilizes the economy for the middle classes. Conversely, when the Federal budget is being robbed by thieves like Robert Gates who promises his greedy group of war-monger bandits to come through for them, expect the middle class foundation to collapse because there is nothing left to support that economic structure.
I question President Obama’s motives for hiring the same politicians from the oil, weapon and Wall St. corporate elite to work in the White House with him. Change you can believe in? It’s become an embarrassing joke for this President. We all scratched our heads when he kept Bush’s Robert Gates on to serve as Secretary of Defense, but when he hired Ken Salazar, well known for his oil and natural gas drilling deals, to be Secretary of the Interior, the idea of changing things became a fading campaign echo.
It’s not as though there weren’t good choices out there: environmental lawyers from the Sierra Club and Earth Justice would have made a huge difference in changing the old industrial guard for the new green guard. Do you remember Obama’s love for the Kennedy family? Why didn’t he hire Bobby Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Interior?
It’s been predicted that these same old war and industrial policies are driving the middle classes off the cliff for good. It’s happening. There are little Hoovervilles popping up around the country everywhere; poverty and homelessness are escalating; the homeless are pitching tents or living in their vehicles. The numbers are unclear because this is a mute subject in the media. But I’ve seen the homeless with my own eyes. I can no longer recognize my own country.
Instead of dealing with the dire problems of overpopulation, global warming and the creation of new jobs—these “serve only the super rich policies” are severely adding to the problems. Oil is needed to keep the Defense money machine going. This explains why the U.S. Military Complex wants total control of the Middle East. Without oil, their power and wealth are dead in the water. The oil and weapon industrialists are dependent on each other. Without the military complex, it’s unlikely that the oil companies would be as powerful as they are today.
By contrast, since European countries, such as Denmark, don’t have a military beast of burden to carry on their backs, they’re able to provide health care, free college, day care centers and many more social services in a capitalistic system. Plus, they can more easily shift to green technologies without the weight of an oil industry oppressing them.
Ask yourself what we could do to lift our country to a high economic standing for the middle classes if we had just thirty percent of the defense funding to work with? If we had $10 billion dollars a month for investments in green jobs, for restoration of cities, parks and schools…
The Military Defense broke our middle class economy with their inflated war budget, compliments of a corrupt and cowardly Congress, but even during this current Depression, the Pentagon and Military contractors will make absolutely no sacrifices, their hands greedily stealing all our tax dollars from the Federal budget while Americans are losing their jobs and homes and millions of children are going hungry in this country. The few jobs that they create are not worth the massive damage they’re causing to the rest of the economy. In other words, 95% of the country has to sacrifice so that 5% in the Defense Weapon industry can live high on the hog.
There are no words to describe the damage they’re doing. There is nothing patriotic about making a great country poor as dirt. It’s evil to the core. Congress must stand up to Gates and say: ENOUGH! We cannot afford your murderous weapons! Feed the starving children and rebuild the infrastructure. That’s how you defend and secure a country |
