The neocon GOP and MIC propaganda is all pervasive.
(MIC is the Military Industrial Complex Eisenhower warned about in his farewell address in 1961. Here is the clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY
Please watch it, if you haven’t already done so. It is only 2 minutes long.)
This propaganda appears on ALL TV channels and ALL the main papers.
The politicians outright lie about military spending every day.
Boehner : “the military cuts (in the fiscal cliff sequestration) will have a drastic effect on our National Defense.”
Total garbage – they could find the $24bn in the fiscal cliff from petty cash.
But nobody – not from the GOP or the Dems or the mainstream media calls him out about it.
You won’t see any analysis of military spending from any mainstream media outlet or any politician.
This is a great one.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022048300
Military spending is 60% of discretionary spending.
Education gets 6%.
DHS gets over half what America spends on public Education (3.5% of discretionary spending).
N.B. the above chart does not include a lot of military spending that is squirrelled away in other departmental budgets to hide the true amount that America is spending on the military.
When the Pentagon’s budget does not even include the cost of maintaining America’s nuclear arsenal you know something is wrong.
The real National Security budget – the number NOBODY wants you to see – $1,219bn
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/the-real-national-security-budget.html
Even after hiding circa $500bn of true annual costs – the official budgets are still higher than even the peak of cold war spending.
Switzerland spends $700 per person per year on civil and national defense.
America spends over $4,000.
If America spent the equivalent per person as Switzerland it would spend $220bn a year – not $1,219bn.
There is ALL of America’s budget deficit right there. (91% of it)
(Switzerland is very wasteful on Defense Spending – it could probably spend half as much and still feel as safe.)
I don’t advocate going as low as Switzerland – but $400 to $450bn would be about right. That would be about 5 times what China is currently spending (China spends about $91bn).
I advocate immediate military spending cuts of $500bn+ – it’s easy to see how.
$105bn a year is being spent on 7,000 “contractors” in Iraq. Presumably most of these are Blackwater type people.
$170bn a year is being spent on building and supplying foreign military bases. Close half the bases and bring back the 138,000 military currently stationed in Germany, Japan, South Korea, UK and Italy.
A new large base is currently being built in Italy. I don’t know what good the military think this will do. The Italians didn’t even allow America to use their Italian bases when Libya kicked off. America used aircraft carriers and UK bases for Libya.
The 2013 budget for the Afghan war is $88bn. End it – NOW.
America is developing the new F35 stealth plane at an estimated cost of $1,450bn.
America hasn’t had a plane shot down since the first Gulf War in 1992.
We all know what happens to the estimated costs of large military projects – they usually go up multiple times.
America is developing the next generation ballistic missile submarine. Goodness knows how much that is costing.
There are a LOT of other wasteful procurement contracts.
EVERY single contract should be up for review.
$10.8bn of new procurement contracts were signed just on 12/28. More get signed every day. Whatever the politicians say – there is still plenty of money available to feed the arms industry.
http://www.defense.gov/contracts/contract.aspx?contractid=4946
More details of military spending are available here.
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/it-is-very-easy-to-cut-1tn-from-federal.html
The arms industry currently enjoys major tax breaks. Not surprisingly, with the recent massive ramp up in military spending, they are also making record profits. Take the tax breaks away.
America has got it’s priorities all wrong.
And nobody in the mainstream even discusses it.
The fiscal cliff as it stood.
N.B. The defense industry constantly say that cuts to defense spending will mean job cuts.
But this is extremely disingenuous.
Yes, there would be some job losses in the defense industry if real cuts were made – I am talking $500bn+ of annual cuts. (Not the tiny $24bn in the fiscal cliff as it stood.)
You could cut the current Pentagon budget of $105bn a year for 7,000 “contractors” still in Iraq.
That works out at $15 million per job.
I wouldn’t be adverse to losing those 7,000 jobs. Not if it means saving most of that $105bn. They are probably blackwater type mercenaries.
In fact cut ALL the mercenaries currently being used – use troops instead. It is a method of hiding the true facts about military activity and spending – at a vastly increased price to using US troops. People are leaving the military to join companies like Blackwater because they get paid multiple amounts more.
You could massively cut the $170bn currently spent on building and supplying foreign bases.
The building of foreign bases employs a lot of foreign native workers – not Americans.
If you brought the 138,000 military currently stationed in Germany, Japan, South Korea, UK and Italy home – your supply costs would go down significantly.
Similarly stopping the war in Afghanistan would save $88bn a year. It wouldn’t mean job losses (well a tiny amount maybe – you wouldn’t buy so many bullets and you wouldn’t need so many Predator drones costing $36m a pop. How much of that $36m is labor costs? Not much I’ll bet – China is building similar drones for $1m each. How much profit is being made on each drone? Cut the price.).
Cuts to the US defense budget do not affect exports.
America had 79% of the global arms trade in 2011.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175592/engelhardt_monopolizing_war
The defense industry currently receive major special tax breaks. They are also making record profits. You could cut the Corporate Tax breaks – that wouldn’t cost jobs.
Also labor costs for the arms industry are about the lowest proportionally of just about any industry and the LEAST productive economic activity.
E.G. You create three times as many jobs for every dollar you put into education compared to every dollar put into the arms industry.
If you want to create jobs and a thriving economy – you don’t spend your money on the arms industry.
Appendix
The media and politicians are also lying about the true costs of Bush’s wars.
$1.3bn is often quoted – this is just the Pentagon’s base budget and does not even include Congress appropriations for war operations.
The true costs for Bush’s wars are $5tn plus and the costs are still mounting.
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/real-cost-of-afghan-and-iraq-wars.html
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/what-mainstream-media-and-politicians.html
Two essential books reveal the fraudulent “Cold War”: Major Jordan’s Diaries (www.sweetliberty.org/issues/wars/jordan/01.html) and Stanton Evan’s book on the destruction of McCarthy, Blacklisted by History (www.amazon.com/Blacklisted-History-Senator-McCarthy-Americas/dp/140008105X.)
ZCF’s brilliant The Jew World Order Unmasked provides the overall framework with all the important connections and sources. A must read and distribute: http://zioncrimefactory.com/jew-world-order/
John Statdmiller’s reading of the above is a great education for those less inclined to read: http://k005.kiwi6.com/hotlink/1v331vesw … _08_02.mp3
Nice quote from Joe Sobran from your second link:
“Talking about American politics without mentioning the Jews is a little like talking about the NBA without mentioning the Chicago Bulls. Not that the Jews are all-powerful, let alone all bad. But they are successful, and therefore powerful enough: and their power is unique in being off-limits to normal criticism even when it’s highly visible. They themselves behave as if their success were a guilty secret, and they panic, and resort to accusations, as soon as the subject is raised. Jewish control of the major media in the media age makes the enforced silence both paradoxical and paralyzing. Survival in public life requires that you know all about it, but never refer to it. A hypocritical etiquette forces us to pretend that the Jews are powerless victims; and if you don’t respect their victimhood, they’ll destroy you. It’s a phenomenal display not of wickedness, really, but of fierce ethnocentrism, a sort of furtive racial superpatriotism.”
Only part I’d quibble with is whether or not it is “wickedness.”
It’s always best if we say “ZIONIST” Jews or just “Zionists” …otherwise, as you are aware, we get called, anti-semitic. Happy New Year to ALL!!!
Happy New Year Julie,
Unfortunately, “zionist” will get you labeled anti-semite, too, as well as neocon, and any term that doesn’t support their agenda. What’s a politically correct lemming, in a state of confusion, to do?
The circle graph of Obama’s discretionary budget shows 60-40 with the military versus other programs in 2011. I’m willing to bet that a year later, it will be more like 80-20 and by the end of this year (2013) and next year (2014), it will be more like 90-10. Insanity abounds!
The (not our) government serves the interests of the fellow Corporations, Bankers, and the Handlers in Haifa. The government has been a Corporation since 1871 and Corporate money has blackmailed every one in DC. The government people are basically employees of said Corporations and must do their bidding or get fired. The Corporations demand more and more profits every year so the fastest way to do that is to perpetually build, break, and build more war material and make more war. We spend the equivalent of the rest of the world combined on the military. We are sticking our nose in other peoples business for no other reason than to steal other peoples time and resources. Why do we need 7 Carrier groups and 5 similar Marine assault platforms when no other country has more than 2 . Why go into 35 African countries except to steal their resources. I do not care if those countries terrorize each other. The terrorists in those countries are controlled by the same Corporations that control our government. General Smedley Butler was right 100 years ago. “War is a racket”. The Fascist Government of the United States Corporation is nothing more than an animal without a moral conscience. You can not reason with an animal. Talking to a lion is not going to stop it from chewing on you and choose cat food for sustenance.. When dealing with an animal, only greater force will correct misbehavior.
I am all for Defense but the Corporations that have nothing to lose are in the business of Offense. This has to stop and words will not stop it. America has enough paid for war material to last for many years and when we stay with protecting our borders and Embassies less than $100 per person per year would be needed. Corporate officers do have a great deal of responsibility and do deserve a salary to reflect that, but when salaries are so astronomical that there is no way they could spend it all, something is terribly wrong.
If the Corporate controlled Government thinks it needs to spend like fools to keep an illusionary economy afloat, instead of killing and stealing, focus those resources on going to the stars. The benefits derived form such would benefit all and not just a few.
We have been sitting on our butts at the crossroads for too long. Either we as a people must further submit ourselves to complete slavery to the masters or commit to the ugly necessity of fighting to regain our liberty. We do not have very much longer to make that choice.
The day before the records were destroyed and the people investigating the problem were killed at the pentagon on 911 Rumsfeld admitted that 2.3 trillion dollars were missing. I don’t recall that that money was missed by the military. So how could a mere 24 billion be a problem?
But $24 billion, which could easily provide homes for all the homeless vets, is out of the question for that purpose. Of course, it wouldn’t provide limos, catered parties, security, and all the other amenities that high ranking serving and retired officers receive. We certainly can’t touch that budget.
Regarding the Eisenhower video. That mealy mouthed mongrel was every bit as much a part of the globalist gang as any of them. He warned of the “Military-Industrial Complex without mentioning the money powers behind it. It was a smoke screen. International finance created our enemies to justify the massive spending for defense.
Indeed, perhaps it was the launch of the bullcrap “military-industrial complex” smoked red herring. Still widely used and referenced. What’s the old line about if you want to know who’s in charge, ask you you are not permitted to talk about.
Great line from Ezra Pound on the Protocols: “If or when one mentions the Protocols alleged to be of the Elders of Zion, one is frequently met with the reply: Oh, but they are a forgery. Certainly they are a forgery, and that is the one proof we have of their authenticity. The Jews have worked with forged documents for the past 24 hundred years, namely ever since they have had any documents whatsoever.”
Ezra knew how to call a Jew a Jew.