Bank Bailouts vs. Pentagon Bailouts
Lost in the hysteria over the financial turmoil and the proposed $700 billion bailout (which went down in flames today) is the fact that the House of Representatives just passed a $612 billion “defense authorization” bill for 2009. I haven’t heard a peep of protest about *that*. Oh, I forgot … that’s because we are spending that money to protect ourselves from the Islamo-fascist terrorists. Meanwhile, we are sliding down the slope to a depression, courtesy of the Bankster-fascist terrorists.
Go figure.
I dream of the day when the American people get as upset about spending obscene amounts for the military-industrial-congressional complex as they do about the obscene amount proposed to bail out the financial industry.
The URL for the Chalmers Johnson article is: http://www.truthout.org/092908B (WordPress ate my previous attempt).
Spending as much as the rest of the world combined on blowing stuff (and people) up. That’s surely obscene to me. As a protest sign I once saw said, “War is so 20th century”. Or 15th century. Surely it’s not the future, unless one wants a future of hostility and want. Or, as Tony Benn said, “All war represents a failure of diplomacy”. Or, “War is the sport of kings”.
Some will say, “But the evildoers require this of us.” I say, the U.S. has militarily intervened in other nations over 45 times since WWII, most recently by our war of aggression on Iraq. We couldn’t defend ourselves on 9/11: we don’t have a defense department, we have a war department.
A good exploration of this is a recent article by Chalmers Johnson: We Have the Money… if only we didn’t waste it on the defense budget.