So Many Complexes

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.” ― Dwight D. Eisenhower 

President Eisenhower's original draft included Congress but he felt he had spent so much of his energy fighting the military that he didn't have the wherewithal to take on congress, too. 

I use this photo to drive home the magnitude of our expenditures on things military. Here's another way to look at things from a current perspective: http://world-defece-review.blogspot.com/2013/01/top-10-largest-air-forces-2013.html 

Nation TOTAL AIRCRAFT: TOTAL HELICOPTERS:

1) US AIR FORCE                           15293                   6665

2) RUSSIAN AIR FORCE              4274                   1426

3) CHINA                                         2743                       96

4) INDIAN AIR FORCE                1962                     559

5) IRAN AIR FORCE                     1858                     800

6)NORTH KOREA                         1667                     237

7)PAKISTAN AIR FORCE            1531                     589

8)TURKISH AIR FORCE             1512                     570

9) UNITED KINGDOM (UK)         1412                     367

10) JAPAN                                      1252                     258

No country is a threat to us. We are a threat to MANY. That’s just wrong!

Of the top 10 largest air powers, we rank number one, with TOTAL AIRCRAFT:15293, TOTAL HELICOPTERS:6665; China has 2743 AIRCRAFT and 96 HELICOPTERS. Of the other nine, 7 are our Allies (maybe not friends, but allies). 

Look also at the number of countries whose air forces use US MADE planes, many of them sold/given to them on credit to keep our military-industrial complex (MIC) going. 

Let’s put our military spending in perspective. We’re spending some $700 million/year on defense. That's $2,222 for every man, woman and child (assuming 315M population). 

We spend 13% less (only $1943 for every man, woman and child) on K-12 education. Does it make sense to you that we spend more per person to 'defend' each American than we do to educate them? Especially when we have no 'enemy' with war capacities anywhere near our own, and where the combined forces of ourselves and our allies dwarfs any other possible combination? 

We are spending money on equipment that will fill more desert sands without EVER having flown a combat mission -- at the expense of our children and their futures.

Post Script:

President Eisenhower cited the Military-Industrial-Complex. I have given this a lot of thought as I work on my documentary on the scam of prescription drugs. I am looking at the Pharmacy-Congressional complex (they rigged Medicare Part D). 

There's also the Agri-congressional complex, the healthcare-congressional complex, the insurance-congressional complex, the education-congressional complex, the Big Oil-congressional complex, the transportation-congressional complex, the list goes on. After I complete this documentary, I will tackle yet another congressional complex. Have a preference? Let me know.

Because They Can

Observations: Because They Can

As fledgling businesses grow to behemoths, their understanding of the world changes. Their world view evolves. They come to realize that, over time, they become immune from the normal mores of society. They realize that they can do things that lesser corporations could never do. Soon they take bold, brash and often illegal, immoral and amoral steps -- because they can.

Goldman Sachs’ CEO Lloyd Blankfein reportedly believes he’s just a banker ‘doing God’s work’ as he ravages the global financial system. Goldman influenced the writing of a letter giving financial speculators the right to deal in commodities. The result was, in 2008, when the global harvest of wheat was the highest in history, speculators drove the price of wheat futures so high there were food riots in over thirty impoverished nations. They did that because they could.

After the 2008 market collapse, as people across the nation were furloughed from their jobs, and financial institutions were supported by bailouts, Goldman Sachs and others handed out million dollar bonuses -- because they could. All the while, politicians and the media were decrying the earnings and pensions of teachers, and canceling union contracts, also because they could. Valid contracts in one industry,

illegitimate in another. Go figure.

Governments do the same. The Bush administration waged war because they could. The NSA spies on the world because they can, and they bring along their collaborators, experts in communications, social media, and the traditional media as well. Now they all do things because they can.

Look at the US budget and you’ll find plenty of collaborators: Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing at the top. Dick Cheney’s former company, Halliburton, and construction, engineering contractor Bechtel don’t even make the top 20 list.

Look at the media corporations and the way they support the military industrial complex. Interviews on media news center on ‘experts’, those special people who know all about the myriad relationships in conflicting nations like Syria. They easily and confidently espouse the many reasons for US intervention in Syria while failing to disclose that they are board members of the major contractors that benefit from such conflicts.

http://public-accountability.org/2013/10/conflicts-of-interest-in-the-syria-debate/

In healthcare, the immoral and devious actions of PBMs (Pharmacy Benefit Management companies) are finally surfacing, and not enjoying the scrutiny. For a couple decades, these pariahs of prescriptions have hidden their financial wizardry from their corporate clients, to the tune of Billions per year and growing. How is it that industry leader Express Scripts profits have grown from $250 million a decade ago to $1.8 billion on the 12 months ended in June*.?

PBMs negotiated with the government for, and received, “an amendment requiring the government to keep the PBM’s incentives and spreads confidential.”* How could they do that? Size matters. Money Matters. Both buy influence. Why did they do that? Because they can. It is only when Americans finally take notice, and then take action will we be able to say ’You can’t.”

*

http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/10/news/companies/pbm-pharma-management.pr.fortune/index.html

Enter Name Here

Congressman Chuck Fleischmann sent out his own youtube.com video to explain the national debt and the need for fiscal responsibility: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oDVg9DQUalg

In just under two minutes he made this point:
2/3 of the budget is based on mandatory spending programs, and that’s way too much. The government should run the budget like good Americans run theirs. 
Oddly enough, 2/3 of the average household budget is mandatory as well*:

Major Household Expenses              Share (%) of income
Housing                                                    34.1
Transportation                                          17.6
Food                                                           5.4
Insurance & Pensions                                10.8
Medical expenses                                       5.7
Total                                                        73.6

The numbers don’t include income tax payments, payment on high-interest debts, car loans or home equity loans. Note that only 1%, more or less, goes to personal care, tobacco and alcohol and, sadly only 0.2% goes to reading. 

Some expenditures are investments, like education costs. We should talk about education, too. Chuck did not mention that. Nor did he mention that if he cuts SNAP programs, the ones that feed women, infants and children, he is then sending children to school ill-prepared to learn because they’re hungry, and hungry kids get distracted by that. He also cuts Head Start, the program with a track record of achievement.

Chuck did not mention that there is a direct relationship between poverty and poor performance in school. With 23% of the nation’s children living in poverty (27% in his district), I wonder if he sees the connection between hunger, poor academic performance, drop out rates, incarceration rates, the cost of, for lack of a better word, caring for the incarcerated. 

I wonder if he sees a link between poverty and hospital costs, most notably in overtaxed emergency rooms (in those hospitals the cuts have not yet been forced to close).

He might have overlooked that among the largest budget items are defense expenditures, Now, to be fair, some of that is coming down as we extricate ourselves from two disastrous and very expensive, not to say meaningless and fruitless, wars. The new budget reflects our new peaceful environment yet still spends over four times what China spends on its military, and more than the next 15 nations spend combined – who, by the way, are our allies.

Certainly he did not consider that our 3,000 plus fighter planes are more than a match for any other nation’s, and that we’re still building more at $29-57 MILLION per plane. Or, that the US military has recently graduated more drone pilots than fighter pilots. He is silent about the number of tanks we’re building that will never see battle because massive ground scale wars have become obsolete. He has said nothing about the generals' openly stating they don't want them. Strange, isn't it?

I ask you, my fellow American, “Do you see something wrong with spending over $35,000/year to keep a body in prison while spending only a fraction of that for their education, nurturing of body, mind and spirit while they're young?

Did Chuck tell you, ‘cause he didn’t tell me, that the trends of the major nations, third world nations among them, is toward the nurturing, growth and development of their children. Did he tell you that by 2020, China and India will have more college graduates with STEM degrees than the US has people? I guess he hasn’t.

Before you lend this guy an ear, understand that he is not your friend; he is not working for you; and, he will continue to not work for you. His future is aligned with people who are not you. You’d better find one who is for you and work like the dickens to get her into office.

Joe Malgeri
Citizen
jmalgeri@gmail.com

I posted this also to my blog: jmalgeri@blogspot.com


Oddly enough, you could use this article as a template. Remove Chuck Fleischmann’s name, enter your own Congressman’s, and be pretty sure that what is written will apply.

*Source:
http://budgeting.thenest.com/average-american-household-budget-4385.html

Weird Dream

Weird Dream

Seems strange, really. To awaken in the midst of a dialogue with someone, a woman for sure, whose visage one cannot make out, who is dressed quite formally as she sits across from me at a small round table -- wrought iron, I think, with a glass top, 

And I’m sharing with her my thoughts about Prince William and his grandmother of all things. She is British herself I think, by her demeanor, and her interest is piqued by the topic, as expressed by an outsider.

She listens intently, though taken aback somewhat, much as I was when I realized it was I speaking. But it seemed natural to share this observation, and comfortable I was doing it.

Elizabeth, the eldest and very much her father’s daughter has been Queen so long it seems like she has never not been. In my monologue,I muse about Prince William and his good fortune at having been the son of Diana, a rare gift to the English people and about her gift to him (and, of course, Harry). 

I admire the queen for being the Queen, for accepting her lot in life and fulfilling her role in the context of her nation and her society. It was never easy, yet she did it with ease, and when she couldn’t be at ease with it, she strove to deal with it by acting in ways that seemed to her the proper ways a queen should act. She was never, I went on, a person with her own identity playing a role, fulfilling duties. Queen Elizabeth is her role and it is who she is -- no separation.

William, on the other hand is William, the boy who became a man with a strong sense of self, a reflection of his own humanity, separate from the roles he now fulfills and those destiny has laid out for him. William is William first, and then Prince, and both identities are comfortable to him. He fulfills his role with aplomb and enjoys it immensely. He is open and caring, he shares of himself with the radiance of his mother. 

His grandmother is her role and she lives it every moment of her life, controlled as it seems by working every waking moment to anticipate what the personage should do next and then do it, to be what she should be, what the role demands.

Whomever was seated across from me as I rambled, listened quietly, taking in my words and giving them a respectful hearing, non-judgmentally in a British sort of way, non committal, poised without emotion. I think I may never know her true thoughts but I know she has them, and she holds them firmly. She also holds them to herself. As for my thoughts, I am amazed to have had them at all.

Radical Republicans Have No Idea

To the members of the US House of Representatives who voted for the shutdown:

You have no idea the harm you have done, the long-term damage you have wreaked upon your nation.

You were the bullies on the playground, so filled with testosterone that you convinced yourselves you could take over the school and overpower the principal. You spoke only to yourselves to the exclusion of all others and came to believe your own bullshit. How stupid you proved yourselves to be.

Not so, you say? Well, consider this. United States allies from the majority of the world nations are talking – to each other. “Look out,” they’re saying. The nation is imploding, collapsing under its own weight, under the burden of its own hubris and ignorance.

“There are no leaders there – not any more. The ones that might have been, like John McCain, can only apologize for their peers. There are only self serving egotists, feeding at the public trough – at the expense of their own people. It was like this in Rome. It was like this in every collapsing hegemony.

“While we quietly invest in our own people, in infrastructure, strive to improve our education systems and to create opportunities for our children, their infrastructures are collapsing around them. They have taken so much money out of their system for the benefit of the few that they now have to privatize what remains. They openly and gleefully wage wars on their women, infants and children. They would wage a more active war against the elderly if there were fewer and they didn’t need the votes.

“Look how they spend their money – on war materiel. They spend more on their military than all of us combined – and for what? Where can they use it. We are all friends here, by and large. They blind sided Libya but Syria is mush wiser, and they have friends. Iran is softening, making efforts to join the community again. How many missiles do we really need for North Korea?

“As we watch from a distance, they continue to build more fighter jets they’ll never need, more tanks that will never see a battlefield, all to enrich the war machinery. They ignore the fact that the last junior officer to engage an enemy in battle is now an aging general nearing retirement, preparing for new career as a lobbyist. They fail to acknowledge that they now graduate more drone operators than fighter pilots.

“They don’t understand that the last great war for them was won in 1945 and that every one since has come at too great a cost to be called victory. They fail to acknowledge that while they once fought for a cause, they now only wage war as predators.

“After conducting silent wars of economic aggression against Central and South America, and after supporting Asian and Middle Eastern despots, what’s left?

“What’s left but to militarize their internal police forces and national guards to defend themselves against their own. What’s left but to spy on everyone, friends and foe alike, their own citizens as well.

“Careful, my friends. We must ask ourselves, is it time to look elsewhere for leadership? Is it time for an alternative currency to replace the dollar? We must craft a plan to divest ourselves of the trillions we have invested in their treasuries for ‘full faith and credit’ carries less significance for us than it once did. We must prepare to withstand the tsunami as the giant collapses into the sea.

“The leaders among the 545 are too few to overcome the avarice and greed of the fascist elite, the billionaire overlords, the few mega corporations that control everything: the food supplies, the energy resources, healthcare, the media, and the military. Most of them are part of the system, including five of the judiciary. Let us look to each other, for their end is near. It is part of the cycle of life.”

You may deny this, Republicans like Cantor and Ryan, Gohmert and Cruz. Fair enough. History will prove it out. You did not cause the decline. The cracks have been appearing for years. What you did, however was to fracture the nation, to show the world what our institutions have become, to expose us to the light. Ill winds are blowing stronger because of you.