Feb 6, 2023·edited Feb 6, 2023Liked by Bill Astore
The MIC is a symptom of THE problem of the US which is profit before people.
The "defense" budget proves this annually, but if there is anything that nails it, it was the bailout of the megabanks back in the housing crash. Then the choice was clear: help the mortgage holders with a home suddenly worth much less than the mortgage, or protect bank profit, pretend that the mortgages had value and have Uncle Sam buy the "financial instruments" based on those mortgages with government funds. Put simply, the government created money and gave it to the banks.
It was never a choice, all the "advisors" were part of the system. Wall Street was bailed out. No underwater homeowners attended the meeting between Obama and the bankers to decide what to do. All of this was done in broad daylight, Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein staying in charge. There was no breakup of TBTF banks or even an attempt at it.
The conductor of this travesty, "Mr. Hope" Obama, was re-elected, but would private equity star Mitt Romney have been a better choice on this issue of profit before people? As always, we the people have no choice on offer. Private equity (the "leveraged buy-out" guys) now owns more companies than the number listed on the stock exchanges, and the ownership is for the express purpose of squeezing profit, not product, from those privately held companies.
Our corrupt Congress was unable to do more than come up with Dodd-Frank that has steadily been neutered by successful lobbying since. And speaking of Congress - what is the response to the outrageous shenanigans of stock buy-backs? A whopping 1% tax on them. And what has the new-blood, The Squad, done to stand up to power (Pelosi)? Nothing. Pelosi has been replaced with Pelosi II, Hakeem Jeffries.
What is the way out? All exits are blocked, I mean bought.
Will this comment just posted in The Washington Post last?
The US Taxpayer pays the cost of the MOST EXPENSIVE Military Force in the History of Nations. This is in addition to the US being the BIGGEST MERCHANT and SUPPLIER of the Weapons of DEATH and DESTRUCTION to the World.
Since WWII, the US has invaded and bombed ONLY poor, 3rd World Countries and couldn't get a win in any of them with that expensive Military, the humiliating defeat in Afghanistan and frantic exit from Kabul being the latest example.
Ordinary Americans and the US Power Elites see nothing wrong with that picture. Just give the MIC more money and they might win the next Time.
The NEXT Time is already here against a Nation that can reach the US Homeland unlike all those poor Countries the US Destroyed leaving failed States in it's wake.
Americans mirror that love of Weapons which explains why there are more of them in private hands in the US than for any other Country or Society on Earth, and there are more Mass killings than for any other Society on Earth and bound to increase as the Economic Straitjacket tightens on Americans.
As an Independent thinking Canadian, watching US & Canadian hype over the F-22 fighter jet costing $68,000/hour flying time, in it's 1st ever air to air "kill" in it's history, using a missile costing $381,000 to shoot down a rubber balloon seems to have given Americans a National orgasm.
Trying to make sense of all that and knowing what to do about it is the challenging part!
"I'm not sure of the relevance of comparing big oil or big tobacco to the MIC."
Big tobacco, no, because, as rapacious as it is, its damage is relegated to individual choice (and, of course, the associated healthcare burden, which is not insignificant). Besides, the tobacco industry doesn't have the hold on the country that it once did.
Big Oil is another story, and comparing it to the MIC is entirely relevant. We the people have even less control over Big Oil than we do the MIC, and we know that, absent repeated tsunamis of protest---chances of those being nonexistent at present---we won't affect the MIC. Big Oil is collectively out of our reach.
The symbiosis between the MIC and Big Oil is fundamental, and is essential for the survival of the MIC: they feed on each other. Shut down Big Oil, and the MIC grinds to a halt. Meanwhile, the MIC partially justifies the existence of Big Oil.
As a result of its fossil fuel usage, the MIC produces enormous amounts of greenhouse gasses and other pollution.
Both Big Oil and the MIC have a stranglehold on this country (and by extension, the world, one could argue), and there's no practical solution right now to getting rid of either one, so looking at them in tandem makes sense. Indeed, one can't look at either without looking at the other, IMO.
But the MIC, or MICC, or MICIMATT, I'd argue, is even more powerful and pervasive because it's wrapped in the flag. People are taught the military is "the best of us" and that to salute it is the ultimate in patriotism.
I agree: the MIC and Fossil Fuels are in cahoots. They feed off each other, and indeed part of the job of the MIC is to secure access to fossil fuels at a cheap price while also burning them in the process. Talk about a win-win!
The MIC is indeed wrapped in the flag, but fossil fuels are an insidious part of most of life on this planet, particularlyon developed nations. Getting rid of the MIC would be a relatively straightforward process [not simple, or easy, but finite]: cut funding, and deal with the fallout. No direct citizen participation required.
Getting rid of fossil fuels, by contrast, would require changes to our entire way of life, and big, vastly inconvenuent, usually costly sacrifices on the part of each and every citizen. Millions of moving parts. In other words, the process would hit right AT home with everyone. Whereas, the MIC is just out there somewhere. Naturally, unraveling the MIC would mean tens of thousands of lost jobs, and certainly, that would be a hardship. But I have to think that abandoning plastics; switching to solar/wind/geothermal/hydro energy; switching to EVs (leaving aside the controversies there); relying on public transportation (especially with the current abysmally poor infrastructure); and so on would be orders of magnitude more difficult, on the whole.
But i will ask the same questions about getting rid of fossil fuels that i asked about getting rid of the MICC: What kind of jobs will be lost when plastic is abandoned, all energy comes from renewables, EVs rule the roads, people abandon POVs in favor of mass transit, and so forth?
Obviously, the transition from fossil fuels won't happen overnight. In the meantime, workers can be re-trained. Mass transit jobs will skyrocket, for instance. People will be needed to produce plastic-free goods of all kinds (laundry detergent sheets, as one example). Renewables manufacturing and installation workers will be in huge demand for decades in the fields of wind and solar, but even more so in geothermal, current turbines, and other hydro energy. Maybe even in innovations such as large-scale sails. Then there's the other side of the coin: finding and implementation of effective carbon sequestration processes; eventually, down the line, cold fusion facilities (the engineering magazine I worked on previewed non-radioactive nuclear energy years ago). The possibilities are indeed endless.
Where we are now is analogous to the farming-to-industry transition 170 years ago. There's a sea change in the making, and we can't foresee where it will take us. Either we'll abandon fossil fuels, or we'll have to face the disastrous consequences of not doing so.
That is exactly what one of my questions about the MICC transitioning to a “Peacetime” ~ as opposed to a perpetual “Wartime” ~ Economy was, Denise: Who is going to re-train all these people in the current Fossil Fuel-driven Economy so they can start producing goods, products, and services for the “Green” Economy?
And just as importantly: Who is going to pay for that re-training, and also pay the trainees? And who is going to pay for building the factories to produce those goods and products? And who is going to break Consumers of their like of Plastics and all the other things that Fossil Fuels make possible? And how?
As You say. “The possibilities are endless” indeed. But those possibilities have been endless for quite some time now, haven’t they? And seem to have not materialized to any great degree.
The real question is: WHO is going to decide that America is going to ditch Fossil Fuels and go totally Renewable? [Let alone the rest of the Planet? ] And on what basis will THEY be the ones who make that decision, and then go about actually attempting to make that happen?
And i don’t know enough about that transition from farming-to-industry 170 years ago to judge whether this current situation is analogous. My hunch, tho, is that the situation is far more complex today than it was then; if only because EVERYTHING is far more complex today. Especially the interplay between Science and Technology, on the one hand; and Political Power and Economic Wealth, on the other.
I don't think anyone has the answers to your questions. At least, not any single person or entity. But I submit that our future as a species depends on working toward those answers, posthaste.
As for the complexity of our society versus that of 170 years ago, certainly, there are quite literally more moving parts, and events happen more quickly. But I don't think people or processes have changed that much.
<<< We may never know if it was spying, but the Chinese balloon served its purpose, feeding our political establishment's tireless efforts to keep the public freaked out >>>
Empires can’t be ruled without belief. Without confidence in official words, subjects will lack direction, becoming “lost at sea,” as Revolt of the Public author Martin Gurri put it. They’ll support Brexit, Catalan independence, Trump; they’ll wear yellow vests, throw away masks, even refuse the shot. When you tell them Beto O’Rourke is Robert Kennedy, they vote as if he were Ralph Nader.
Now take a hypothetical. Say you’re a member of the American political establishment after the 2016 election of Donald Trump. You’re staring at four years as part of a government-in-exile and need a new message to solve your belief problem. What’s your answer?
My hypothesis is such people never bothered to find one. Instead, they declared a state of emergency.
What emergency? Doesn’t matter. Russian interference was a good startup disaster, but you can keep changing them. THE IMPORTANT THING IS THE PATTERN. ONE, DECLARE A CRISIS. TWO, SPREAD PANIC. THREE, TAKE EMERGENCY MEASURES. IF YOU DO THIS OVER AND OVER, YOU END UP WITH PERMANENT CRISIS, PERMANENT PANIC, PERMANENT EMERGENCY RULE. SO LONG AS NEW CRISES KEEP EVOKING UNCONSCIOUS FEAR AND ANXIETY, THE LEGITIMACY OF THE POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT IS CONTINUOUSLY JUSTIFIED.
An episode that took place over the weekend speaks directly to our leaders’ new dependence on government-by-panic. A Chinese balloon of unknown etiology drifted into American airspace, and wigs flipped from coast to coast. The episode ended in Kubrickian spoof, with one unsmiling official after another lining up to declare victory over a balloon. And nobody thought it was odd.
The Chinese airship was declared a “spy balloon” on the Internet instantaneously. Hype and fear built all weekend until finally, in a story I initially thought was a joke, the United States military shot the thing down off the coast of South Carolina with an F-22 Raptor jet launched from Langley Air Force in Virginia.
The comedy factor is off the charts. The F-22 is one of the most expensive weapons ever built, costing taxpayers $334 million per plane, with a program tab of more than $60 billion. The jet has the radar signature of a hummingbird, screams upward at 62,000 feet a minute, and is generally so super-awesome that we’ve banned its export, not wanting the Japanese or the Saudis or even the Australians to possess our secret Promethean fire.
THE IDEA THAT THIS CELEBRATED SUPER-WEAPON GOT ITS FIRST AIR-TO-AIR VICTORY SHOOTING DOWN A FUCKING BALLOON IS AS PERFECT A DEMONSTRATION OF THE PITIFUL MINDSET OF MODERN AMERICAN LEADERS AS COULD BE CONCEIVED. THAT IT APPARENTLY HAPPENED BEFORE WE WERE EVEN SURE IT WAS A SPY CRAFT, JUST BEFORE SUPPOSED DIPLOMATIC TALKS WITH CHINA, AND WHILE MORE SOPHISTICATED CHINESE SATELLITES ZOOMED OVER US IN SPACE MADE THIS AN EVEN MORE DAMNING SATIRICAL BULLSEYE.
News stories full of frightened official commentary were legion. They dragged out a NORAD general to warn us there’s “a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out.” New York Senator Chuck Schumer gave an impromptu presser stressing that the balloon episode could end up being a good thing. “We can learn a great deal about China’s capabilities and what they are up to,” he said, referring to the chance to retrieve balloon debris. Former CIA head Leon Panetta ripped Joe Biden for not shooting the balloon down sooner, instead of letting it “traverse the entire country.” Secretary of State Tony Blinken admitted upcoming talks with China mattered, but balloon freakout took precedence.
“We continue to believe that having open lines of communication is important,” pronounced Blinken. “But the most important thing right now is to see that this surveillance asset gets out of our airspace, and we’ll take it from there.”
Translation: I have real diplomatic work to do, but the tenuous nature of my authority requires I spend the weekend humping a panic button, so my government can keep the public in a nervous stupor and ultimately declare victory over a balloon.
IN AMERICA, THE RITUAL OF PANIC HAS NOW BECOME MORE IMPORTANT THAN REAL-WORLD GOVERNANCE. WE BECAME A WORLD POWER BUILDING CARS, PLANES, LIGHT BULBS. NOW WE MAKE PANICS, AND TENDING TO THEM IS THE FIRST BUSINESS OF STATE.
Try this exercise. Go to Google (I stopped using that devious propaganda site about a month ago, but it’s useful for this exercise). Enter “attack on our democracy,” “attacks on democracy,” or any similar phrase. You’ll find a deluge. Here’s a brief thumbnail list of “attacks” we’ve endured since late 2016
And so, somebody might be led to ask: “What system of government and government is the alternative to the system America has now?”
The alternative would be a government that fulfills the proper function of Government:
~ To protect the Human Rights of Life, Liberty, Property, Privacy, the Pursuit of Happiness, and the precursor to all of these, Peace.
In doing that and Only that, Government would get out of the way of the Economy and Civil Society in fulfilling their tasks of the meeting of Human Needs for and the satisfying of Human Wants of Health, Prosperity, Security, and the Pursuit of Wants.
The ultimate reason for this is that a Government cannot meet the Needs and satisfy the Wants of some of its Citizens without violating the Rights of some other of its Citizens. Governments cannot do both at the same time at all, let alone do it well.
As has been stated several times on this forum in the past:
The problem is not with the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex. Nor is it with the Big Corporatism of the Big Banks, Big Energy, Big Agriculture, Big Pharmaceutical, and Big Media Cartels, who, put “profits before people.” Nor is it with the Medical, Legal, Law Enforcement, and Guns and Drugs Cabals. Nor is it with the Surveillance-Secrecy-Security-Safety Panopticon now flourishing as never before. [Is that a 1984esque telescreen in Your pocket? Or just a "smart" phone?"]
These are but Symptoms of the disease afflicting America.
The ultimate, root cause and source of America’s crisis today is that it has a system of government and governance in which various and sundry Vested Special Interests use the legal power, the administrative authority, and particularly, the spending capability of the federal government, to accomplish whatever it is that those VSIs want to accomplish as individuals, groups, organizations, and institutions for their clients, cohorts, constituents, and/or themselves. Regardless of what the Citizens of this Nation may need or want.
These are who make up America’s Ruling Political Class, and who own and operate, and command and control the governors ~ the elected politicians, entrenched civilian and military bureaucrats, and anointed appointees ~ at center stage in America's reality-tv extravaganza; and America's $ 1 = 1 Vote system of government and governance that gets, puts, and keeps them there.
And this is exactly why America has reached the state that it has today as:
~ a Bankrupt Debtor State;
~ an Imperialist Warfare State;
~ a Redistributionist Welfare State;
~ a Secrecy/Surveillance/Security/proto-Police State;
~ an Autocratic/Patriarchal/Oligarchic/Plutocratic Deep State;
~ an at-best Flailing Nation State and a definitely Failing Empire;
~ an Overshoot State; and, perhaps most importantly,
~ a People and Nation no longer merely "divided," but fractured - even to the point of disintegration - in ways not seen in more than 160 years, since the eve of what may end up being merely the First American Civil War.
And the only way that any of this has and could have happened is because of that flawed System of government and governance. Which, as also stated before, is nothing new. The Federalists worked very hard to lay the groundwork and build the foundation to make all this happen back when this system was being put together back in Philadelphia in the late 1780s, and it has succeeded for their successors ~ America’s Ruling Political Class ~ ever since.
And ultimately, hence the legitimacy of the question: “Will the United States survive to celebrate its 250th birthday on July 4, 2026, a mere 1,244 days from today?”
THE ATTACK OF THE KILLER BALLOON by Jacob G. Hornberger 020623
I confess that I did not leave my house last week. I wasn’t about to take a chance that that Chinese Giant Balloon would attack me or, at the very least, monitor my trips to the grocery store. Why take that chance when I could remain safe within the confines of my home?
Even Pentagon assurances that China’s Giant Balloon posed no military threat did not provide any comfort to me. After all, the Pentagon could have been lying about the military capabilities of the Giant Balloon to prevent a nationwide panic. Moreover, keep in mind that this wasn’t just any Giant Balloon. It was a communist Giant Balloon!
As the Giant Balloon began heading eastward, I was sure it was headed to Virginia, where I live and, more important, where the CIA and the Pentagon are located! I just kept imagining massive cannons suddenly extruding out of the Giant Balloon and firing on me as I was driving to the grocery store.
Oh, I’m sure that there are many of you are scoffing over my concerns. It’s always easy to be courageous when a Giant Balloon isn’t headed in your direction. And I’ll bet most of you have never seen movies in which Americans are attacked by Big Scary Things, such as:
THE ATTACK OF THE 50-FOOT WOMAN
THE ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES
ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES
THE ATTACK OF THE GIANT CHEERLEADER [Note: All with links to Amazon for our viewing pleasure.]
The press was reporting that China’s Giant Balloon was flying over Montana. Some reporters were disclosing that Montana is where the Pentagon’s nuclear silos are located. Are they supposed to do that? Surely, the Pentagon keeps the locations of its nuclear missiles secret, right? Has the mainstream press violated the Trading with the Enemy Act by telling the Reds where America’s nuclear missiles are? The people of Montana shouldn’t be too happy about that. If the Pentagon succeeds in ginning up a nuclear war with China before it succeeds in ginning one up with Russia, China is now likely to inundate Montana with nuclear missiles.
The Pentagon reported that the Giant Balloon also flew over Kansas. Kansas? Why Kansas? Hey, haven’t you noticed who is in the Super Bowl next Sunday? That would be the Kansas City Chiefs! I’ll bet those crafty Chinese Reds are trying to figure out which team to bet on.
The Pentagon announced that the Giant Balloon was also spying on several military bases. If so, there is an easy solution: just shut down the bases, which would obviate the need for the Chinese to send a Giant Balloon to spy on them. As I wrote last week in my article “Why Not Defund the Military?” the Pentagon’s empire of domestic military bases serves no useful function and should go the way of the dodo bird.
As China’s Giant Balloon was slowly making its way eastward, I couldn’t help but think about Francis Gary Powers. He was the CIA officer who was piloting the CIA’s top-secret U-2 spy plane that was shot down over the Soviet Union (i.e, Russia) in 1960.
What was Powers doing flying a CIA spy plane over Russia? Why, spying, of course. Illegally spying!
You mean, the United States was doing to Russia with its spy plane what China was supposedly doing to the United States with its Giant Balloon?
Yep. And I guarantee you that you’ll never guess what happened after Powers was shot down. CIA officials maintained with straight faces that their plane was a “weather plane” that had strayed off course. Isn’t that what Chinese officials are saying about their Giant Balloon?
What the CIA didn’t know was that Powers had disobeyed orders to take a cyanide capsule in the event of a shoot-down. Powers decided that he’d rather stay alive. So he was taken captive and told the Russians the truth about his spy mission. That’s how the Russians knew that the CIA was lying with its “weather plane” charade.
The CIA’s spy mission set back talks between Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower. There has been speculation over the decades that the CIA intentionally sabotaged Powers’ spy plane to ensure that Khrushchev and Eisenhower would not reach an agreement that would bring an end to the national-security establishment’s lucrative Cold War racket.
Ironically, because of the Giant Balloon incident, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has suspended a planned trip to China. That might not disappoint Chinese officials, however, given that the primary purpose of Blinken’s trip was to castigate China for supposedly assisting Russia with its war in Ukraine.
In any event, the U.S. military finally decided to shoot down the Chinese Giant Balloon over the coast of South Carolina. They didn’t want to shoot down the balloon when it was over the continental United States because falling debris could hurt people. Apparently, they didn’t have the same concern for boaters off the American coast.
According to the media, the military used a Sidewinder missile to kill the Giant Balloon. The cost of that operation was around half-a-million dollars. Oh well, what’s another half-million dollars added onto the $31 trillion in debt that U.S. officials have already placed onto the backs of American taxpayers?
In any event, now that the Giant Balloon is gone, I’m feeling safe and I’m now going out of my house again. Oh wait! The mainstream press is reporting that another Chinese Giant Balloon is now flying over Latin America! OMG! The Reds are going to spy on Trump’s Berlin Wall along the border and then send their new Giant Balloon north to Virginia. I’m headed back indoors.
I'm not quite as bothered by the MIC. It's the wars that I dislike. And the need of the parts of our government to have an enemy to justify their existence and their budgets. From what I hear our semi-declared war with Russia isn't being pushed by the Pentagon anyway.
And I don't have a problem with big oil. To live is to consume energy. It's as simple as that. The crusade against big oil is so hypocritical. Like John Kerry, in his post as Climate Czar, globetrotting in a dedicated jet to conferences scolding the rest of us on our use of energy. When asked why he uses a dedicated jet he responded that that was the only way for someone like him to go. Sorry but the whole "by your leave, sire" expectation should have been gone from government a long time ago.
He should have known better than to have given a "peace" speech. Indeed, that might be the last peace speech an American president has given, sixty years ago.
The MIC is a symptom of THE problem of the US which is profit before people.
The "defense" budget proves this annually, but if there is anything that nails it, it was the bailout of the megabanks back in the housing crash. Then the choice was clear: help the mortgage holders with a home suddenly worth much less than the mortgage, or protect bank profit, pretend that the mortgages had value and have Uncle Sam buy the "financial instruments" based on those mortgages with government funds. Put simply, the government created money and gave it to the banks.
It was never a choice, all the "advisors" were part of the system. Wall Street was bailed out. No underwater homeowners attended the meeting between Obama and the bankers to decide what to do. All of this was done in broad daylight, Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein staying in charge. There was no breakup of TBTF banks or even an attempt at it.
The conductor of this travesty, "Mr. Hope" Obama, was re-elected, but would private equity star Mitt Romney have been a better choice on this issue of profit before people? As always, we the people have no choice on offer. Private equity (the "leveraged buy-out" guys) now owns more companies than the number listed on the stock exchanges, and the ownership is for the express purpose of squeezing profit, not product, from those privately held companies.
Our corrupt Congress was unable to do more than come up with Dodd-Frank that has steadily been neutered by successful lobbying since. And speaking of Congress - what is the response to the outrageous shenanigans of stock buy-backs? A whopping 1% tax on them. And what has the new-blood, The Squad, done to stand up to power (Pelosi)? Nothing. Pelosi has been replaced with Pelosi II, Hakeem Jeffries.
What is the way out? All exits are blocked, I mean bought.
Profit before the planet too. Amazing how we trash the Earth. You'd think we have several planets instead of just one.
Will this comment just posted in The Washington Post last?
The US Taxpayer pays the cost of the MOST EXPENSIVE Military Force in the History of Nations. This is in addition to the US being the BIGGEST MERCHANT and SUPPLIER of the Weapons of DEATH and DESTRUCTION to the World.
Since WWII, the US has invaded and bombed ONLY poor, 3rd World Countries and couldn't get a win in any of them with that expensive Military, the humiliating defeat in Afghanistan and frantic exit from Kabul being the latest example.
Ordinary Americans and the US Power Elites see nothing wrong with that picture. Just give the MIC more money and they might win the next Time.
The NEXT Time is already here against a Nation that can reach the US Homeland unlike all those poor Countries the US Destroyed leaving failed States in it's wake.
Americans mirror that love of Weapons which explains why there are more of them in private hands in the US than for any other Country or Society on Earth, and there are more Mass killings than for any other Society on Earth and bound to increase as the Economic Straitjacket tightens on Americans.
As an Independent thinking Canadian, watching US & Canadian hype over the F-22 fighter jet costing $68,000/hour flying time, in it's 1st ever air to air "kill" in it's history, using a missile costing $381,000 to shoot down a rubber balloon seems to have given Americans a National orgasm.
Trying to make sense of all that and knowing what to do about it is the challenging part!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/04/chinese-balloon-pentagon-intelligence-details/
Surprise, surprise! It's still there and the surprise is there are 3 up votes and no challengers with disparaging remarks.
"I'm not sure of the relevance of comparing big oil or big tobacco to the MIC."
Big tobacco, no, because, as rapacious as it is, its damage is relegated to individual choice (and, of course, the associated healthcare burden, which is not insignificant). Besides, the tobacco industry doesn't have the hold on the country that it once did.
Big Oil is another story, and comparing it to the MIC is entirely relevant. We the people have even less control over Big Oil than we do the MIC, and we know that, absent repeated tsunamis of protest---chances of those being nonexistent at present---we won't affect the MIC. Big Oil is collectively out of our reach.
The symbiosis between the MIC and Big Oil is fundamental, and is essential for the survival of the MIC: they feed on each other. Shut down Big Oil, and the MIC grinds to a halt. Meanwhile, the MIC partially justifies the existence of Big Oil.
As a result of its fossil fuel usage, the MIC produces enormous amounts of greenhouse gasses and other pollution.
https://www.popsci.com/environment/military-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data/
Both Big Oil and the MIC have a stranglehold on this country (and by extension, the world, one could argue), and there's no practical solution right now to getting rid of either one, so looking at them in tandem makes sense. Indeed, one can't look at either without looking at the other, IMO.
Yes, good point, Denise.
But the MIC, or MICC, or MICIMATT, I'd argue, is even more powerful and pervasive because it's wrapped in the flag. People are taught the military is "the best of us" and that to salute it is the ultimate in patriotism.
I agree: the MIC and Fossil Fuels are in cahoots. They feed off each other, and indeed part of the job of the MIC is to secure access to fossil fuels at a cheap price while also burning them in the process. Talk about a win-win!
The MIC is indeed wrapped in the flag, but fossil fuels are an insidious part of most of life on this planet, particularlyon developed nations. Getting rid of the MIC would be a relatively straightforward process [not simple, or easy, but finite]: cut funding, and deal with the fallout. No direct citizen participation required.
Getting rid of fossil fuels, by contrast, would require changes to our entire way of life, and big, vastly inconvenuent, usually costly sacrifices on the part of each and every citizen. Millions of moving parts. In other words, the process would hit right AT home with everyone. Whereas, the MIC is just out there somewhere. Naturally, unraveling the MIC would mean tens of thousands of lost jobs, and certainly, that would be a hardship. But I have to think that abandoning plastics; switching to solar/wind/geothermal/hydro energy; switching to EVs (leaving aside the controversies there); relying on public transportation (especially with the current abysmally poor infrastructure); and so on would be orders of magnitude more difficult, on the whole.
Excellent points, Denise.
But i will ask the same questions about getting rid of fossil fuels that i asked about getting rid of the MICC: What kind of jobs will be lost when plastic is abandoned, all energy comes from renewables, EVs rule the roads, people abandon POVs in favor of mass transit, and so forth?
How is that transition to be handled?
Obviously, the transition from fossil fuels won't happen overnight. In the meantime, workers can be re-trained. Mass transit jobs will skyrocket, for instance. People will be needed to produce plastic-free goods of all kinds (laundry detergent sheets, as one example). Renewables manufacturing and installation workers will be in huge demand for decades in the fields of wind and solar, but even more so in geothermal, current turbines, and other hydro energy. Maybe even in innovations such as large-scale sails. Then there's the other side of the coin: finding and implementation of effective carbon sequestration processes; eventually, down the line, cold fusion facilities (the engineering magazine I worked on previewed non-radioactive nuclear energy years ago). The possibilities are indeed endless.
Where we are now is analogous to the farming-to-industry transition 170 years ago. There's a sea change in the making, and we can't foresee where it will take us. Either we'll abandon fossil fuels, or we'll have to face the disastrous consequences of not doing so.
That is exactly what one of my questions about the MICC transitioning to a “Peacetime” ~ as opposed to a perpetual “Wartime” ~ Economy was, Denise: Who is going to re-train all these people in the current Fossil Fuel-driven Economy so they can start producing goods, products, and services for the “Green” Economy?
And just as importantly: Who is going to pay for that re-training, and also pay the trainees? And who is going to pay for building the factories to produce those goods and products? And who is going to break Consumers of their like of Plastics and all the other things that Fossil Fuels make possible? And how?
As You say. “The possibilities are endless” indeed. But those possibilities have been endless for quite some time now, haven’t they? And seem to have not materialized to any great degree.
The real question is: WHO is going to decide that America is going to ditch Fossil Fuels and go totally Renewable? [Let alone the rest of the Planet? ] And on what basis will THEY be the ones who make that decision, and then go about actually attempting to make that happen?
And i don’t know enough about that transition from farming-to-industry 170 years ago to judge whether this current situation is analogous. My hunch, tho, is that the situation is far more complex today than it was then; if only because EVERYTHING is far more complex today. Especially the interplay between Science and Technology, on the one hand; and Political Power and Economic Wealth, on the other.
I don't think anyone has the answers to your questions. At least, not any single person or entity. But I submit that our future as a species depends on working toward those answers, posthaste.
As for the complexity of our society versus that of 170 years ago, certainly, there are quite literally more moving parts, and events happen more quickly. But I don't think people or processes have changed that much.
GOVERNMENT BY PANIC by Matt Taibbi
<<< We may never know if it was spying, but the Chinese balloon served its purpose, feeding our political establishment's tireless efforts to keep the public freaked out >>>
Empires can’t be ruled without belief. Without confidence in official words, subjects will lack direction, becoming “lost at sea,” as Revolt of the Public author Martin Gurri put it. They’ll support Brexit, Catalan independence, Trump; they’ll wear yellow vests, throw away masks, even refuse the shot. When you tell them Beto O’Rourke is Robert Kennedy, they vote as if he were Ralph Nader.
Now take a hypothetical. Say you’re a member of the American political establishment after the 2016 election of Donald Trump. You’re staring at four years as part of a government-in-exile and need a new message to solve your belief problem. What’s your answer?
My hypothesis is such people never bothered to find one. Instead, they declared a state of emergency.
What emergency? Doesn’t matter. Russian interference was a good startup disaster, but you can keep changing them. THE IMPORTANT THING IS THE PATTERN. ONE, DECLARE A CRISIS. TWO, SPREAD PANIC. THREE, TAKE EMERGENCY MEASURES. IF YOU DO THIS OVER AND OVER, YOU END UP WITH PERMANENT CRISIS, PERMANENT PANIC, PERMANENT EMERGENCY RULE. SO LONG AS NEW CRISES KEEP EVOKING UNCONSCIOUS FEAR AND ANXIETY, THE LEGITIMACY OF THE POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT IS CONTINUOUSLY JUSTIFIED.
An episode that took place over the weekend speaks directly to our leaders’ new dependence on government-by-panic. A Chinese balloon of unknown etiology drifted into American airspace, and wigs flipped from coast to coast. The episode ended in Kubrickian spoof, with one unsmiling official after another lining up to declare victory over a balloon. And nobody thought it was odd.
The Chinese airship was declared a “spy balloon” on the Internet instantaneously. Hype and fear built all weekend until finally, in a story I initially thought was a joke, the United States military shot the thing down off the coast of South Carolina with an F-22 Raptor jet launched from Langley Air Force in Virginia.
The comedy factor is off the charts. The F-22 is one of the most expensive weapons ever built, costing taxpayers $334 million per plane, with a program tab of more than $60 billion. The jet has the radar signature of a hummingbird, screams upward at 62,000 feet a minute, and is generally so super-awesome that we’ve banned its export, not wanting the Japanese or the Saudis or even the Australians to possess our secret Promethean fire.
THE IDEA THAT THIS CELEBRATED SUPER-WEAPON GOT ITS FIRST AIR-TO-AIR VICTORY SHOOTING DOWN A FUCKING BALLOON IS AS PERFECT A DEMONSTRATION OF THE PITIFUL MINDSET OF MODERN AMERICAN LEADERS AS COULD BE CONCEIVED. THAT IT APPARENTLY HAPPENED BEFORE WE WERE EVEN SURE IT WAS A SPY CRAFT, JUST BEFORE SUPPOSED DIPLOMATIC TALKS WITH CHINA, AND WHILE MORE SOPHISTICATED CHINESE SATELLITES ZOOMED OVER US IN SPACE MADE THIS AN EVEN MORE DAMNING SATIRICAL BULLSEYE.
News stories full of frightened official commentary were legion. They dragged out a NORAD general to warn us there’s “a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out.” New York Senator Chuck Schumer gave an impromptu presser stressing that the balloon episode could end up being a good thing. “We can learn a great deal about China’s capabilities and what they are up to,” he said, referring to the chance to retrieve balloon debris. Former CIA head Leon Panetta ripped Joe Biden for not shooting the balloon down sooner, instead of letting it “traverse the entire country.” Secretary of State Tony Blinken admitted upcoming talks with China mattered, but balloon freakout took precedence.
“We continue to believe that having open lines of communication is important,” pronounced Blinken. “But the most important thing right now is to see that this surveillance asset gets out of our airspace, and we’ll take it from there.”
Translation: I have real diplomatic work to do, but the tenuous nature of my authority requires I spend the weekend humping a panic button, so my government can keep the public in a nervous stupor and ultimately declare victory over a balloon.
IN AMERICA, THE RITUAL OF PANIC HAS NOW BECOME MORE IMPORTANT THAN REAL-WORLD GOVERNANCE. WE BECAME A WORLD POWER BUILDING CARS, PLANES, LIGHT BULBS. NOW WE MAKE PANICS, AND TENDING TO THEM IS THE FIRST BUSINESS OF STATE.
Try this exercise. Go to Google (I stopped using that devious propaganda site about a month ago, but it’s useful for this exercise). Enter “attack on our democracy,” “attacks on democracy,” or any similar phrase. You’ll find a deluge. Here’s a brief thumbnail list of “attacks” we’ve endured since late 2016
Continued at https://www.racket.news/p/government-by-panic . [EMPHASES added.]
[Note: Google's findings do not include the ultimate manifestation of American "government by panic": The COVID Event.
And so, somebody might be led to ask: “What system of government and government is the alternative to the system America has now?”
The alternative would be a government that fulfills the proper function of Government:
~ To protect the Human Rights of Life, Liberty, Property, Privacy, the Pursuit of Happiness, and the precursor to all of these, Peace.
In doing that and Only that, Government would get out of the way of the Economy and Civil Society in fulfilling their tasks of the meeting of Human Needs for and the satisfying of Human Wants of Health, Prosperity, Security, and the Pursuit of Wants.
The ultimate reason for this is that a Government cannot meet the Needs and satisfy the Wants of some of its Citizens without violating the Rights of some other of its Citizens. Governments cannot do both at the same time at all, let alone do it well.
As has been stated several times on this forum in the past:
The problem is not with the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex. Nor is it with the Big Corporatism of the Big Banks, Big Energy, Big Agriculture, Big Pharmaceutical, and Big Media Cartels, who, put “profits before people.” Nor is it with the Medical, Legal, Law Enforcement, and Guns and Drugs Cabals. Nor is it with the Surveillance-Secrecy-Security-Safety Panopticon now flourishing as never before. [Is that a 1984esque telescreen in Your pocket? Or just a "smart" phone?"]
These are but Symptoms of the disease afflicting America.
The ultimate, root cause and source of America’s crisis today is that it has a system of government and governance in which various and sundry Vested Special Interests use the legal power, the administrative authority, and particularly, the spending capability of the federal government, to accomplish whatever it is that those VSIs want to accomplish as individuals, groups, organizations, and institutions for their clients, cohorts, constituents, and/or themselves. Regardless of what the Citizens of this Nation may need or want.
These are who make up America’s Ruling Political Class, and who own and operate, and command and control the governors ~ the elected politicians, entrenched civilian and military bureaucrats, and anointed appointees ~ at center stage in America's reality-tv extravaganza; and America's $ 1 = 1 Vote system of government and governance that gets, puts, and keeps them there.
And this is exactly why America has reached the state that it has today as:
~ a Bankrupt Debtor State;
~ an Imperialist Warfare State;
~ a Redistributionist Welfare State;
~ a Secrecy/Surveillance/Security/proto-Police State;
~ an Autocratic/Patriarchal/Oligarchic/Plutocratic Deep State;
~ an at-best Flailing Nation State and a definitely Failing Empire;
~ an Overshoot State; and, perhaps most importantly,
~ a People and Nation no longer merely "divided," but fractured - even to the point of disintegration - in ways not seen in more than 160 years, since the eve of what may end up being merely the First American Civil War.
And the only way that any of this has and could have happened is because of that flawed System of government and governance. Which, as also stated before, is nothing new. The Federalists worked very hard to lay the groundwork and build the foundation to make all this happen back when this system was being put together back in Philadelphia in the late 1780s, and it has succeeded for their successors ~ America’s Ruling Political Class ~ ever since.
And ultimately, hence the legitimacy of the question: “Will the United States survive to celebrate its 250th birthday on July 4, 2026, a mere 1,244 days from today?”
THE ATTACK OF THE KILLER BALLOON by Jacob G. Hornberger 020623
I confess that I did not leave my house last week. I wasn’t about to take a chance that that Chinese Giant Balloon would attack me or, at the very least, monitor my trips to the grocery store. Why take that chance when I could remain safe within the confines of my home?
Even Pentagon assurances that China’s Giant Balloon posed no military threat did not provide any comfort to me. After all, the Pentagon could have been lying about the military capabilities of the Giant Balloon to prevent a nationwide panic. Moreover, keep in mind that this wasn’t just any Giant Balloon. It was a communist Giant Balloon!
As the Giant Balloon began heading eastward, I was sure it was headed to Virginia, where I live and, more important, where the CIA and the Pentagon are located! I just kept imagining massive cannons suddenly extruding out of the Giant Balloon and firing on me as I was driving to the grocery store.
Oh, I’m sure that there are many of you are scoffing over my concerns. It’s always easy to be courageous when a Giant Balloon isn’t headed in your direction. And I’ll bet most of you have never seen movies in which Americans are attacked by Big Scary Things, such as:
THE ATTACK OF THE 50-FOOT WOMAN
THE ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES
ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES
THE ATTACK OF THE GIANT CHEERLEADER [Note: All with links to Amazon for our viewing pleasure.]
The press was reporting that China’s Giant Balloon was flying over Montana. Some reporters were disclosing that Montana is where the Pentagon’s nuclear silos are located. Are they supposed to do that? Surely, the Pentagon keeps the locations of its nuclear missiles secret, right? Has the mainstream press violated the Trading with the Enemy Act by telling the Reds where America’s nuclear missiles are? The people of Montana shouldn’t be too happy about that. If the Pentagon succeeds in ginning up a nuclear war with China before it succeeds in ginning one up with Russia, China is now likely to inundate Montana with nuclear missiles.
The Pentagon reported that the Giant Balloon also flew over Kansas. Kansas? Why Kansas? Hey, haven’t you noticed who is in the Super Bowl next Sunday? That would be the Kansas City Chiefs! I’ll bet those crafty Chinese Reds are trying to figure out which team to bet on.
The Pentagon announced that the Giant Balloon was also spying on several military bases. If so, there is an easy solution: just shut down the bases, which would obviate the need for the Chinese to send a Giant Balloon to spy on them. As I wrote last week in my article “Why Not Defund the Military?” the Pentagon’s empire of domestic military bases serves no useful function and should go the way of the dodo bird.
As China’s Giant Balloon was slowly making its way eastward, I couldn’t help but think about Francis Gary Powers. He was the CIA officer who was piloting the CIA’s top-secret U-2 spy plane that was shot down over the Soviet Union (i.e, Russia) in 1960.
What was Powers doing flying a CIA spy plane over Russia? Why, spying, of course. Illegally spying!
You mean, the United States was doing to Russia with its spy plane what China was supposedly doing to the United States with its Giant Balloon?
Yep. And I guarantee you that you’ll never guess what happened after Powers was shot down. CIA officials maintained with straight faces that their plane was a “weather plane” that had strayed off course. Isn’t that what Chinese officials are saying about their Giant Balloon?
What the CIA didn’t know was that Powers had disobeyed orders to take a cyanide capsule in the event of a shoot-down. Powers decided that he’d rather stay alive. So he was taken captive and told the Russians the truth about his spy mission. That’s how the Russians knew that the CIA was lying with its “weather plane” charade.
The CIA’s spy mission set back talks between Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower. There has been speculation over the decades that the CIA intentionally sabotaged Powers’ spy plane to ensure that Khrushchev and Eisenhower would not reach an agreement that would bring an end to the national-security establishment’s lucrative Cold War racket.
Ironically, because of the Giant Balloon incident, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has suspended a planned trip to China. That might not disappoint Chinese officials, however, given that the primary purpose of Blinken’s trip was to castigate China for supposedly assisting Russia with its war in Ukraine.
In any event, the U.S. military finally decided to shoot down the Chinese Giant Balloon over the coast of South Carolina. They didn’t want to shoot down the balloon when it was over the continental United States because falling debris could hurt people. Apparently, they didn’t have the same concern for boaters off the American coast.
According to the media, the military used a Sidewinder missile to kill the Giant Balloon. The cost of that operation was around half-a-million dollars. Oh well, what’s another half-million dollars added onto the $31 trillion in debt that U.S. officials have already placed onto the backs of American taxpayers?
In any event, now that the Giant Balloon is gone, I’m feeling safe and I’m now going out of my house again. Oh wait! The mainstream press is reporting that another Chinese Giant Balloon is now flying over Latin America! OMG! The Reds are going to spy on Trump’s Berlin Wall along the border and then send their new Giant Balloon north to Virginia. I’m headed back indoors.
https://www.fff.org/2023/02/06/the-attack-of-the-killer-balloon/
I'm not quite as bothered by the MIC. It's the wars that I dislike. And the need of the parts of our government to have an enemy to justify their existence and their budgets. From what I hear our semi-declared war with Russia isn't being pushed by the Pentagon anyway.
And I don't have a problem with big oil. To live is to consume energy. It's as simple as that. The crusade against big oil is so hypocritical. Like John Kerry, in his post as Climate Czar, globetrotting in a dedicated jet to conferences scolding the rest of us on our use of energy. When asked why he uses a dedicated jet he responded that that was the only way for someone like him to go. Sorry but the whole "by your leave, sire" expectation should have been gone from government a long time ago.
it has been almost 40 years since I worked logistics “plans” for f-16.
at the time army had Abrams and Bradley, as well as m113. bundeswehr had leopards.
the logistics tail for these fuel guzzlers is immense, and not as easy as finding engines for new f-16 and Abrams gifts.
Have somebody in mind, RK? Perhaps JFK? :-)
He should have known better than to have given a "peace" speech. Indeed, that might be the last peace speech an American president has given, sixty years ago.
So presidents can learn ...