<
https://truthout.org/articles/lets-dismantle-the-existential-threat-known-as-the-military-industrial-complex/>
"We need to talk about what bombs do in war. Bombs shred flesh. Bombs shatter
bones. Bombs dismember. Bombs cause brains, lungs, and other organs to shake so
violently they bleed, rupture, and cease functioning. Bombs injure. Bombs kill.
Bombs destroy.
Bombs also make people rich.
When a bomb explodes, someone profits. And when someone profits, bombs claim
more unseen victims. Every dollar spent on a bomb is a dollar not spent saving
a life from a preventable death, a dollar not spent curing cancer, a dollar not
spent educating children. That’s why, so long ago, retired five-star general
and President Dwight D. Eisenhower rightly called spending on bombs and all
things military a “theft.”
The perpetrator of that theft is perhaps the world’s most overlooked
destructive force. It looms unnoticed behind so many major problems in the
United States and the world today. Eisenhower famously warned Americans about
it in his 1961 farewell address, calling it for the first time “the
military-industrial complex,” or the MIC.
Start with the fact that, thanks to the MIC’s ability to hijack the federal
budget, total annual military spending is far larger than most people realize:
around $1,500,000,000,000 ($1.5 trillion). Contrary to what the MIC scares us
into believing, that incomprehensibly large figure is monstrously out of
proportion to the few military threats facing the United States. One-and-a-half
trillion dollars is about double what Congress spends annually on all
non-military purposes combined.
Calling this massive transfer of wealth a “theft” is no exaggeration, since
it’s taken from pressing needs like ending hunger and homelessness, offering
free college and pre-K, providing universal health care, and building a green
energy infrastructure to save ourselves from climate change. Virtually every
major problem touched by federal resources could be ameliorated or solved with
fractions of the cash claimed by the MIC. The money is there."
Via Muse.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
