(no subject)

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

So hey. There's really only one thing I wanna talk about from that pic. But it's a good pic. Hat-tip to Farchivist.

3.2M workers for DOD

That's about 1% of the US population. How much of our money goes to that? How much better use could that money go to? Defense spending is what, 20%? Can we cut spending from the military now or what? We aren't fighting traditional wars anymore.

Raise revenue, cut spending. These are the tasks of the taxman. We need not make the taxman a thug. We need to make the taxman a judicious arbiter of funds. We choose the taxman with our votes.

Comments

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

And which candidate would like to cut military spending, so I could vote for them please?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Rick pArry

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Go ahead then! And good luck with GWB v.2.0.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Ron Paul

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

oh. we're being serious?

Dennis Kucinich. Bernie Sanders. Anthony Weiner just to name a few.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, his offer comes in a full package along with a whole lot of crazy stuff in there.

[katiechainsaw.livejournal.com]

Have you read Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky? There's some great examples in there of why military spending is funded by the tax payers etc and how it's unlikely to change.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

And those are? You've made me curious.

[katiechainsaw.livejournal.com]

Well the two main points are tax payer consent/compliance/ignorance and the funding of high technology through the 'military system' (see the headers: 'The Military-Industrial Complex' and 'The Permanent War Economy') :-

1. Taxpayers don't question much, and even if they do, they're unlikely to get to the point where they'll protest over it etc. They're told that military spending stimulates the economy so it's a good thing yeah? US Government (and I can only hazard a guess that a lot of other Govs work this way too) prefers military spending over public/civilian spending because the average taxpayer doesn't have a clue about what goes on and so they can waste millions on 'defences' etc and no one questions anything because no one feels they have any authority to do so. When it comes to public/civilian spending, taxpayers are more likely to want to have a say in things because cuts/changes may affect their immediate local area, schools, hospitals and all that. So as long as taxpayers are happy to continue going to work and paying their taxes, they're consenting to whatever the US Gov wants to do with their dollar and the US Gov wants to build missiles, bomber planes etc.


2. 'Military spending' also includes the funding of the high-technology industry which surprise, surprise, benefits major corporations with potentially huge profits. So instead of having the corps dig into their pockets all of the time, just get the tax payer to subsidize some of the research and development instead. An example Chomsky uses,

"in the 1950s computers were not marketable, so taxpayers paid 100% of the costs of developing them, through the military system (along with 85% of research and development for electronics generally). By the 60s, computers became marketable - and they were handed over to private corps so they could make profits from them; still, about 50% of the costs of computer development were paid by the American taxpayer in the 1960s. In the 80s, they were developing new fancy software, computers and the development of all that was extremely expensive. So therefore it went straight back to the taxpayer to foot the bills again - that's what S.D.I [the Strategic Defense Initiative] was about."

Although the points made reflect those of the recent past, I think most people would agree that this is still ongoing hence the ridiculousness of the DOD budget (which is still heavily subsidized by the taxpayer of course).

Elsewhere in the book, Chomsky notes the stupidity of the US with wanting unnecessary yet super fancy (thus super expensive) military equipment (that breaks down and glitches a lot...) and ways in which US Gov consistently makes out that these things are necessary, all in the interests of 'national security'.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Thought experiment: Subtract all of the non-combat brass and civilian bureaucrats from the DoD number. Now look at Walmart and consider what percentage of them are probably store floor grunts.

Now -- which organization could field the larger army?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

one of my best friends from college, a brilliant and promising young man, dropped out and is now one of those grunts.

i can promise you this though--he wouldn't take a bullet for Wal-Mart.

[raichu100.livejournal.com]

wow, I just...

that makes me sad.

RED FLAG

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

Oh Boo!

This is comparing apples to oranges.

The number of humans 'employed' versus 'budget dollars' is not a really fair comparison.

The military infrastructure is always the last to implement technology upgrades, unless upgrades tend to make better quality craters. The 'backside', or administration, is still probably running Windows 95. Why? So it takes people to do the job machines should. Why? Because they are a bureaucratic entity; indeed, the biggest, therefore the best at adapting for survival. Hell, they got all the nukes! The bureaucracy makes sure the system is fucked up just enough so they are always needed as the Global Defenders.

Figure out how much of that DoD number is active military, and that will tell you what you are up against. You are not just cutting budgets. You are taking on Cthulhu armed with a toothpick. A very irritating toothpick.

Re: RED FLAG

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

Figure out how much of that DoD number is active military, and that will tell you what you are up against.

Given that much of Ron Paul's support comes from active military personel, and Ron Paul is the candidate who has received the most from active military personel, I would say that you can't count just the physical "number of bodies" in the military as a guage of how influencial it is. Much of the "rank and file membership" to not seem to be on board with the program. Maybe they aren't being cut in for a big enough piece of the deal by those at the top, perhaps.

[dukexmachismo.livejournal.com]

But consider the national humiliation once Walmart became the biggest employer in the US.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I hate to ask but if we're spending all this shit on the military, why are we still in Afghanistan and Iraq after 10 years? At least the Soviets, damn them all to Hell, were able to *win* for 99% of *their* wars. We're not even sure if we know what a victory *is*.

[dukexmachismo.livejournal.com]

I hate to ask but if we're spending all this shit on the military, why are we still in Afghanistan and Iraq after 10 years?

So we can keep spending all this shit on the military. You think we have unemployment now? Wait till peace breaks out. (Well, imagine peace breaking out.) You'd have guys on the street with signs saying, "Will build munitions for food."

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

ROFLMAO. XP

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Like the card game Poker, you can't buy a "win". Sure the person with most cash can raise the stakes so high, forcing others to submit, but winning isn't guaranteed.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Surely if we're spending all that shit we should at least be seeing some results. Afghanistan's violence is getting worse, not better, and that war's on track to become the longest war in US history, and things haven't gone all that much further in 2011 from where they were in 2001. The Soviets were evil murderous dicks but at least their army got some results for all the rubles it spent there.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

We're not even sure if we know what a victory *is*.

Exactly. For that matter, we don't know why forces invaded to begin with. We only know the official excuse. For all the public knows, things are progressing just fine and on task.

It's sad when speculation proves the only option available to inquiring minds.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Which indicates again that the MI-Complex tends to be Brobdingnagian in promises but Lilliputian in delivery.

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

I guess WalMart or McDonald's would then be employing all the people whose jobs you encourage cutting. Either that or they could move to China.

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

And that isn't counting contractors, which amounts to many more employees.

The Pentagon jobs program.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

The Pentagon is only the tip of the iceberg in the military-industrial complex. Let us not forget Eisenhower's warnings about the beast in his departing address. For some reason, military production is included in the gross domestic product.

On the up side, our school is working on a program to retrain Pentagon employees for work in the civilian sector. Rather than producing wealth-destroying WMD, they will produce life enhancing wealth.