Meanwhile there are hungry and homeless in the countries that are buying more and more military equipment. Not to mention the horrible humanitarian consequences of using this equipment on other countries.
And the emissions created by war aren't even counted as the planet burns and floods.
There are 1755 Billionaires in this World, Elon Musk being the richest of them all with $268 BILLIONS.
It's a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY to have so many with $1 BILLION or more and so many People in this money driven World dying of STARVATION.
This Material World may be arriving at the CURRENT version of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah for the reasons the Prophet Ezekiel spells out in 16:48-50,
'As I LIVE, says the Lord God, Sodom your sister has not done as you and your daughters have done.
Behold this was the iniquity of Sodom your sister: pride, abundance of bread, and careless ease were hers and her daughters', and she did not strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.
The message is so very clear but what to do when the fascism of endless war is so deeply rooted, people so deeply submissive, lied to constantly, so profoundly betrayed and abandoned? We have been slaves to the empires wars for the last half century. Predatory Western capitalism is the real enemy within the gates .
Last time I checked global military spending it was 1.4 trillion, here Caitlin reports it is now 2.24 trillion!
A hell of a way to start the day!
But who am I to complain? I am old and grey and had a very good life, but I sure as hell worry about my children and grandchildren and the horrific legacy visited upon them .
News flash: It is not so much that society is sick (it is somewhat), but that governments and their putrid leaders are extremely sick (utterly insane and arrogant) and have been for the last 10,000 years.
All the advancement, technology, religion and presumed safe-for-us government has led us into the abyss staring into a gigantic black hole. Yes for billions, living standards have greatly improved. However, that means nothing when the murder of 90% of humanity has moved from the back burner squarely onto the front burner.
A sick government and sick leadership are just symptoms of the underlying problem. Donald Trump, Joe Biden and even a misguided actor like Sean Penn are SYMPTOMS. They are not the problem.
The core of the problem is we have built a society and culture based on greed and competition. And what we see now has become the end result. A corrupt government in the pockets of the wealthy, corrupt leaders doing the bidding of the wealthy, and misguided actors who have become victims of mass propaganda.
Government is not the problem, corrupt government is a symptom. The values of a society trying to succeed based on social Darwinism is the core problem here.
As Peter Kropotkin once wrote, "Competition is the law of the jungle, but cooperation is the law of civilization."
I find it a particularly insidious type of propaganda to turn people's anger at the injustice of their society - which is forced upon them via social darwinism and the plunder of the billionaires - to use propaganda to direct the anger at "government" and refuse to acknowledge what really is the problem at the core. And pretend government is always evil and then lecture people about some kind of fantasy utopia in an Ayn Rand society where there is no organized social institutions - which are clearly required for any kind of civilization to flourish.
A non-corrupt, democratic working government has always been the arch-enemy of the obscenely wealthy - why it is always the first target of their propaganda, in order to maintain their self-centered, neurotic plunder and exploitation of ordinary human beings and the planet itself.
True. And I would like to know -- what is the point of "improved living standards" (measured, it seems, solely by how much material "convenience" and luxury people can afford and how many years they can stay alive), if the world in which we "enjoy" such "progress" is becoming ever-more restrictive, oppressive, divisive and intrusive?
... I guess as long as we have the "freedom" to plug into whatever virtual alternate "reality" we "choose" from among the limited sanctioned offerings, and have plenty of shitty "foods" to eat and designer drugs with which to numb ourselves, we should just wave the old Blue & Yellow - er, sorry, red White & Blue - flag in everyone's faces, chant "Death to Putin" and "USA, USA", and be "happy".
If anyone is questioning why the United States is perpetually stuck in the Dark Ages instead of the 21st Century like most of the world, this is why. All this money could have funded social security, universal healthcare, incentives for manufacturing to come to back to America, housing, and so many other good things this country desperately needs.
Time to protest the obscene military budgets that are rubber stamped by our Congress every year. To stop worshipping our military at every turn and to start questioning our single-minded pursuit of Hegemony. Close down the hundreds of military bases overseas, bring home the troops from Germany and Japan (a military occupation force for 80 years!!) The pursuit of bellicose policies will bring nothing but bankruptcy, death and destruction.
Maybe the US Empire's weapons market is the ultimate example of a market externality. A common textbook example is dumping toxic chemicals in a river, but in this case, they are dropping bombs or other horrors on people.
The true ROI is obscenely negative, but the market participants do not perceive it. In fact, as Caitlin's essay shows, to them the ROI is jubilantly positive.
It is ironic that the tax payers give money for these defense corporations to profit from, and every budget passed is another increase in the defense budget, in a country who has the biggest defense budget in the world, the same country who claims to be the wealthiest nation in the world...yet is morally bankrupt.
The very idea for killing people for money is what rational people call wrong. These are mercenaries, hired thugs. We don't need wars, they are unproductive, the claim that they are profitable is only true for those profiting, yet the loss of life disability, and trauma should morally prevent that.
I don't want people senslessly killed, I don't want bombs dropped on people living in poverty, I don't want children killed in the street in a shoot out between henchmen. Strange, I can't vote against it, only for it. I only have an option of who I want these things to happen to.
Sure I would want missles striking hospitals and bombs dropped on schools...I mean that's normal right? For a psycho or sociopath, maybe. I don't want to be adjusted, because killing people is inhumane, it is bad for humanity. Simple logic.
A society that relies on "death" (war) in order to "survive" (make a profit) is not only sick and twisted, it's suicidal. Can someone call 9-8-8 and talk to a mental health counselor for us (US)?
For the warmongers to conduct unrestricted wars around the world they need a silent, cowed, fearful
and obedient population that is immune to the outrages committed in their name around the world and will always be there to support the troops. Our surveillance apparatus makes the East German Stasi look like child's play. What "freedom" do we enjoy? The freedom to remain silent.....
"Warmongering think tanks," a delightful oxymoron, up there with "military intelligence." These depraved lunatics continue fighting for more gold bars on the Global Titanic, even as it's aimed vertically to Davey Jones Locker.
Check out Randolph Bourne's 1918 essay, 'The State'. In it, he accurately forms the idea of the MIC a good 30 years pre-Eisenhower, with the line 'War is the health of the State.' Smedley Butler makes excellent reading too.
Too many Americans don't want to look at the FACTS & the TRUTH.
The US Arms Merchants are making a killing off the Ukraine War, much more than any Russian Oligarch having their wealth stolen by the US/NATO.
In the 20 year $2 TRILLION US occupation of Afghanistan, one of the poorest Countries on Earth, it's estimated some 70,000 CIVILIANS were killed. The only winners were the US Arms Merchants and Contractors
With the desperate hurried frantic exit from Kabul just 2 years ago, the last US VIOLENT WAR Act we know about was the killing of a CIVILIAN FAMILY of 10 with 7 CHILDREN by a remote controlled US drone.
The laptop class would suddenly care if their college brats were sent to die in wars. They’d maybe put down their latte to go to a war protest. Right now they’re too busy counting money. The poor white working class are too brainwashed to protest as they’re proud to send their kids to die for democracy and freedom against brown people, while they cry and cheer at football games to honor veterans of foreign wars during the giant flag ceremonies. We’re a mess
Well, I am one. I live and work among them. They’re my friends and family. I just don’t agree with their view of the world anymore so I’m a fish out of water. I know they live their families and would do anything for them. Everything going on outside their bubble is a tv show. It’s easy to take sides watching a tv show until you have real skin in the game.
You're one, but unlike those you refer to? I feel your pain.
There are many blue-collar sorts, as I am, on one of "both" sides as well. I try to remember that most are not cognizant of their being on the wrong side. But when comes the violence, and it will' it always does- I will defend myself and my family.
Anyone with any doubt this is a very sick society should take stock of their mental state. The question is, can it be remediated, and if not, can we survive it? Canada has just accused -right off the top of their heads- India of being behind the killing of a Sikh activist in BC: let's see, how big is IndIa? - 1.4 billion people, and they care about one separatist activist? If we got any dumber we'd be barking. On the upside, no one anywhere seems to agree with Canada.
But it's not our society that does it, it's a tiny insular minority who do it *against* the wishes of (almost) everybody else. The problem is political, not cultural.
Hear Hear! The final truth! There is no valid argument against this reasoning! Truly the only people who could possibly relate to these Mass Murdering Sociopaths is as I have said before a serious Serial Killer! One with at least a hundred dead counted in the notches on their belt or fingers in the freezer! Only true psychopaths can possibly be empathic with these filth that claim to be human.
Meanwhile there are hungry and homeless in the countries that are buying more and more military equipment. Not to mention the horrible humanitarian consequences of using this equipment on other countries.
And the emissions created by war aren't even counted as the planet burns and floods.
What a waste of money, lives and everything else.
There are 1755 Billionaires in this World, Elon Musk being the richest of them all with $268 BILLIONS.
It's a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY to have so many with $1 BILLION or more and so many People in this money driven World dying of STARVATION.
This Material World may be arriving at the CURRENT version of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah for the reasons the Prophet Ezekiel spells out in 16:48-50,
'As I LIVE, says the Lord God, Sodom your sister has not done as you and your daughters have done.
Behold this was the iniquity of Sodom your sister: pride, abundance of bread, and careless ease were hers and her daughters', and she did not strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.
The message is so very clear but what to do when the fascism of endless war is so deeply rooted, people so deeply submissive, lied to constantly, so profoundly betrayed and abandoned? We have been slaves to the empires wars for the last half century. Predatory Western capitalism is the real enemy within the gates .
Last time I checked global military spending it was 1.4 trillion, here Caitlin reports it is now 2.24 trillion!
A hell of a way to start the day!
But who am I to complain? I am old and grey and had a very good life, but I sure as hell worry about my children and grandchildren and the horrific legacy visited upon them .
News flash: It is not so much that society is sick (it is somewhat), but that governments and their putrid leaders are extremely sick (utterly insane and arrogant) and have been for the last 10,000 years.
All the advancement, technology, religion and presumed safe-for-us government has led us into the abyss staring into a gigantic black hole. Yes for billions, living standards have greatly improved. However, that means nothing when the murder of 90% of humanity has moved from the back burner squarely onto the front burner.
A sick government and sick leadership are just symptoms of the underlying problem. Donald Trump, Joe Biden and even a misguided actor like Sean Penn are SYMPTOMS. They are not the problem.
The core of the problem is we have built a society and culture based on greed and competition. And what we see now has become the end result. A corrupt government in the pockets of the wealthy, corrupt leaders doing the bidding of the wealthy, and misguided actors who have become victims of mass propaganda.
Government is not the problem, corrupt government is a symptom. The values of a society trying to succeed based on social Darwinism is the core problem here.
As Peter Kropotkin once wrote, "Competition is the law of the jungle, but cooperation is the law of civilization."
I find it a particularly insidious type of propaganda to turn people's anger at the injustice of their society - which is forced upon them via social darwinism and the plunder of the billionaires - to use propaganda to direct the anger at "government" and refuse to acknowledge what really is the problem at the core. And pretend government is always evil and then lecture people about some kind of fantasy utopia in an Ayn Rand society where there is no organized social institutions - which are clearly required for any kind of civilization to flourish.
A non-corrupt, democratic working government has always been the arch-enemy of the obscenely wealthy - why it is always the first target of their propaganda, in order to maintain their self-centered, neurotic plunder and exploitation of ordinary human beings and the planet itself.
Yes, the propaganda is applied very thick in this regard, Obi Wan.
True. And I would like to know -- what is the point of "improved living standards" (measured, it seems, solely by how much material "convenience" and luxury people can afford and how many years they can stay alive), if the world in which we "enjoy" such "progress" is becoming ever-more restrictive, oppressive, divisive and intrusive?
... I guess as long as we have the "freedom" to plug into whatever virtual alternate "reality" we "choose" from among the limited sanctioned offerings, and have plenty of shitty "foods" to eat and designer drugs with which to numb ourselves, we should just wave the old Blue & Yellow - er, sorry, red White & Blue - flag in everyone's faces, chant "Death to Putin" and "USA, USA", and be "happy".
And that sadly is the tip of the iceberg
If anyone is questioning why the United States is perpetually stuck in the Dark Ages instead of the 21st Century like most of the world, this is why. All this money could have funded social security, universal healthcare, incentives for manufacturing to come to back to America, housing, and so many other good things this country desperately needs.
Not a single track of rapid rail connecting our major cities. The 3rd world already has them.
I think most of the rest of the world has little use for automobiles. Americans love them.
Wow, I didn't realize that.
Time to protest the obscene military budgets that are rubber stamped by our Congress every year. To stop worshipping our military at every turn and to start questioning our single-minded pursuit of Hegemony. Close down the hundreds of military bases overseas, bring home the troops from Germany and Japan (a military occupation force for 80 years!!) The pursuit of bellicose policies will bring nothing but bankruptcy, death and destruction.
"Some 20,000 new millionaires in the United States alone came into being from the 10,000,000 dead [in WWI]"
Labor's Untold Story (1955) https://www.ueunion.org/labors-untold-story
Horrifying.
If only we didn't squander such obscene sums on projects that generate a negative ROI.
Maybe the US Empire's weapons market is the ultimate example of a market externality. A common textbook example is dumping toxic chemicals in a river, but in this case, they are dropping bombs or other horrors on people.
The true ROI is obscenely negative, but the market participants do not perceive it. In fact, as Caitlin's essay shows, to them the ROI is jubilantly positive.
From the POV of Lockheed Martin, sure.
Which begs the question of why we let arms merchants run our foreign policy.
Because they give kickbacks to those "in charge".
It is ironic that the tax payers give money for these defense corporations to profit from, and every budget passed is another increase in the defense budget, in a country who has the biggest defense budget in the world, the same country who claims to be the wealthiest nation in the world...yet is morally bankrupt.
The very idea for killing people for money is what rational people call wrong. These are mercenaries, hired thugs. We don't need wars, they are unproductive, the claim that they are profitable is only true for those profiting, yet the loss of life disability, and trauma should morally prevent that.
I don't want people senslessly killed, I don't want bombs dropped on people living in poverty, I don't want children killed in the street in a shoot out between henchmen. Strange, I can't vote against it, only for it. I only have an option of who I want these things to happen to.
Sure I would want missles striking hospitals and bombs dropped on schools...I mean that's normal right? For a psycho or sociopath, maybe. I don't want to be adjusted, because killing people is inhumane, it is bad for humanity. Simple logic.
Agreed, except we don't have a "defense budget." It's an offense budget, a war budget. And it's destroying us.
A society that relies on "death" (war) in order to "survive" (make a profit) is not only sick and twisted, it's suicidal. Can someone call 9-8-8 and talk to a mental health counselor for us (US)?
For the warmongers to conduct unrestricted wars around the world they need a silent, cowed, fearful
and obedient population that is immune to the outrages committed in their name around the world and will always be there to support the troops. Our surveillance apparatus makes the East German Stasi look like child's play. What "freedom" do we enjoy? The freedom to remain silent.....
"Warmongering think tanks," a delightful oxymoron, up there with "military intelligence." These depraved lunatics continue fighting for more gold bars on the Global Titanic, even as it's aimed vertically to Davey Jones Locker.
This shouldn't have been news since 1935 when Smedley Butler published War is a Racket.
Check out Randolph Bourne's 1918 essay, 'The State'. In it, he accurately forms the idea of the MIC a good 30 years pre-Eisenhower, with the line 'War is the health of the State.' Smedley Butler makes excellent reading too.
Eisenhower's MIC has grown up into Ray McGovern's MICIMATT complex.
Too many Americans don't want to look at the FACTS & the TRUTH.
The US Arms Merchants are making a killing off the Ukraine War, much more than any Russian Oligarch having their wealth stolen by the US/NATO.
In the 20 year $2 TRILLION US occupation of Afghanistan, one of the poorest Countries on Earth, it's estimated some 70,000 CIVILIANS were killed. The only winners were the US Arms Merchants and Contractors
With the desperate hurried frantic exit from Kabul just 2 years ago, the last US VIOLENT WAR Act we know about was the killing of a CIVILIAN FAMILY of 10 with 7 CHILDREN by a remote controlled US drone.
No Americans have been held accountable.
The laptop class would suddenly care if their college brats were sent to die in wars. They’d maybe put down their latte to go to a war protest. Right now they’re too busy counting money. The poor white working class are too brainwashed to protest as they’re proud to send their kids to die for democracy and freedom against brown people, while they cry and cheer at football games to honor veterans of foreign wars during the giant flag ceremonies. We’re a mess
What is your evidence they would care? How many of them wish they'd have aborted those college brats?
Well, I am one. I live and work among them. They’re my friends and family. I just don’t agree with their view of the world anymore so I’m a fish out of water. I know they live their families and would do anything for them. Everything going on outside their bubble is a tv show. It’s easy to take sides watching a tv show until you have real skin in the game.
You're one, but unlike those you refer to? I feel your pain.
There are many blue-collar sorts, as I am, on one of "both" sides as well. I try to remember that most are not cognizant of their being on the wrong side. But when comes the violence, and it will' it always does- I will defend myself and my family.
how would you defend yourself and your family against this nuclear violence coming down the road?
All I have ever heard, all that can matter is TDS. That is, presuming you made it through the blast.
Thanks! Revised the comment.
And sadly we may be the minority.
Anyone with any doubt this is a very sick society should take stock of their mental state. The question is, can it be remediated, and if not, can we survive it? Canada has just accused -right off the top of their heads- India of being behind the killing of a Sikh activist in BC: let's see, how big is IndIa? - 1.4 billion people, and they care about one separatist activist? If we got any dumber we'd be barking. On the upside, no one anywhere seems to agree with Canada.
But it's not our society that does it, it's a tiny insular minority who do it *against* the wishes of (almost) everybody else. The problem is political, not cultural.
Hear Hear! The final truth! There is no valid argument against this reasoning! Truly the only people who could possibly relate to these Mass Murdering Sociopaths is as I have said before a serious Serial Killer! One with at least a hundred dead counted in the notches on their belt or fingers in the freezer! Only true psychopaths can possibly be empathic with these filth that claim to be human.
A politician is tantamount to a rapist it's all about power and control!