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Things are a little scary right now

By Bob Rafto

The US Defense Department’s $680 billion budget pays for over 3.1 million employees, both military and civilian. Another 3 million people are employed by the defense industry both directly, making things like weapons, and indirectly, such as working in local businesses supported by a contractor’s location in a town, according to various sources. It’s these big money and job figures that make lawmakers fight for defense contracts in their districts and defense contractors lobby for their contracts.

Then you have similar activities in Russia, China, UK and other nations.

Now if we cut this down to the bare bone, millions of people are employed to make weapons that have a sole purpose of killing millions of other people. We might have advanced technologically but primarily we are still savages in as much that when we can’t resolve our differences we resort to killing to get an outcome.

Corporate entities rely on growth, so that means more and more arms are manufactured every year and more wars have to be manufactured and hundreds of thousands of people have to die just to keep the arms industry in business and to deliver windfall profits year in year out.

The US have been up to their necks in regime change and have been involved in 100 armed conflict since the American revolution (Wiki). Has any any other country in history been involved in so many armed conflicts?

Now the arms industry is mainstream, they now have fairs, just like the auto industry where generals and dictators flock to and to be wined and dined over idle chatter of how many people can be exterminated from a $600,000 bomb and that’s the cost of the bombs we are supposedly dropping on the Syrians.

A little more research revealed an ad for a book ‘The Merchants of Death’ here’s the ad:

“Here is the archetype of all post–World War I revisionism of a particular variety: the hunt for the people who made the big bucks off the killing machine. The Merchants of Death was, in many ways, the manifesto of a generation of people who swore there would not be and could not be another such war.

But here is the kicker: it was co-authored by the founder of Human Events, the conservative weekly. So this is no left-wing screed against profiteering. It is a careful and subtle, but still passionate, attack on those who would use government to profit themselves at the expense of other people’s lives and property.

Here is a sample of the ideological orientation: “The arms industry did not create the war system. On the contrary, the war system created the arms industry … All constitutions in the world vest the war-making power in the government or in the representatives of the people. The root of the trouble, therefore, goes far deeper than the arms industry. It lies in the prevailing temper of peoples toward nationalism, militarism, and war, in the civilization which forms this temper and prevents any drastic and radical change. Only when this underlying basis of the war system is altered, will war and its concomitant, the arms industry, pass out of existence.

This book is a wonderful example of what Rothbard called the “Old Right” in its best form. The book not only makes the case against the war machine; it provides a scintillating history of war profiteering, one authoritative enough for citation and academic study. One can see how this book had such a powerful effect.

Why re-release this book now? The war profiteers are making money as never before. They are benefiting from conflict as never before. Everything in this book has not only come to pass but as been made worse by a million times. So this treatise is more necessary than ever.

This is the real heritage of the American Right.”

Should be a good read and reinforces what I wrote above.

The US military spend budget is more than the 7 highest spending countries (and that includes Russia and China) combined and now Trump is going to increase the budget by a few more hundred billions to probably a trillion dollars all up. The arms industry will live on forever thriving on death as long as there are neo-cons in this world.

The Donald

My take on Trump is from cursory observation on Social Media and some online rags.

The Donald is scary as is the future he is leading us to and Abbott was the same but a minnow compared to Trump.

The Donald is thinking and acting in big business mode and he won’t hesitate to destroy anyone who gets in his way. He has stacked his team with billionaires so it will be a business-run government looking after business interests.

He will have no hesitation in starting wars, he is not increasing the military budget without reason.

He is devoid of any compassion and empathy, it’s all about Donald and no one else.

The Donald is being consumed by a headiness of being the most powerful man on earth and here is the similarity with Abbott, who was also consumed by the power headiness. Abbott terrorised the Muslim community with 800 cops, helicopters and militarised swat teams, Donald bars Muslims from entering the US.

The Donald is 70 and obese and he won’t cope with the stress of office, and that can’t be good for his health.

The Donald will keep on alarming the horses – just like Abbott – but he won’t be around forever, but long enough to leave a great swathe of scar tissue on the planet.

 

9 comments

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  1. wam

    well the poms lost to colonials, they are way ahead of the septics on killing people who didn’t fall into the economic line.

    Donald knows he is right in the long term so can handle collateral damage for which he will spread his arms a la christ and give a little sad smile.
    He is not playing with business people but with far more dangerous leaders and his back is broad enough for an american knife.

    I hope he lasts because I fear the pennies not the pound.

  2. Johno

    Make america great again through brute force and ignorance. The american arms industry is disgusting, as is australia’s and the rest of the world.

  3. leighton8

    “Make America Groan Again … Daily” is djt’s true motto ….

  4. Florence nee Fedup

    Trump doesn’t seem to realise the war against ISIS isn’t a war against a state, country or even religion.

    It is a war against a movement. A movement that knows no boundaries.

    A war that the Muslim people themselves are needed to help win.

  5. Florence nee Fedup

    Johno, he demands that we love them as well.

  6. Florence nee Fedup

    Trump is going to do as no man in history has ever done.

  7. nexusxyz

    Clinton would have stirred up existing conflicts as this was flagged way up front. The trouble with Trump is that he may well blunder into a conflict that gets out of control.

  8. David Bruce

    Trump will do what he believes is best for him and the forgotten American people. He is a very tough negotiator, and will listen to good advice. He decided that his role as President will be similar to the Chairman of the Board of USA Inc.
    When you understand that the US and Australian Governments both have equivalent of ABN, then it is easy to see that maximum return to shareholders is the major driving force. In Australia, the government only recognizes the top 1-10%. It will be interesting to see if Trump can help the bottom 50% in America. What if the predicted solar EMP hits the eastern states during his term?
    We are also observing a world which is moving from the Yin majority to the Yang majority, so expect to see political correctness diminish.
    Don’t you just love it? Wouldn’t be dead for quids!

  9. totaram

    David Bruce: I am sure the forgotten American people will soon realise how much he is helping them, in the same way the forgotten German people realised how Adolf Hitler helped them – he really did you know. But it was a short term fix with a long term cost. Oh well! We have to learn the same lessons all over again! Make Germany great again! (sound familiar!) “The future belongs to us” (sound familiar?). Not to worry. Everything will be fine. For a while.

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