There Are No Lobbyists for Peace
by John Lawrence, December 26, 2018
Defense contractors spend tons of money lobbying for new weapons systems. Generals and Admirals have the ears of Congress, and, of course, want the best and latest weapons systems. But who is lobbying Congress for peace? If Jesus were alive today, would that be his job? I can see the 12 disciples walking the halls of Congress knocking on doors. "Congressman X, would you please not authorize that next gen fighter-bomber that will cost 50 billion dollars. Just think of all the good you could do with that money both here at home and abroad."
Mother Jones reported in 2013:
"Tracking lobbying is hard to do, but to give a sense of the scope of the numbers, Lockheed has reported $22,289,859 in political donations since 1990 and millions in lobbying expenses every year, peaking in 2008 at $16,181,506, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And that doesn’t include what it paid its PR people or the work of defense and aerospace industry advocacy groups or the think tanks those industries fund."
The US defense industry otherwise known as the military-industrial complex, spends millions on lobbying each year. In 2018, the 736 lobbyists were paid a total of $94,121,731. This data is from opensecrets.org.
Trump wants to let other countries provide their own military defense instead of relying on American taxpayers to do so. Good, let him bring troops home. Better yet let him close down the 1000 or so military bases in every country of the world. The reason Congress is so upset about Trump bringing troops home from Syria is that they want to establish a permanent base there like they're used to doing in every other country the US invades. So if Trump really wants to put America first, he will stop spending on military invasions and incursions in other parts of the world in order to protect other countries. Let them provide their own military protection.
Even the right wing is saying stop spending money on protecting other countries and start protecting our own borders. Laura Ingraham said that Mitch McConnell was more concerned about Syria's borders than our own. Is it possible that there is a right/left symbiosis here. The Dems should connect border security with diminishing the defense budget and diminishing the American military presence abroad. Certainly you could spend $100 billion on border security and reduce the trillion dollar defense budget by $200 billion. That's the connection that needs to be made: concentrate on border security which is much less expensive than policing the whole world. It should not be just a right wing issue if the Democrats and the Left are smart. Protect America's borders, stop being the world's policeman and spend the money on building American infrastructure and the American people. Medicare for all?
