California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

The Hype Over AI

by John Lawrence

There is much hand wringing over whether or not AI will be used for good purposes or bad. The proprietors of AI are mostly concerned about making money, not about how to use their products for good. That's the capitalistic system. And one can rest assured that one of the most interested parties in AI is the defense establishment. They are always interested in using the most advanced technology in order to create even more sophisticated and destructive weapons in accordance with the theory that, if they don't create them, their enemies will create them first, and then they will be in a less advantageous position. Of course this is always premised on the consideration that we are the good guys and they are the bad guys. Our supposed enemies use the same rationale with the result that the world becomes ever more dangerous as both sides develop more and more destructive weapons. AI is just the latest chapter of this merry-go-round.The problem is that the tech companies creating AI are just in it for the money, and the military-industrial complex, in addition to just being in it for the money, is in it for the rationale that we better use AI to create advance weapons first so that our "enemies" don't get them first.

Has anybody considered that some entity, whether it be government or private enterprise, should adopt the position that AI or any other technology should be used not only for good but for the purpose of creating peace in the world? No, no entity is concerned about that. If government was concerned, they would be using some of the trillion dollar military-industrial complex budget to develop peaceful enterprises in the world. Instead while a trillion dollars yearly is spent on defense/offense, a paltry $400 million is spent on the Peace Corps. So that's where our values are. We value a strong defense, not strong efforts to make the world a more peaceful place, and we value financial competition to make as much money as we can off of any new technology. Those are the imperatives. Peace is thought to be the absence of war rather than building enterprises that would prevent war in the first place. The interstices between wars should be used to prevent the next war, but instead the only prevention is thought to be to have such a strong military apparatus that no one would think about stepping out of line with the line being defined by us or whoever is the most powerful empire at any point in time. Empires come and go over the long term, but the mental imperative of using all resources to create the most powerful military establishment never changes.

The result is that war is inevitable as it has been for millennia. In fact for thousands of years war has been a way of life. Empires have been created because someone came along who was in a position to create them whether that was Cyrus the Great, Alexander the Great, Catherine the Great or Napoleon. No one ever called Jesus "the Great" because he didn't create an empire. He just preached peace as the foremost value. Too bad no one in a position of power ever took him seriously. That was not realpolitik. Instead, religion was used to placate and sublimate the masses while the war machines of the various empires ground on until thy eventually were subdued or wore themselves out or went bankrupt. AI does not presage a new millennium. It's just more of the same. It will be used beneficially in medicine and a few other enterprises. But its main development will be in the art of war wherein battlefields are populated not by humans but by robots. The destruction however will remain the same or worse. Not the military but innocent civilians will bear the cost of death and destruction as already has been taking place in modern warfare. Not military assets but civilian real estate will be destroyed. Such a shame that technological advances have been deployed more in the service of war than in the service of peace.

Off the Top of My Head

An Academy of Peace: What a Novel Idea

by John Lawrence

We have several academies of war - the US Naval Academy, West Point, the US Coast Guard Academy, the US Air Force Academy. Is there a US academy of peace? We spend a trillion dollars a year on the military. How much do we spend on the peace industry? Congress has completed its work on a budget for fiscal year 2022, passing a $1.5 trillion spending package. ... Unfortunately, for a seventh consecutive year, instead of providing new resources to better meet the needs of a changed world, it keeps Peace Corps' baseline funding flat at $410.5 million. We spend a pittance on peace, a fortune on war. As the world's leading super power, we spend our money on what we value most - war. Do the big wigs in the American government even have an idea of what it would take to create a peaceful world? What would be the steps that should be taken to prevent war before it starts. One thing is to work toward eliminating poverty and disease in the world. We should have a world in which everyone has at least the basics for a decent life. That means adequate sanitation, adequate clean water supply, adequate shelter, adequate nutrition, adequate health care.

Fact: Over 1.5 billion people still do not have basic sanitation services, such as private toilets or latrines. Of these, 419 million still defecate in the open, for example in street gutters, behind bushes or into open bodies of water. There is much work to be done here. Does the US have anything in its budget to upgrade the sanitation level for the rest of the world? No, they are too much concerned with fighting the next war, spending billions on the most advanced military systems. Such a simple thing as improving sanitation in the world is something the US as a country is not really concerned about. Yet there is a connection between personal well being and peace. People that are at least basically well off are not inclined to go to war. War seems like a good alternative if the alternative is poverty. Throughout history the war making class has always been more prosperous than the peasantry. It's stlll true today.

So do our leaders have the faintest ideas about how to create peace ... or only how to win wars. There is never enough money to do the things that might result in a more peaceful world, but there is plenty of money for fighting wars. What would be some good ideas for creating a more peaceful world? Maybe citizen to citizen interchanges with countries who are deemed to be out "enemies." Maybe spending more money on creating diplomats and diplomacy. Maybe not characterizing any country as an "enemy"? Maybe creating the conditions for peace. Maybe two years of required national service in the Peace Corps as an alternative to the military with the same benefits? There's a song, "I'm not going to study war no more." Maybe creating more peace workers than soldiers, sailors and airmen. I think more results could be realized by spending less money on war. Peace should not really cost that much. What is costly is war. More money has been spent on it over the years than any other thing. It's the main thing that tax money has been spent on for millennia. It's what bankrupted France in the reign of Louis XIV. And after all the wars, France's boundaries remained the same as they were at the beginning of Louis' reign.

Off the Top of My Head

War is Institutionalized; Peace is Not

by John Lawrence

If all you have is a hammer every problem looks like it can be solved by pounding a nail. If all you have is a military-industrial complex, every problem looks as if it can be solved by the threat or application of military power. This has been true for thousands of years, most of which time war was just accepted as a given. Now more elaborate justifications seem to be necessary, but the results are the same. Resources are devoted to war while a pittance is devoted to peace. The US currently spends about a trillion dollars annually on its military-industrial complex while the Peace Corps is allocated next to nothing. Congress has completed its work on a budget for fiscal year 2022, passing a $1.5 trillion spending package. Unfortunately, for a seventh consecutive year, instead of providing new resources to better meet the needs of a changed world, it keeps Peace Corps' baseline funding flat at $410.5 million.  Diplomacy and even common sense take a back seat to war. Take Ukraine, for example. The longer the war goes on, the predictable result is only more destruction of real estate and more lives ruined both physically and emotionally.

President Biden wants to continue the war until there is a "winner", and he is sure that with the provision of US military assets, that winner will be Ukraine. More level headed experts think that the war will only be settled with a partition of Ukraine. To settle the Russo-Ukraine war diplomatically, a number of analysts have suggested that the apparent military stalemate be accepted in a ceasefire agreement in which Ukraine would be partitioned along the current battle lines. If we look at the history of eastern Europe, we see that partitions are not a novelty. The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 123 years. The partitions were conducted by the Habsburg monarchy, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Russian Empire, which divided up the Commonwealth lands among themselves progressively in the process of territorial seizures and annexations. Hmmm. Partitions are nothing new and the redrawing of national boundaries is nothing new? So in 2024 the powers that be insist that there will be no redrawing of national boundaries even if it means that a war of attrition will go on indefinitely. I think President Biden has been a great President when it comes to domestic policy, but less so when it comes to perpetuating the wars both in Ukraine and Israel. Without going into detail about Israel, he has not been forceful enough in restraining Israel from destroying Gaza.

America does not need to defund the Department of Defense (War). It just needs to refund a Department of Peace. The United States accounts for nearly 40% of global military spending, and devotes a larger share of its GDP to defense than most other countries. U.S. military spending was greater than the next ten biggest spenders in 2023. Fruitless wars will only continue if revenge is the operative factor. Peace building needs to continue in other parts of the world in spite of wars currently being waged. However, there is always money to fight wars, hardly ever is there money to wage peace. The military and/or the national guard could be used in a more productive way to provide security in those areas where peace builders need protection and even along the border. This would be a productive use of the military. Instead, most military personnel sit idle in 800 military bases around the world only to be deployed in hot wars. Why not use them to provide security in areas where militias are running amok? So I feel that, while military resources are not intelligently utilized, peace building resources hardly exist. The two could be complementary if used wisely.

Off the Top of My Head

Peace is Not Just the Absence of War

by John Lawrence

As an advocate for a Department of Peace, I do not advocate eliminating the Department of War (Defense Department) altogether. I think both are necessary but in a more balanced way. Most efforts toward peace in the world should take place outside the arena of war, that is as a preventative to war. This includes economic development in parts of the world that are liable to gang control. In fact I would advocate the use of the US military to go after the gangs that are controlling certain parts of the world, for example in Mexico where gangs are trafficking humans to the US border and controlling the inflow of drugs into the US. Haiti is another candidate for the use of the US military to eliminate the gangs while the Peace Corps is helping with economic development. In areas of the world that don't have mature institutions that can provide security for the populace, the US military could provide that while the Peace Corps is building infrastructure. The two should operate hand in hand. What China is doing with its Belt and Road Initiative is instructive. China is winning friends and influencing people by building infrastructure in many parts of the world. But much more needs to be done that China is not doing. Low level infrastructure such as clean water and sanitation needs to be built out. Approximately half the world does not have clean water or adequate sanitation facilities.  3.6 billion people are still living with poor-quality toilets that damage their health and pollute their environment. Inadequate sanitation systems spread human waste into rivers, lakes and soil, contaminating water resources.China is building high level infrastructure such as ports, railroads and trains. The US should complement their efforts.

There are around 750 U.S. military bases in at least 80 countries. Most of these bases are unnecessary and represent a waste of money. They are also sitting ducks for attacks by the likes of ISIS. They should be eliminated and the resources redirected elsewhere. With US sea borne and satellite military resources there is no need for land based resources. The efforts should instead be put into developing  infrastructure both in terms of economics and in terms of political institutions. What is important is helping to create stable institutions in parts of the world where instability results in chaos ^e.g. Haiti. Also if life was good in countries where there is a lack of stability and economic development, people would not be flocking to the US and European borders and asking for asylum. So military assets as well as Peace Corps assets could work hand in hand. Once war breaks out these efforts at creating peace in the first place are useless. A Department of Peace needs to have a diplomatic aspect as well as the Peace Corps division. Also person to person exchanges help to build understanding. In fact the largest efforts need to be made with those who are considered our worst enemies.

As an anti-war protester in the 1960s, I am still one today. Peace efforts or efforts at creating peace in the world today do have both an economic and a military component. In some countries peace workers would be slaughtered by gangs if they weren't adequately protected by the US military while they go about doing their jobs. So while I am anti war, I am not anti military. I just think that the balance of human and financial resources is completely out of whack. Less money and manpower (womanpower?) needs to be devoted to the military and more money and womanpower needs to be devoted to the Department of Peace which should include the Peace Corps (economic development), the diplomatic corps (institutional development)  and exchange corps ( person to person friendship). Less effort needs to be spent on proving to the rest of the world that the US way is the best way and more effort needs to be spent on creating stable societies with the economic and institutional resources so that people in all parts of the world can have comfortable and secure lives.

Bringing the rest of the world up to economic and institutional speed is of utmost importance today because, unless the whole world is operating cooperatively, it will be impossible to do much about our common enemy - global warming. In fact we have met the enemy and it is us. Economic development in the developed world has proceeded in such a way as to have created the global warming crisis. Now it must proceed in such a way as to eliminate it. Sustainable development and environmental responsibility should be the order of the day. Countries that have vast fossil fuel resources have no incentive to curtail the economic development of those resources if they are considered to be pariah nations by the rest of the world. Nations that are considered pariah nations have no incentive to convert from war time expenditures to peace time expenditures if they are not brought into the community of nations in a respectful way. Nations that are at war right now have no incentive to negotiate a peaceful resolution if their interests and concerns are not taken into account.

Off the Top of My Head

A Superpower in Decline

by John Lawrence

1) Rights taken away from women. The Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to outlaw nearly all abortions in Arizona will likely lead to an influx of patients fleeing the state to find care in California, abortion rights activists said.

2) The world's policeman can't police its own borders. The asylum law lets anyone setting foot on American soil ask for asylum. Court dates for asylum cases are, on average, more than four years out in the future, and even longer for final decisions. Over 3 million cases were pending before immigration courts near the end of 2023, with the backlog growing by 1 million since 2022.

3) The archaic electoral college has never been replaced by a direct popular vote for President. The result is that the winner of the popular vote has not been elected President. Gore won the popular vote in 2000, but Bush was elected President. The Florida Supreme Court sided with Gore, but Bush appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ultimately voted 5 to 4 to reverse the Florida court’s decision and halt the recount. With Florida in hand, Bush won the Electoral College 271 to 266, while Gore ended up getting 500,000 more votes in the popular vote. As a result Gore's push for limits on global warming was lost as Bush promoted fossil fuels. Also Bush lied the US into a disastrous war in Iraq that resulted in Iraq becoming an ally of Iran.

4) 750 military bases in 80 countries are sitting ducks for an attack by Iran or its proxies. The largest U.S. base in the Middle East is located in Qatar, known as Al Udeid Air Base and built in 1996. Other countries where the U.S. has a presence include Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The US spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined. Three American service members were killed and dozens more were injured in an unmanned aerial drone attack on a base known as Tower 22 in Jordan on January 28, 2024. Now that the US is expecting an attack by Iran, which sitting duck will be next?

5) An insurrectionist with several dozen indictments is allowed to run for President. Last year, Donald Trump became the first former president of the United States to be criminally indicted. Over the span of five months, he was indicted in four separate criminal cases and charged on a total of 91 felony counts.

6) Futile wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush lied us into war in Iraq. Osama bin Laden eventually killed in Obama administration by small Seal team, proving futility of invading Afghanistan

7) Wealth inequality. The United States exhibits wider disparities of wealth between rich and poor than any other major developed nation. There are now more billionaires than ever: 2,781 in all, 141 more than last year and 26 more than the record set in 2021. They’re richer than ever, worth $14.2 trillion in aggregate, up by $2 trillion from 2023 and $1.1 trillion above the previous record, also set in 2021. 

8) Housing unaffordability. San Diego families need an income of nearly $275,000 a year to afford a mortgage on a home, which is nearly double what it was before the pandemic, according to a new report from the real estate website Zillow.

9) Homelessness is an intractable problem. On any given night in the United States, more than half a million people experience homelessness.

10) The filibuster rule and the bicameral legislature. Nothing much can get done unless one party controls both Houses of Congress and the Presidency. President Biden looks stupid since he can't even keep his commitments to NATO because the Republican controlled House won't vote the funds Biden has promised. This means Ukraine will lose the war with Russia, and other countries cannot trust the US to keep its commitments.

11) The Second Amendment. No other country allows the uncontrolled proliferation of guns. More Americans died of gun-related injuries in 2021 than in any other year on record, according to the latest available statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That included record numbers of both gun murders and gun suicides.

Off the Top of My Head

The World's Policeman Cannot Even Police Its Own Borders

by John Lawrence

The U.S. has about 750 military bases across 80 countries in the world and had deployed 173,000 troops in 159 different countries as of July 2021. Yet it can't patrol or defend its own borders. This is the height of ridiculousness. While Congress persons debate some Rube Goldberg solution to border security, the Biden administration should do this if it wants to neutralize Trump's stand on border security: the Democrat policy should be "not one illegal border crossing should be tolerated. We stand for increasing legal immigration while decreasing illegal immigration to ZERO." The US spends more on defense than the next 10 countries combined, and yet is willing to tolerate people entering the country illegally. What a joke! If Biden wants to defeat Trump, he should take this issue away from him by declaring that his goal is: NOT ONE ILLEGAL ENTRY INTO THE UNITED STATES.

This means that, instead of spending money on 750 military bases in 80 countries all over the world, the US needs to spend money instead on policing its own border including, but not limited to, physical barriers. In addition there must be electronic barriers, satellite surveillance, and other sophisticated means of surveillance. Why not use AI, the supposed cure all for everything that ails us. Why not put 10 or 100 of those military bases circling the world right on the US border? To be clear I am not advocating withdrawing from being involved in world affairs, but that involvement which is manifested in being the world's policeman has got to change. It has been of very little value if you add it all up. The US can effectively patrol the whole world anyway from the sky, from space and from the sea. It doesn't need land based military bases. The US should be involved in the world by expanding its Peace Corp, building infrastructure like China is with its Belt and Road Initiative and mitigating climate change in vulnerable countries. In other words the US should be a force for good in the world not just a force for preserving US interests or the status quo.

Three U.S. soldiers were killed on January 28, 2024 in Jordan, while more than 40 other service members were injured following an uncrewed aerial system attack at a military base near the Syrian border. Then of course the US has to retaliate to avenge the deaths of those soldiers. Soldiers on many of these bases are sitting ducks and are provocative to those seeking to damage US interests.Yet the role of the US as the world's policeman is not even debated by politicians and probably won't be as the election season heats up. Instead the border debate is a big deal as it should be. Biden needs to assert that his goal is that not one person should enter the US illegally, but that legal immigration should be expanded. He should outTrump Trump on border security if he wants to be elected, and, while he is at it, he should demand that at least 25% of the bloated military budget which amounts to about a trillion dollars a year be redirected to border security. There is no reason why the US should not have the most sophisticated border security system in the world.

Off the Top of My Head

What I Didn't Hear in Biden's State of the Union Speech

by John Lawrence

President Biden went on and on about taxing the rich, but he didn't make the concomitant declaration of "middle class tax cuts." Those are the words I didn't hear - TAX CUTS. These are the code words that Joe Six Pack wants to hear. Joe Six Pack could care less about "child tax credits." While those are probably the most responsible words and the most responsible way to handle tax benefits for the middle class and the poor, those are not the words that the majority of uncommitted voters want to hear. Those are the code words. Republicans always promise tax cuts period. Of course most of those tax cuts always go to the rich as the Trump tax cuts did, but the Joe Six Packs of the world do not make that distinction. All they care about is that they will get their tax cut no matter how paltry. That's why Biden should promise not only taxing the rich but tax cuts for the middle class. Trump will promise tax cuts for everyone. Biden should make the easily understood distinction of tax increases for the rich - as Biden has repeatedly said, those making more than $400,000 a year - and tax cuts for everyone else. Whether or not this makes economic sense or the best use of the saved money, this is politically the best way to neutralize the only economic policy Republicans have.

While taxing the rich makes good red meat rhetoric, it doesn't register on or resound with the naive, unsophisticated average voter's mind the way tax cuts does, and we must assume that the majority of voters are naive and unsophisticated based upon the fact that polls indicate that the majority of voters favor voting for Trump at this point. Any American citizen who has any understanding of what President Biden has accomplished would almost certainly think that he deserves a second term. Even if he doesn't finish it, his administration will give a push for the continuation of his policies which are far more in the interests of the average American than are Trump's. If it's up to Kamala Harris to finish Biden's second term, Biden's policies will almost certainly prevail through out that term.

The policy of tax cuts for the middle class will go a long way towards guaranteeing that Biden will be elected for a second term. Certainly some of the money gained from taxing the rich could be used for tax cuts for the not so rich in addition to child tax credits. The other policy that President Biden should espouse has to do with the border. It's not enough to blame Republicans for the fact that recent bipartisan legislation that would supposedly "fix" the border has not been passed. Biden should just come out and say he wants the border to be fixed in such a way that no one will be able to come across the border illegally. Certainly this is possible for a country that has 800 military bases around the world and a trillion dollar a year military budget. It's almost ridiculous that the world's most powerful nation that purports to be the policeman of the world cannot even police its own border. Taking a much stronger position on the border - in particular the illegal crossing of the border - will take that issue away from Trump who will promise that under his administration not one illegal entry will be permitted. Let's get beyond the trivial issue of whether those crossing the border are "illegals" or "undocumenteds." It's not about descriptive words; it's about policies. Use the words that most Americans use, not those that are politically correct. Take a page out of Trump's book. Biden's words should be much stronger on this issue. This is what the American people want, and Biden should take this issue away from Trump.

In summary, Biden needs to be much stronger on these two issues - tax cuts and illegal border crossings - taking these issues which are the only issues Trump has, away from him. Whether or not Biden or Trump can get anything passed in Congress on these two issues depends on whether or not either President ends up with a Congress, both Houses of which are composed of their own respective parties. No President has complete control of what gets passed by Congress. The average voter, however, thinks these issues are entirely in the President's hands. No one know this better than Joe Biden. However, when running for President, a person can promise anything and can fight for it if elected. Biden needs a second term if for no other reason than to deny Trump a second term which might presage the end of democracy in America.

Off the Top of My Head

Most "Aid" to Ukraine is Spent in the US Thus Benefiting US Defense Contractors and Adding to Inflation

by John Lawrence

Financial aid to Ukraine mostly benefits the US military-industrial complex from which Ukraine buys most of its weapons. This money, therefore, floods into the US economy thus increasing inflation because it's well known that money injected into the US economy by the government has an inflationary impact. In an article entitled "Most ‘aid to Ukraine’ is spent in the US. A total shutdown would be irresponsible" we find the following: "A lot of money considered to be "aid to Ukraine" is actually spent in the US. In this op ed, Mark Cancian argues that eliminating that funding would be bad business for both Ukraine and American interests." And the following: "As the discussion above shows, a large part of the aid is spent in the United States. Funding of US agencies, most of the funding for US military forces, most of the military equipment backfill and Ukrainian equipment purchases, and a part of the humanitarian assistance stay in the United States. In all, about $68 billion of the $113 billion enacted (60 percent) would be spent in the United States, benefiting the armed forces and US industry." So advocates for the military-industrial complex itself are arguing that, since the war in Ukraine benefits US business interests, taxpayers should continue to fund it.

Of course no one wants to talk about or connect the facts that when the government spends too much money into the US economy, it tends to have an inflationary impact. I support President Biden with the historic $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, the $1 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the $53 billion CHIPS and Science Act, the $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act.  Biden has accomplished more than any President since Franklin Roosevelt. Nevertheless, critics of the war in Ukraine are correct when they say that supporting a US proxy war in Ukraine is having an inflationary effect on the US economy. Probably all the previous government spending, although beneficial, had a lot to do with causing inflation in the first place. More government spending is pouring even more money into the US economy at a time when the government should be using its authority to decrease the US money supply thereby helping to bring inflation down. Thy could do this, for example, by taxing the rich. Too much money sloshing around in the economy causes inflation. Too little money in the US money supply has the opposite effect - deflation.

The possibility arises that the US has gotten itself into a forever proxy war of attrition in Ukraine based on the noble premise that Ukraine has a right to join NATO. The alternative to that forever war, which will only result in the loss of many more Ukrainian lives, the destruction of Ukrainian families and the loss of billions of dollars of Ukrainian real estate and infrastructure, is a peaceful solution to the war along the lines of a ceasefire and Russian control of the portion of eastern Ukraine that it has controlled since 2014 including Crimea with western Ukraine becoming a member of NATO. Additionally UN peace keepers could patrol the border between those two entities to maintain a peaceful, stable border. Historically, Ukraine had been a part of Russia since the era of Catherine the Great in the eighteenth century, but only gained full autonomy by virtue of the fact that Premier Nikita Khrushchev granted it independence in 1954. So the history is complex. What is important now is to settle the conflict by a ceasefire and recognition of the current de facto borders. This is important not only from the point of view of Ukraine in light of a continued loss of life and real estate, but in view of the continued drain on the US economy. The money going to fund the war in Ukraine by the US could be better spent at home or not spent at all in light of the continuing, albeit reduced, inflation.

Off the Top of My Head

A Spokesman from the Department of Peace Was Interviewed by CNN

by John Lawrence

Hostilities in the world have died down significantly after the US established a Department of Peace. Now in addition to interviewing a military expert every time a war or a potential war threatens to break out, a spokesman from the Department of Peace, a so called peace expert is also interviewed. Recently peace expert Roshina Macerdinot responded to questions from CNN anchor Emily Sohodinat. Question: "How do you interact with the parties involved in a potential conflagration that threatens peace in the world?" Answer: "Well, first we don't take sides. We try to understand the issues from the points of view of both sides. We never denigrate either side or refer to one side as "the enemy." We try to work out a compromise that is acceptable to both sides, and we work hard with both parties to implement it given our substantial resources to do so. Fortunately, the Department of Peace now has a budget commensurate with the Defense Department which signifies our commitment to peace and not just to defending ourselves. We are proactive knowing that, if we can prevent war, we can save the destruction of life and real estate. In that sense we are pro life. One of our principles is to get the parties to understand that it is not productive to seek revenge no matter how outlandish was the behavior of one of the parties that instigated the conflict. Revenge just leads to a cycle of violence, sometimes never ending."

Sohodinat: "So you advocate just eliminating the Department of Defense? In other words you don't see the need to defend ourselves in a hostile world?

Macerdinot: "On the contrary. If all of our efforts at creating peace and resolving hostilities break down, our Defense Department stands ready to defend ourselves. It's just that we put an enormous amount of effort into creating peace and resolving hostility in the first place so that the resources of our Defense Department never have to be brought to bear hopefully. One of the ways we do that is to show respect to both parties. But if all else fails, we stand ready, with the largest military in the world to defend ourselves. However, our military budget is commensurate with out peace budget. We put as much effort into implementing peace as we do in creating and sustaining the weapons of war. A lot of our efforts are put into alleviating poverty in the world and mitigating the effects of climate change which affects the poorer countries more than it does the advanced countries although the advanced countries such as the US have been more responsible for putting most of the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere."

Sohodinat: "Well that's all well and good, but it seems a little bit pollyanish. Wars have taken place since the dawn of recorded history and probably long before that. So now we have a Department of Peace, a Division of which is the Peacebuilders such as the Peace Corps and another Division is the Peacemakers which is an augmented and upgraded diplomatic corps. Still even with all these initiatives, do you think you can change what has been a universal and ubiquitous human behavior such as war?"

Macerdinot: "Certainly it's worth a humongous effort. We know we are succeeding when the Peace Corps, which is one of our Divisions, is being given the same ritualistic recognition and honors as is the military. In fact we have created a Peace Industrial Complex which rivals the Military Industrial Complex. We are partnering with China to build infrastructure all around the world. We know we are succeeding when CNN interviews representatives who are both Military Generals and Peace Generals. We know we are succeeding when the perks and incentives for entering the Peace Corps are substantially equal to the perks and incentives for entering the military. We know we are succeeding when the Peace Academies rival West Point and Annapolis. We are turning out graduates committed to the arts of peace as fast or faster than we are turning out graduates proficient in the arts of war."

Sohodinat: "So what is peace? Is it just cessation of hostility or is it more than that?"

Macerdinot: "It's actually much more than that. It's when every person in the world has a shot at what used to be called "the American Dream." It's when no child goes hungry anywhere in the world. It's when there is clean water, nutritious food, adequate health care, a good sewage system and all the elements of a civilized life are available to everyone wherever they might live. It goes without saying that a stable and clean environment with climate change under control must be brought to fruition. Everyone, no matter where they might live, should have the tools available to live a healthy life and live up to their potential."

Sohodinat: Well, we are running out of time for this interview, but as I understand it, the Department of Peace is now on a par with the Department of Defense in terms of its funding level and the proficiency of its personnel. You all are committed to understanding and interoperating with other countries offering them friendship and respect regardless of their internal problems and political systems different from our own rather than criticising or bullying them."

Macerdinot: "That's correct. Finally, the world has learned from the Ukraine and Israeli-Hamas wars that the human suffering and destruction of real estate that war entails is not worth it, and that maximum efforts need to be made to create and maintain peace and understanding before hostilities reach the breaking point. It's important that at least as much funding and effort goes into the creation of peace as goes into the preparation for war. Jesus said "Turn the other cheek" if someone strikes you. We advocate that as well, but not in a purely defenseless manner. It's never too late to resolve the situation peacefully even if you're struck, but if worse comes to worse we still have the ability to defend ourselves. Revenge never works because it leads to a cycle of violence"

Sohodinat: Thank you, Roshina.

Macerdinot: Thank you. Nice to be with you.

Off the Top of My Head

While China Builds Infrastructure in the Americas, the US is Disconcerted

by John Lawrence

How dare they, the Chinese that is, build infrastructure in South America! Why, that's our back yard, our sphere of influence. China is building an elaborate $3 billion port in Chancay, Peru. It wasn't that long ago that the US was complicit in a plot to overthrow the democratically elected President of Chile, Salvador Allende who was a socialist. Be that as it may, many countries are turning to China preferring the building of infrastructure to the building of military bases of which the US has constructed about 750 in some 80 countries throughout the world. China is even bailing out Argentina financially. According to Reuters, Argentina's central bank said on [October 18, 2023] that China has cleared a currency swap line totaling a freely accessible $6.5 billion, part of a broader deal the South American country has been using to help it defend the embattled local peso. Many countries throughout the world are effectively saying to the US, "What have you done for us lately?" So the question is how can the US compete with a country who is building economic assets in other countries while all the US has to offer is the construction of military bases? Is it the world's policeman versus the world's builder, and which role will be more appealing?

"In the district of Chancay, Huaral province, approximately 80 kilometers from the Peruvian capital, Lima, a major private investment project is being developed that promises to change the logistics landscape in Latin America. It is the New Multipurpose Port Terminal of Chancay, a joint project by the Chinese company COSCO Shipping Ports Limited (CSPL), which owns a 60 percent share, and the Peruvian company Volcan Compañía Minera, with the remaining 40 percent.

"With an investment budget of over $3 billion, this ambitious project is in the development stage, over 40 percent complete. Construction began in 2011, and the terminal is expected to start operations in the last quarter of 2024."

Back to Argentina: "China has increased the amount and instead of $5 billion we are getting $6.5 billion," Argentine President Alberto Fernandez told Radio 10 from the Asian country, where he is for an official trip.

"Every time we went through difficult times, Xi Jinping's government gave us its support," Fernandez added. "This is an important step so that production (in Argentina) does not stop."

This is the second swap line with China activated during Fernandez's presidency. According to an official bank source, the total amount of the swap line stood at 47 billion yuans .

The move comes as Argentines head to the ballots on Sunday for a presidential election. Libertarian Javier Milei, who has vowed to dollarize the economy and shut down the central bank, is seen as the front-runner.

Well, Javier Milei won the election. It's unclear whether Milei's tough talk regarding China will mean that he will not let China bail them out! " According to Reuters, "Argentinian president-elect Javier Milei has criticised China and Brazil, which are among his country's most important trading partners. A few months ago, Milei even likened the Chinese government to an "assassin" and said the people of China were "not free". Milei's tough talk on China stands in sharp contrast with a vow of cooperation by the outgoing president, Alberto Fernandez, who visited Beijing last month and hailed China as a "true friend" of Argentina."

China is South America’s top trading partner and a major source of both foreign direct investment and lending in energy and infrastructure, including through its massive Belt and Road Initiative. Can the US compete? China has surpassed the United States as South America’s largest trading partner. Beijing has also expanded its diplomatic, cultural, and military presence throughout the region. Most recently, it leveraged its support amid the COVID-19 pandemic, supplying the region with medical equipment, loans, and hundreds of millions of vaccine doses. U.S. President Joe Biden, who sees China as a “strategic competitor” in the region, has pledged greater economic cooperation with Latin America, but some analysts argue the United States should be doing more.

But will the US do more? It can't even get modest amounts of aid for Israel and Ukraine passed by the Republican controlled House of Representatives. The Trumpist American Firsters don't want to spend money on other countries. However, they don't mind the trillion dollar military-industrial complex budgets. They are baked in the cake especially because all the financial and economic incentives align for the various interests. Lobbyists will make sure there is no reduction in that budget.

But China’s push comes as American wars overseas, unstable foreign policy election-to-election, and deep political polarization have intensified questions about US global leadership. Meanwhile, pressing issues like climate change, Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israel’s assault on Gaza have sharpened discussion over whether the West is taking the right approach to respond.

All this coincides with longstanding calls from countries across the developing world for an international system where they have more say.

Many of those countries have substantially enhanced their economic ties with Beijing during Xi’s rule, including under a decade of his up to $1 trillion global infrastructure building drive, which leaders gathered to celebrate last month in the Chinese capital.

Economics tends to transcend politics in international relations. Up to now the economic success of the west and in particular the United States has exerted a pull on countries around the world. However, it can't be ignored that currently China is outpacing the US with its investments in other countries particularly with its Belt and Road initiative. Its alternative vision for economic development is very appealing. Its live and let live policy regarding lecturing other nations on their internal political systems also is seen by many as a refreshing alternative to the US' insistence that other countries should structure their political systems similarly to the US'.

Off the Top of My Head

Will There Ever Be a Department of Peace?

by John Lawrence

Let's face it. The US Department of Defense is really a misnomer. It's true name is the Department of War. Why not call it what it really is. That's its mission. That's its raison d'etre. In fact the United States Department of War, also called the War Department (and occasionally War Office in the early years), was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army, also bearing responsibility for naval affairs until the establishment of the Navy Department in 1798, and for most land-based air forces until the creation of the Department of the Air Force on September 18, 1947. The Secretary of War, a civilian with such responsibilities as finance and purchases and a minor role in directing military affairs, headed the War Department throughout its existence. The War Department existed from August 7, 1789 until September 18, 1947, when it split into the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force. The Department of the Army and Department of the Air Force later joined the Department of the Navy under the United States Department of Defense in 1949.

But there is no countervailing Department of Peace! I'm proposing one. Furthermore, the trillion dollar annual budget for the Department of War should be divided in two with half going to the Department of Peace. So $500 billion for war; $500 billion for peace. Please note that I'm not advocating doing away with the war department. I'm just advocating balancing it with a Department of Peace. Halving the Defense Department budget will still leave it with a larger military budget than any other country in the world. So when will it be a good idea to actively pursue peace if not now? Can the human mind even visualize what a Department of Peace would encompass or be involved in? Part of its mission would be to do just that - imagine what peace would look like. How do you spend the allotted resources in such a way as to bring about peace in the world? Dare I say that eliminating poverty and disease in the world, assuring educational opportunities and building infrastructure would be a good place to start. The Peace Corps would be incorporated into a Department of Peace, and its budget made commensurate with the budgets of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Space Force. Instead of extracting resources from what used to be called the Third World, the Department of Peace should be in the business of providing resources to the Third World. Instead of being totally focused on US interests, how about focusing on the interests of others particularly those who have been exploited by more technically advanced nations.

Bear in mind I'm not proposing defunding the Defense Department, just halving its budget and spending the rest on peace. The Defense Department would always stand ready to fight and win any war if all efforts for peace fail. But efforts at peace should take place preemptively and proactively long before tensions fester. Part of creating peace just consists of showing respect for all parties. That costs nothing. As an example of what not to do consider Israel's relationship with the Palestinians. They let it fester until the horrible recent events resulting in much destruction, death and suffering on both sides. Israel, the US and other interested parties had years to come up with a solution that was fair to both sides. But, admittedly, there was some trying especially by President Clinton, who almost got Israel and the Palestinian Authority to agree to peace. Yasser Arafat just refused at the last minute to say yes. But wars have been fought by human beings for millennia. Homo Sapiens probably wiped out the Neanderthals and other humanoid species. Why should we believe anything else given the history of human warfare in most cases based on religion and/or ethnicity?

China, at least, is building infrastructure throughout the world, and in particular in Africa with its Belt and Road initiative. This is a peace building exercise which is not recognized or given credit by the US. The US is a Johnny-come-lately to the idea of building infrastructure in the Third World. It can hardly accomplish this at home. If it wasn't for Biden's excellent diplomatic skills, nothing in that regard would be happening in the US itself. The US can barely keep its government open. It's not a good prognosis for the leader of the free world especially in light of the fact that a multiply indicted authoritarian who tried to overthrow the government is favored to win the next election straight out of the German playbook circa 1932.

Off the Top of My Head

The Absence of War is Not Peace

by John Lawrence

Human beings do not use the absence of war to create peace. They use the absence of war to prepare for the next war. The time between wars could be used in a more constructive way and that is to do everything possible to prevent the next war. Instead what we do is to build up our offensive and defensive capacities so that whatever side we are on prevails in the next war. The US military-industrial complex is allotted almost a trillion dollars a year whether or not there is war or absence of war. There is never ever really peacetime. It's sole purpose is to prepare for the next war. Meanwhile the Peace Corps is allotted next to nothing in order to create the conditions that might prevent the next war. What are those conditions you might ask? They are very simple: creating educational opportunities for the undereducated, creating economic opportunities for those in poverty, creating hospitals and clinics for those whose health is at risk, building infrastructure for those lacking access to modern infrastructure. In other words building more successful societies from the ground up for those lacking what the most advanced societies already have. Above all poverty and lack of healthful conditions must be alleviated all over the world including in the advanced nations themselves before anything approaching world peace can be achieved.

So what is the lesson of the Israeli-Gaza war? It is that in the time period before the war, nobody did nothing to create the conditions for a lasting peace which would have been the two state solution. Instead people just stood back content to have the Palestinians live miserable lives without political or economic rights. Nobody cared. Nobody worked hard to correct or ameliorate the situation. People were content just to let the situation fester until the next violence broke out, and then it did with very dramatic and horrific results. When there was an absence of war, people just said ho hum, there's no urgency to create the conditions for a lasting peace. Then when war breaks out everyone gets very excited and upset, horrible things happen to children and old people. People want revenge. Hate proliferates. War is exciting. Peace is dull and undramatic. People get bored with the absence of war. People's senses come alive during war. During the absence of war in which there is no real peace, people pursue their self interest or in other words lining their purses. During war they get all excited. There is nonstop news coverage. People get upset by (wo)man's inhumanity to (wo)man as if people doing horrible things to other people is unimaginable. It's not. People's senses come alive and they come out of their collective stupors.

If the US just spent half its defense budget on war and the other half on peace, it would still have a larger defense budget than any other country in the world, and just think what the Peace Corps could do with a $500 billion budget. Why it could even compete with China's Belt and Road initiative which is building infrastructure in parts of the world where inadequate infrastructure exists. The two largest world economies could compete creating peace in the world instead of trying to out compete each other with larger and better weapons and more vitriolic and challenging rhetoric. However, this is not OK with conservatives who feel very threatened by the Chinese COMMUNIST Party although the Chinese system brought 800 million people out of poverty in 40 years primarily by adopting a free enterprise capitalistic system. Oh but it is still authoritarian politically, you say. That is subject to interpretation as the Chinese political system is based on Confucianism which promotes a meritocracy unlike the US where any bozo can become President.

So where is the American Department of Peace? We have the Department of Defense(Offense). We have the Department of Homeland Security. We have the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). What agencies of the Federal government are devoted to creating a more peaceful world? Basically, none, and so is it any wonder that, while the human race continues to invent a plethora of gadgets, it can do hardly anything to create world peace? Peace depends on mutual respect among the leaders of the various nations of the world. Instead US authorities criticize and lord it over the leaders of other nations because they are not exactly like us. Instead of walking a mile in their shoes, they insist that every other nation walks a mile in our shoes.

Off the Top of My Head

Congress Gets Paid While Government Shuts Down: Perfect!

by John Lawrence

A bunch of highly paid do-nothings keep getting paid while average paycheck-to-paycheck people starve. It doesn't get any better than this. The leader of the free world can't even keep its government functioning. What's wrong with this picture? Or, if you prefer, what a revolting development this is. Obviously, the founders did not contemplate this! Republicans want to reduce government spending, but they're not interested in reducing spending for the bloated defense department. They want to spend more on defense (offense), and they're only too happy to talk about all the wonderful new weapons the US is developing like the F-35 which continues to crash. Every one costs $150 million by the way. Recently a pilot bailed out of one and let it crash rather than trying to land it and save the country $150 million. And then there are the ATTACKEMS. What a clever name! Let's attack em before they ATTACKUS. Now Republicans don't want to spend any more money on Ukraine. Does that mean the US and NATO will have to negotiate a peace settlement? What a disaster - being forced to stop the killing because of an inability to ATTACKEM any more. As a last option we would be forced into peace instead of WINNING! What a disaster! No more killing? No more generals on TV telling us how disastrous this would be?

All the generals and spokesmen - and they are mostly men -  for the military-industrial complex, who only can think in terms of war and winning, cannot even contemplate that a negotiated peace settlement might be even possible. For them peace is an unmitigated disaster. Lockheed's profits might even go down. At least one thing Elon Musk has done is to show that it's possible to do great things without the venerable cost plus contracts that the military industrial complex prefers. Musk just gets paid for performance not cost plus. Cost plus contracts incentivize private industry to delay the finish date and run up costs because their profits are guaranteed to be a percentage of those costs. So, what the hell, the more something costs, the more money they make! Fortune magazine wrote: " Lockheed Martin’s $1.7 trillion F-35 fighter jet is 10 years late and 80% over budget—and it could be one of the Pentagon’s biggest success stories" Subtitle: "How America's biggest defense contractor turned a military spending fiasco into a business victory." You could say much the same for the bureaucracy at NASA. Musk totally showed them up with a workforce one tenth the size. Can you say "BLOATED" and by the way, "SCLEROTIC." Now the US government relies on Elon Musk for its space program. Pitiful. But at least it's saving the taxpayers money. You go, Elon!

Well, at least, SpaceX won't be shutting down although they probably won't be getting paid either. Perhaps Musk could build the next jet fighter for a fraction of the cost of the F-35. Meanwhile, part of the world is laughing at the fact that the US government can't even keep the lights on. And part of the world is crying in their beer about the fact that the US can't keep the lights on. I'll leave it up to you, dear reader, to guess what parts are laughing and what parts are crying.

Sanders Says He Opposes $886 Billion in Military Spending Amid Healthcare and Climate Crises

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) appears at a hearing on March 29, 2023 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

by Jake Johnson, Common Dreams, July 24, 2023

"As a nation, the time is long overdue for fundamental changes to our national priorities. Cutting military spending is a good first step."

Sen. Bernie Sanders announced Monday that he intends to vote against legislation authorizing $886 billion in military spending for the coming fiscal year, arguing the Pentagon budget should be cut in favor of investments in healthcare, education, housing, climate action, and other priorities.

Sanders, the chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, has introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would cut the U.S. military budget by 10%. Earlier this month, House Republicans refused to allow a vote on a similar amendment put forth by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.).

In his op-ed Monday, Sanders pointed to the "enormous crises" facing the U.S., including "unprecedented and rising temperatures" caused by fossil fuel use, a "broken" healthcare system in which insurance and pharmaceutical giants profit while tens of millions go uninsured, a "teetering" education system, and a dire shortage of affordable housing.

"And then there is defense spending. Well, that's a whole other story," Sanders wrote. "The proposed military budget that the Senate is now debating would increase defense spending by $28 billion to over $886 billion, an all-time record. The total is over $900 billion if you include nuclear weapons spending through the Department of Energy."

Sanders argued that in addition to being unnecessary, an even larger military budget would be actively harmful given that the Pentagon "cannot keep track of the dollars it already has, leading to massive waste, fraud, and abuse in the sprawling military-industrial complex."

"Much of this additional military spending will go to line the pockets of hugely profitable defense contractors—it is corporate welfare by a different name," the senator noted. "Almost half of the Pentagon budget goes to private contractors, some of whom are exploiting their monopoly positions and the trust granted them by the United States to line their pockets."

Sanders' opposition to the NDAA comes after House Republicans passed their version of the legislation after packing it with right-wing amendments and rejecting proposed changes aimed at reining in out-of-control Pentagon spending and cracking down on fraud.

The Senate is expected to continue working on its own NDAA this week.

As Congress prepares to authorize around $900 billion for the U.S. military, House Republicans are pushing for steep cuts across the federal government, targeting everything from education programs to climate spending to clean water funds. The House GOP proposals have heightened concerns that the government will shutdown on September 30, the end of the fiscal year.

Meanwhile, Sanders said in a statement Monday that he has had "very productive conversations" with members of the Senate HELP Committee on bipartisan legislation to address the nation's worsening primary care crisis. Sanders said he hopes to have a bill ready by the first week of September.

Last week, Sanders introduced legislation that would invest $20 billion over a five-year period into expanding community health centers. The senator said the measure would "provide the resources necessary to recruit, train, and retain tens of thousands of primary care doctors, mental health providers, nurses, dentists, and home healthcare workers."

The nation is currently hurtling toward a primary care cliff. If Congress doesn't act by September 30, community health centers across the U.S. will face a devastating 70% funding cut.

The National Association of Community Health Centers estimates that nearly 7 million people will lose access to healthcare if Congress doesn't extend the critical funding.

"As every American knows, our country faces a major crisis in primary care and a massive shortage of doctors, nurses, mental health professionals, and dentists," Sanders said last week. "Tens of millions of Americans live in communities where they cannot find a doctor while others have to wait months to be seen."

"At the end of the day," he added, "this crisis not only increases human suffering and unnecessary deaths, but wastes tens of billions a year as Americans flock to expensive ER rooms or hospitals because they could not access the primary care they need."

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

 

 

Jake Johnson

Jake Johnson is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

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The Federal Debt Trap: Issues and Possible Solutions

Posted on July 14, 2023 by Ellen Brown

 

from Web of Debt blog

First posted on ScheerPost.

“Rather than collecting taxes from the wealthy,” wrote the New York Times Editorial Board in a July 7 opinion piece, “the government is paying the wealthy to borrow their money.” 

Titled “America Is Living on Borrowed Money,” the editorial observes that over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), annual federal budget deficits will average around $2 trillion per year. By 2029, just the interest on the debt is projected to exceed the national defense budget, which currently eats up over half of the federal discretionary budget. In 2029, net interest on the debt is projected to total $1.07 trillion, while defense spending is projected at $1.04 trillion. By 2033, says the CBO, interest payments will reach a sum equal to 3.6 percent of the nation’s economic output. 

The debt ceiling compromise did little to alleviate that situation. Before the deal, the CBO projected the federal debt would reach roughly $46.7 trillion in 2033. After the deal, it projected the total at $45.2 trillion, only slightly less – and still equal to 115% of the nation’s annual economic output, the highest level on record.

Acknowledging that the legislation achieved little, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said after the vote that he intended to form a bipartisan commission “so we can find the waste and we can make the real decisions to really take care of this debt.” The NYT Editorial Board concluded:

Any substantive deal will eventually require a combination of increased revenue and reduced spending …. Both parties will have to compromise: Republicans must accept the necessity of collecting what the government is owed and of imposing taxes on the wealthy. Democrats must recognize that changes to Social Security and Medicare, the major drivers of expected federal spending growth, should be on the table. Anything less will prove fiscally unsustainable. 

The Elephant in the Room

Omitted was any mention of trimming the defense budget, which currently accounts for more than half of the federal government’s discretionary spending and nearly two-thirds of its contract spending. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who cast the sole dissenting vote on the recent $886 billion defense budget in the House Armed Services Committee, has detailed some of the Pentagon’s excesses. For decades, he writes, legacy military contractors have charged the federal government exorbitant sums for everything from fighter jets to basic hardware. Lockheed Martin, for example, has used its monopoly on F-35 fighter jets to profit from maintenance that only they can provide, with the work needed to support and upgrade existing jets projected to cost taxpayers over $1.3 trillion. TransDigm, another contractor responsible for supplying spare parts for the military, was found to be charging the Pentagon more than four times the market price for their products. 

Rep. Khanna concludes, “Keeping America strong starts at home. It means ensuring access to quality, affordable healthcare and education, strengthening our economy with good-paying jobs, and giving Americans the tools they need to pursue the American Dream.… Bloated military spending is not the answer.… We can’t continue to sign a blank check to price-gouging defense contractors while Americans struggle here at home.”

In an address to the UN Security Council on Ukraine aid on June 29, 2023, Max Blumenthal added fuel to those allegations. He said:

Just June 28th, as emergency crews work to clean up yet another toxic train derailment in the United States, this time on the Montana River, further exposing our nation’s chronically underfunded infrastructure and its threats to our health, the Pentagon announced plans to send an additional $500 million worth of military aid to Ukraine…. 

This policy, … which sees Washington prioritize unrestrained funding for a proxy war with a nuclear power in a foreign land … while our domestic infrastructure falls apart before our eyes, exposes a disturbing dynamic at the heart of the Ukraine conflict – an international Ponzi scheme that enables Western elites to seize hard-earned wealth from the hands of average U.S citizens and funnel it into the coffers of a foreign government that even Transparency International ranks as consistently one of the most corrupt in Europe. 

The U.S. government has yet to conduct an official audit of its funding for Ukraine. The American public has no idea where their tax dollars are going. And that’s why this week we at the Grayzone published an independent audit of U.S. tax dollar allocations to Ukraine throughout the fiscal years 2022 and ’23.

Among other dubious payments they found were $4.5 million from the U.S. Social Security Administration to the Kiev government, and $4.5 billion from USAID to pay off Ukraine’s sovereign debt, “much of which is owned by the global investment firm BlackRock. That amounts to $30 taken from every U.S citizen at a time when 4 in 10 Americans cannot afford a $400 emergency.”

The Black Hole of the Pentagon Budget

The Pentagon failed its fifth budget audit in 2022 and was unable to account for more than half of its assets, or more than $3 trillion. According to a CBS News report, defense contractors overcharged the Defense Department by nearly 40-50%; and according to the Office of the Inspector General for the Defense Department, overcharging sometimes reached more than 4,000%. The $886 billion budget request for FY2024 is the highest ever sought.

Following repeated concerns about fraud, waste and abuse in the Pentagon, in June 2023 a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation to ensure the Defense Department passes a clean audit next year. The Audit the Pentagon Act of 2023 would require the Defense Department to pass a full, independent audit in fiscal 2024. Any agency within the Pentagon failing to pass a clean audit would be forced to return 1% of its budget for deficit reduction. 

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) observed that the Pentagon “and the military industrial complex have been plagued by a massive amount of waste, fraud, and financial mismanagement for decades.… [W]e have got to end the absurdity of the Pentagon being the only agency in the federal government that has never passed an independent audit.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said the Pentagon “should have to meet the same annual auditing standards as every other agency…. From buying $14,000 toilet seats to losing track of warehouses full of spare parts, the Department of Defense has been plagued by wasteful spending for decades. … Every dollar the Pentagon squanders is a dollar not used to support service members, bolster national security or strengthen military readiness.”

But defense audits have been promised before and have not been completed. In 2017, Michigan State University Prof. Mark Skidmore, working with graduate students and with Catherine Austin Fitts, former assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development, found $21 trillion in unauthorized spending in the departments of Defense and Housing and Urban Development for the years 1998-2015. As reported in MSUToday, Skidmore got involved when he heard Fitts refer to a report indicating the Army had $6.5 trillion in unsupported adjustments (or spending) in fiscal 2015. Since the Army’s budget was then only $122 billion, that meant unsupported adjustments were 54 times the spending authorized by Congress. Thinking Fitts must have made a mistake, Skidmore investigated and found that unsupported adjustments were indeed $6.5 trillion. 

Four days after Skidmore discussed his team’s findings on a USAWatchdog podcast, the Department of Defense announced it would conduct its first-ever department-wide independent financial audit. But it evidently failed in that endeavor. As Bernie Sanders observes, the Pentagon has never passed an independent audit. It failed its fifth audit in 2022. Whether it will pass this sixth one, or whether the audit will lead to budget cuts, remains to be seen. The Pentagon budget seems to be untouchable.

Off the Top of My Head

Donald Trump: The Dominator

by John Lawrence

Just as George W Bush characterized himself as 'the Decider', Donald Bush might well characterize himself as The Dominator. He dominates the other candidates or would be candidates in the Republican party. They are all afraid to criticize him. In the 2016 debates Jeb Bush, a decent guy, was destroyed by him.

“Jeb is having some kind of a breakdown,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. ​”He’s an embarrassment to his family. He has to bring his mother out and walk his mother around at 90 years old. I think it’s a very sad situation that’s taking place.”

“Frankly, he’s a stiff,” Trump said. “He’s not a guy who can be president. He doesn’t have what it takes to be president.”

Ron DeSantis is walking on egg shells and is hesitant even to declare his candidacy. The Republican base, many of whom have a military background, want a Dominator as their candidate. That is indeed the military tradition. Recruits are dominated by their drill sergeant who gets in their face and barks orders. Ironic then that, although Trump never served in the military, he exemplifies the military mind set. Most active duty military as well as most people in the military industrial complex vote Republican because Republicans. especially Donald Trump, exemplify their values. These are the same values that are part and parcel of the animal world where the dominant male gets to mate with all the females. So Trump characterizes himself as so dominant that he can act like a dominant male and grab 'em by the pussy or shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and get away with it. Just as other species do, a certain percentage of the Republican base respects and admires a Dominator like Trump. When Trump says this kind of domination has been going on for "millions of years, unfortunately or fortunately," he is referring to the fact that this kind of behavior is the norm in the animal world, and we humans are, after all, not really all that different.

The Denominators of history are of course Fascists. In 1922 Benito Mussolini led a coalition of fascist leaders to Rome and forced the king to yield the government. Mussolini was appointed prime minister. By 1925 he had dismantled Italy's democratic government and, acting as a dictator, declared himself Il Duce ("The Leader"). Hitler dominated the tired old men of the Weimar Republic who were cajoled into appointing him Chancellor. Fascism is a top down political structure similar to the military's top down rank structure. No wonder then that Republican voters, many of whom have a military background, are quite comfortable with a top down structure of political dominance with Trump at the apex. No wonder that Trump is leading all the polls even though he is under several criminal indictments. Friedrich Nietsche was the philosopher of fascism, one who argued for a repudiation of Christian values to be replaced with the values of domination. "A good war hallowith every cause". Just as the dominant male in the animal kingdom passes on his superior DNA to his harem of females, Fascist values insist that dominant men are the ones to eugenically pass on superioor genes to their offspring, and they should be valued and looked up to. All other men should be submissive to them. There is no separation form the animal world. Homo Sapiens represents a continuation of the values that assert that the best and strongest genes of the Dominators should take priority.

Trump's followers in fact give him a pass on Christian values for the very reason that, as Nietzsche asserts, Christian values are the values of the weak. The values of the strong and vital are the values of top down authoritarianism for which the strong man or the dominator should rule the day. As Trump said, this has been going on for millions of years, fortunately or unfortunately. This gives a pass to misogyny as Nietzsche also stated, "The family is the smallest unit of domination." The father is dominant; the wife and children should be submissive. The ethos of dominance and submission should prevail. Christian morals, the morals of tolerance and equality, according to Nietsche, are the exact opposite of the morals that lead to the betterment of the species. Let the cream rise to the top, and, unfortunately or fortunately, the weak must inevitably fall by the wayside. "Devil take the hindermost" is an imprecation that everyone should look after their own interests, leaving those who cannot cope to whatever fate befalls them. The leader of the most dominant nation on the face of the earth should be the most dominant male, ^i.e. Donald Trump, the Dominator. Utter selfishness should prevail. Cooperation is a feminine value. Love is a feminine value. Getting along is a feminine value. Diplomacy is a feminine value. Male dominance is what the US populace wants in a leader.

Off the Top of My Head

Should we Have a Second Pentagon ... Devoted to Peace?

by John Lawrence

So we have a Pentagon of War. We should have an equally funded Pentagon of Peace, a huge 5-sided building where all they do is plan and seek to implement various peace scenarios. Unimaginable? That's because the human race has so little imagination, and the result is ... continuous warfare since the dawn of civilization and before including the wiping out of another species, the Neanderthals, by our species, homo sapiens. The history of the human race is one of war with some technological progress in the interstices. Let's face it. Human beings especially of the masculine variety get off on war. Most warmongers are completely bored by peace. They can't wait to get back into action and cover themselves in glory on the battlefield, to prove their mettle, to prove their masculinity. Right now the US spends close to a trillion dollars a year on war, the weapons of war and planning for war. We spend a pittance on peace, the implementation of peace and planning for peace. As a result the human race has been heading for some time to Mutually Assured Destruction. We will probably get there whether or not it happens by means of a nuclear holocaust or whether it happens by neglect of the things that need to be done to forestall climate change.

The war in Ukraine and the looming Cold (and maybe even Hot) War between the two sides that are lining up represents at least a dithering while the planet heats up and eventually burns becoming a Venus like uninhabitable hellscape. So we have the US and Europe on one side and Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea on the other. Of the not quite aligned nations, most of Africa is siding with the Chinese. Why? Because the Chinese have put great energy into developing African infrastructure with their Belt and Road initiative. The US on the other hand has put great energy into building military bases all around the world. "There are roughly 750 US foreign military bases; they are spread across 80 nations! After the U.S is the UK, but they only have 145 bases. Russia has about 3 dozen bases, and China just five. This implies that the U.S has three times as many bases as all other countries combined." So this goes to show the relative priorities of the various countries. The priorities of peace vs the priorities of war. Helping improve the economies of other people directly is something that the Pentagon of Peace should be about. Sad to say China did that first, but there's always hope. As my Dad used to say, you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Sure China's goal was to make friends and influence people with its Belt and Road initiative. What's the US doing in the meantime ... building military bases.

The Peace Pentagon should have a budget equal to the War Pentagon's budget - roughly a trillion dollars. I'm not saying do away with the Department of War and become defenseless. No, keep a robust defense but counterbalance it with a robust Department of Peace. So if possible peace initiatives will carry the day, but, if worse comes to worse, well there's always the fantastic array of weapons of war that the US already possesses. The war capabilities are enormous. The peace capabilities are meager. There's a difference between pursuing our interests by becoming friends with other people and pursuing our interests by guarding ourselves from other people. One of the ways to avoid war is to recognize the legitimate interests of other countries as stated by them. The war in Ukraine could have been avoided if NATO and the US had acknowledged Russia's stated security interest in Ukraine's not becoming a member of NATO. But that interest was totally discarded by the West - not even put on the table, not even some sort of compromise which would have recognized that stated interest. I'm not saying if that interest was legitimate or not - only that that was the stated interest on the Russian side that was completely ignored and never even negotiated. The result of that non-negotiation and non-compromise was the mess in Ukraine right now - a grinding war of attrition in which only Ukraine civilian lives and only Ukraine real estate are being destroyed. Ukraine would like nothing better than to have advanced weapons such as F-16 fighter jets which would allow them to spread the war into Russian territory, and then you have World War III. That seems to be where we are heading.

Off the Top of My Head

What Mass Shootings and Global Warming Have in Common

by John Lawrence

Even if sales of AK-15s were banned today, there would still be enough AK-15s on the streets for mass shootings to continue for decades. Even if no more carbon dioxide goes into the atmosphere starting today, there is enough already there to provide weather disasters for decades. Meanwhile, gun sales and carbon dioxide generation are continuing apace. There will be no diminution of gun violence nor will there be any diminution of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere. If there were zero gun sales tomorrow and zero carbon dioxide generation tomorrow, there might be a chance for recovery from both travesties, but, no, those travesties will continue along predictable lines. There will be even more mass shootings and assorted other gun violence while gas powered vehicles and power generating plants will continue to pump out carbon dioxide using the atmosphere as a waste dump. Plastic will continue to pollute the oceans. Chemical fertilizer and pest control chemicals will continue to pollute waterways. People pursuing the American Dream will continue consuming products to the point of commercial gluttony and beyond.

The production of steel and cement produces large amounts of carbon dioxide that goes directly into the atmosphere. It's a matter of sheer chemistry. Steelmaking is one of the most carbon emission intensive industries in the world. As of 2020, steelmaking is estimated to be responsible for 7 to 9 per cent of all direct fossil fuel greenhouse gas emissions. In order to mitigate global warming, the industry will need to find reductions in emissions. In 2020, McKinsey identified a number of technologies for decarbonization including hydrogen usage, carbon capture and reuse, and maximizing use of electric arc furnaces powered by clean energy. A Swedish company has developed a way of making carbon dioxide emission free steel. The Guardian reported:

The world’s first customer delivery of “green steel” produced without using coal is taking place in Sweden, according to its manufacturer.

The Swedish venture Hybrit said it was delivering the steel to truck-maker Volvo AB as a trial run before full commercial production in 2026. Volvo has said it will start production in 2021 of prototype vehicles and components from the green steel.

Steel production using coal accounts for around 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Hybrit started test operations at its pilot plant for green steel in Lulea, northern Sweden, a year ago. It aims to replace coking coal, traditionally needed for ore-based steel making, with renewable electricity and hydrogen. Hydrogen is a key part of the EU’s plan to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

So the chemistry is being changed so that water H₂O is produced as a by product instead of carbon dioxide, CO².

CNBC reported:

Cars and electricity get a lot of attention in conversations about decarbonization, and they should. But building materials like cement and steel also need to be scrutinized.

The production of cement is responsible for about 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions and 5.5% of total global greenhouse gas emissions.

On [April 28, 2022], Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Bill Gates’ climate finance firm, and DCVC, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, announced they led a $55 million funding round in Brimstone Energy, a start-up aiming to commercialize carbon-negative cement.

“We need to recognize that cement is a massive problem for climate and that nobody has figured out how to address it at scale without dramatically increasing costs or moving away from the regulated materials that the construction industry knows and loves,” Breakthrough partner Carmichael Roberts told CNBC.

So it is not enough to get gas guzzlers off the roads. Gas prices going up is a good thing. It will guarantee that more new car purchases will be hybrid or all electric vehicles. But the world is not changing over to non-polluting forms of energy quick enough. Major climate related disasters are already occurring and will continue to occur. Since we are still adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, these disasters will only get worse as time goes by. Meanwhile, all kinds of other ecological disasters are taking place including the insane and greedy pursuit of insatiable profits in the gun production industry and the buildup of military hardware. In 2019, a report released by Durham and Lancaster University found the US military to be “one of the largest climate polluters in history, consuming more liquid fuels and emitting more CO2e (carbon-dioxide equivalent) than most countries”. In addition to climate pollution the military is responsible for the development of assault rifles like the AR-15 which was first developed for combat operations. Very conveniently, it is now a profit center for US gun corporations, and in addition to killing combatants on the field of battle, it has brought war time slaughter into children's schools, people's super markets and night clubs. We've come full circle. And in addition the production of steel weapons results in increased carbon emissions.

Off the Top of My Head

Biden Alternately Fights, Fuels Inflation

by John Lawrence

Normally the government spending money into the economy is a good thing. It promotes economic growth and prosperity. But when the economy overheats causing inflation, the government needs to extract money from the economy. It does that by, among other things, raising taxes. Also the Fed, like it's doing now, raises interest rates. This puts a damper on major purchases because of interest costs. The American Rescue Plan injected a lot of money into the economy that kept the wheels turning during the worst parts of the pandemic. That was a good thing, but too much of a good thing is a bad thing. The traditional way the Fed controls inflation is to squeeze the economy in such a way as to cause higher unemployment. The Phillips curve is a theoretical economic tool that shows the relationship between inflation and unemployment, the higher unemployment, the lower inflation and vice versa. At present, however, businesses are begging for workers, not laying them off. This is good news for workers, bad news for inflation.

Biden is trying to blunt the cost of inflation to low wage workers by getting Congress to pass some of the remnants of his Build Back Better plan. However, some of these items would cause the government to spend more money into the economy causing even more inflation. Biden doesn't want to tell the truth about inflation which is that the traditional solution is to cause even more pain for low wage workers by squeezing the economy to the point that they will lose their jobs thus increasing unemployment as the Phillips curve dictates. So basically there is nothing Biden can do except to decrease government spending. Republicans would cut programs that benefit the poor and raise taxes on the middle class to do just that.

Biden is continuing to spend money into the economy by purchasing billions of dollars worth of weapons which are then sent to Ukraine. This is inflationary in and of itself. As of May 20, 2022, the US has spent $54 billion on Ukraine, and, evidently, even more will be allocated. Ukraine has become a ward of the US with the US taking responsibility not only for supplying weapons but also for keeping the whole economy afloat. All this money spent on Ukraine is money not spent on programs for the American people unless you are an employee of the military-industrial complex for which Ukraine spending has become a bonanza. Of course there are other causes of inflation than too much government spending. The loss of Russian oil is causing gas prices to rise. Chinese COVID lockdowns are exacerbating the supply chain crisis. This is not a traditional inflation, but too much government spending is certainly a part of it. Biden's good intentions of protecting the American people during the COVID pandemic by flooding the economy with money had the concomitant effect of also causing inflation. Biden will never, of course, tell Americans the truth which is that in order to fight inflation the government will have to turn around and cause them more pain especially low wage workers.

Off the Top of My Head

The Pope Suggests NATO Partially to Blame for Russian Invasion

by John Lawrence

In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera, Pope Francis said that “NATO barking at Russia” caused the Kremlin “to react badly and unleash the conflict” with Ukraine. The Pope has requested a meeting with Russian President Putin but so far to no avail. What is clear is that the West did not take Russia's objections to NATO expansion seriously and acted unilaterally to march NATO up to Russia's door. Besides that the US abrogated or just dismissed arms control treaties with Russia without further consultation. President George W Bush and Putin both came to power in the year 2000. Bush announced America’s intent to withdraw from the 1974 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that had been central to the U.S.-USSR strategic relationship. Abrogating the treaty did not go down well in Moscow, especially given the the huge military technological lead the Kremlin believed Washington had after the 1991 Gulf War. Then in 2019 during the Trump administration the US abruptly abrogated the INF treaty which was the centerpiece of the post Cold War negotiations between Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. There was no attempt by the US or NATO to renegotiate these treaties which was a slap in the face to Russia.

The Hill reported:

When America intervened in Afghanistan in late 2001, Putin was irritated because the Bush team rejected Russian advice based on its decade-long failure in that country. In 2003, Putin strongly counseled Bush against invading Iraq, as the Russian leader feared the region would be thrown into turmoil. And the continuing expansion of NATO was neuralgic for Russia. A series of U.S. administrations downplayed or ignored how serious this issue was for Russia.

At the Munich Security Conference, Putin unleashed an angry broadside against the U.S. as a “uni-power” and against NATO expansion. Participants were shocked by the intensity of Putin’s attacks but otherwise largely dismissed them. That was a mistake. It was clear that Putin believed he was being disrespected and marginalized by the U.S. and NATO, adding to his growing resentment about the patronizing treatment he believed Russia was receiving.

NATO expanded during the 1990s largely due to the imprecations of President Bill Clinton's Secretary of State Madeleine Albright even though President Gorbachev had been promised that NATO would not expand "one inch eastward" as part of a deal to reunify Germany after the Cold War.

Politifact reported:

After explaining why the U.S. wanted the reunited Germany to stay within the framework of NATO, Baker told Gorbachev that "if we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO's jurisdiction for forces of NATO 1 inch to the east."

"I put the following question to (Gorbachev)," Baker recounted in a letter to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. "‘Would you prefer to see a united Germany outside of NATO, independent and with no U.S. forces, or would you prefer a unified Germany to be tied to NATO, with assurances that NATO’s jurisdiction would not shift 1 inch eastward from its present position?’"

Those comments, along with similar remarks from Baker’s European allies, like Genscher and Kohl, were part of what researchers at George Washington University’s National Security Archive called a "cascade of assurances" offered to the Soviets.

But Baker and other officials involved in the events have denied that the conversation ever turned on expanding NATO to other countries. 

So basically Gorbachev was sold a bill of goods that, if he consented to the reunification of Germany and with Germany as a NATO member, that NATO would not expand eastwards. However, "given assurances" is not the same as "legal and binding". Therefore, in July 1997, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic (where Albright was born) were formally invited to join NATO.

The Conversation reported

"In hindsight, Albright’s curt dismissal of Russia’s security concerns might seem to have been ill-judged. This is especially true in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which some analysts blame in part upon the speed and perceived recklessness of NATO expansion during the 1990s."

One of Albright’s most consequential acts – both as Ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 1997 and as Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton – was to support NATO expansion.

NATO had been a cornerstone of the Cold War security order in Europe, binding the United States to the defense of Western Europe. Albright’s approach was to cast NATO not just as a military alliance but as a pillar of international stability and an engine of democratic progress. She saw the alliance as a conduit through which the United States could impart peace, order and good governance upon a fragile European continent.

At the time, critics cautioned that NATO enlargement would antagonize a post-Soviet Russia and could end up worsening the European security order.

Albright’s answer was uncompromising.

“We do not need Russia to agree to enlargement,” she assured senators in 1997, stressing the word “need.”

The strategic and moral case for enlargement was overwhelming, explained Albright. If the newly democratized states of Central and Eastern Europe craved the protection of the United States, she concluded, then no other nation should be allowed to stand in the way.

In short there might have been no NATO expansion or at least Russia's security concerns might have bee addressed if it were not for Madeleine Albright and later for Bush era neocons who pressed for NATO admittance for Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia much to Russia's chagrin. All along the road of NATO expansion Russia's security concerns were ignored or belittled or disrespected. Russia was dismissed as a weak and powerless nation with no skin in the game, powerless to do anything or have any say as NATO was quick to identify Russia as a potential enemy which justified the arms buildup by the US. Notably the European nations did not commit anywhere as much of their financial resources to an arms buildup, a fact lamented by President Donald Trump who suggested that the European nations were letting the US carry the load.

During the Cold War, US forces had been deployed around the world for the explicit purpose of deterring Soviet aggression. When the Soviet Union disappeared in 1991, so did the primary justification for America’s enormous troop presence abroad and globe-spanning web of military alliances. However, defense spending was given a new justification by Madeleina Albright in order to increase the US militarized global role in the post-Cold War era. She supplied a new rationale for spending on the military industrial complex and the development of ever more destructive weapons systems. NATO expansion and the abrogation of important nuclear arms treaties with Russia were a thumb in the eye of the Russian bear.

Off the Top of My Head

Tie Build Back Better Aid for Americans with Weapons Aid for Ukraine

by John Lawrence

Funny how all the concern about inflation doesn't apply to the billions being spent with US weapons manufacturers for javelins, stingers, howitzers and other weaponry. The aid for Ukraine is not money being spent in Ukraine. It's money being spent right here in America going into the coffers of the military-industrial complex. Then the deliverables are shipped to Ukraine, not the money. Since it's being spent right here in the US, it is increasing inflation because more money going into the money supply increases inflation. But hardly anyone is concerned about the inflation that that is causing. When it comes to Biden's Build Back Better plan, it's dead in the water because that would cause inflation. Congress persons are so concerned about that inflation, but they're not at all concerned about the inflation being caused by the billions being spent to make weapons of war. The original BBB package was supposed to be tied with the physical infrastructure legislation that has already passed. They were supposed to be approved in tandem, but they never were. This was a huge failure and huge mistake by the Biden administration which essentially sold out the progressive wing of its party in order to get something, anything, passed. As a result, physical infrastructure, but not human infrastructure, alone got passed, and, more importantly, a huge amount of the global warming infrastructure didn't get passed. So now why don't they tie BBB to the expenditure for more weapons for Ukraine?

According to resources.org:

"The [BBB] legislation allocates $1 billion over the next few years to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Federal Highway Administration for efforts that support the use of low-carbon materials in highway construction projects. It authorizes $4.225 billion for the US General Services Administration (GSA) for its acquisition of green products and its portfolio of environmental sustainability programs, including initiatives that range from securing fuel-efficient vehicles for the federal fleet to setting net-zero energy and water targets for newly constructed GSA properties. An additional $8.98 billion are slated to go toward the purchase of electric vehicles (EVs) and associated infrastructure (e.g., charging stations) by the GSA and the US Postal Service."

Not too much to ask, really, to save the planet. By the way subsidizing the purchase of electric vehicles for consumers would help offset the price of gas at the pump. The US may help Ukraine to win the war or at least achieve a protracted stalemate, but at the same time it is letting global warming proceed with minimum intervention. So what is more important - influencing the outcome of a war between two countries or dooming every country on earth which is what will happen if we don't proceed full steam ahead to forestall global warming. Is funding the war in Ukraine being penny wise and pound foolish? Better, if all countries put their money towards combating global warming instead of weapons of war, there might be a slight chance of saving the planet. As it is now, the human race would rather fight wars than save the planet. War is one addiction the human race is not willing to give up even if it means our grandchildren will inherit a planetary hell.

Off the Top of My Head

US Weapons Manufacturers Profiting From War in Ukraine

by John Lawrence

So far the US has spent $13.6 billion on the war in Ukraine. The money includes weapons, military supplies and one of the largest infusions of U.S. foreign aid in the last decade. But it also covers the deployment of U.S. troops to Europe and money for domestic agencies to enforce sanctions. Stock prices for Lockheed-Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon are up. They are making money from all the Javelins and Stinger missiles they are selling to the US government which is giving them to Ukraine free of charge. Raytheon Technologies and Lockheed Martin Corp jointly produce Javelins, while Raytheon makes Stingers. EU countries are buying even more US weaponry from the US military-industrial complex. Germany even wants F-35 aircraft from Lockheed Martin. U.S. weapons exports rose 2.8% to $175 billion in fiscal 2020. The Ukraine war is a field day for the weapons industry. As far as they're concerned, the more arms shipments to Ukraine the better. They are bullish. CEOs will probably get a substantial increase in pay, and the weapons contractors will be able to buy back more of their own stock boosting stock values even more. The US policy so far is no boots on the ground, but plenty of taxpayer money going up in smoke, money that could have been spent on bettering the lot of the American people.

The is always money available for war, but when it comes to Biden's Build Back Better package, Congress gets very stingy. So a localized war is more important than the fate of the whole planet due to global warming. Or it's more important than affordable health care. Or it's more important than imposing a tax on multi-billionaires who, by the way, are not paying for the war because they pay no taxes. If they have defense contractors in their portfolio, they are profiting from the war. Politico reported:

More than 25 nations have joined in purchasing and delivering weapons to support Ukraine’s war effort. The U.S. has sent billions of dollars in missiles, ammunition and other items to the front. The EU signed off on a €500 million ($551 million USD) package — a first for the 27-country European bloc — to help arm Ukraine. And both Finland and Germany have rewritten long-standing policy that barred exporting weapons into war zones.

At the same time, there are tens of thousands of troops being activated and deployed by NATO countries in Eastern Europe.

Using a resource guide retrieved from the Forum on the Arms Trade that mostly relies on official government statements and reports in the media — and backfilled with our own independent research — POLITICO has worked to track and compile weapons and materials that have been announced or directed to Ukraine by various countries since January.

This non-exhaustive list focuses on lethal weapons and some non-lethal material. It does not count humanitarian and developmental aid that has been sent to Ukraine in the same period. Arms trade research organizations have noted the timeline and official receipt of equipment is hard to confirm due to security concerns. In some cases, such as with France and Turkey, an official tally has not been made public.

While US taxpayers are paying for the war in Ukraine and for the delivery of weapons to Europe, Saudi Arabia and other places in the world, billionaires are paying nothing. Congress will not even pass a tax on billionaires so that they would be forced to pay, as Biden says, "their fair share." Their fair share is zero, zip according to Congress which is basically on the side of the billionaires. So planet earth diminishes in importance, as far as global warming is concerned, because fighting and paying for war is so much more important. In fact not only is war more important than peace, which doesn't move the stock market, it's more important than renewable energy. All of a sudden there is a need for more oil, more fossil fuel, all of which produces more greenhouse gasses. The attitude is if we need to destroy planet earth in order to win this war, then that is the price we'll have to pay.

Off the Top of My Head

Two Truths About War and One About Planet Earth

by John Lawrence

1) Truth is the first casualty of war. 2) War is hell. 3) Planet earth can't survive without the cooperation of all nations. Despite the outcome of the war in Ukraine, the whole planet will go up in flames unless all nations can cooperate to solve the problem of global warming. If peace among all nations on earth is not possible, then we can kiss planet earth good-bye as a habitable refuge for humans and other forms of life. The cockroaches may survive, but there is no guarantee even for them. While we humans are busy fighting wars, the planet is warming, and there is not a lot of time to fix this problem before it gets to the point of being unfixable. Global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rose by 6% in 2021 to 36.3 billion tons, their highest ever, as the world economy rebounded strongly from the Covid-19 crisis and relied heavily on coal to power that growth, according to a new IEA analysis released this March 2022. So we're going in the wrong direction heading for a cliff full steam ahead. Not only are we not turning around this catastrophe, we're accelerating it.

"The increase in global CO2 emissions of over 2 billion tons was the largest in history in absolute terms, more than offsetting the previous year’s pandemic-induced decline, the IEA analysis shows. The recovery of energy demand in 2021 was compounded by adverse weather and energy market conditions – notably the spikes in natural gas prices – which led to more coal being burned despite renewable power generation registering its largest ever growth"

So now with the sanctions on Russian gas, there is a likelihood that even more coal will be burned as gas prices soar around the world. We are shooting ourselves in the foot! More natural gas usage, even Russian natural gas, should be encouraged because it produces less greenhouse gas emissions than does the burning of coal. So whoever loses the war in Ukraine, the biggest loser of all will be planet earth. Combined with the methane emissions estimates that the IEA published last month and estimates of nitrous oxide and flaring-related CO² emissions, the new analysis shows that overall greenhouse gas emissions from energy rose to their highest ever level in 2021.

The IEA report emphasized:

"The use of coal for electricity generation in 2021 was intensified by record high natural gas prices. The costs of operating existing coal power plants across the United States and many European power systems were considerably lower than those of gas power plants for the majority of 2021. Gas-to-coal switching pushed up global CO² emissions from electricity generation by well over 100 million tonnes, notably in the United States and Europe where competition between gas and coal power plants is tightest."

So now because of sanctions on Russian natural gas, even more power plants across the US and Europe will be switching to coal! We should be closing all coal powered plants and even those powered by natural gas replacing them all with renewables, geothermal and nuclear. There are alternatives available, but the human race would rather be all concerned about war fighting and not at all concerned about the fate of the planet and the fate of the human race. When it comes to war, there is an unlimited budget. When it comes to peace, there is hardly any money available. Why? Because war is profitable. Defense contractors will be making record profits in the United States and Europe and their stock prices will soar. Meanwhile, there is a paltry budget for switching to renewable energy.

Off the Top of My Head

Almost as Many Have Died During the Covid Pandemic as in All American Wars

by John Lawrence

Maybe we should have invested more in public health than we have in the military. Compared to the trillions spent on the military, only a pittance has been spent on public health, let alone on promoting peace in the world. 1.1 million have died in all American wars since the founding of the republic. About 927,000 and counting have died from the current pandemic even though a revolutionary mRNA vaccine is available. 675,000 died during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 sans vaccine. So many more people have died from pandemics in the US than have been killed in wars. Yet war and the preparations for war are pursued relentlessly while efforts for peace languish. This is not only dumb; it's sick. It goes to show that homo sapiens is one of the stupidest and least empathetic species that has ever evolved. Nero fiddled while Rome burned, but the human race is right on course fiddling while the earth burns due to climate change. We will continue to fiddle and equivocate playing one upsmanship with each other as the earth deteriorates into an uninhabitable planet. No wonder the billionaires are making plans to get off.

Of course the power structure doesn't really care what happens on planet earth after they die. They will miss by virtue of their own natural deaths the worst of it. They will have lived the American Dream while bequeathing to their grandchildren the American Nightmare. As we continue to pour billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, we are more concerned about the economy that we are about human survival and what sacrifices that will mean. In November, researchers at the Global Carbon Project estimated that global carbon-dioxide emissions from energy and industry rose 4.9 percent in 2021, after a 5.4 percent decline in 2020. China, India and the European Union all had major increases, suggesting that any climate effect from the pandemic was fleeting. So not even a worldwide pandemic can significantly alter the relentless pursuit of economic growth which produces mega tons of carbon dioxide. Residents of planet earth refuse to change their lifestyles and their aspirations for what they conceive to be a "better life."

In the US consumerism is force fed through advertising just like in France ducks are forced fed to produce foie gras. Facebook makes billions of dollars not selling a product but selling advertising. Amazon at least provides products and the service of delivering those products. The advertising industry is the equivalent of the forced feeding of ducks only the ducks are American consumers who would rather not change their lifestyles of accumulation even if it means that their grandchildren will die a miserable death on a burned out planet. Meanwhile, nations exacerbate tensions among each other and foment wars, the preparations for which cost trillions of dollars which, therefore, are not spent on climate mitigation.

Lifestyles not only of the rich but of the middle class would have to change if the earth is to survive climate change. The production of steel and concrete by current methods produce tons of carbon dioxide. The generation of electricity by coal and gas produces tons of carbon dioxide. Agriculture, mainly cow farts, produces tons of methane. As the earth warms sea levels rise, the Arctic thaws and even more methane is released. It's so anthropogenic! We would be better off going back to the horse and buggy days. The American fetish for progress has produced an ecological disaster. The American lifestyle is an environmental disaster. Meanwhile, the power structure in the US and elsewhere seems bound and determined to accelerate the process of environmental destruction while extreme weather events are passed off as "seen nothing like it but vowing to rebuild." That's the American can-do spirit!

Off the Top of My Head

NATO Should Have Been Dissolved When the Warsaw Pact Was Dissolved After the End of the Cold War in 1991

by John Lawrence

NATO was formed in 1949 after the end of World War II as a counter to the ideological rivalry between communism as espoused by the Soviet Union  and capitalism as espoused by the US and Europe. That ideological rivalry ended in 1991 when the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact were dismantled. The Warsaw Pact was a security pact between the Soviet Union and eastern European nations in direct response to NATO. Russia became essentially a capitalist nation in 1991. Ergo: no further ideological rivalry. At the same time China was also becoming a capitalist nation despite the name of its ruling party. The Berlin Wall had fallen in 1989. Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, was given assurances that NATO would not advance one inch eastward, an assurance that was abrogated by US administrations shortly thereafter. The security structure of Europe should have been reworked after the fall of the Soviet Union, and NATO should have been eliminated at the same time the Warsaw Pact was eliminated. If that had happened Europe, not the US, would have been responsible for its own security.

So today Vladimir Putin is putting pressure on the western world to do something about the neglected assurances given to Gorbachev that NATO wouldn't move one inch eastward. Ukraine became a part of the Soviet Union after the Second World War and achieved its independence in 1991 when the Soviet Union was dissolved. Crimea had also been part of the Soviet Union and Russia prior to that. In 1954 Nikita Khrushchev, along with the other leadership of the Soviet Union, transferred the Crimean Oblast from the Russian Soviet Federative Social Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Western leaders say that Putin wants to reestablish the Soviet Union or at least maintain control of nations that were previously part of the Soviet Union. Putin has said he wants to establish a new security structure for Europe. That is quite a different prospect from reestablishing the Soviet Union especially in light of the assurances given to Gorbachev about NATO's not moving an inch eastward.

The question must be asked: what is the purpose of NATO, which was established to counteract communist expansionism, when communism no longer exists at least as manifested by Russia. Gorbachev's advisor, Arbitov, had said, "We are going to deprive you of an enemy":

"In another sense, however, the passing of the cold war could not have been more disorienting. In 1987, Georgi Arbatov, a senior adviser to the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, had warned: “We are going to do a terrible thing to you – we are going to deprive you of an enemy.”

"As the Soviet Union passed out of existence, Americans were left not just without that enemy, but without even a framework for understanding the world and their place in it. However imperfectly, the cold war had, for several decades, offered a semblance of order and coherence. The collapse of communism shattered that framework. Where there had been purposefulness and predictability, now there was neither."

Guess again, Mr. Gorbachev. The US military-industrial complex was not to be deprived of an enemy under any circumstances. The subsequent neocons saw to that. What Putin is asking for now is a new framework, a framework that should have been established by the west in diplomatic consultation with Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union and the termination of the Warsaw Pact, NATO's mirror. However, the US and perhaps the other actors as well cannot conceive of a world without war or the threat of war. They cannot conceive of a diplomatic treaty or framework which would leave the world at peace. Peace is an unknown entity and is for all intents and purposes inconceivable. Therefore, Russia is poised to take by force that which might not have been necessary in Putin's eyes if a framework had been established in which NATO hadn't started moving eastward or even conceivably in which European security arrangements could have been established which would have protected  all European nations including Russia sans NATO.

Off the Top of My Head

How to Solve the Homeless and Climate Change Crises in One Fell Swoop

by John Lawrence

It has been estimated that there were 6 trillion trees on earth before the industrial revolution. Today there are only half that number. Trees are the most natural and proficient way to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. So part of the solution for global warming is to plant 3 trillion more trees. At the same time there are approximately half a million homeless Americans. It is estimated that 150 million people are homeless worldwide. Habitat for Humanity estimated in 2015 that 1.6 billion people around the world live in "inadequate shelter". These figures probably include the 80 million refugees worldwide. So why not pay this under utilized labor force to plant trees like the U.S. did in the 1930s when it created the Civilian Conservation Corps? What is needed is a worldwide Civilian Conservation Force. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a work relief program that gave millions of young men employment on environmental projects during the Great Depression.The CCC helped to shape the modern national and state park systems we enjoy today. People in the CCC were given adequate food and shelter in addition to a stipend to plant trees among other things to benefit the environment. Today addressing climate change is critical. At the same time most homeless people are contributing nothing of value to society although some of them do have jobs. But most are not only homeless but hopeless. Giving them a critical role in solving the global warming crisis would not only help to save planet earth, but would give the homeless an important mission.

Considered by many to be one of the most successful of Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, the CCC planted more than three billion trees and constructed trails and shelters in more than 800 parks nationwide during its nine years of existence. This is exactly what is needed today - PLANTING BILLIONS OF TREES! So why not do it, but on a world wide basis? Instead the US offers young non college bound people an incentive to join the military. Recruits with less than two years experience earn an annual salary of $19,660 plus a generous benefit package. Isn't saving the earth as a habitable place for future generations more important? So why not make the benefits for a renewed CCC at least equally generous?

This is something that has a precedent in US history, but saving earth as a habitable environment for future generations is evidently not as important as spending a trillion dollars a year to preserve the US military establishment so it can threaten to destroy other nations and peoples. In addition the role of the US dollar as the world's reserve currency and the fact that major world institutions are based on the US dollar allows the US to threaten other countries and individuals with sanctions. It's a one two punch that makes it less likely that anything of significance will be done to make the earth habitable for future generations. Instead the US military is a major source of carbon dioxide pollution in the atmosphere. The Cost of Wars Project found that US military pollution had accounted for 1.2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions, which amount to 257 million passenger cars annually. They compared this astonishing output as higher than the emissions from whole countries like Sweden, Morocco, and Switzerland. Research shows the US military is one of the largest climate polluters in history, consuming more liquid fuels and emitting more CO2e (carbon-dioxide equivalent) than most countries.

At a time when cooperation among nations is paramount to the solution of the climate change crisis, the US is hell bent on military confrontation with other countries particularly Russia and China. Instead of creating peace in the world, the traditional preoccupation with solving problems by means of the military is still the order of the day. Therefore, it isn't likely that there will be a solution to the climate change crisis. Instead a bunch of wishful thinking and misplaced hopes will lead to a gradual diminution of habitability on planet earth.

Off the Top of My Head

3 Generals: US Military Could Aid and Abet Next Insurrection

by John Lawrence

A large number of the January 6 insurrectionists were active or former members of the military. Fox News is ubiquitous on military bases and VA hospitals. Now even Generals are worried about the next insurrection fueled by right wing extremist media. The chickens are coming home to roost. The US' bloated military and military-industrial complex budgets have turned the lemmings into potential insurrectionists. Fox News is not only ubiquitous on military bases. It is playing on almost every public TV. Places like airports, car dealerships, bars - you name it. Everywhere a public TV is on, it's usually tuned to Fox News. What - is CNN too intellectual for public display? You'd lose too many customers? Are real Americans consumers of Fox News? What kind of person is a patriot? What's the definition of patriotism? Were the January 6 insurrectionists true American patriots? They thought so. Maybe a jail sentence will disabuse them of that notion.

I wrote on November 5, 2021:

"It seems that about half the American people want rational, competent government which advances the interests of the American people and plays a constructive role on the world stage. The other half wants a government based on their pet peeves. They are amenable to being swayed by conspiracy theories and misinformation. The former are mainly Democrats; the latter, Republicans. This is nowhere better exemplified than the 2016 election in which competence and experience in the form of Hillary Clinton was defeated by resentment and lies in the form of Donald Trump. In contrast to China which promotes the best and brightest to high positions in its government, the US form of democracy allows for politicians to appeal to the lowest common denominator which has no knowledge or information about anything beyond the worship of symbols like the American flag. This is clear from the visuals of the January 6 insurrection in which the American flag was displayed ad infinitum as if that is what made these people true patriots who could demand that their hero, Donald Trump, should be President in defiance of every provision of American constitutional democracy."

About half the American people have a military related consciousness about patriotism. A patriot is someone who doesn't let other people mess with him. A patriot is a dominant person and demands that the US dominates the rest of the world because we know better, we are stronger and we are better. Some others might think that a patriot is someone who tries to make the US and the world a better place, someone who seeks to alleviate sickness and poverty, someone who has compassion for others, not someone who thinks we're number 1. A true patriot might be someone like Dr. Fauci who has spent his life trying to heal the sick and end the pandemic. There are true patriots and false patriots just like there are true gods and false gods. It all depends on your values.

The 3 Generals wrote in the Washington Post:

"As we approach the first anniversary of the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, we — all of us former senior military officials — are increasingly concerned about the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election and the potential for lethal chaos inside our military, which would put all Americans at severe risk.

"In short: We are chilled to our bones at the thought of a coup succeeding next time."

The Biden administration and the January 6 committee has been moving in the right direction. A further move might be to require a rotation of TV channels on military bases so that military personnel weren't fed a steady diet of Fox News. Right wing propaganda in news and social media is fueling chauvinistic and jjngoistic values. The values of healing, supporting, teaching, charity and compassion for others should be emphasized instead. If these are feminine as opposed to masculine values, so be it. Maybe the world won't ever be at peace until women run it. These are the values of peace and love and true patriotism. If we want a world at peace and not at war, we need to inculcate these values in the American people, not the values of Fox News.

Off the Top of My Head

Problems of American Democracy - Part 1

by John Lawrence

When my father was a high school teacher in Highland Park, NJ, he taught a course - Problems in American Democracy. So I'm hopefully carrying on a family tradition by trying to elucidate these problems which, to put it mildly, are probably much different today than they were in 1941! The big problem today is that so many people are detached from reality in terms of being in touch with what the real problems are. One of the real problems is climate change, how to get from here to net zero carbon emissions before planet earth becomes uninhabitable. Another real problem is homelessness and affordability of housing. Another real problem is the 80 million refugees in the world. Another real problem is for Americans to be concerned about world problems and not just confine their attention to what goes on inside the borders of the US.  Another real problem is physical and social infrastructure which will be addressed by Biden's Build Back Better bills. But the biggest problem of all, as I see it, is that elections every 2 years make continuity of direction for the US impossible especially when the 2 parties have become diametrically opposed. So today we have the reality that the American government could possibly swing back and forth between Trumpism and what we might call Bidenism. Back and forth between ignorance and enlightenment. To boot the American people are no longer tuned in to authoritative news sources. Too many are only tuned into social media which is greatly responsible for cultivating the divide between two American tribes - the no nothings and the do somethings.

People in the Trump camp could care less about voting for or against their own economic interests. You would think a lot of them would benefit from the initiatives that the Democrats have put forward. But either they are ignorant of them or are willing to vote against their interests just because of the tribe they belong to or out of spite. They are completely irrational. Rationality is not even on the table. Their hate and their spite rules everything as far as they are concerned. They are willing to go down numerous rabbit holes and believe all kinds of conspiracy theories because critical thinking or a concern about human welfare, their own and others, has no place in their consciousness. Their concern and understanding remains at the level of symbols like the American flag. A deeper understanding or analysis of situations is beyond them. What's more this misinformed and ignorant part of the population is significant in number and can easily be responsible for electing ignorant and conspiracy theory infused lawmakers who will do whatever is necessary to pander to their constituents. Thus America as a nation could swerve back and forth between ignorance and rationality as exemplified by Trump's withdrawal from Obama's climate initiatives like the Paris accords and Biden's reinstating them.

Contrast the instability of American democracy with the Chinese system of government in which stability is of utmost importance. They don't want anyone rocking the boat including tennis stars. While this heavy handedness does curtail some of the aspects of western notions of freedom, it preserves the priorities of the long term interests of China itself which has been going in what most experts concede is a very positive direction. According to the World Bank: "Since China began to open up and reform its economy in 1978, GDP growth has averaged almost 10 percent a year, and more than 800 million people have been lifted out of poverty. There have also been significant improvements in access to health, education, and other services over the same period." China has had the goal of eliminating poverty altogether and claims as of 2021 to have done so. According to a Chinese source which admittedly may be biased: "Through continuous efforts, the final 98.99 million impoverished rural residents in China had all been lifted out of poverty, and all 832 impoverished counties and 128,000 villages had been removed from the poverty list by the end of 2020. The strategy of targeted poverty alleviation is China's strongest "weapon" in its final battle against poverty, and a major innovation in the theory and practice of poverty reduction. China's success in poverty alleviation has proven that the problem of poverty, in essence, is how the people should be treated: the people-centered philosophy is the fundamental driving force behind this cause." Independent confirmation of these claims is unclear. The World Bank which is an unbiased source essentially agrees with the Chinese government at to its elimination of poverty: "In 1990 there were more than 750 million people in China living below the international poverty line - about two-thirds of the population. By 2012, that had fallen to fewer than 90 million, and by 2016 - the most recent year for which World Bank figures are available - it had fallen to 7.2 million people (0.5% of the population). So clearly, even in 2016 China was well on the way to reaching its target. This suggests that overall, 745 million fewer people were living in extreme poverty in China than there were 30 years ago. World Bank figures do not take us to the present day, but the trend is certainly in line with the Chinese government's announcement."

So what weapons does the US have in its arsenal for the alleviation of poverty and homelessness? Not many. Biden's Build Back Better plan will help, but the US in recent years has been more interested in funding weapons systems built by the military-industrial complex, weapons that destroy rather than weapons that build. It's only "progressives" that even care about solving the problems of poverty and homelessness in America or in doing something about climate change or about the refugee problem in the world and not just at our southern border. I note that not one Republican voted for Biden's Build Back Better bill in the House. Instead Republican leader Kevin McCarthy went on an 8 hour diatribe in a futile attempt to prevent the bill's passage.

Off the Top of My Head

Use the National Guard to Free Up the Supply Chain

by John Lawrence

We are 80,000 truck drivers short. We should use the National Guard on an emergency basis to drive trucks to get the contents of those containers out of port and on their way to consumers. Then there will be room for the waiting container ships to offload their contents. Why not? The National Guard has been used in other emergency situations. Why not this one? Marx theorized that the "industrial reserve army" was a necessary part of capitalism, and was composed of out of work people looking for work. This kept the cost of labor down. Only now the reverse situation is in effect. There are more jobs than people looking for them. Therefore, labor is in the driver's seat. Capital needs to pay labor more in order to get them to work. However, at the present time, although wages have come up somewhat, they have not come up enough to attract the needed truck drivers back into the work force. This will all eventually be ironed out as self-driving trucks which are already on the roads will increase substantially.

While the US has been sitting on its duff investing in the world's biggest military, China has been investing in infrastructure - ports and container ships in particular. According to Wikipedia:

"In 1961 China established a state-run maritime shipping company and subsequently signed shipping agreements with many countries, laying the foundation for developing the country's ocean transport. That organization developed into the present-day China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company (COSCO). The Chinese government also invested heavily in water transport infrastructure, constructing new ports and rebuilding and enlarging older facilities. The number of container units handled by Chinese ports in 2011 reached more than 150 million. The country also manufactures 90% of the world's containers. The throughput of cargo and containers at China's ports has been the largest in the world for the past five years, with an annual growth rate of 35%."

China also manufactures more than 80 percent of the world’s ship-to-shore cranes, and own seven of the ten busiest ports in the world (including Hong Kong). The message is clear. While the US invested in battleships, China invested in container ships. The goods in those container ships are mainly manufactured in China. The US is addicted to them. Foreign demand for Chinese-made products has remained strong — both by companies’ accounts and official data. The customs agency said in the first half of this year, exports to the European Union rose 35.9% from a year ago to $233 billion, while those to the U.S. climbed 42.6% to $252.86 billion. The handwriting (and handwringing) is on the wall. The US can't continue to base its economy on a military-industrial complex while not producing the goods the American consumer economy wants to buy. By default China has sold many of the consumer goods into the ravenous American consumer economy which is 70% of the American economy while the US has invested in nothing but war. Now as the US has withdrawn from forever wars, the military is trying to gin up a Cold War with China. It won't work. Americans depend on China for consumer goods and get very mad when they're not readily available forcing prices up as we've seen from the container ship debacle.

The US has ceded leadership in many areas including ports, shipping and infrastructure while it has conducted its losing wars. Spending $300 million a day in Afghanistan only enriched defense contractors and corrupt politicians. With all that money being spent, today most Afghanis are simply begging for food. If that money had been spent on the Afghani people instead, today Afghani citizens would be enjoying a robust economy and a decent way of life. All that money was poured down a rat hole. Wasted money and time has only let China become the leader in the manufacture and transport of consumer goods. Climate change demands that the US and China cooperate - not compete - with each other. We need adults in the US government, and the only adults in the room are Democrats. Republicans have gone down the rabbit hole of Trumpism.

Off the Top of My Head

While General Milley Seeks to Bolster Pentagon Budget, Citing Threats from China, Cooperation Between the US and China on Climate Change Might Negate His Playbook

by John Lawrence

General Milley is out to justify his $200,000 a year paycheck by encouraging Congress and the American people not to cut the Pentagon budget. When the fate of the earth is at stake from global warming, Milley is more concerned about stoking tensions with China. Fortunately, despite the new Cold War some are trying to create, the US and China are actually cooperating on climate change. In an article, "US-China deal on emissions welcomed by global figures and climate experts," the Guardian points out that at the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow, progress was made in resolving these tensions:

"An unexpected agreement between the US and China to work together on cutting emissions has been broadly welcomed by leaders and climate experts.

"The world’s two biggest emitters appeared to put aside their differences at the Cop26 climate summit and on Wednesday unveiled a joint declaration that would see close cooperation on emissions cuts that scientists say are needed in the next 10 years to stay within 1.5C.

"The agreement calls for “concrete and pragmatic” regulations in decarbonisation, reducing methane emissions and fighting deforestation, Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said in Glasgow.

"The two countries will revive a working group that will “meet regularly to address the climate crisis and advance the multilateral process, focusing on enhancing concrete actions in this decade,” the joint declaration said."

"Advancing the Multilateral process"? General Milley doesn't want to hear that. It means cuts in the Pentagon's budget. His job is to stoke fears of China's prowess. The article continues:

"A US-China bilateral agreement in 2014 gave a huge push to the creation of the historic Paris accord the following year, but that cooperation stopped with the Trump administration, which pulled America out of the pact.

“While this is not a gamechanger in the way the 2014 US-China climate deal was, in many ways it’s just as much of a step forward given the geopolitical state of the relationship,” said Thom Woodroofe, an expert in US-China climate talks. “It means the intense level of US-China dialogue on climate can now begin to translate into cooperation.”

"EU climate policy chief Frans Timmermans agreed the pact gave room for hope. “It shows … that the US and China know this subject transcends other issues. And it certainly helps us here at Cop26 to come to an agreement,” Timmermans told Reuters."

Yes, China and the US must transcend "other issues" like fighting each other in order to cooperate and save the earth from being devoured by climate change thus bringing the human experiment involving future generations to a disastrous end.

General Milley is right about the "fundamental change to the character of war" since the period preceding World War II, citing new widely available technologies like drones and artificial intelligence and the rise of China as a superpower. US News reports, ""Milley is trying to sustain the case for what he considers adequate levels of defense spending," says Michael O'Hanlon, director of research at The Brookings Institution. "But he is also trying to keep pressure on the Pentagon and services to innovate and to avoid fixation on previous types of weapons, forces and operational concepts.""

Countering these new technologies of war will not require new billion dollar airplanes and battle ships. The Pentagon budget, therefore, should be reduced as these new technologies are developed in order to remain vigilant against modern era threats to the US and our allies. It's hard to make the case against China as a major threat to the US when the Chinese defense budget in 2020t was about $196 billion. America's, on the other hand, was a hearty $778 billion, about 4 times as great. Cooperation with China on climate change and other issues might actually have the salubrious effect of bringing both country's defense budgets down. Could cooperation on a common enemy, climate change, actually bring about peace on earth?

 

Off the Top of My Head

American Troops Have Left Afghanistan. So Has American Money - $300 Million Per Day

by John Lawrence

Afghanistan's economy must be in freefall. The US was spending $300 million a day each and every day there for 20 years! Now the US is spending nothing. American troops have left and, more importantly, American money has left. So can we now cut the defense budget? It would have been better if, instead of sending in American troops 20 years ago, we had sent in the Peace Corps for a fraction of the money the American military presence has cost. By now much could have been accomplished like roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, water and sewage systems and other critical infrastructure. Instead we spent $300 million a day for 20 years blowing things up and getting blown up ourselves. It's a testament to the folly of warfare. Now, hopefully, diplomacy and resettlement of refugees and building infrastructure will take place both there and here at home where efforts in the domain of Peace are badly in need as well. The US has infrastructure needs, resettlement of refugee needs (think the growing homeless population), both hard and human infrastructure needs, building things up instead of blowing things up.

All the generals who were shuffled in and out of Afghanistan couldn't think of what we could have done better there because all they could think was in military terms. They couldn't conceive of the possibility that the reason they were all so unsuccessful was precisely because any and all military solutions were not the right ones. They could not conceive of building peace there, only fighting an enemy. Well, it got them substantial pay raises, and it made money for the military-industrial complex. Now we need a peace-industrial complex. If we want to save the planet and not just indulge the present American inhabitants of planet earth to the max, we need to build green infrastructure all over the world. But even before we do that, we need to solve the worldwide pandemic which we can not seem to solve even here at home because there are so many people who won't believe in the obvious solution until one of their family members dies.

Forever wars have stunted the mindsets of the American people leading them to embracing far right jingoistic and chauvinistic militarism. The mindset would be considerably different if the US had put as much energy as it has put into militarism into peace activities, if peace had even been given due consideration as an alternative to war. In fact it's not too much of a stretch to say War is Us. This mindset came to fruition on January 6 with the insurrection. Biden is trying to turn the corner but he can only do so much per unit time. He has done considerable so far ending the war in Afghanistan and doing everything humanly possible to end the pandemic. His human and hard infrastructure agenda is still pending, but I believe it will eventually pass because it has been set up in such a way that either everybody wins if it passes or everybody loses if it doesn't. The way the twin bills were constructed, one that will pass by budget reconciliation and one bipartisan, represents political ingenuity. It's making the most of the slim Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress. Even after those twin bills pass and get made into law, there is much to be done, voting rights reform in particular. I think Biden will get the major part of his agenda accomplished - probably in 2 years. After that who knows what will happen if Republicans win one or both Houses in the midterm elections.

Off the Top of My Head

How Not to Win a War

by John Lawrence

1) Invade a country. 2) Set up a puppet government. 3) Pay officials handsomely or acquiesce in their corruption. 4) Spend $300 million a day none of which alters the life of the average citizen who exists on $2 a day. 5) Hire local interpreters. 6) Hire local contractors. 7) Cycle multiple generals in and out of the war each one of which thinks they're God's gift to military science.       8) Get the local people in the cities involved on your side by paying them lots of money. 9) Ignore the majority of the people living in the countryside. 10) Leave country after puppet government collapses. 11) Get half the population that sided with you out of that country and into yours.

Can't the vast military-industrial complex teach their own interpreters all the major languages of the world so they don't have to hire local interpreters who then expect the US to get them out of the country when the US loses the war? Can't the vast military -industrial complex provide their own services so they don't have to hire "private contractors"? The US never had a clear goal in invading Afghanistan except to make it a forever war. Some Afghans were OK with that because the $300 million a day the US provided made them rich. In a country which has a GDP of $20 billion, $300 million a day ($109.5 billion a year), over 5 times the GDP, totally distorts the country economically making some people fabulously rich while leaving the average Afghan tremendously poor. In 2020, GDP per capita for Afghanistan was 581 US dollars. Such a formula for success was guaranteed to lead the average Afghan to favor the Taliban who at least were on the side of the average person.

All the generals who have been interviewed have their own ideas about what could have been done better in Afghanistan, but none of them have any perspective outside of a military one. For instance, none of them ventured an opinion that maybe sending in the Peace Corps to improve the lives of the average Afhan living on $2 a day might have done more good than sending in the world's mightiest military with all the bells and whistles at its command. The first step for the Peace Corps is of course to learn the language of the people. How else to convince them that you are actually interested in them and want to help them. Improving the lives of the average person is the last thing the military thinks of. Maybe that's the lesson that needs to be learned here. An American effort devoted to peace rather than war could be done for a lot less than $300 million a day over 20 years which is the cost to Americans for this fruitless war. The Peace Corps needs to be beefed up. Actually improving the lives of poor people around the world will do more to end terrorism than the services the world's mightiest military can provide. In addition processing Americans through the Peace Corps rather than the military will do more to diminish domestic terrorism since those who have been processed through the military have a militarized mindset which predisposes them to being attracted to right wing proto military groups.

Off the Top of My Head

Now That We're Not Spending $300 Million a Day in Afghanistan Can We Spend $300 Million a Day in US Mitigating Climate Change?

by John Lawrence

Finally, officials are acknowledging that recent extreme weather is a function of climate change. Now they want to harden their infrastructure. Can we defund the military and fund green infrastructure? We pissed over $300 million a day for 20 years in Afghanistan gaining nothing in the process. Now we have even more bills to pay for wounded veterans and the resettling of refugees. The Pentagon must have known that the invasion of Afghanistan would do nothing to protect us from terrorism. In fact an argument could be made that it only increased terrorism of the domestic variety as former military joined right wing extremist groups. Now Biden has changed the mindset that every problem can be solved by the US military. Now it is time to reduce the military budget. After all we're saving $300 million a day. Biden has made it clear that we don't have to remain in a fruitless situation. We can actually change our priorities.

What is really threatening America at this point is the extreme weather brought about by climate change. When a hurricane hitting land in Louisiana can do the most damage in New York and New Jersey, you have a much different kind of hurricane. Hurricanes are supposed to lose steam once they've hit land. This one obviously didn't. In fact it gained power. Why didn't it devastate states in its path before it got to the east coast? That's a mystery. It seems to have gone dormant for awhile and then picked up steam later.

21st century infrastructure needs to be built now. Biden is doing his best to change the mindset of America that actually helping people is more important than seeking glory in war. There is no glory in war. First we lost in Viet Nam; then we repeated the same scenario in Afghanistan. Enough is enough. We need to build up the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps and a new Civilian Conservation Corps. Peaceful buildups not military adventurism and continual development of new weapons. The real threat is domestic terrorism and climate change. We need to put our money and human resources where the real needs are, and they're not in Afghanistan or anywhere else in the Middle East. China is eating our lunch precisely because they're putting most of their foreign policy energy into building infrastructure in other countries with the Belt and Road Initiative.

Climate change and global warming knows no national boundaries. Mother Nature is totally neutral when it comes to the devastation she is wreaking in this anthropocene era. Human beings and technological development have resulted in a climate crisis. Was the unibomber right about technological development even though he made his point in an unfortunate way? Cities were relieved when the gas powered automobile was developed. It relieved cities of having to shovel away massive amounts of horseshit. However, horseshit has a high nutritive value as fertilizer. Automobile exhaust has only a deleterious value since the result of releasing it into the atmosphere causes an increasing greenhouse effect. Eventually, if nothing or not enough is done, it will make the earth uninhabitable. That's why it's more important than ever that nations cooperate in a common purpose. Instead of fighting each other, we need to fight global warming. Peace is not just a nice concept. It's an imperative.

 

Off the Top of My Head

The Lesson From Afghanistan: the Same Lesson as Viet Nam

by John Lawrence

The lesson is you can't invade a country, set up a puppet government, fund it with trillions of dollars and expect to Americanize that country. Unfortunately, we didn't learn that lesson in Viet Nam so we repeated the same mistake in Afghanistan. American military adventurism has cost many people their lives - reportedly 2400 in Afghanistan - created corrupt governments that siphon off all the American "aid," and end up not doing anything for the average Afghan. They do create elites, millionaires like the brother of Hamid Karzai, mirroring the exact same economic inequality that we experience here in America itself. In that sense these countries, until their collapse, are little Americas. Now that Biden has ended this folly of forever wars that benefit mainly American contractors like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrup Grumman and many others, his intention, I gather, is to continue what the military wasn't able to accomplish on the diplomatic and humanitarian level. This is to Biden's credit. This is what we should have been doing all along. If we had been actually helping average Afghans, they would be on our side and not represent a breeding ground for terrorists. As it turns out, only the Taliban were helping average Afghans.

Those who whine that terrorists will root themselves there now that the American military is gone, might better whine about the terrorists who almost took over the US Capitol on January 6, certainly the scariest threat to America since 9/11. And it almost worked. While 9/11 was a horrible tragedy in terms of American lives, it didn't have the capacity to actually threaten the very existence of American democracy. The January 6 insurrection did. It came a hair breadth from preventing the certification of Joe Biden as the next President and reinstalling Donald Trump as an unelected autocrat. In both cases the American intelligence bureaucracy was caught flatfooted and clueless. Unless ISIS-K and other foreign terrorist groups come up with a genius like bin Laden, we have not too much to fear. Bin Laden had a horrible grinchy, but brilliant idea, which was able to be executed with money for a few flight lessons and probably less than $30 worth of box cutters. It didn't matter that he was physically located in Afgahnistan at the time. His physical location wasn't the reason that he was able to come up with this idea that outsmarted US intelligence services. There were no Afghans among the hihackers. Most of them were Saudi citizens, a fact seemingly lost on George W Bush who spirited the bin Laden relatives out of the US to befriend his allies in Saudi Arabia. Invading that country would have made more sense since bin Laden himself was a Saudi.

Those who whine about the implementation of Sharia law by the Taliban never mention the fact that Saudi Arabia, our good friend, uses Sharia law to behead people, cut off their hands, stone adulterers and all the other ramifications of Sharia law. The Taliban are not the only ones to do it, and this should be pointed out by the pundits who try to scare us about the supposedly horrific consequences of Sharia law. Even our friends the Saudis and probably other Muslim countries do it.

What's the alternative to keeping boots on the ground in Afghanistan? Keeping troops there forever. In other words those who advocate for that course are advocating forever wars. War is there business and many of these Generals and military analysts are on the payroll of military-industrial complex contractors. They effectively are advocating for continual and perpetual war as a way of life. For them there is no such concept as peace. They only know war. They only think war. For them there are threats around every corner and in every corner of the entire world. They point out all the reasons why ending the Afghanistan war is a huge mistake that America will regret since ongoing perpetual war is the only solution that will protect American freedom and democracy. Well, Biden's vision is to pursue peaceful solutions while remaining vigilant about terrorist threats whether they come from domestic or foreign terrorists. This is constructive. Humanitarian aid to Afghanistan will do more to improve the lives of the average Afghan than all the money given to the Afghan puppet government which was siphoned off by the Karzai family among others.

Off the Top of My Head

Was Biden Supposed to Micromanage the Logistics of the Withdrawal?

by John Lawrence

What were all those people in the Pentagon doing once Biden announced the end of the war? Biden announced on July 8, 2021 that the war would end as of August 31. Why wasn't the US Defense Department working overtime to do contingency and logistics planning. Why weren't Americans and Afghans who helped us being taken out of the country as of that date? Why did they wait for Kabul to fall? This is incompetency on the part of the Pentagon and the Defense Department. Biden shouldn't have had to micromanage the logistics. Why didn't they expect chaos? Why didn't our military hold Kabul until everyone was out safely? Instead they let the Taliban waltz into Kabul. It just goes to show the incompetency of the top echelon of US military planners.

Hopefully, the secure air corridor, similar to the Berlin airlift, will be sufficient to get most of the people, who need to get out, out. The troops Biden sent in will have to do crowd control and secure the airport for the next few weeks. The whole operation in Afghanistan was a disaster. Evidently, the Afghan military couldn't do anything without the support of American contractors? You mean that the bloated American military is incompetent to do anything without private contractors? Evidently, so. Now a bunch of war apologists are rueing the day that the American military is leaving Afghanistan. Oh, Al Qaeda will come back; ISIS will establish themselves there. Why don't they stop and ask the question why all these Islamists are so upset with the US? Is it because the US has been killing them for years. It's not too late for the US to become a constructive force in the world instead of just trying "to protect American interests." China is building infrastructure throughout Asia and beyond. The US could cooperate with China in becoming a builder rather than a destroyer. Besides, unless the two major polluting countries of the world get together, the earth is already doomed to a climate catastrophe.

It's not about forcing the rest of the world to bow down to us. It's about time that the world's wealthiest country becomes a constructive player on the world scene instead of threatening everyone with sanctions or our military might. It's time to guarantee the Palestinians their own homeland. This would do a lot to dispel the rancor against the US. Instead of "defund the police" we should be chanting "defund the military". The 800 military bases around the world need to be abandoned and the troops sent home from there just like they were abandoned in Afghanistan. By the way why wasn't all the military equipment and resources just left there to fall into the hands of the Taliban? Oh I see. There will be money to procure a lot more once the Defense Department submits its budgetary needs post Afghanistan. When the US becomes a force for peace in the world and uses its abundant resources to alleviate poverty and fight climate change, then the US will be playing a constructive role in the world and not just defending US interests.

Off the Top of My Head

Question: Who Won the Afghanistan War? Answer: Osama bin Laden

by John Lawrence

Bin Laden's stated purpose for attacking the US was to attract the US into a protracted war in the Middle East that would fritter away US blood and treasure. If bin Laden were alive today, after American expenditures of $2 trillion and 2000 American lives in Afghanistan, I think he would say "Mission Accomplished". However, most of that money never left the US. It was snatched up by the military-industrial complex - by the likes of Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. According to a tape released by Al-Jazeera and reported by CNN, Osama said:

"We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah," bin Laden said in the transcript. He said the mujahedeen fighters did the same thing to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, "using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers." "We, alongside the mujahedeen, bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat," bin Laden said. He also said al Qaeda has found it "easy for us to provoke and bait this administration." "All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations," bin Laden said.

Well, bin Laden is only partially correct. It's impossible to bankrupt the US as Modern Monetary Theory has made clear. As a nation with a sovereign currency, the US can just have the Federal Reserve print as much money as needed to fight wars or for any other purpose. Actually, the $2 trillion spent by US taxpayers largely on weapons supplied by the military-industrial complex kept the economy humming quite nicely because war spending as well as selling weapons to other countries is contributive to the US economy.

The US should never have invaded the "nation" of Afghanistan at all. When bin Laden was based there, Afghanistan was only a partially governed country. Large parts of it were ungoverned and ungovernable. This is the space Al Qaeda occupied. The Taliban only governed part of the country. As President Obama demonstrated, it was possible to track bin Laden down and kill him in a special operation without having ever invaded a country and for very little cost. But that wasn't good enough for George W Bush. He wanted to be a war time President. Now 20 years later, the Taliban are in a position to rule over all of Afghanistan. It's Vietnam all over again. The US goes into a country, sets up a puppet government and leaves at some time at which the puppet government and its fighting force collapse after much expenditure of blood and treasure. Will we ever learn that indigenous forces will eventually win out?

The good news is that the US, having lost the war in Vietnam, is now one if its largest trading partners. Vietnam is currently our 13th largest goods trading partner with $77.5 billion in total (two way) goods trade during 2019. Goods exports totaled $10.9 billion; goods imports totaled $66.6 billion. The U.S. goods trade deficit with Vietnam was $55.8 billion in 2019. Perhaps, after the US loses the war in Afghanistan, Afghanistan can also normalize itself and become a trading partner with the US. This is the much preferred outcome compared to a war the US didn't lose in Korea which resulted in a stalemate. The result there is a nightmare for the US in the North which has nuclear weapons and missiles capable of reaching the US. If the US had lost that war as well, things would probably have normalized there without a northern dictator with a vendetta against the US and weapons pointed at us

Now the job for Biden is to get Americans and Afghanis who cooperated with us out of Afghanistan safely and discreetly. That's the purpose of the forces he recently sent back in. We don't want to repeat the humiliating hasty exit from Vietnam, and we owe it to those who cooperated with us to give them a safe harbor. Expect Little Afghanistans to sprout up in major American cities perhaps right next door to all the little Vietnams and Little Iraqs. Afghani restaurants will provide even more cultural diversity for the American palate.

Off the Top of My Head

Billionaires in Space and One on the Ground

by John Lawrence

We have been treated to media coverage of billionaires in space squandering their fortunes to have a "wonderful experience" while one has not gone to space. Instead he has spent billions eradicating disease and poverty in the world, furnishing children with computers and contributing to the effort to control the pandemic. In fact he warned us a pandemic was coming in 2015 in a Ted talk. Bill Gates is a true hero while Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos are spoiled brats relishing their "experiences" and astronaut wings. Of course it's Bill Gates who is denigrated on right wing media and those peddling conspiracy theories. Anyone who tries to do good in the world usually ends up with a similar fate. Such are human beings. For rich billionaires their rocket ships represent nothing more than "boys with their toys."

Bill Gates latest book, "How to Avoid a Climate Disaster," should be read by everyone and touted by the media. He didn't need to go to space and look back at the earth to have a mind altering experience. I'm so tired of these billionaires like Branson saying things like, "Well after I saw the curvature of the earth, it made me feel a common bond with all humanity." Yeah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Now he wants to do something about climate change? Well, let's see what. He is a mental and philanthropic lightweight compared to Gates. Where's his book about climate change and his Ted talk about the pandemic? He's all show and no action. It's all about showmanship and "wonderful experiences", and maybe you too will win a raffle and be able to go into space, or maybe some day when the price comes down, then you'll be able to go. Hooray and Hallelujah! It's just the way it is, you see. First the rich people get to go, and then some day it'll be cheap enough even for the middle class just like it was with air travel.

Google the Gates Foundation and these words come up: "We are a nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world." This is what the other billionaires should be about as well as other rich nations of the world. I think the US, temporarily at least during the Biden administration, is about that. But that could change quicker than an augenblick if another Trump like government comes along. For the year ending in 2019, the Gates Foundation spent more than $5 billion on 1869 grants helping people all over the world. The US government by contrast spent $1 trillion on its military-industrial complex, something even Joe Biden has not had the nerve to change at least so far. He gets massive kudos, however, for ending the war in Afghanistan despite all the military-think Generals who want us to stay there in perpetuity just in case another bin Laden might be born some day.

Some good verbiage from the Gates website: "From poverty to health, to education, our areas of focus offer the opportunity to dramatically improve the quality of life for billions of people. So we build partnerships that bring together resources, expertise, and vision—working with the best organizations around the globe to identify issues, find answers, and drive change. Our work depends on grantees and partners across the United States and in more than 130 countries who have on-the-ground expertise, a deep understanding of the issues we care about, and strong ties with the communities in which we aim to make a difference. At the same time, we have learned the value of having foundation representatives based in key regions—to help us build relationships with partner organizations and governments, better understand the policy environment, and remain culturally sensitive. We focus on issues we think are the biggest barriers that prevent people from making the most of their lives. For each issue we work on, we fund innovative ideas that could help remove barriers. Some of the projects we fund will fail. We not only accept that, we expect it—because we think an essential role of philanthropy is to make bets on promising solutions that governments and businesses can’t afford to make. As we learn which bets pay off, we adjust our strategies and share the results so everyone can benefit."

Going into space is like getting a sugar high. The self indulgent billionaires who do it are wasting their money on frivolities. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, despite the fact that the Gates's are getting divorced, are doing the work that needs to be done to bring the planet into alignment with our best natures. At the same time others are peddling bullshit misinformation to make as much money as possible even if it kills people. Expect the Republican base to be decimated because of right wing talk hosts like Tucker Carlson who are discouraging people from getting vaccinated. His watchers are the ones who will die from COVID. Democrats can stand by and watch while their competitors in the Republican party losing their constituents. It is a war by other means that Democrats are winning by default. Less people voting Republican is not an entirely bad thing even though health care workers will be working overtime to do their best to save them. Oh what tangled webs we weave.

Off the Top of My Head

Radicalized Veterans Supporting Trump in the Vanguard of January 6 Insurrection

by John Lawrence

Time magazine has an excellent article by Vera Bergengruen/Arab, Ala. and W.J. Hennigan/Washington, "From Combat to Conspiracy" detailing how radicalized veterans led the insurrection on January 6. I wrote about this previously in an article The Militarization of the American Mind. The fact of the matter is that the US military-industrial complex is composed not only of active military and corporations profiting from military hardware, but also a large number of civilians who are ex-military. The whole meme about honoring veterans - "Thank you for your service" - presupposes that these people are loyal Americans, not an out of control mob attempting to overthrow the government. Veterans are routinely honored at least in lip service and discounts, but the truth is far more disconcerting. These men and women have been processed through a system that has taught them not to think critically but to follow orders. They are more or less taught to espouse conservative politics.The Times article continues: "Of the more than 500 people arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, at least 1 in 10 was a current or former member of the U.S. military, according to a George Washington University analysis. Many had served in the protracted post-9/11 conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, returning home to a country that paid them lip service but moved on without much notice to the wars they had fought."

The insurrectionists' attitude is a reflection of the fact that the US is a militarized nation with over 800 bases in almost every country of the world. Defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and others form the economic backbone of the nation. Is it any wonder then that at least a sizable minority of the nation's people favor an autocrat like Donald Trump to an experienced public servant like either Hilary Clinton or Joe Biden? When I worked in the military-industrial complex for General Dynamics and the Naval Electronics Laboratory, we were encouraged to vote Republican for fear our funding would decline under a Democratic administration and we would be RIFed (Reduction in Force-ed). This is how insidious the militarization of the American mind actually is. The Times article continues: "[One veteran] became involved with local chapters of the Oath Keepers in central Florida, whose recruiting materials reminded members that their oath was forever. “America’s veterans truly are like a sleeping giant. It is time to awaken them and fill them with a terrible resolve to defeat the domestic enemies of our Constitution,” says one chapter’s mission statement, according to documents reviewed by TIME. “If we can’t get the veterans to step up … to save our Republic, then how can we expect to get the rest of our people to do what must be done?”"

"As with other veterans whose involvement in right-wing groups like the Oath Keepers led them to the Capitol on Jan. 6, James’ descent into alleged extremism seemed less an expression of long-held political fervor than the desire to be part of a larger patriotic cause.

"Little data is kept on how often and why veterans get involved with extremist groups, but there are plenty of high-profile examples throughout American history. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate army general, was the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. George Lincoln Rockwell, a Navy veteran, founded the American Nazi Party. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, both Army veterans, were convicted of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

"Founded by a former Army paratrooper in 2009, the Oath Keepers has quickly become one of America’s largest antigovernment extremist groups. It heavily recruits current and former military and law-enforcement members, encouraging them to see themselves as “the last line of defense against tyranny,” according to Oath Keepers websites. The group’s name refers to the oath sworn by members of the military and law enforcement “to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Some members falsely believe that the federal government has been taken over by “a cabal of elites actively trying to strip American citizens of their rights,” according to the FBI."

The military had become for many veterans a way of life that they missed after returning to civilian life. "“Militia groups have really familiar structures of command,” [author] Belew says. “They have structures of fraternal bonding, they have the organizational social elements that are very similar to the armed forces—and they’re built that way deliberately.

"Only now are federal authorities formally drawing up a strategy to handle the problem of military veterans’ joining extremist groups. The Biden Administration’s strategy to combat domestic terrorism includes plans to prevent veterans from being recruited by extremists. Currently, there are no efforts that focus on veterans once they have left service, despite evidence that they are increasingly the targets of online misinformation and extremist recruitment.

"Security analysts, veterans’ groups and experts say it will be vital to combat both the isolation and the fear-mongering that lead former service members to think of their fellow Americans as the enemy or, worse, take the law into their own hands. “It’s important not to fixate too much on the Oath Keepers as an organization but to think of them as a concrete example of a broader phenomenon in America,” says Sam Jackson, a homeland-security expert at the University of Albany who wrote a book on the group. The alleged radicalization of James, the growth of local chapters and the national organization should be “seen as a Russian nesting doll” that shows a much larger movement, he says, “of people who view America as being hijacked by internal and external enemies.” But little is likely to change unless more Americans come to agree on what it means to be an extremist and what it means to be a patriot."

Wake up, America, and smell the coffee. The militarization of the American mind reflects the militarization of America's purported purpose in the world which is to exert military force projected over the whole world. A person like exPresident George W Bush, who lied us into the war in Iraq, has the nerve to criticize Joe Biden for withdrawing American forces from Afghanistan after a 20 year futile war which accomplished nothing. We got Bin Laden in an operation which had nothing to do with boots on the ground in Afghanistan. He was in Pakistan. Afghanistan had nothing to do with 9/11. The attitude of both civilian and military leaders from the top down legitimizes the US' continued military presence throughout the world and thoroughly indoctrinates American veterans and civilians in the military mindset. Until the US becomes a nation which is more interested in promoting development throughout the world and contributing to the betterment of peoples' lives throughout the world, a large number of Americans will favor right wing causes and conservative politics.

Off the Top of My Head

The Militarization of the American Mind

by John Lawrence

From seemingly rational thought processes that would make it impossible to end the war in Afghanistan to the insurrection at the Capitol to the "American movie" chock full of violence to the "well regulated militia" justification of gun proliferation, there is no end of rationalizations for the American military-industrial complex and gun culture on every level. Why does it come as a surprise to some journalists that many participants in the January 6 insurrection were current or ex military or police officers? They are exactly the ones with the mind set that believes Trump won the election, and that it was OK to do what their leader commanded them to do - invade the Capitol. The Generals who say that Biden shouldn't end the Afghanistan war on the grounds that the Kabul government will collapse are exactly the ones that argued we shouldn't end the Vietnam war because the South Vietnam government would collapse. Sure when the US sets up a puppet government and then props it up with money and a military presence, it probably will collapse when the US leaves that country which it never should have invaded in the first place. Afghanistan is Vietnam all over again or as Yogi Berra would say deja vu all over again.

The division among Americans into two tribes can be understood in terms of the two paths Americans take after high school graduation. There are those who go to college and there are those who go into the military. Those are basically the two choices high school graduates have. Those who go to college are taught to think critically to some extent, while those who go into the military are taught to obey orders. Unfortunately, Trump, as their Commander-in-Chief gave them the order to invade the Capitol, and they felt justified in following it because that is what their training led them to do. The choice to go into the Peace Corps or AmeriCorp is not really viable for most high school graduates because the perks of going into the military greatly exceed the perks of going into more peaceful pursuits, and they are less glorious. This is also a characteristic of the militarization of the American civilian mind. The military-industrial complex including, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, profits greatly from ongoing militarization and military thought processes, employs most of the college graduates and provides debate ending rationalizations for American military preparedness despite the fact that their extremely expensive hardware doesn't work half the time, and the threats to America are primarily cyber in nature as well as domestic terrorism.

The divide and contrast between high school graduates who go into the military and are taught to follow orders and those who go to college is reflected in the political divide between those on the right and those on the left.The military is all about symbolism including snappy uniforms, medals for valor in combat, saluting the flag and honoring themselves for their patriotism. On the left results in the improvement of the lives of the American people - and not just the elite civilian Officer's Corps - are more important than symbols of glory. They are more likely to question authority rather than unquestionably following orders. The January 6 insurrectionists were following Trump's orders at least that's what they were thinking in their own minds and by their own admission. I would like to see the FBI release to the public the number of insurrectionists who were military or former military. I bet that would be most of them, especially the males. A lot of ex military go into police work because of the familiarity with weaponry which they gained in the military. Since guns are a familiar way of life for them, naturally they become arch supporters of the Second Amendment, "well regulated" or not. They are used to classifying groups of people as either friendly or the enemy, and this mind set lends itself to police work.

In the final analysis, America is so used to being the world's policeman and profiting in various ways therefrom, that it is unthinkable that we should cooperate with our supposed adversaries to forestall global warming or to thwart future pandemics let alone the current one. We must always have an enemy or at least an adversary to justify our existence. A peaceful world in which everyone gets along and cooperates to solve the problems we earthlings face and have to deal with is unthinkable. Even though the US has a glut of vaccines while the rest of the world is begging for them, Americans feel free not to have their arms jabbed because after all they are free - free to be stupid, free to ignore the safety of other Americans and free to get infected with the virus and die taking others with them.. They just want to get back to normal entertaining themselves to death and ignoring totally any responsibility to their fellow citizens not to mention fellow citizens of the world, many of which they would like to maintain in their necessary roles as the enemy.

Dr. Fauci wondered why we couldn't all unite to fight the common enemy  - COVID - instead of fighting among ourselves about taking the vaccine. Uniting to fight a common enemy like COVID or climate change just isn't the way Americans and maybe humanity in general do things. We need to disagree even about things that are crucial for our continued existence as a species. As a nation we need an enemy whether it be Russia or China seemingly to justify our existence.

Off the Top of My Head

We Need to Change Our Spending Priorities Away From Military Adventurism and Toward Domestic Concerns

by John Lawrence

The military-industrial complex needs to be defunded, and the budgets of Homeland Security, the FBI and cybersecurity need to be augmented. We need to reconsider what "national security" really means especially in an era of climate change and pandemics. If the world's nations can not get along, climate change will end human civilization. The western nations, especially the US, need the cooperation of Russia and China in particular if climate change can even be mitigated to a less disastrous level than is already baked in the cake. Russia is one of the largest exporters of fossil fuel products, and will profit most from the thawing of the Arctic. If they are treated as pariahs, they will not be too concerned if the rest of the world becomes uninhabitable. Scientific American reported in an article entitled It's Time to Rein in Inflated Military Budgets:

"Despite the trillions of dollars Congress and successive administrations have lavished on the Pentagon since the turn of the century, the massive U.S. arsenal and fighting force deployed worldwide are powerless against grave, nonmilitary threats to national security—from a raging pandemic to the fact that tens of millions of Americans breathe foul air, drink tainted water, and struggle to pay for food, housing and health care.

"Such a reassessment is long overdue. No other country’s military outlays come close. In FY 2019, the Pentagon’s budget was nearly three times bigger than China’s defense spending and more than 10 times larger than Russia’s. All told, the U.S. military budget in 2019 exceeded the next 10 countries’ defense budgets combined and singlehandedly accounted for a hefty 38 percent of military spending worldwide."

The truth is that lobbyists for the military-industrial complex will lose money if a sane foreign and domestic policy is adopted. It is a hotbed of self interest which will come up with infinite rationales for continued military spending even when it is obvious to a disinterested observer that the Defense Department is just an unabashed money pit. The article continues;

"There are plenty of reasons to cut the Pentagon’s budget, but its track record of profligate spending is among the most obvious. If the Pentagon were a private corporation, gross mismanagement would have forced it into bankruptcy years ago. Dysfunctional internal controls, aided and abetted by years of lax congressional and administration oversight, have enabled it to waste tens of billions of dollars annually, and the last 20 years are littered with a parade of overpriced, botched and bungled projects.

"In just the first decade of this century, the Pentagon was forced to cancel a dozen ill-conceived, ineffective weapons programs that cost taxpayers $46 billion. They included the Future Combat Systems program, a fleet of networked high-tech vehicles that did not work; the Comanche helicopter, which—after 22 years in development—was never built; and the 40-ton Crusader artillery gun, which never even made it to the prototype stage.

"To put this example of managerial malfeasance in context, these canceled programs collectively cost more than the federal government spent on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over the last five years.

At least the Pentagon killed those projects before they wasted any more money. All too often, it does not know when to pull the plug. The Army’s attempt to replace its outmoded Bradley tank is a case in point. Over the last 17 years, it has blown an estimated $22.9 billion on three flawed prototypes, but in February—just three weeks after rejecting the third failed design—it issued yet another request for proposals from defense contractors."

To put it bluntly many peoples' livelihoods and many corporation's profits are tied up with the continued exorbitant spending by the Federal government in support of the Defense Department, but Defense is a misnomer if the spending priorities are so out of wack compared to the actual threats to the American people. In short we are wasting money on so-called defense and letting the real threats go unfunded and undefended.

 

Chairman Sanders Announces Senate Budget Committee Hearing on Wasteful Pentagon Spending

WASHINGTON - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today announced that the Senate Budget Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday, May 12 at 11 a.m., on “Waste, Fraud, Cost Overruns, and Auditing at the Pentagon.”

Over the past 20 years, the military industrial complex has spent over $2.6 billion in lobbying and campaign contributions to influence Congress. Currently, the U.S. spends more on our nation’s military than the next nine countries combined and over half of our discretionary spending goes to the Pentagon. Meanwhile, half of our people are struggling paycheck to paycheck, over 40 million Americans are living in poverty, and over 500,000 Americans are homeless including roughly 40,000 veterans.

Congress has appropriated so much money for the Defense Department that the Pentagon does not know what to do with it. About half of the Pentagon’s budget goes directly into the hands of private contractors, not our troops. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), between 2013 and 2018 the Pentagon returned more than $80 billion in funding back to the Treasury.

A major reason why there is so much waste, fraud, and abuse at the Pentagon is the fact that the Defense Department remains the only federal agency in the United States that hasn’t been able to pass an independent audit. And, over the past two decades, virtually every major defense contractor in the United States has paid billions of dollars in fines and settlements for misconduct and fraud—all while making huge profits on those government contracts.  

Sanders, who has for years pressed the Pentagon to get control of waste, fraud, and abuse by military contractors, has invited Dr. Lawrence Korb, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress; William Hartung, Director of the Arms and Security Program at the Center for International Oversight; and Mandy Smithberger, Director of the Center for Defense Information at the Project on Government Oversight to testify. Also testifying will be Roger Zackheim, Director of the Ronald Reagan Institute and LTG (Ret) Thomas Spoehr, Director of the Center for National Defense at The Heritage Foundation.

Hearing Details
What: Hearing of the Committee on the Budget to consider “Waste, Fraud, Cost Overruns, and Auditing at the Pentagon.”
When: Wednesday, May 12, 2021, 11:00 a.m. ET
Where: Room SD-608. The hearing will also be livestreamed on the Budget Committee’s website and Sanders’ social media pages.
Who: Dr. Lawrence Korb, Mr. William Hartung, Ms. Mandy Smithberger, Mr. Roger Zackheim, and LTG (Ret) Thomas Spoehr.

Off the Top of My Head

America to End Forever War in Afghanistan Thanks to Joe Biden

by John Lawrence, April 15, 2021

So far Biden is making all the right moves, and I'm sure he has more up his sleeve. He's playing 3 dimensional chess while the Republicans haven't even learned to play checkers yet. The military-industrial complex is crying, "Oh, no," because they justify the huge expenditures on them by the need for continuance of forever wars. They are aghast at the prospect that their trillion dollar annual budget will be inevitably reduced. It has become obvious that the biggest threat to the US is not international terrorism but domestic terrorism. The FBI and the National Guard will deal with that very nicely; they don't need the Pentagon. The FBI is doing a remarkable job cleaning up the terrorists who took part in the January 6 bungled coup attempt. Over 400 arrests and counting so far. The idiots self videoed their own arrest warrants.

The US spends more on defense than the next 10 countries combined. As an added service they also train the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and the Three Percenters. The military-industrial complex has done a lot to militarize the consciousnesses of young Americans, especially young non-college bound Americans. College graduates, especially in engineering, often end up, like I did, in the military-industrial complex working for companies like Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman and General Dynamics. As a country we have been spending our money in all the wrong places, but the military-industrial complex wants to hang on to its prerogatives. When I was an employee of General Dynamics many years ago, they encouraged you to vote Republican. Otherwise their budgets might be cut and there might be a RIF (Reduction in Force). When the military-industrial complex is cut down to size, right sized as they say, the Republican party will lose its raison d'être, its justification, because that's all in reality that it stands for - large defense budgets and tax cuts for the wealthy.

If we really want to compete with China, then we should cut our defense budget down to the size of China's and spend our money in more constructive ways like China is doing like building infrastructure with its Belt and Road initiative. The only infrastructure the US has been doing in foreign countries has been the building of military bases of which there are approximately 800 in practically every country in the world. Meanwhile, China has one military base in a foreign country - in Djibouti! If the US wants to compete with China, it will take a page out of China's book and build infrastructure not military bases. China and the US need to cooperate on problems facing the whole earth like global warming. It's no consolation to win the competitive war while the home we all live in goes up in flames or drowns as the case may be.

Republicans want Biden to tell them how he's going to pay for all his ambitious social programs? Let's see. Let me count the ways. Taxes on the rich - that's a good one. Reduce the size of the military-industrial complex budget. Even better. Military contractors, among others, provide the campaign donations for the Republican party as long as the guys they are providing the financial jet fuel for are hardliners for a "strong" defense. Well now, maybe they should stand up for transferring the money to the FBI so they can deal with domestic terrorism instead of a useless military engaged in forever wars which are only killing civilians, destroying real estate and creating refugees. The world doesn't need an America which thinks it has the self-appointed job of being the world's policeman or moral arbiter. There is something in the Bible about taking the beam out of our own eye before telling our neighbor to take the mote out of theirs.

The US bloated military is wasting our money while militarizing the consciousness of our young men many of whom think their patriotism justifies invading and laying waste to our Capitol. Lawmakers were shocked, shocked to find out that the invaders of the People's House were present and former members of the military and police forces! Patriots! This is what happens when you define patriotism in military terms. The true patriots are the doctors and nurses, supermarket workers, delivery drivers, meat packers and others who put their lives at risk to help us get through this pandemic. True patriotism consists of reducing our military-industrial complex and defense budget to a reasonable size comparative with other countries and the real threats in the world while building up our infrastructure assets and social safety net programs as every other advanced country has already done. Joe Biden is on the road to doing this. May he prosper and prevail. And God bless our doctors and nurses.

Off the Top of My Head

The Only Successful War the US Has Fought in the Last 70 Years is the War We Lost

by John Lawrence, April 14, 2021

The US definitively lost the Vietnam war, and Vietnam is a success story. Korea is an absolute mess. Afghanistan is a mess and so is Iraq. Thank God, after 20 years of the US' accomplishing nothing, Biden is finally getting out September 11. The last "good" war was World War II which was fought to save the world from a brutal tyrant. The participants, both winners and losers, have recovered nicely.The Middle East in general was much better off before the US under George W Bush lied us into the war in Iraq. The Korean war began on June 25, 1950, and at least 2.5 million persons lost their lives. Today there is a rogue, pariah regime in North Korea which is developing nuclear weapons and is hostile to the US. It would have been a better outcome if the US had lost that war too, and at least Korea would be a unified country today probably much like Vietnam. Vietnam's economy is surging. According to the Wall Street Journal: "First-quarter gross domestic product was up 4.5% relative to last year’s figure, according to an initial estimate released [in March 2021]. The recovery is being driven by a surge in goods and services sold abroad, which rose almost 20% year-over-year in March. While the US response to the pandemic has been abysmal especially under the Trump administration, Vietnam's response has been remarkable. According to Our World in Data: "As of December 31, 2020, Vietnam had reported 1,465 laboratory confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 35 deaths. This success has been attributed to several key factors, including a well-developed public health system, a decisive central government, and a proactive containment strategy based on comprehensive testing, tracing, and quarantining." All of the things that were lacking in the Trump administration.

Trillions of dollars have been spent to build a military-industrial complex which has done nothing but lose wars and create geopolitical messes. Iraq was a stable society under Saddam Hussein. He would have never tolerated the ISIS so-called caliphate to find a haven in northern Iraq which is what happened after Bush's invasion in 2003 under the pretense that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction which he did not. Bush and the American government intelligentsia in general never understood that the fundamental cleavage in the Middle East was the Sunni Shiite Islamic divide. Iraq was a majority Shiite country under a Sunni leadership. After the US achieved a "democracy" in Iraq, it became a Shiite led country allied with that other bastion of Shiitism, Iran, America's arch enemy. Nice work, Bush. Of course we couldn't let that alliance really materialize with the result that the Iraq war destabilized the whole Middle East. Let's see how many trillions of dollars were spent on it, how many lives were lost and how much real estate was destroyed in the process? Perhaps as many as a million civilians were killed and as many as 40% of Iraq's middle class became refugees. Columbia University Economics Professor Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, a lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, have put the cost at well over $3 trillion. The LA Times reported: "In case you were wondering, the price tag for the war in Iraq could eventually top $6 trillion." And this is just the US' cost. What about the cost of destroyed houses and production facilities in Iraq?

Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan had to be invaded in order to get the perpetrator of the 9/11 attacks. Osama bin Laden was taken out by US intelligence and special forces. This was accomplished without the necessity for a land invasion and destabilization of either country. By the way bin Laden was discovered in Pakistan not Iraq or Afghanistan so should we have invaded Pakistan instead? The New York Times wrote in December 2019: "What Did the U.S. Get for $2 Trillion in Afghanistan? All told, the cost of nearly 18 years of war in Afghanistan will amount to more than $2 trillion. Was the money well spent? There is little to show for it. The Taliban control much of the country. Afghanistan remains one of the world’s largest sources of refugees and migrants. More than 2,400 American soldiers and more than 38,000 Afghan civilians have died."

Moral of the story? After being a successful general in World War II followed by a successful Presidency, subsequent US Presidents should have taken Eisenhower's advice regarding the military-industrial complex: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." This is from Brittanica:

"The term military-industrial complex was first used by U.S. Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower in his Farewell Address on January 17, 1961. Eisenhower warned that the United States must “guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence…by the military-industrial complex,” which included members of Congress from districts dependent on military industries, the Department of Defense (along with the military services), and privately owned military contractors—e.g., Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. Eisenhower believed that the military-industrial complex tended to promote policies that might not be in the country’s best interest (such as participation in the nuclear arms race), and he feared that its growing influence, if left unchecked, could undermine American democracy."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Off the Top of My Head

The Stock Market is Too Big to Fail

by John Lawrence, April 2, 2021

Just as the big Wall Street banks are too big to fail, so now is the stock market. The stock market will never take another radical dive downward because the Federal Reserve won't let it. The way the economy is shaping up Treasury bonds, which hardly pay any interest, are just a safe place to store your money and also for foreign nations which need the world's reserve currency (the US dollar) to have a savings account because they need dollars to conduct business. There is no worry that the US will have to pay off the trillion dollars in Treasuries that China owns because they need those dollars to do business with the US and other nations. If they did want to dump all their Treasuries for some reason the Fed could just create the money to pay them and effectively take the Treasuries on its own balance sheet.

So the stock market is the only game in town for those who want to actually "invest" their money. There is so much 401(k) money in the stock market that that is reason enough to never let it fail. Instead it will continue on its merry way upward while the Fed keeps interest rates at approximately zero so that not much in the way of interest will have to be paid on US debt. There is no reason to fear that Joe Biden's $2 trillion infrastructure plan will bankrupt the US. Since the US dollar is a sovereign currency, the Fed can print as much money as it wants. If international investors don't want to buy this debt, it ends up on the Fed's balance sheet which is an effective black hole from which it never has to emerge.

Then why is there all this kibuki theater about "how to pay for it," the $2 trillion infrastructure plan I mean. It's just that most Americans including most Congressmen are under the illusion that a country with a sovereign currency like the US faces any constraints in paying for anything. Well, there is one constraint - inflation. This is probably of little concern as long as the money is targeted at the lower middle class an the poor which haven't seen wages rise in 40 years. The real inflation in the economy is the asset inflation that the rich are mostly responsible for. That includes the stock market and real estate. Inflation in the stock market will be carefully controlled by the Fed. We've seen that the stock market moved up even during the pandemic. The real problem is inflation in the real estate market which has made housing unaffordable for many. It continues to get worse as the extra dollars the wealthy have to invest are driving up prices. That's why it makes sense to tax the rich ostensibly to pay for the infrastructure bill. The real reason, however, is that inequality is getting out of hand in the American and the world economy. Taxing the rich is the only effective means to reduce inequality to a reasonable level. It will also help to bring inflation in the real estate market under control.

The real problem that Biden's infrastructure bill will have to deal with is changing the nature of the US economy. When the economy was in full employment under Trump, there were still 4% unemployed. 5% unemployment is considered "full employment," but that still leaves about 15 million people out of work. Biden's infrastructure plan will put those 5% back to work. It had been considered by conservative neoliberal economists that 5% unemployment was necessary to ward off inflation, but that theory has been debunked by Modern Monetary Theory. While inflation will still be a concern with all of Biden's stimulus spending, the main concern is restructuring the US economy from an entertainment economy to a constructive labor economy. Trump's economy was arguably a full employment economy (except for the 4% unemployed), but it was an economy the jobs of which were mainly in the entertainment and military industries. In other words, in my opinion, it was an economy based on false unbeneficial values. An economy based on labor participation rebuilding American infrastructure will be an economy based on necessary and fundamentally beneficial values. This might mean that some of those presently employed in frivolous industries might be incentivized to change jobs. Reducing the entertainment and military sectors while increasing those employed rebuilding infrastructure would be, in my opinion, be a good thing.

 

Off the Top of My Head

Former Energy Secretary Proposes Going to Capital Markets for Money to Upgrade Energy Grid Infrastructure: Is This Wise?

by John Lawrence, February 21, 2021

Clinton's Energy Secretary, Bill Richardson, proposes going to the capital markets since the government has been spending so much money on COVID relief. He suggests a public-private partnership. Evidently, Mr. Richardson, like most politicians and dignitaries, is totally ignorant of Modern Monetary Theory. The Federal Reserve can create interest free money with a few computer keystrokes while the capital markets will charge interest, and not only that. Once you enter the Wall Street casino you're subject to all the vagaries of the financial markets like securitzation, credit default obligations, interest rate swaps, betting against the success of various programs and much more. These are the kind of financial activities that caused the 2008 Great Recession and the bankruptcy of Orange County, Birmingham, Milan Italy and the misery in Greece. What's more going to the capital markets causes the same inflation risks as having the Fed create the money because inflation is caused by the amount of money sloshing around in the economy not who supplies it.

Larry Summers is worried about Biden's big spending bills causing inflation. What he doesn't get is that these bills are targeted. It's not just money pumped into the economy. The money going to states and municipalities, for example, is going to pay off debts. That holds for all the money going to families who are behind on their rents and mortgages. Paying off debts is deflationary not inflationary. Money going to unemployment insurance is just money that allows people to consume as if they had a job. That is not inflationary. Money going to businesses to prevent them from failing and putting employees back to work is not inflationary because having these businesses fail and employees without jobs is deflationary. All those flights and cruises not taken, all the money not spent going to movie theaters, all the money not spent on consumption when consumption is 70% of the economy - is deflationary. In fact there is so much deflation during a recession that that is the main worry - not inflation.

But reorienting priorities should also play a part in controlling inflation. Decreasing the trillion dollar budget of the military and military-industrial complex would help to offset inflation and pay for infrastructure repair. It would also free up the human resources needed for a build out of green infrastructure because wage inflation is caused by not enough human resources being available thus bidding up wages. The integrity of the US dollar could also be increased by eliminating sanctions on other countries. The US is using the fact of sanctioning other countries because the US dollar is the world's reserve currency causing the diminution of the use of the US currency as sanctioned countries find workarounds using other currencies. In America's Other Forever War, Peter Beinart explains that these sanctions do not accomplish anything except to hurt the people that happen to be living in the countries that are sanctioned. The chickens will come home to roost as the US dollar looses value in the international currency markets as the euro, yen and reminbi are used more for international trade. As Beinart writes, "“It is past time,” Joe Biden pledged last year, “to end the forever wars.” He’s right. But his definition of war is too narrow."

A careful analysis of Biden's spending plans  as well as reorienting current spending priorities needs to be carried out so that runaway inflation does not occur. Certainly putting people back to work is not inflationary. Federal money targeted toward paying off debts by states, municipalities and families is not inflationary. Federal money spent on infrastructure is not inflationary providing that the human and material resources are available. Since the Federal Reserve can create US dollars without the need for taxes, Modern Monetary Theory has shown and economists widely agree that the only limit on Federal so-called "deficit" spending is inflation. Stephanie Kelton has explained that Deficits Don't Matter in her book, The Deficit Myth. People like Bill Richardson and most liberal and conservative politicians need to study up on economics. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are some of the few people that already have.

Off the Top of My Head

Where Will the Republican Party Go From Here?

by John Lawrence

The Republican party is having an identity crisis. Will it be dedicated to the adulation of Donald Trump or will it be based on conservative principles? What are conservative principles? Is the US a Republic or a Democracy or an Autocracy? This whole situation comes about because of the shifting demographics of the US. Historically, the US has been based on rule by white European Americans who have been able to keep minorities including chiefly African Americans in check by various means including slavery, Jim Crow laws, domestic terrorism, red lining, exclusion from education opportunities, even unemployment which has been used by the Federal Reserve to control inflation. That is changing because now there are more educated minorities including immigrants from all over the world gaining positions of political and economic power. 216 companies on the Fortune 500 were founded by immigrants or their children.

Is it any wonder then that poor and middle class whites want to tamp down immigration and keep black people in their place which they have always successfully been able to do until now. A lot of Trump supporters are effectively saying to hell with democracy if it means a multicultural society in which we have to tolerate multiple religions and multiple ethnicities and multiple shades of skin so it's not a question for them of having a democracy or a republic or any kind of society based on some version of popular rule. They want white European American rule like they've always had. There is also the added impetus that most of the once good paying manufacturing jobs have gone elsewhere which leads to even more insularity. So Trump supporters are the real conservatives in the respect that they want to conserve a way of life in which white people and European Americans have all the advantages. They abhor a democracy in which their lifestyle, their religion and their prerogatives are not paramount.

The Mitch McConnell conservatives overlap with the Trump conservatives, but the former stand for the privileges not of the white majority necessarily but of the white elite, of the white wealthy. They are even liberal enough to let wealthy people of different colors into their club while assuring less fortunate Americans that they too, if they work hard enough, may one day gain privileged positions of power and wealth. Basically, they represent rich people and abhor the white rabble. The problem is that this branch of the Republican party is increasingly irrelevant to the problems that America and the world faces. They stand for a strong defense which has morphed into endless wars which have gone nowhere and have only made matters worse in areas of the world in which the US has inserted itself. They stand for a bloated military-industrial-intelligence complex which has proven its incompetence in that it wasn't even able to predict an insurrection at the US Capitol, much less even defend against it once the attack was underway. They have proven to be focused on the wrong problems despite having been lavished with trillion dollar budgets.

What else do "principled" conservatives stand for? Low taxes but modern economic theory has proven that government spending need not be predicated on or limited by tax receipts. They stand for maximizing the private sector and minimizing the public sector at a time when dealing with climate change and even traditional infrastructure rebuilding demands the opposite. They stand for aiding and abetting the rich which has driven economic inequality to new heights. So what would be the role of a revamped and principled Republican party? Probably just to be a Democratic party lite or a party that criticizes Democratic programs. But that wouldn't assuage the interests of most power hungry politicians nor would it excite many members of their base who demand an entertaining leader who is focused by means of dog whistle diplomacy on white power.

The Trump party is similar to the Know Nothing movement, formally known as the Native American Party (at that time meaning descendants of colonists or settlers, rather than Indigenous Americans) before 1855 and the American Party after 1855. It was a nativist political party and movement in the United States, which operated nationwide in the mid-1850s, originally starting as a secret society. It was primarily an anti-Catholic, anti-Irish, anti-immigration, populist and xenophobic movement. So naturally they would resent an Irish Catholic President even though now there have been two of them. Adherents to the movement were to simply reply "I know nothing" when asked about its specifics by outsiders, providing the group with its common name. Qanon anyone? Supporters of the Know Nothing movement believed that an alleged "Romanist" conspiracy was being planned to subvert civil and religious liberty in the United States, and sought to politically organize native-born Protestants in what they described as a defense of their traditional religious and political values. Sure enough sounds like the Trump base to me.

The question is will the US become a full fledged democracy and live up to its vaunted principles finally even though it traditionally never has or will it revert to some version of white European American rule by electing another entertaining autocrat. That may not be Trump who has been deplatformed from Twitter, his chief propaganda tool, and faces mounting legal challenges, but there are others waiting in the wings who will offer bells and whistles instead of sound programs that really benefit the American people as a whole. But do Americans want government based on democratic principles or neverending campaign rallies with flags, banners and chants? As my Dad used to say, we shall see what we shall see.

Off the Top of My Head

China Has Been Taking Over the World ... Peacefully

by John Lawrence, February 11, 2021

As Trump was retreating from multilateralism with his America First approach, China was winning friends and influencing people by building infrastruture in countries around the world with its Belt and Road initiative. This model put excess Chinese labor to work pulling their families out of poverty and set up the groundwork for increased trade and friendly relations with with other countries. Latest example: Latin America. Meanwhile, the US has not even been able to build infrastructure in its own country. Every four years, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) publishes The Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, which grades the current state of national infrastructure categories on a scale of A through F. In 2017, the U.S. infrastructure earned a D+ average. Stay tuned for a new report later this year. Infrastructure looms large because now it must be built out as green infrastructure replacing fossil fuel infrastructure.

In Latin America, America's so-called back yard, 19 countries have signed up for China's Belt and Road Initiative. The value of trade between China and Brazil, Latin America's largest country is $100 billion. China is South America's largest trading partner. Only Paraguay is not on board because they're the only South American country that recognizes Taiwan and not Beijing as the legitimate Chinese government. In 2019 Chinese companies invested $12.8 billion in Latin America concentrating on regional infrastructure such as ports, roads, dams and railways. Meanwhile, America was focused on its entertainment and consumerist economy, now partially defunct due to COVID. Chinese purchases of minerals and agricultural commodities helped South America get through the worst effects of the 2008 financial crisis. While the US had an orgy of financial speculation that created the 2008 financial crisis, China was powering on keeping its shoulder to the wheel, ear to the ground and nose to the grindstone building infrastructure and providing full employment for the Chinese people. As the US was relying on its military power to maintain its influence in the world, China was employing peaceful means to expand its influence. In 2020 the US spent $738 billion on defense, an additional $35 billion on nuclear weapons and and additional $80 billion on intelligence programs, none of which by the way provided intelligence on the assault on the Capitol although it had been discussed widely and openly on the web in prior weeks. Meanwhile, China's 2020 defense budget was $178 billion.

China's Cosco Shipping is building a new $3 billion port in Peru, and there are plans for a transcontinental railroad linking South America's Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Diplomatic opportunities for China have also been opened up due to COVID since China produces most of the world's PPE. The US was caught flat footed because it had to go hat in hand to China for PPE not much of which is manufactured domestically. Mask diplomacy has caused Washington to worry that China is gaining influence during the pandemic as China has provided PPE to 150 countries and 7 international organizations around the globe. While the US struggles to get vaccine into the arms of Americans, China has agreed to provide Pakistan with half a million doses of its Sinopharm vaccine free of charge. Time magazine reported:

"Yet China has won influence not by wielding sticks but by deftly distributing carrots. In Brazil, the region’s largest economy, bilateral trade with China rose from $2 billion in 2000 to $100 billion last year. Today, Brazil sends 30% of all exports to China, including 80% of its soybean crop and 60% of its iron ore. These entanglements are typically tightest with nations with goods to sell; China has supplied over $17 billion in financing to Argentina since 2007, according to Inter-American Dialogue, and is the world’s top importer of Argentine soybeans and beef.

"China is also now a preferred lender across the region. It hosts two international development banks–the Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Development Bank (AIIB) and the New Development Bank (NDB) in Shanghai–that are both expanding their remit across the region. “Infrastructure development has shrunk the distance between Asia and Latin America,” AIIB president Jin Liqun tells TIME in his Beijing headquarters."

While China was deftly distributing carrots, the US was wielding sticks with Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo bullying the rest of the world to get them to fall in line behind the US. The US needs to cooperate with China to stave off the next big crisis - global warming - not start a new Cold War in an effort to overtake or compete with China. For the most part China has already won any competition to speak of by gaining cooperation and friendship with the rest of the world and achieving the world's largest economy while the US still struggles with COVID, its economy in shambles. "No country has put itself in a better position to become the world's renewable energy superpower than China,"says a recent report by the Global Commission on the Geopolitics of Energy Transformation. In Brazil China's State Grid Corp. is the largest power generation and distribution company, while China's Three Gorges, the world's largest hydropower provider, controls 17 out of 48 hydro plants and 11 wind farms.

Joe Biden is doing his best to backtrack from Trump's disastrous America First policy, but American foreign policy is still on the track that it views China as a competitor rather than a nation that should be cooperated with in order to meet the challenge of global warming. Rather than gearing up for a military confrontation or quibbling and squabbling over human rights, the US must adopt a less belligerent foreign policy and learn to get along with the other nations of the world even those who have not been historic allies. The US should cut back on its bloated military and military-complex spending and devote the savings to virus research and green infrastructure implementation at home and around the world in cooperation with China and other nations.

Off the Top of My Head

Even With Unlimited Spending Some Problems Can't Be Solved

by John Lawrence

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has shown that unlimited Federal spending is no problem. The money is there, but it's a question if the productive capacity is there. For instance, since most products are manufactured in China, unlimited spending on products needed to counter the pandemic might only produce inflation. That's a problem of letting crucial industries be relocated to a foreign country and not manufactured here. If you can't ramp up production in a meaningful time frame, even though the finance is not a problem, the ability to produce needed products may be. In this situation MMT predicts inflation. Existing facilities to produce vaccines can only produce so many vials.You could go to 24 hour a day production, but beyond that you would have to build more factories and that takes time. Would the money spent to build more factories be well spent if the production facilities came online only after the crisis was over? No. MMT stands for spending money wisely to solve social problems like the pandemic and global warming, but the time frame within which the problems need to be solved is important. There's no sense in spending money to ramp up production if that production only is available after the problem has already been solved.

Yeva Nersisyan and L Randall Wray write:

"But what happens when ventilators and masks are not available for sale even as companies are operating 24/7? More money may not solve the problem, but the government still has a role to play. During the second world war, the US quickly became “the arsenal of democracy” by repurposing its productive capacity to meet the needs of the war. Through diligent planning “[l]ipstick cases became bomb cases, beer cans went to hand grenades, adding machines to automatic pistols, and vacuum cleaners to gas mask parts”. We were able to cut “production time for Liberty Ships down from 365 days to 92, 62, and, finally, to one day”. We can mobilize our resources once again to build temporary hospitals, and to ensure a sufficient supply of medical equipment and whatever else is necessary to overcome the crisis."

So it may be necessary to shift production from pre-COVID endeavors to provide the necessary human and material resources to deal with the problem. For instance, the restaurant industry which filled the gap from lack of time for home preparation of meals due to both spouses working has suffered the most during the pandemic because more people have the time for meal preparation at home. Those workers are now available for deployment in other more crucial industries such as the renewable energy industry. Other hospitality and entertainment sector workers can also be shifted to more crucial endeavors just as they were during World War II. The economy as it existed pre-COVID was composed mainly of profitable private sector activities, many of which were not designed to deal with the most crucial social problems.

The solution of the pandemic at least in the US has an expected solution within the next year. Global warming has a somewhat longer time frame, but requires much more money to be spent because, from a finance point of view, it's a much larger problem. Changing the infrastructure of the whole world will require much more money but over a longer time span. The time span for solving global warming is approximately 10 years so we have ten times as long to solve global warming as we do to solve the pandemic. The pandemic may never be completely resolved because wiping out the virus everywhere in the world completely may not be possible just as it has not been possible to wipe out a number of other viruses. Over time, however, the problem can become treatable and manageable. The same can be said of the global warming problem. It may be impossible to eliminate every source of greenhouse gas emission in 10 years, but if most of them are eliminated, the remaining problems may be manageable in the sense that the earth may ultimately be salvageable.

What we have learned from the pandemic is that much more money needs to be spent on research and development in virology so that we are better prepared to deal with pandemics and epidemics. Two infectious diseases have successfully been eradicated: smallpox and rinderpest. The rest still exist somewhere in the world. There are also four ongoing programs, targeting poliomyelitis, yaws, dracunculiasis, and malaria. Five more infectious diseases have been identified as of April 2008 as potentially eradicable with current technology by the Carter Center International Task Force for Disease Eradication—measles, mumps, rubella, lymphatic filariasis and cysticercosis. What we have also learned is that there is more of a threat to Americans and human beings in general from viruses than there is from foreign nations, both state actors and terrorists. Therefore, the money spent on the defense department should be drastically reduced while the money spent on human health should be vastly increased. Let's deal with the real threats not the imagined ones.

Warren Blasts 'Unconscionable' $740 Billion Pentagon Budget While Millions Suffer From Poverty, Joblessness, and Covid-19

Published on Tuesday, February 02, 2021

by Common Dreams

"A budget is about priorities," said the Democratic senator.

by Kenny Stancil, staff writer

 

34 Comments

"Spending $740 billion dollars a year on this one piece of the federal budget is unconscionable," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said to Kathleen Hicks, one of President Joe Biden's Pentagon appointees, on Tuesday, February 2, 2021. (Photo: Screengrab from PBS NewsHour)

"We continue to overinvest in defense while underinvesting in public health and so much more."

"We can spend less on the military and obtain not only the same amount of security, but more."
—Stephen Wertheim, Historian

That's what Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said during Tuesday's Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing for Kathleen Hicks, President Joe Biden's nominee for deputy defense secretary.

"The size of the defense budget... has long been a concern of mine," said Warren, "but after the past year, watching more than 400,000 fellow Americans die, tens of millions unemployed due to Covid-19, millions more who are lined up at food banks, and even millions more who are on the threshold of losing their homes and being put out on the street, spending $740 billion dollars a year on this one piece of the federal budget is unconscionable."

"A budget is about priorities," said Warren. When the senator asked if the U.S. can reduce defense spending "without sacrificing our security," Hicks said no.

Even though "I certainly understand" how the coronavirus crisis "calls into question what the priorities are across our government," said Hicks, "I also... believe that we are a nation that can afford the defense that it needs to have."

"The focus on the top-line number can really obscure a more important conversation around what is it we want our military... to do," Hicks said, sidestepping Warren's point, which was that the national budget should reflect the issues that people in the U.S. want their representatives to focus on, like implementing policies to mitigate compounding public health, economic, and environmental emergencies.

 

"We can spend less on the military and obtain not only the same amount of security, but more," asserted Stephen Wertheim, deputy director of research and policy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and research scholar at Columbia University.

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the peace group CodePink, pointed out that Warren was the only lawmaker at the hearing to juxtapose the nation's bloated military budget with the surge in unmet social needs.

As Common Dreams reported Monday, all 10 senators behind the GOP's $618 billion coronavirus relief counterproposal voted in favor of spending $740 billion on endless wars in fiscal year 2021.

Those members of Congress were joined in supporting the National Defense Authorization Act by the majority of their fellow Republicans as well as the bulk of Democrats in the House and Senate, providing additional evidence of the extent to which most American lawmakers' priorities aren't aligned with those of the public.

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Off the Top of My Head

Mitch McConnell: "Loony Lies and Conspiracy Theories are Cancer for Republican Party"

by John Lawrence, February 3, 2021

Now even the leader of the Senate Republicans is admitting the Republican party is a joke. They've got nothing besides idol worship and rabbit holes. What do they stand for? White supremacy, bellicose machoism, xenophobia and solipsism masquerading as the American Dream. They stand for nothing except greasing their own palms and staying in power. McConnell at least and a few other principled Republicans like Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney and John Kasich actually are trying to reconstruct the Republican party based on conservative principles. Their problem is that their base is a bunch of wahoos that can't get enough of being entertained by Donald Trump or Marjorie Taylor Greene. Fantasy trumps reality for them.

The point is that in realistic terms the Republican party has nothing to offer. In a world that cries out for cooperation among great powers, they stand for bellicose machoism and bullying. In world where private enterprise is incapable of solving major outstanding problems like climate change and the pandemic, their emphasis on small government falls flat. In a world where it is becoming clear that taxes alone are not necessary for government spending, their pejorative negative hurled at Democrats - "tax and spend" - is meaningless. Their attempts at pulling the wool over Americans' eyes are becoming dispelled. Their fiscal policies have only served to increase economic inequality - to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. So what have they got? A base composed of looney tunes and no nothings and a head composed of the rich and powerful. It doesn't compute.

Republicans want to hearken back to a nostalgic past where black lives didn't matter, white people occupied all positions of prominence, Native Americans were extras in western movies and the concept of global warming had not even been formulated and was not on anybody's radar. They want things like they used to be. Well a lot has changed since then, whatever your definition of "then" is.  Forever wars are draining government finances that could be used in more productive ways. Global warming needs a MEOW solution - the Moral Equivalent of War. This calls for a large amount of government spending. It is becoming more evident, thanks to the exposition of Modern Monetary Theory, that the US government can never run out of money because the US dollar is a sovereign currency which can be created by a few keystrokes at the Fed. Even regular banks create money when they loan money for mortgages, auto loans etc. They don't need to have deposits before they make loans. It's called fractional reserve banking, and it's backed up by the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, which clears checks and is the loaner of last resort.

Government spending should not, however, represent fiscal profligacy or imprudence. The government should spend money responsibly which it has not been doing with spending on forever wars and tax breaks for the rich. IMHO Republican supported government spending has not been responsible spending. Fiscal conservatism should mean that money should solve actual problems and make the lives of most Americans better. So if Republicans want to be the party of fiscal conservatism in the future, they should be concerned that deficit spending does not lead to inflation or deflation, rather than just minimizing government spending other than on defense and tax breaks. Let's see if Republicans want to reformulate themselves on responsible terms or do they just want to continue to be the party of the rich.