Sorrow to Anger: Wasted Money = Wasted Lives

Terrorist cell

 

Cancer cell

      Which is more dangerous?

 Something happened to make me break my non-politics diet: a friend died way too early. Out of respect for the family I will not mention her name, but the cause was breast cancer. My shift from sorrow to righteous anger compels me to name those complicit in her passing: the military and fat-cat plutocrats.

I was once believed that cancer would be vanquished by now. When I was a child, there was nothing America couldn’t do. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but overall optimism prevailed. It took a hit during the Vietnam War, but there were still Great Society programs that worked on domestic shortcomings. That America still built highways, parks, bridges, airports, schools, hospitals, dams, and sewers. It didn’t take care of all its citizens as well as it should, but I dared hope it would tackle civil rights and gender discrimination; after all, it protected union members, the elderly, and the poor. It was an America that believed in science and had already eradicated polio, diphtheria, measles, mumps, and smallpox. Women seldom died in childbirth and they at last gained access to birth control options. TB was scary, but it was no longer an automatic death sentence. With DNA sequencing underway surely we were on the cusp of wiping out horrible diseases like ALS, Alzheimer’s, TB, and cancer.

What happened instead was precisely what President Eisenhower warned against in 1961: the military-industrial complex took over. America became a nation of tin soldiers, expensive toys, and war profiteers. I shall not add my name to the rolls of those who pretend to love our camouflaged warriors. When I see someone in uniform, I see wasted money that ought to go to something productive, not destructive. I don’t believe soldiers are protecting my “freedom.” I read history books; I know that the US military hasn’t won a war since 1945. Spare me your “what about” questions. They are like tin soldiers: hollow. Every U.S. military engagement since World War II has had the net effect of making the world less safe. This includes the “war on terror,” which has created more enemies than it has eliminated. I cannot say, “Thank you for your service.”

If only the tin soldiers were the root cause of waste. That dishonor goes to the Pentagon, the plutocrats, and the politicians who stir the Kool-Aid the masses drink.  Who else drew up military budgets that (in adjusted dollars) rivals what was spent during World War II? Who profits from all manner of broken toys: Strategic Defense Initiative (aka/ “Star Wars”), stealth helicopters, laser cannons, the neutron bomb, the Future Combat System …? More than $100 billion has been spent since 1995 on junk that doesn’t work. Yet we still build tanks that can’t survive IEDs and aircraft carriers that are sitting ducks in the age of long-range missiles and drones. The United States has 170,000 troops stationed in 150 foreign nations. That’s not a typo. There are more than 55,000 in Japan and some 35,000 in Germany, two nations wealthy enough to take care of themselves. Explain why we have troops in Australia, Britain, Italy, or Spain. We even have some in The Netherlands–presumably not to protect its “coffee shops” or brothels. When did the Department of Defense revert back to the Department of War? Why aren’t troops deployed at home rather than abroad? Why do we spend more on war than the next seven top national defense budgets combined?

This travesty exists because military suppliers make a financial killing. Do Connecticut politicians care if we need another electric submarine as long as the bases are hiring? Will a South Carolinian pol ever call for reduced training at Parris Island? Yet even they are the tools of the billionaire investors whose pockets are lined by the death industry. A non-woke electorate allows the power elite to set economic priorities and that means more guns and to hell with butter. The electorate was asleep at the wheel during the Obama administration when it buzzed through $763 billion on defense in 2009. The Orange Fool now in office wants to go even higher, though the national debt is over a trillion dollars.

This pisses me off. An economy centered on the death industry also kills off the battlefield. It means there are only crumbs to rebuild infrastructure–like clean drinking water–or invest in science. In 2019, the National Institute of Health budgeted $39 billion; the Pentagon got $686 billion. No wonder we’ve not cured cancer. If you’re keeping score, there were 1,015 American terrorism-related deaths in 2019. (All the terrorists were homegrown.) By stark contrast, 606,880 Americans died of cancer. My friend passed decades before her time because America did not keep faith with her. My faith in America has become agnostic on a good day. Today is not a good day.