Enough with American Military Worship

[maxsolomon]

I'm no expert on this issue, but i am an 'emotional far leftist', so bear with me. Everytime some RW bonehead has SOMETHING IMPORTANT to say about how great our military is, it always comes back to how grateful us bush haters should be that the military "secured our freedom to dissent". Take this example:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002915776_frilets07.html

Editor, The Times:

I believe nature seeks balance. Thus there must be as many right-wing dolts as left-wing ones. So I don't worry much about the antics of the anti-military folks trying to ban recruiters from Seattle schools <"Initiative targets military recruiting," Times, Local news, April 4>.

Nevertheless, it's important to point out the, mmm, difficulties with their point of view.

First, they obviously don't see the irony of trying to ban representatives of the very people who secure their freedom to be fools. Their prejudice reminds me of another ugly bigotry, where once upon a time people allowed customers of a particular race — as long as they used the back door.

Also, when we face a real enemy on our soil, I'm sure they'll be the first to scream, "Where's the military?" Especially if the president is Republican. They'll conveniently "forget" they tried to get rid of it altogether.

— Bal Simon, Bellevue

If by 'secure' my 'freedom' you are referring to the Revolutionary War, ok. And maybe ww2, although the Axis was never a serious threat to invade Amurka. but there ain't been shit for securing my freedom in my lifetime. Vietnam? Grenada? Iraq? puh leez. How come Costa Rica doesn't have a military and no freedom-haters invade?

How much freedom could we secure if we didn't spend this much on our bloated military that we worship without question?

[IChing]

1. Thanks nominated it goes along with my op here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x873146

I'm putting this in my journal

[WildEyedLiberal]

2. Most of it is unnecessary crap we don't use or need, either

20,000 nukes w/ the facilities to launch them? We're spending trillions on something that we'll never use because it would destroy the world if we did? WTF?

I'd really like our next (sane) president to commit to an international effort to ban nuclear weapons.

[maxsolomon]

4. McCain won't change anything about the MIC

wait, did you mean a 'sane' Democrat will be elected? well, they'll certainly put a stop to the bloated military... :sarcasm:

if we cut it by 2/3 we'd still have the biggest military budget on the planet. and we'd still be able to fuck up in Iraq in almost exactly the same way.

[Warpy]

6. Not only that, but we're still fully prepared to greet

the Russkies as they pour through the Fulda Gap. We're storing surgical equipment including cotton tie back surgical gowns from WWII. We're storing warehouses full of C-rations, D rations and K rations. Every year the procurement officers squander millions of dollars on shit like this and then pay to store it in perpetuity just so the lavish Pentagon budget can be used up.

I want to put that building on a very strict diet. I want payment and supplies for the troops mandated. I want care for veterans mandated. Anything else those old boys do has to come out of a sharply reduced budget.

This scam has been going on since the end of WWII. We can't afford it any more. If the rich and the corporate really feel the need for such a lavishly endowed military bureaucracy, let them start footing the damned bill.

[WildEyedLiberal]

9. Exactly

The Pentagon is the most fiscally irresponsible federal agency - I remember last year or two years ago or something some internal audit revealed that something like 700 million dollars was completely unaccounted for. 700 million dollars the Pentagon CHEATED out of American taxpayers and the government!

But it's really important to crack down on people who owe $5000 on their credit card bills - can't let them keep evading their responsibilities and their debts to MBNA, oh no. :sarcasm:

[DBoon]

3. the military protects our sovereignty, not our freedom

These are two different things.

To the many slaves in ante-bellum south, a sucessful defeat of their military brought their emancipation. The independent sovereignty of their governments directly contradicted their own freedom.

Freedom is protected by citizens who value freedom. No military might can grant freedom to people who are willfully ignorant. The forces that wish to take our freedom away are internal corruption and unchecked power - not an outside militry force

[maxsolomon]

5. DBoon

well said. i think i'll dig out 'double nickels on the dime' tonight!

[Neil Lisst]

7. No one in Iraq is "securing our freedoms"

If you want to thank anyone for our rights, thank those who constantly fight to make certain we have those rights in the America - the leftwing lawyers of America, the first amendment advocates, the ACLU.

[SammyWinstonJack]

10. !

:applause:

[arcane1]

8. the ONLY entity threatening my freedom is the FEDERAL GOV'T

Bal Simon can feel free to blow me

[DBoon]

11. The ACLU secures my freedom

nt

[bullimiami]

12. im sick of blanket worship when some of them are torturers, muderers

and god knows what else, and it goes virtually unpunished.
then these criminals come home and are set loose upon us.

[maxsolomon]

13. in some ways they're victims, though

the horrors they are forced to inflict/endure often ruin their lives, too.

all to project the power of our corporate hegemony across the globe.

[w8liftinglady]

14. here's one victim

he will never be the same.God knows what he has seen.

[bullimiami]

16. true. it sucks all the way around.

[Ksec]

15. Worshipping military is a sure way to bring on corruption

Worshipping anything is a sure way to make it corrupt.

No, I respect those that fight, but I do not put them up on pedestals. When you do that you create people who think they dont need no steeenkin rules.

[YOY]

17. Dammit we need that money to fight the Teraists!!!

How else can we compete with Al Quaida's box-cutters but a brand spanking new submarine! Take that Osama!

In all honesty could we not compare our over-exuberance to maintain a high military budget while our enemies, who spend peanuts, but have fanaticism on their side (the real ones and ones we are creating at this moment) to our running the Soviets into the ground in the 1980s? Who are we racing?

Eisenhower was right...beware the Military Industrial Complex.

[eridani]

18. The people who actually fought the Revolutionary War are spinning--

in their graves. The Second Amendment positioned an armed citizenry as an alternative to a professional army.

http://polyticks.com/polyticks/beararms/fathers.htm

http://en.thinkexist.com/keyword/standing_army

Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts:
"What, sir, is the use of militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. . . Whenever Government means to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise a standing army upon its ruins." -- Debate, U.S. House of Representatives, August 17, 1789

Virginia Declaration of Rights 13 (June 12, 1776), drafted by George Mason: "That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."

- James Madison, Fourth Annual Message, November 4, 1812-- large and permanent military establishments which are forbidden by the principles of free government, and against the necessity of which the militia were meant to be a constitutional bulwark.

-- "A Framer," in the Independent Gazetteer, 1791 Whenever people . . . entrust the defense of their country to a regular, standing army, composed of mercenaries, the power of that country will remain under the direction of the most wealthy citizens.

Thomas Jefferson quotes (American 3rd US President (1801-09). Author of the Declaration of Independence. 1762-1826) "None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army"

James Madison quotes (American 4th US president (1809-17), and one of the founding fathers of his country. 1751-1836) A standing army is one of the greatest mischief that can possibly happen.

[leftstreet]

22. Excellent addition to the conversation

:thumbsup:

[Neil Lisst]

19. respect the military, but remember they work for all americans

not just the causes a president has

[chicofaraby]

20. How many trillions have been spent since Pearl Harbor?

How many times has the USA been actiually attacked since then?

How is it that our trillions spent couldn't stop 19 young men armed with boxcutters?


I want a better ROI.

[TheBaldyMan]

21. I agree with your assessment of defence spending as obscene, but

you shouldn't let yourself be wound up by some know-nothing shill writing a LTTE. That letter is riddled with muddle-headed arguments and logical contradictions, for instance the writer said:

Their prejudice reminds me of another ugly bigotry, where once upon a time people allowed customers of a particular race — as long as they used the back door.

so equating people protesting about the conflict in Iraq with segregationists. This is a feeble attempt to smear rather than argue a logical point.

It deserves to be ignored rather than dissected. The writer of that LTTE is one of the worst kinds of fool, one that doesn't know that he's a fool or doesn't care that the rest of the world knows that he is.

[Chulanowa]

23. I'm looking at the bar graph

and the question running through my mind is "Where does all that money GO?!"

Clearly we could cut the pentagon budget in half amd still outstrop the top six military powers below us by a landslide, and still come out ahead compared to all of them. Where. Does. It. Go?

[B Calm]

24. Freedumb isn't free

http://server4.whiterosesociety.org/content/malloy/MalloyMemories/Freedumb_isn't_free.mp3

[eppur_se_muova]

25. Great post. Now read Chalmers Johnson's "Blowback" for more details.

Because of the title (which comes from CIA jargon), I assumed this book was going to be about clandestine operations. Rather, it's about the consequences of America's overseas military empire -- and empire is not too strong a word to use. Following WWII, American military bases overseas should have been phased out, but with the 'Cold War' as justification, were instead converted to permanent installations, which create disruption and danger for the countries where they are based. Johnson, a former CIA analyst (IIRC), has the facts and figures to make his case.

With the Cold War over, it seemed once again time to begin a phaseout, but the MIC made sure this didn't happen, and the much-vaunted "Peace Dividend" disappeared without a trace -- and without much comment, either.