It's been 20 years since we won the Cold War. When do we get our Peace Dividend?

[Octafish]

Call me a card-carrying member of the professionally lazy American left or whatever, I don't care: I want to know why we still spend trillions on War Inc.?

I don't know what scares me more: the fact warmongers hold sway in Washington or I have been threatened by the president's official spokesman to not even think about about a change in policy that would eliminate the Pentagon.

[phantom power]

1. one wonders

[Octafish]

4. ''...the symbiotic sack-and-oyster system...''

Great link, there, phantom powers. I must need a new attitude.

[blindpig]

2. War is good bidness..

the very best.

Kill Capitalism

[Octafish]

5. I imagine, after narcotics, war's the most profitable, closely followed by petroleum and software.

From 2000: War is Hellishly Profitable

[blindpig]

8. Mebbe, but it is legal...

and draped in the sanctity of patriotism. Ya don't have to worry about having yer head blown off at any moment when yer a master of war. If drugs were all legalized the ensuing taxation would knock that profitability all to hell.

Just a quibble.

[happy_liberal]

22. works real well when the wars are about narcotics and petroleum

War Inc. is one of my favorite movies...hilarious yet accurate explanation of how we got here

[Ernesto]

3. Not so cold war= war on terror

Muslims= the new commies

[Octafish]

6. September 11 helped George Walker Bush ensure a smooth transition.

Family tradition: Time is money. And so is war.

[Cal33]

7. It's fairly well known that one of the policies of the Neocons

and the war-profiteering corporations is to be in a state of "perpetual war," so that
they could increase their profits, and with those huge profits they also increase
their power over the rest of the nation.

We've got to stop their money-making schemes. We've got to hit them right where they
live, if we are to remain a nation of free individuals. The Dems. must stop
appeasing them. Doing so would be only aiding and abetting them in their financial
and moral crimes against the American people.

[Grinchie]

17. Actually, they used the term "Sustainable War"

[glitch]

28. Sustainability! How very chic. Perhaps next they'll frame it as Green. nt

:puke:

[old mark]

9. We bought Iraq with it...there were evidently bales of US currency

that were flown to Iraq for reasons that made perfect sense to some idiot in the government...many of them just vanished. The pics I have seen show palletized shrink wrapped baled US bills about 5 feet high in the back of a military aircraft. I recall they were just given out to "help the Iraqui economy recover".

I am waiting for them to send us a few dollars back, but I am still waiting for France to pay us the money it owes us from WWI...

mark

added: Here is an article on $21 Billion that was shippd to Iraq and was never found...
http://baltimorechronicle.com/2006/060806Lindorff.shtml

and another on Claire McKaskill who is "overseeing" the cash flowing by the ton into Afghanistan right now...
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/58922

She states that the cash flown into Iraq was completely unaccounted for, but things are "better" in Afghanistan, where at least some of it can be traced...

How much do you have in your bank account?

Mark

[Octafish]

42. Oustanding stories, yours, old mark! They are Must -Reads!

Thanks for the heads-up on the pallets of cash, old mark. I had thought Bowen was a BFEE turd from way back, but he may've turned it around. Sen. MacCaskill pegs the corruption within the ranks of our patriotic price-gougers.

As for our bank account: That's not healthy, either. For all intents and purposes, it doesn't exist at all. Money isn't everything. We still have our health insurance for a couple more weeks under COBRA. However, we just got denied for health insurance from the third company we've tried - each for a different family member's pre-existing condition. I kid you not.

[malaise]

10. Some people in America love war

War is very profitable

[earth mom]

11. This is why I want a draft. Yes, I know it's awful to want that, but how else to stop these wars

except to make sure that the children of the powers that be are at risk to die an ugly death in their very own illegal and immoral wars.

[Grinchie]

18. I agree, but the rich would still be able to pay off someone so Junior doesn't go.

And that doesn't bother me at all. My philosophy is that making it expensive for people to grease the system is actually a very good deterrent in the long run. It's a lot like a Spider hanging out in the Tomato patch, snaring the opportunists and reducing pests as a matter of balance.

We no longer trust the balance of nature, and have been told that Spiders are Icky! Use pesticides from Monsanto instead!

We must become the Spiders, making life miserable for the pests, one at a time, by making it more difficult for them by getting in their way every chance we can. If all ethical people decided to take part in making the world a more just and pleasant place, we could build heaven on earth, instead of waiting to be raptured up from the Hell that the majority created on Earth.

Kind of a Philosophical rant, but as a farmer, I see the patterns of a healthy web of life, and it applies to Society too.

[earth mom]

37. I'm not religious but I do agree that people have turned the heaven OF Earth into a living hell.

I really like your post and agree that we should become the spiders and make the pests of this planet miserable! :thumbsup:

Though I have to admit that I am scared of spiders and thinking of being one sends shivers down my spine, lol! :hide:

[backscatter712]

12. The peace dividend went to Iraq and Afghanistan. n/t

[The_Commonist]

13. We already got it, and then we blew it.

Remember that "long national nightmare of peace and prosperity" during the 90's?
The "peace dividend" was what fueled the tech boom.
But then we fucked it up by letting the neocons slither back into power.
It was then just a matter of months before they got their war on.
Followed by tax cuts for the wealthy, expensive occupations, financial shenanigans leading to recession.

We had our peace dividend, and we squandered it.

[BeFree]

16. Exactly, almost

We didn't squander it, tho. It was stolen in the 2000 election.

Pres. Gore would have kept it growing.

[The_Commonist]

24. OK, fair enough...

The 50 million of us who voted for Dubya squandered it.
It was stolen from the rest of us.

[glitch]

29. We don't actually know the real vote count.

Polls and elections can be manipulated. Until they are verifiable, we don't know any results for certain.

[Poboy]

14. Your Guernica photo needs updating, here you go-

Nint' Wardica, 2010
acrylic on Tyvek, with plastic grommets
94.75 x 175.75 inches




BUNNY MATTHEWS
AUGUST 7 - SEPTEMBER 11, 2010


http://www.arthurrogergallery.com/

[Octafish]

39. That is beautiful. I recognize NOLA and the Gulf and Detroit and Los Angeles and Washington...

Thank you, Poboy.

[leveymg]

44. Thanks for that image! It's been a helluva decade.

And, it shows no sign of lightening up.

[Kurovski]

15. K&R. (nt)

[MisterP]

19. well, the superpower supporting oligarchs, death squads, and exploitation against

the inconstant Eastern Bloc and the less-well-funded local liberationists, anticolonialists, and egalitarians won, so...

[Octafish]

41. It's just gotta keep going.

It's no longer just "good for the economy." It's great on crowd control.

[Ignis]

20. Oh, it's all for defense, of course--absolutely necessary defense.

That's why the bulk of our standing army is stationed along our borders, rather than in the Middle East.

And that's why we must never veer from our course of ridiculing anyone who dares to mention the "Department of Peace."

[JVS]

21. This is the peace dividend, for Capital. It's their reward for defeating the Socialist great power.

If they had outsourced our jobs in the 1950s, the Soviets would have had a field day.

[blindpig]

23. They had to wait on that...

had to keep up the pretense that Capitalism was superior. Once the Soviets were gone off came the velvet glove.


The Red Army defended the American Middle Class, no more.

[Synicus Maximus]

25. When we stop fighting wars?

[mmonk]

26. there was never going to be one. The Pentagon and the MIC took

it as there was nobody left standing in our way.

[robertpaulsen]

27. Hell, we can't even think about a Peace Department!

That would mean electing Dennis Kucinich, and everyone knows we wouldn't be satisfied with him as President! Don't Professional Leftists understand that the Military-Industrial Complex is just sensibility at its most sensible???

[david13]

30. Don't hold your breath. I don't know that "we" "won" the cold war.

That sounds like Ronald Reagan talk, or Republican talk.
I think the Soviet Union lost the cold war.
We basically just sat here and continued to increase the military budget until it is now bigger than ever.
And probably will only grow.
dc

[LAGC]

31. Indeed, all that 1980's "defense" spending was all debt that will soon come due.

We may have bankrupted the Soviet Union, but it remains to be seen whether the HUGE INCREASE in national debt piled up under Reagan/Bush won't bankrupt this nation as well.

[david13]

36. I can't totally agree with that, either. I can't agree that "we"

bankrupted the soviet union. Only the soviet union can do that. They are responsible for their military budget, and their government. And their government was unpopular, with their own people. It was only held together with threats, and secret police, etc.
So it fell apart on it's own.
I like the word they much more than the word we.
dc

[Octafish]

40. Team B was NAZI-Driven

The members of Team B were deliberately misguided gentlemen, not NAZIs. They just happened to have used NAZIs including Reinhard Gehlen and their false analyses upon which to base their own overestimations of the Communist threat, a Reaganesque rationale for a defense build-up during a time of peace.

[Phillip Walker]

32. Still waiting

How long?

[Lilith Velkor]

33. We don't. n/t

[David Zephyr]

34. What is our "peace dividend"? Gore Vidal told us it was "perpetual war for perpetual peace".

.

[leveymg]

35. Cold War just morphed into the secret war for oil in Central Asia

That's how we got the GWOT, and we have most certainly haven't won anything. Both Empires have crashed and ashes are burning.

Ashes are burning . . .

[Octafish]

38. They are selling us a peace.

It buys them time for their getaway.

Going from the back of the hand We the People have gotten from Uncle Sam, it looks like things are going to get a lot more interesting for all who stay, the real left-behinds.

[leveymg]

43. The real tough times are ahead for those who don't have capital to move to Dubai

A lot of that counter-insurgency training and equipment may be needed back in America before too long if the present trajectory continues.

Those cold stares behind the wrap-around shades give me the creeps. I've seen it before, in grainy black and white prints from 1919-20:

[pitohui]

45. "we" won the cold war? according to who? ronald reagan? what did we win?

the russians won the freedom to travel where they will and the freedom to amass huge galloping whoop-ass billionaire fortunes

i'm not aware that america won anything except the freedom to amass huge galloping whoop-ass billionaire fortunes, since we already had the freedom to travel where we will -- in fact, it has become MORE difficult for americans to travel to some areas (such as many countries in south america)

i say think for yourself instead believing what you read, believe what you SEE for a change

we didn't win the cold war, russia won it, they got the freedom from any responsibility whatsoever and thrust it all upon us, we got FUCK ALL from this so-called victory

the freedom to amass a huge galloping whoop-ass billionaire fortune is kinda worthless for the peoples of both sides, since decent honest people won't be able to amass such fortunes under any system of gov't -- but for sure reaganomics was a great win for the upper 0.0002 % of both countries

if by "we" you mean the richest of the rich, then the richest of the rich in the usa and russia won the cold war

the rest of us, and even the upper middle class who thinks they won something but can't quite explain "what," lost big time

[slampoet]

46. George H. W. Bush gave it away to the internet companies.

WE paid for the internet to be built, he gave it away and now we have to pay for it like every other utility that we paid to be built and the profits NEVER reached the taxpayers.

[madinmaryland]

47. 1996-2000. When the Clenis actually was able to balance the budget.