June 28, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

MISSING CARLIN

In the past few years I've seen several people I grew up with pass away. I think of people like Johnny Carson, Buck Owens, Don Knotts, Harvey Korman, Norman Mailer, and now George Carlin. I didn't know the full extent of Carlin's ideas until now, unfortunately, but it makes me admire him even more. This article by Joyce Marcel is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Carlin, bless him, was dangerous. Yes, it was Lenny Bruce who set him free, and yes, at the same time Richard Pryor was doing the same thing in a different area. But these three giants told giant truths to an America that didn't really want to hear them.

"It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it," he said.

Carlin was fearless about religion.

On God: "Something is wrong. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty. crime, torture, corruption and the ice capades. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed. This is not what you expect to find on the resume of a Supreme Being. It's what you expect from an office temp with a bad attitude."

BETTER USES FOR MILITARY EXPENDITURES

The fall of the Soviet Union should have ushered in a new era. We went from decades of the Cold War to suddenly being the only super power left on the planet. We heard talk then of a "peace dividend." Instead, military spending has only continued to increase. The terrorist attacks on 9/11gave the military-industrial complex another excuse to ramp up military expenditures, even though the terrorists used the most low tech weapons imaginable. The end of the petroleum age gives us another opportunity to reevaluate defense spending. True defense spending takes into account the health and wellbeing of our citizens. It takes into account the life of our planet. What we wastefully spend on weapons, military bases, and war could be redirected to developing new energy technologies, to education, to housing, and to health care. This article by David Korten is at www.alternet.org:

The United States is well positioned to take the lead among nations in renouncing war as an instrument of national policy and dismantling the means of conducting war. We account for roughly half of world military expenditures and our military expenditures account for more than half of the U.S. federal discretionary budget to the neglect of major education, health, infrastructure, and environmental needs.

Yet the only military threat to our domestic security is from a handful of terrorists armed with box cutters and a willingness to die for their cause. We face a greater danger from our own children brandishing guns in our schools than from any opposing army. If a band of terrorists were to attack us with an atomic weapon, it would likely be delivered in a suitcase or packing crate. Such threats share in common the simple fact that even the mightiest military force in the world offers no protection. The solutions depend more on strengthening our families and communities, than on increasing military budgets.

June 27, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

OFFSHORE DRILLING WON'T SOLVE THE PROBLEM

George W. Bush, John McCain, and others of the right-wing crowd are engaging in pandering of the worst sort when they advocate offshore drilling and drilling in ANWR as a solution to our energy woes. It would take years for any oil drilled offshore to have any effect. The amount of oil offshore is limited. Based on our current consumption, it's a supply that would last just a few years. The dangers to the environment are incalculable. Instead of pursuing a technology that is quickly becoming antiquated, we should devote our resources to new and clean technology. This article is from:http://southernstudies.org/

Furthermore, the problem of drilling-related pollution is not limited to the aftermath of natural disasters. Offshore oil production also brings with it the risk of spills from tanker accidents, which are devastating to ocean and shore life as well as seaside tourist economies. Then there's the chronic pollution from drilling operations. The Rainforest Action Network that over its lifetime one normally operating oil drilling rig will:* dump more than 90,000 metric tons of toxic drilling fluid and metal cuttings into the ocean;* drill between 50 and 100 wells, each of which will dump as much as 25,000 pounds of toxic metals including lead, chromium and mercury, and potent carcinogens like toluene, benzene, and xylene into the ocean; and* pollute the air as much as 7,000 cars driving 50 miles a day.

THE CASE FOR NATIONALIZATION

The Fresno Bee is a good barometer of right-wing talking points. If you read the letters page of The Bee, you can pretty much find out what Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, and their ilk are bellowing out on the talk shows every day. And The Bee also features Victor Davis Hanson, an "intellectual" guru of the far right. Lately, the talking points have been calling Barack Obama a "socialist." One horrified right-winger is aghast that some members of Congress have suggested that oil should be nationalized. It's better for most of us to live without essentials like food and energy than to have any hint of "socialism," according to these fruitcakes. Capitalism hasn't been all that good to me or to countless others. Maybe a little socialism could be a welcome change. This article by Ted Rall is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

The problem isn't the weak dollar or the non-existent housing market. It's capitalism. A sane government doesn't leave essential goods and services--food, fuel, housing, healthcare, transportation, education--to the vicissitudes of "magic" markets. Non-discretionary economic sectors should be strictly controlled by--indeed, owned by--the government.

Consider, on the one hand, snail mail and public education. The Postal Service and public schools both have their flaws. But what if they were privatized? It would cost a lot more than 42 cents to mail a letter from Tampa to Maui. And poor children wouldn't get an education.

Privatization, particularly of essential services, has always proven disastrous. From California's Enron-driven rotating blackouts to for-profit healthcare that has left 47 million Americans uninsured to predatory lenders pimping the housing bubble to Blackwater's atrocities in Iraq, market-based corporations' fiduciary obligation to maximize profits that is inherently incompatible with a stable economy whose goal is to provide people with a decent quality of life.

June 24, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

THE ENERGY PERFECT STORM

We have arrived at an important juncture in the history of the human race and our use of energy. We used fossil fuels in the 20th century and on into the 21st century. But the end of the petro age is upon us. First, the supply of oil is finite and in a few decades there will be no more oil. Second, the use of fossil fuels is not compatible with life on this planet. The evidence for human caused global climate change, mostly due to the use of fossil fuels, is everywhere around us. And yet we have the political dinosaurs on the right who believe the Good Oil Fairy will continue to deliver oil forever and that global climate change is just a nasty liberal plot. This article by Harvey Wasserman is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Contrived or otherwise, today's soaring gas prices are a tangible bonanza for Bush/McCain. Off-shore drilling would put billions in their cronies' pockets, but would not lower gas prices a single cent. Nuke power could mean billions more in radioactive lucre for reactor builders who may never deliver a single electron of electricity.

It's no accident that what Bush/McCain are NOT advocating is a massive shift to increased efficiency and renewable energy.

Prior to the Enron disaster, green power advocates proposed that some 600 megawatts of renewables and efficiency be installed in California. They said this "floor" was needed to protect the state from precisely the kind of gouging Enron then did.

But Southern California Edison's John Bryson helped kill the green power proposal. Bryson now likes to be photographed in front of photovoltaic arrays. But he used a deregulation package promising a "free market in energy" to help pay off failed reactors at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon. Then he stepped back while Enron cashed in.

June 22, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

THE JOHN MCCAIN SHOW

The image the media gives us of John McCain is that he's a war hero, a straight talker, and a maverick who has frequently broken from Republican party orthodoxy. They don't mention that McCain has flip-flopped on countless issues, or that he has voted with George W. Bush 95% of the time, or that he's an extremist who would outlaw abortion, or that he's a war-monger who wants to attack Iran. I don't even accept that McCain is a war hero. He even once described himself as a "war criminal" for dropping bombs on innocent people. This article by Paul Harris is at www.guardian.co.uk:

Welcome to the John McCain show 2008. It's powerful stuff, portraying McCain as the decent patriot of the middle ground and a steady hand for difficult times. For a lot of Americans - including many Democrats - it is a beguiling vision. They see a war hero whose courage was forged in a North Vietnamese POW camp. They see a maverick who spoke against the tortures of Abu Ghraib. They see a reformer who acts against lobbyists and political favours. They see a politician who has spent a lifetime serving his country and won a place in the hearts of the nation.

Now McCain is also trying to win the White House. He has taken his campaign to places far from the projected Republican road map to victory. He has spoken in the 'black belt' of rural Alabama. He has toured Appalachian coal country to talk about poverty. He has gone to the hippy enclave of Oregon to lecture on global warming. In short, he is a Republican that even liberals can love. And many do. McCain's appeal to America's vital middle ground could easily propel him to the Oval Office.

But there is another, very different side to John McCain. Away from the headlines and the stirring speeches, a less familiar figure lurks. It is a McCain who plans to fight on in Iraq for years to come and who might launch military action against Iran. This is the McCain whose campaign and career has been riddled with lobbyists and special interests. It is a McCain who has sided with religious and political extremists who believe Islam is evil and gays are immoral. It is a McCain who wants to appoint extreme conservatives to the Supreme Court and see abortion banned. This McCain has a notoriously volatile temper that has scared some senior members of his own party. If McCain becomes the most powerful man in the world it would be wise to know what lies behind his public mask, to look at the dark side of John McCain.

June 19, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

NO COASTAL DRILLING

Right-wingers frequently remind me of vultures. Use any opportunity to advance the "free market" and gouge the rest of us. George W. Bush was spouting off yesterday that we need to lift restrictions on coastal drilling. The idea is that we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil if we drill off our coasts, in protected lands, and in ANWR. It's absolute nonsense. Like so many other of Bush's proposals, it's another gift to corporate America. We are at another turning point in our history. Humans have gone from hunter gatherers to agriculturally-based economies to industrialization largely powered by fossil fuels. Now is the time to move on to a new and environmentally cleaner age. This editorial is from The New York Times at www.nytimes.com:

It was almost inevitable that a combination of $4-a-gallon gas, public anxiety and politicians eager to win votes or repair legacies would produce political pandering on an epic scale. So it has, the latest instance being President Bush’s decision to ask Congress to end the federal ban on offshore oil and gas drilling along much of America’s continental shelf.

This is worse than a dumb idea. It is cruelly misleading. It will make only a modest difference, at best, to prices at the pump, and even then the benefits will be years away. It greatly exaggerates America’s leverage over world oil prices. It is based on dubious statistics. It diverts the public from the tough decisions that need to be made about conservation.

There is no doubt that a lot of people have been discomfited and genuinely hurt by $4-a-gallon gas. But their suffering will not be relieved by drilling in restricted areas off the coasts of New Jersey or Virginia or California. The Energy Information Administration says that even if both coasts were opened, prices would not begin to drop until 2030. The only real beneficiaries will be the oil companies that are trying to lock up every last acre of public land before their friends in power — Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney — exit the political stage.

BEWARE OF NUCLEAR POWER "SOLUTION"

A few decades ago nuclear power was thought to be the answer to our dreams. It was "clean" energy. We know now that nuclear power is not clean and not safe. Nuclear waste is toxic for hundreds of thousands of years. Even the mining of uranium to produce nuclear power is a very nasty and toxic process. John McCain, of course, is advocating nuclear power. We also shouldn't forget that nuclear plants are, in essence, ticking time bombs. If there is a meltdown toxic nuclear material can get spewed into the atmosphere. Nuclear plants would also be prime targets for terrorists. This article by Chip Ward is at www.truthout.org:

Nuclear power is now offered as an alternative to coal power. But, in actuality, Big Nuke is Big Carbon's mad-scientist cousin. Both externalize their costs: to the land, to the atmosphere, to miners, to consumers, to communities near the mines and refining facilities, and especially to future generations who will live with the long-term consequences of our short-term gains. The damage that both do is, of course, justified as necessary and unavoidable.

In addition to the ecological devastation they cause, their most compelling similarity is that both can get under your skin and make you sick. Westerners who live near uranium mines and mills will tell you that those activities can be as dirty and noxious as coal mines, coal-fired power plants, tar sand pits, and oil refineries. Cancer from inhaling coal dust feels the same as cancer from uranium dust. In the age of carbon and fission, what we refer to as "environmentalism" could just as well be called "embodimentalism," since the decisions we make about what we allow into our air, water, and soil get translated into flesh, blood, bone, nerve, and experience.

Perhaps those iconic cooling towers we picture when we think about a nuclear power plant are like industrial cathedrals, monuments to our hubris and the unsustainable materialism it generates. Our fervent faith in economic growth makes us blind to natural processes, ecological relationships, the long scales of time, and ultimate consequences.

June 18, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

MCCAIN HAS ZERO INTEGRITY

In the 2000 presidential campaign the George W. Bush campaign did "push polling" to suggest that John McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child. They did this in the South, where racism is a very significant factor. Even after that, McCain essentially embraced Bush. Opportunism trumped principle. The behavior has continued. McCain denounced Bush's tax cuts for the rich back in the day, but now wants his own version of tax cuts that go even beyond Bush. McCain was tortured in Vietnam, but has not supported legislation to stop torture of alleged terrorists. This column by Joe Conason is at www.observer.com:

By the time Mr. McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, he had established a strong position against their regressive effects. That stance marked him as a true maverick in his own party and a straight talker who spoke for the national interest against his own personal interests. Running against George W. Bush in the 2000 G.O.P. primary, he mocked the Texas governor’s "misplaced" bonanza for the affluent.

"Sixty percent of the benefits from his tax cuts go to the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans—and that’s not the kind of tax relief that Americans need," he said. Despite his wife’s inherited wealth, he criticized proposals to repeal the estate tax for the same reason, noting that such legislation "would provide massive benefits solely to the wealthiest and highest-income taxpayers in the country."

As the chance to run for president again drew closer, however, Mr. McCain shifted toward conservative orthodoxy. In 2005 he voted for cuts in capital-gains taxes that he had previously opposed, and in 2006 voted for essentially the same estate-tax repeal he had once denounced. And today, his economic platform extends to the Bush tax cuts and renders them still more regressive—and more expensive.

THE OIL BUBBLE

Today George W. Bush was pontificating that we need to drill, drill, drill to solve our gasoline price crisis. Right-wingers have their greedy little hearts set on offshore drilling and drilling in ANWR, neither of which will solve our energy problems. We are nearing the end of the fossil fuel age, and it's time to go in a new direction. But it's interesting that lack of supply is not driving this huge inflation in gasoline prices. As the author points out, if supply was the problem we would have rationing and other drastic measures. This article by Michael Fox is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

According to Rep Peter DeFazio (D-Or), the entity that owns the most oil in the United States right now is not ExxonMobil or Chevron or Valero: it’s Morgan Stanley. So what’s Morgan Stanley doing with all that oil? Speculating on the petrofraud bonanza.

The problems with the short-sightedness of this utterly stupid investment pattern are many:

1. The faster they ratchet up the cost of oil, and, in turn, the gasoline that comes from it, the faster the public will change its patterns of consumption, the demand will go down, and the bottom will fall out of the market. That is the most logical supply-and-demand scenario, which ends in Morgan Stanley left holding billions of dollars of lost equity on the oil futures contracts. Note that Ford, GM. and Toyota – so far – have shuttered factories building large SUVs and trucks (the behemoth Toyota Tundra got axed today), thus, even the opportunity to continue buying these gas guzzlers has begun to be eliminated. GM has already hybridized the most ostentatious gas sucker of them all – the Cadillac Escalade – thus more than doubling the city mileage of that vehicle.

June 15, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


WAR IS A GREAT EVIL

We often like to describe battles and wars in heroic terms. We use terms like "glory" and "honor" and "sacrifice." But the reality is that war is a great evil. It should be avoided if possible. There have been times, I believe, that war was necessary. The war against Hitler and the Axis powers is the best example. War has often been used as a geopolitical tool, though. It has been used to make money for war profiteers. It has sacrificed life unnecessarily and perhaps deprived us of people who might have made great advances in human progress. The war in Iraq is an example of war that is purely evil. It was not necessary. Its destructive effects will endure for generations. This article by Chris Hedges at www.alternet.org:

American Marines and soldiers have become socialized to atrocity. The killing project is not described in these terms to a distant public. The politicians still speak in the abstract terms of glory, honor, and heroism, in the necessity of improving the world, in lofty phrases of political and spiritual renewal. Those who kill large numbers of people always claim it as a virtue. The campaign to rid the world of terror is expressed within the confines of this rhetoric, as if once all terrorists are destroyed evil itself will vanish.

The reality behind the myth, however, is very different. The reality and the ideal tragically clash when soldiers and Marines return home. These combat veterans are often alienated from the world around them, a world that still believes in the myth of war and the virtues of the nation. They confront the grave, existential crisis of all who go through combat and understand that we have no monopoly on virtue, that in war we become as barbaric and savage as those we oppose.

June 12, 2008

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IMPEACH CHENEY


THE RICH ARE A BURDEN ON US

It's very well documented that over the past few decades there has been a massive transfer of wealth from the working class to a small global elite. You tend to think of inequality mostly in terms of money. But it's so much more than that. Inequality even affects the places we can visit for recreation. Sports have been taken over by corporations and the very rich. The rich buy their "sky boxes" and other amenities and drive up prices for everyone else. The rich move into scenic areas and drive up house prices to unaffordable levels for everyone else. This article by Barbara Ehrenreich is at www.thenation.com:

Of all the crimes of the rich, the aesthetic deprivation of the rest of us may seem to be the merest misdemeanor. Many of them owe their wealth to the usual tricks: squeezing their employees, overcharging their customers and polluting any land they're not going to need for their third or fourth homes. Once they've made (or inherited) their fortunes, the rich can bid up the price of goods that ordinary people also need--housing, for example. Gentrification is dispersing the urban poor into overcrowded suburban ranch houses, while billionaires' horse farms displace rural Americans into trailer homes. Similarly, the rich can easily fork over annual tuitions of $50,000 and up, which has helped make college education a privilege of the upper classes.

There are other ways, too, that the rich are robbing the rest of us of beauty and pleasure. As the bleachers in stadiums and arenas are cleared to make way for skybox "suites" costing more than $100,000 for a season, going out to a ballgame has become prohibitively expensive for the average family. At the other end of the cultural spectrum, superrich collectors have driven up the price of artworks, leading museums to charge ever rising prices for admission.

June 09, 2008

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IMPEACH CHENEY

MCCAIN NO FRIEND TO VETERANS

Republicans love to use the military to further their own political ambitions. George W. Bush has used the military as a backdrop constantly, even though he has been busily slashing veterans benefits. John McCain is no better. He loves to talk about his Vietnam service and take his tough military stance on the war in Iraq, but his record is consistently anti-veteran. This article by Edward Humes is at www.madison.com:

From 2004 to 2006, the Disabled Veterans of America gave him annual scores ranging from 50 percent to 20 percent on supporting the group's legislative priorities. The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America gave him a grade of D in its most recent analysis of voting records. The American Legion says he is dead wrong on the GI Bill, as does the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

When Sen. Barack Obama (who has averaged an 86 percent rating from the Disabled Veterans of America) criticized McCain on the GI Bill, the Arizona senator angrily suggested that Obama's status as a nonveteran rendered his opinions on military matters worthless (this standard would also discount the opinions of 85 percent of American men, 98.8 percent of American women and two-thirds of Congress). Then he invited a look at his own record by asserting, "I take a back seat to no one in my affection, respect and devotion to veterans."

THE IMMORAL LEVEL OF INEQUALITY

Thanks to the policies of people like George W. Bush the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States is at the levels that existed during the infamous Gilded Age. This is no small matter. Money or the lack of money dictates almost everything about your life in this society. The kind of food you eat, the kind of housing you can afford, your transportation needs, your medical care, and the kind of education that is affordable all come down to money. We have seen policies put in place that reward the already wealthy while taking from working class Americans. This column by
Katrina Vanden Heuvel is at www.thenation.com:

The good news is that Democratic presidential nominee, Senator Barack Obama, quickly spoke out against the decision by Democrats not to take on the loophole after more than twenty lobbying firms worked to preserve it. At the time the campaign issued a statement saying, "If there was ever a doubt that Washington lobbyists don't actually represent real Americans, it's the fact that they stopped leaders of both parties from requiring elite investment firms to pay their fair share of taxes, even as middle-class families struggle to pay theirs. When I'm President, the American people won't have to spend record amounts on lobbying to get their voice heard in Washington. I will close tax loopholes for big corporations...."

But it will take a lot more than closing an obscene tax loophole to reverse thirty years of tax cuts for the rich, union-busting, and deregulation that promoted corporate interests at the expense of consumers--all of this bankrolled by conservatives and corporations to instill blind faith in the market as a magic elixir that can solve any problem.

The result is that we now live in a Second Gilded Age. (And The Nation will hold a name Name Our Epoch! contest starting next week. The winner will be selected by our all-star progressive panel of judges--historian Howard Zinn, journalist Barbara Ehrenreich and novelist Walter Mosley.) The richest 1 percent of Americans currently hold wealth worth nearly $16.8 trillion, $2 trillion more than the bottom 90 percent. According to the Center for American Progress , since 1979 the average income for the bottom half of American households has grown by 6 percent. In contrast, the top 1 percent of earners have seen their incomes rise by 229 percent during that same period.

June 08, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

MCCAIN IS BUSH VERSION 2.0

John McCain advertises himself as a "straight talker" and a "maverick" who has broken from the Republican party numerous times. In fact, McCain has consistently supported Bush's policies. Mr. "Straight Talk" is in the hip pocket of Washington lobbyists. They have even ridden on his campaign bus! This article by Robert Parry is at www.consortiumnews.com:

Since clinching the Republican presidential nomination, John McCain has sought to hide the forest of his neoconservative alignment with George W. Bush amid the trees of details, such as stressing differences over military tactics used in Iraq.

But the larger reality should be clear: McCain is a hard-line neoconservative who buys into Bush’s "preemptive war" theories abroad and his concept of an all-powerful "unitary executive" at home.

From McCain’s pre-Iraq invasion speeches to his campaign’s recent embrace of Bush’s imperial presidency, American voters should realize that if they choose John McCain, they will be locking in at least four more years of war with much of the Islamic world while selling out the Founders’ vision of a democratic Republic where no one is above the law.

THE POSITIVES OF HILLARY'S CAMPAIGN

My first choice for the Democratic nomination was John Edwards. When Edwards dropped out my allegiance shifted to Hillary Clinton. There were things about her campaign that irritated me. Some of what occurred will be used against Barack Obama by the Republicans. But she's intelligent, strong, and dedicated to the things she believes in. Even though she won't get the nomination, she has assumed an important place in history. She has proved that a woman should be judged on her individual accomplishments and policies and not on her gender. Women of future generations should thank her. This column by Gail Collins is at www.nytimes.com:

Over the past months, Clinton has seemed haunted by the image of the "nice girl" who gives up the fight because she’s afraid the boys will be angry if they don’t get their way. She told people she would never, ever say: "I’m the girl, I give up." She would never let her daughter, or anybody else’s daughter, think that she quit because things got too tough.

And she never did. Nobody is ever again going to question whether it’s possible for a woman to go toe-to-toe with the toughest male candidate in a race for president of the United States. Or whether a woman could be strong enough to serve as commander in chief.

Her campaign didn’t resolve whether a woman who seems tough enough to run the military can also seem likable enough to get elected. But she helped pave the way. So many battles against prejudice are won when people get used to seeing women and minorities in roles that only white men had held before. By the end of those 54 primaries and caucuses, Hillary had made a woman running for president seem normal.

June 01, 2008


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IMPEACH CHENEY

MCCLELLAN DIDN'T TELL US ANYTHING NEW

From all the commotion, you'd think former White House spokesman Scott McClellan's "tell all" book gave us stunning new revelations. All McClellan really did was verify what many of us already knew, that Bush and company took us into an unnecessary war. Despite the hideous immorality of that war, McClellan claims he still feels an affection for Bush. In this column Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel look at the craven media and its failure to hold Bush accountable as Bush took us into this war. The column is at washingtonbureau.typepad.com:

Until now, we've resisted the temptation to post on former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's new book, which accuses the Bush White House of launching a propaganda campaign to sell the war in Iraq.

Why? It's not news. At least not to some of us who've covered the story from the start.

Second, we find it a wee bit preposterous -- and we are being diplomatic here -- that a man who slavishly - no, robotically! -- defended President Bush's policies in Iraq and elsewhere is trying to "set the record straight" (and sell a few books) five years and more after the invasion, with U.S. troops still bravely fighting and dying to stabilize that country.

But the responses to McClellan from the Bush administration and media bigwigs, history-bending as they are, compel us to jump in. As we like to say around here, it's truth to power time, not just for the politicians but also for some folks in our own business.

BLEEDING OURSELVES DRY

The United States is addicted to military spending. We have bases all around the world. We have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the planet several times over. We are looking at militarizing space. We have aircraft carriers and bombers and fighter planes and attack drones. There's no real enemy now except for ragtag bands of terrorists armed with low tech weapons. But military spending continues to increase. This commentary by Robert Scheer is at www.latimes.com:

The Soviets had developed the most modern arsenals, and the 9/11 hijackers were armed with box cutters, so how could we justify spending more to defeat Al Qaeda than we ever did to combat the communist enemy? That is the third-rail issue that politicians and the media dread touching because of the national security hysteria generated after the 9/11 attacks. Yet no presidential candidate can be serious about cutting the federal debt, improving education, holding down taxes or paying for any of the other things that the candidates of both parties promise without cutting military spending.


Without slashing the inflated military budget, the next president, who will inherit at least a $400-billion current-accounts deficit along with debt service on seven years of profligate military spending, will not be able to finance any of the domestic reforms that both the surviving Republican candidate and his two Democratic opponents advocate.