An Aha Moment

"Conservatives" will always argue against making any serious cuts in Defense Spending by trying to make it all about National Security.  They have to ignore the 6 million American jobs that are directly dependent on the Pentagon because of course, "gubmint don't create no jobs", so they have to rationalize the flat-out waste of things like F-22 and F-35, the B-1 and the B-2, and the maintenance of a Doomsday Capable nuclear arsenal etc etc etc.  Hey, ya just never know when them Rooskies might start feelin' peckish, so we need to be ready.

I have to admit, I've been a little reluctant to hack away at the military budget because of the those jobs.  I remember a few times when cutbacks put a lot of good people out of work and had a pretty bad ripple affect across the economy; and I remember thinking Reagan's huge deficits were OK because the gi-normous military buildup was really just a federal jobs program in disguise.

But guess what.  Turns out it was mostly bullshit.  Imagine that - somebody with a vested interest in keeping the money flowing telling me stories about jobs that weren't really true just to keep the money flowing.  Sometimes, my own ignorance and gullibility shocks even myself.

So here it is - a new look from The National Priorities Project, and The Project For Defense Alternatives

hat tip = Wonkette

Here's the PERI link

Here's the PDA link

Disclaimer: Everybody's playing an angle of some kind, but not all angles are equal.

It's A Wonderment (updated)

NOTE: I couldn't get any confirmation on this - no news outlets are picking it up at all.  So it's prob'ly falsely reported or an outright hoax.

This one has me going in 37 different directions at once. I'll try to get some guidance by running it by some people who should know about such things and come back to it later, but I feel the need to post it right now.

Some questions: Is this what Rumsfeld's vision was all about? Did he simply take Smedley Butler's characterization of the US military as "muscle for the corporations" and let it fly? 

This OathKeeper stuff has been around for a dozen (?) years, and the militarization of law enforcement has been there for just as long - why is this coming up big again now? Is it just because of this latest fight over Defense Authorization, or is it because "the wrong guy" happens to be in the Oval Office?

However it lays out, there's political gold in this for somebody.

(hat tip = Democratic Underground)

Welcome Home, Sarge

I guess all I can say is that you should get used to it(?)  And also that this is actually what you've been fighting for, in spite of what you believe you were supposed to be fighting for.

Privatization is the newspeak term for when Government is manipulated in order to pump public dollars into private pockets.

For myself, I can only say I'm sorry for not being able to keep you from it.

Just A Single Nod

One small detail of OBL's demise that's drifted thru the noise over the last coupla days is that  JSOC (Joint Special Ops Command - the outfit that pulled off the raid in Abbottabad) was Stanley McCrystal's baby.  Also, McCrystal was a major player in making the deal with Pakistan that included the "Hot Pursuit Clause" that made it all legal to invade Pakistan in our attempt to hammer OBL.

People under McCrystal's command were openly hostile to their CinC and others in Obama's admin (as reported via Rolling Stone Magazine earlier this year).  That's called insubordination, and it just can't be tolerated.  Our system requires keeping the military subordinate to civilian authority because we know it can be extremely dangerous to allow even the best general officers to build any public constituency that runs counter to that civilian authority while still in uniform.   So I won't cry for poor ol' Stanley because I think firing him was exactly the right thing to do, but I think we can acknowledge the guy for having made an important contribution.  Way to go, Stan.  Thanks - and enjoy your retirement.