ERIC ZUESSE -- How to End America’s MIC (Military-Industrial Complex) and Constant Wars: In Order to Prevent WW III, The U.S. Government Should Default on Its Bonds.

How to End America’s MIC (Military-Industrial Complex) and Constant Wars:

In Order to Prevent WW III, The U.S. Government Should Default on Its Bonds.

 

Eric Zuesse, October 01, 2021

 

America’s congressional progressives should join with the Republican Party’s mere bluff-campaign to drive the U.S. Government into defaulting on its bonds, so that congressional Republicans’ repeated threats to shut down the Government will either shut it down or else enormously embarrass the Republican Party and disappoint its base of voters by exposing the fraudulence, on fiscal and military issues, of congressional Republicans. Doing this would not help congressional Republicans, but it would greatly help the American people; and here is why:

 

International relations are now reaching the brinks of war between the U.S. and its allies, on the one hand, versus Russia and its allies on the other (including China), so that World War III could happen at virtually any time now. Russia and its allies never privatized their weapons-manufacturers; and, so, they’re not controlled by their weapons-makers as America and its allies are. In those ‘enemy’ countries, the armament-firms don’t control the Government; but, in ours, they do. On the U.S.-and-allied side, war is actually the main source of profits and wealth for the biggest investors, who control the successful politicians and their Government. It’s why America is constantly at war. In order for U.S.-and-allied weapons-manufacturing firms (“government contractors”) such as Lockheed Martin and BAE to thrive, they need to increase their weapons-sales to their own Government and also to its allied Governments (who also buy weapons from those firms). Such firms sell little or nothing to consumers; governments are their markets. Consequently, the weapons-manufacturers need to control their government and its international relations including the designations of which foreign nations will be “allies” and which will instead be “enemies” (or targets); and they therefore have large lobbying-operations and make crucial political donations to all but the few members of Congress who oppose new wars and new weapons-procurements. 

 

As a consequence, U.S.-and-allied Governments, but especially America itself, are controlled by its MIC. Constant wars, and military invasions, result from this fact — to “feed the beast.” Doing this (having wars) forces up the percentage of tax-monies that get spent for ‘defense’, and forces down the percentage that gets spent for the public’s health, education and welfare. “It’s national security, and national security comes first,” they say. Consequently, the nation’s public suffer, while the billionaires who control their armaments-producers and their news-media, and who fund the political PACS and basically determine which politicians will have enough campaign-funds to be able to win public offices, thrive, by controlling their Government and its expenditures, and thereby making sure that their military contractors will always be profitable and growing. This mechanism is how the MIC functions. The only way that it can be stopped (the only way that the military’s grip on the U.S. federal Government can be ended) will be the topic here.

 

The MIC started in 1945 when America, the WW II participant that suffered the least damage from the fascist powers, emerged suddenly as the most powerful nation and with the most-rapidly-growing arms-producers. President Truman, with the advice of General Eisenhower, decided to keep that military boom going, and felt that the United States should control the entire planet, including the Soviet Union. This joint decision by Truman, under the advice of Eisenhower, is what caused them to end the War Department, which had been created by America’s Founders, and to start the Defense Department, the nation’s permanent standing army and other military forces, and also to create the CIA, all in order for the United States to ultimately become the one-and-only global hegemon, or, as President Obama often proudly proclaimed, “the one indispensable nation,” meaning that all other nations are “dispensable” — they consist only of vassal-nations, and of target-nations. U.S. arms-producers sell to ‘allies’, but their weapons are to be targeted against ‘enemies’. Both are required. That’s the business which drives post-WW-II America.

 

The least-damaging way to stop this is for the U.S. Government to go into default on its bonds. That would be just the first step, but it’s the essential step. (Socializing America’s armaments-manufacturers — the Government taking majority-control over them so that those firms’ private stockholders will no longer control the U.S. Government — is the only ultimate solution, but that can’t happen unless the Government first goes bankrupt. In fact, for the Government to declare itself to be the 51% owner of each of its top-100 ‘defense’ contractors would not only eliminate the profit motive that currently drives U.S. ‘defense’ policies, but it would redirect huge sums of previous ‘defense’ expenditures into serving the actual needs of its citizens.) 

 

Even more momentous than the issue of global warming (which would end the world gradually) is the issue of WW III — it must be avoided, at all costs. The lowest-cost way to do this would start with the U.S. Government’s defaulting on its bonds, and, then, taking 51% of all of the country’s major arms-makers (so that the military will cease controlling its Government). Control of the Government by the private owners of the Government’s military contractors is also bad because it produces massive corruption, which finally needs to end.

 

As practically everyone knows by now, “Trillions of Dollars in U.S. Military Spending Are Unaccounted-For”. (This is one of the reasons why the U.S. Government currently spends approximately half of the entire planet’s military expenditures.) However, as the researcher who first documented to the public this massive leakage in military expenditures, Mark Skidmore, recently stated, in an interview, the situation has now become even worse. He said in his interview by the independent journalist John Rachel: “In January 2018, the Federal Accounting Standards Board (FASAB) Standard 56 was adopted by the federal government. Standard 56 gives a small number of people (precisely who is unknown) the authority to modify financial statements available to the public. (FASAB Standard 56 and the Authority of the Director of National Intelligence to Waive SEC Financial Reporting – The Missing Money (solari.com)). There are no limitations or parameters around how much the books can be doctored. Further, government authorities are under no obligation to tell the public that the books have been altered. Standard 56 applies to all federal entities and agencies. In summary, we now have two sets of books…a modified one for the public, and a real set that remains hidden. I have no way of knowing the degree to which the books have been altered. (Holding U.S. Treasurys? Beware: Uncle Sam Can't Account For $21 Trillion (forbes.com); Has the Government Legalized Secret Defense Spending? - Rolling Stone).” The reason that the “small number of people (precisely who is unknown)” is not being made public could be that this new rule was instituted precisely because of Professor Skidmore’s having discovered and disclosed publicly that a total of $21 trillion in Pentagon expenditures were untraceable. Apparently, the U.S. Government finally gave up on its repeatedly failed efforts to get a passable audit done of the Pentagon — in other words: that “small number of people” he referred to might be specifically the Defense Department, the unauditable Department of the U.S. Government. Standard 56 might be intended specifically and only for the unauditable Department. That is the ONLY Department which has never been successfully audited. Many people infer from this fact (the uniqueness of the ‘Defense’ Department’s unauditability), that this Department is by far the most corrupt Department of the U.S. federal Government. But, of course, if the MIC has, indeed, swallowed the entire U.S. Government — taken it over — then it has become the military tail that wags the U.S. dog; and, so, one would reasonably expect this sort of situation to exist (that the Pentagon is just hopelessly corrupt — that it can’t function in any other way).

 

Is this a tolerable situation? Obviously, the U.S. Government is no authentic democracy. It might have been before 1945, but it certainly isn’t one now. (In fact, that has been scientifically proven.) Consequently, a second American revolution is urgently needed, so as to restore the U.S. Constitution. The only question is how to do it in the least-destructive way. I propose that, probably by far the least destructive way would start with a bankruptcy of the U.S. Federal Government. It’s going to happen (unless WW III ends everything first). But when? This is the best time to do that. It would also be less destructive to do it now, instead of later. Every additional year of delay is a year of increasing the dangers and the catastrophe that continued inaction brings.

 

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.