“We want our money back!”

 

We have been ripped off!

We have been lied to, manipulated, and frightened into supporting the largest theft of our hard-earned taxpayer dollars ever __ easily the biggest heist in the history of the entire world.

If you buy a hair drier or a fruit blender at a store, then when you get home and find out it doesn't work, what do you do?  You go back and get a refund.

It's broken.

You deserve your money back.

Well . . . it's the same deal with wasteful government spending.

We paid our taxes in good faith. We trusted our political leaders to do the right things, to put it to good and proper use.

But they lied to us.

And we didn't just get a defective fruit blender or broken hair drier. We got defective wars, defective military equipment, defective leadership. We got a defective economy where only the rich do well and for the rest of us, it's broken.  The con artists we elected to office took our money, sometimes under false pretenses, and wasted it. We now have broken bridges, broken roads, broken schools, broken communities, broken homes!

In my previous two blogs, here and here, I railed against the enormous waste of taxpayer money on defense-industry profiteering, boondoggles, and the pursuit of unnecessary and fraudulent wars.

By my calculations, since 1992, over 24 years of bloated defense budgets resulting from bad foreign policy decisions, psychopathic delusions of world domination, two major wars, paranoid obsession with security which has trashed the Constitution and is well on its way to making America a police state, and pork barrel squandering of hard-earned taxpayer dollars, I came up with a total of $4.52 trillion entirely wasted.

$4.52 trillion, folks!

Look at this and try not to faint or have your head explode . . .
 
All this time, we regular Americans __ the ones that don't belong to country clubs __ could have used this money. 

If we had had this $4.52 trillion, we wouldn't be so far in debt, we wouldn't be struggling from paycheck to paycheck. We wouldn't have so many foreclosures and bankruptcies. We would have put this money to good use: Improving our homes and communities, properly feeding and clothing our kids, modernizing our schools.

Yes, we've been had. Big time!

And there it is in black-and-white __ with some green and purple thrown in for cheer.

Americans got a defective product. We were cheated and conned.

Now the bill has come due. 

$4,524,000,000,000!

This comes to $14,186 for every man, woman and child in America.

Or it means refunding $25,416 to each and every living person who filed a tax return in the last twenty-four years.

Either way you look at it, this money is due and payable . . . IMMEDIATELY!

And don't tell us the check is in the mail. We want to see some green!

Just load up all those MRAPs and other military trucks roaming around everywhere these days with some cash and start going house-to-house.

For the NSA clowns that are reading this blog and unconstitutionally spying on me, please do me a huge favor and pass along the above invoice to President Obama and Secretary of the Treasury, Jack Lew.  Please mark it 'Urgent'.  We expect to see some prompt action.

Write on the envelope . . .

You've had OUR MONEY long enough.
People are getting real IMPATIENT.
You stole it. Now give it back!

If this refund is not in the hands of every deserving American citizen very soon, I suspect a lot of people are going to get real testy.  I don't know how many pitchforks there are, but I do know there are over 300,000,000 guns floating around.

Just sayin'.

Yes, we want our country back.

Of course, we want our democracy back.

But for starters . . .

We want our money back!



[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]



“We want our money back!”

Bulging Waste Line

 

I am not anti-government.

What follows is not an argument for reducing government.

It is evidence that we need . . .

Good government.

Smart government.

Honest government.

Visionary government.

Representative government.

The following is hardly an exhaustive list. But let me just offer some examples and some numbers on vast, incomprehensible, mind-numbing, breathtaking, destructive, possibly suicidal waste by government misadventures and boondoggles over the past few decades.

I am focusing on defense squandering and pursuit of unnecessary war.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, pictured at the top of this article, has been judged by many knowledgeable military analysts as the largest boondoggle in the history of the world. It is plagued with design flaws and technical problems. So far it has cost nearly $400 billion and total outlays to bring it into full production and implementation are projected to exceed $1.5 trillion.

The Department of Defense spent $40 billion between 2001 and 2014 on a missile defense program called Ground-Based Midcourse Defense System. It has been a complete flop. 

Another missile defense fiasco called X-Band Radar, a floating sea-based system, wasted $10 billion of taxpayer money. This was a project of the Missile Defense Agency, which still gets funded $8-10 billion annually, despite producing practically nothing of value.

At the end of 2014, Congress allocated funds for programs the Pentagon didn't even want:

• $1.46 billion for fifteen EA-18G Growler electronic warfare planes
• $1 billion to begin work on an additional San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship
• $479 million for four additional F-35 fighter jets (bringing the total number funded to 38)
• $341 million to modernize twelve Apache helicopters and nine Black Hawk helicopters
• $200 million for an additional Joint High Speed Vessel ship
• $155 million for twelve additional MQ-9 Reaper drones
• $154 million for an additional P-8A Poseidon Navy surveillance aircraft
• $120 million for M1 Abrams tank upgrades
• $150 million for medium and heavy tactical vehicles

Let's up the ante a bit. Look at this chart.


The U.S. has spent $1.5 trillion so far fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. Mind you, both of these wars were completely unnecessary. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And the Taliban offered to turn over to us Osama bin Laden, who was on a dialysis machine in Kandahar, if we didn't bomb them. So we bombed them!

Analysts are predicting that when all of the ancillary expenses are added in, including the interest on the money we borrowed to fight these two bogus wars, the combined total cost will be $4-6 trillion.

Now to add insult to injury, I'll take this a step further.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, Americans were promised a peace dividend. With the Cold War competition over, we could now reduce the defense budget and devote more of our tax dollars to those domestic items which would make life for everyone in the country better __ schools and libraries, parks, community and infrastructure investment, better education, recreational facilities, maybe child care services, improved health care.

The peace dividend never happened. For 16 of the 24 subsequent years, military spending increased. In fact over two-and-a-half decades, the U.S. spent over $2.5 trillion beyond the level of military spending in 1992.

$2.5 trillion!

Instead of us getting a peace dividend, defense allocations went up __ way up __ adding enormously to the national debt and cutting short all of those wonderful things that were supposed to happen since we were entering a new, more peaceful phase of our history.

Interestingly, the more we spent on military, the more conflict and war there was.

You have to wonder if this was a mere coincidence.

Now with the military budget more than twice what it was in 2000 __ and this is just the official military budget which doesn't include a mind-boggling assortment of black budget allocations and defense spending tucked away in other departments __ we live in a more dangerous world than ever, with whole countries destroyed, jihadists, like ISIS, the Nusra Front, al Qaeda rampaging from one end of the world to the other, and a whole multitude of crises brewing in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Africa, and the South China Sea.

Not surprisingly, the U.S. is being called the Empire of Chaos in some parts of the world. Recently, in an international survey by WIN and Gallup, America easily won the #1 spot as “the greatest threat to peace” on the planet.  China and Pakistan were a distant second and third.  Yaaay!  Go America!

We are without any doubt militarily the most powerful nation on Earth, arguably the most powerful nation in history.

We already spend almost as much on defense as the rest of the world combined!

With all of this military might, we have lost every single conflict __ except one which could have been won by a high school soccer team __ since World War II.

The obvious question is . . .

What drives this extraordinary squandering of taxpayer dollars?

Actually . . . that's easy.

The defense industry in its relentless pursuit of profits building a lot of junk that doesn't work; the misguided neocon agenda of Congress and the White House commending the purchase of a lot of weapons we don't need; the hunger to be the preeminent power in the world; the paranoid preoccupation of the security agencies with the potential for terrorist attacks from both within and from outside our borders; our bombing-is-the-only-solution foreign policy which creates far more enemies than it destroys; our sociopathic infatuation with American exceptionalism which creates resentment internationally and makes us the easy-choice target for aggression; the dubious distinction of being the biggest exporter on the planet of weapons and military hardware, which may bring in a lot of profits for the military-industrial complex, but perpetuates chaos and carnage, endless threats and conflict . . . all combine to destroy any sense of proportion, perspective, and fiscal responsibility.

The verdict . . .

America's obsession with the military is bankrupting us.

It will probably destroy us.


[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]


Bulging Waste Line

War! . . . What is it good for? . . . Profits!

 

War . . . war . . . war.

So many wars.

So little time.

Who remembers the great song released in 1970 by Edwin Starr, called "War"?:

War, huh, yeah.
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing.
Uh-huh. War, huh, yeah ...

Absolutely nothing?

While the lyrics were great and an inspiration to the anti-war movement, which was railing against the Vietnam War at the time, unfortunately war is good for something.
Profits!



The U.S. is the biggest exporter of weapons in the world.

One great thing about all of this killing hardware, much of which will ultimately be turned around and used against us by terrorists or former-friends now-enemies:  We can proudly point to the label on each and every weapon, one which isn't seen very often these days on much of anything else . . .

MADE IN AMERICA! 

My heart swells with such patriotic pride on this Memorial Day weekend to know that we're applying so much American ingenuity and hard work to keeping our corporate defense contractors and their CEOs rolling in the dough.

Gosh . . . I'm getting all teary-eyed!



This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

War! . . . What is it good for? . . . Profits!

Plausible Deniability

 

We should be hopeful . . . but cautious.

The latest diplomatic initiative by the U.S. in what appears to be the beginning of a welcome and very necessary rapprochement with Russia, requires withholding quick judgment and maintaining a judicious eye.

We've seen this before. Granted, it would be wonderful if America has come to its senses and has decided that the risks of bullying Russia far outweigh any imagined  benefits. But taking even a cursory a look at recent history, "wonderful" is a rare, if non-existent, exception whenever the U.S. does anything on the diplomatic front.

I will be offering a possible scenario which with my every fiber I hope is not what unfolds.

Secretary of State Kerry, accompanied no less by the mistress dominatrix of neocon terror herself, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland __ a demon diplomat who helped engineer the most obvious coup in history in the Ukraine __ talked to Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow on Tuesday, May 12.

Apparently, Kerry passed along the sentiment that the U.S. wants to work in concert with Russia on the Ukraine crisis, and moreover supports the Minsk II agreement, viewing it as the most promising and constructive path toward resolving the dispute.

The meeting lasted four hours. Both sides claimed the talks were frank, though they didn't produce any major breakthroughs.

A few reporters noted that Nuland seemed to be pouting when she exited the meeting. Hardly a surprise there, since she is a shallow and vulgar shrew who only smiles when sparklers and balloons herald the triumphs of her destructive anti-Russian tomfoolery. 

In the press conference which followed the long discussions, Kerry then warned President Poroshenko he should "think twice" before shelling the Donetsk airport, something by the way he has already started doing.

While this apparent turnaround in the confrontation the U.S. has been mounting for over a year now __ vilifying Russia, imposing sanctions, demonizing Putin, increasing military presence and staging war games all over Europe, sometimes right next to Russia's borders __ appears to be a positive development, I fear this latest white hat routine is yet another diplomatic feint.

America is again the nice guy. Taking the initiative to make things right with the Russians. Talking up peace.  Encouraging Poroshenko to cool it with the aggression.

Of course, implied in Kerry's statement warning Poroshenko is that the U.S. has no control over him. That he's his own man. Which is blatant nonsense. If you just look close enough, you can see the puppet strings manipulating Poroshenko's every ham-fisted attempt to look like a credible figure.

So let's say Poroshenko not only continues to bomb the Donetsk airport, but mounts a full scale assault on the East. He has stated with embarrassing candor very recently, even after meeting with Merkel, Hollande, and Putin, and agreeing to the terms of Minsk II, that he will not rest until he has achieved total control over Novorussia, AND reclaimed Crimea. That his real focus is war with Russia itself, though this was couched in unaccounted for paranoia that Russia would be attacking Ukraine this summer.

Thus, continuation and expansion of this conflict is inevitable.

Russia has also made it clear that it wants the cease fire to hold, that it wants a peaceful resolution of the conflict in accordance with the Minsk II agreement, BUT it will not allow the wholesale slaughter of Russians in the Eastern territories.

Here is what I fear . . .

Now that they've benefited from six months of training by the U.S. "advisers", armed with new "defensive" weapons supplied by various parties at the behest of America and NATO, Poroshenko will attack the East. Russia will respond and send the Ukraine army running. Russia may even feel its necessary to post garrisons in the Eastern territories to protect the local population and prevent another assault.

The U.S. will then make propaganda hay out of all of this.

"We went to Russia. We tried to be friends. We don't approve of Poroshenko's rash moves but we can't control the guy.  What he did wasn't very nice.  But look at Russia!  They are trying to rebuild the Soviet Union by invading other countries!"

America will then redouble its efforts to isolate Russia with new sanctions, more military presence on Russia's borders, more character assassination of Vladimir Putin. The U.S. will pull NATO and the rest of the world on board. Cold War 2.0 will exponentially accelerate and again we'll be facing the prospects of World War III.

It's simpleminded and stupid beyond belief but with the ironclad control the U.S. has on Western media, such nonsensical smears and blatant propaganda has worked in the past and will probably work again.

What is this all about?

The long game is pinning down Russia, keeping it in check, never allowing it the room to achieve its full economic and military potential. Hem it in, poke at it and always keep it off balance, constantly keep it scrambling __ something the U.S. does very effectively with its own citizenry __ make it angry, try to goad it into making a rash move, use any excuse to humiliate it in the eyes of the world.

It's a key ingredient of the demented neocon strategy of total dominance, which dreams of a world begging for mercy and crumbs from the Great American Empire.

Isolate Russia . . . contain it . . . ultimately dominate it.

If this new developing scenario plays out as I described it, it means that Kerry's mission to Moscow was just more geopolitical gaming, that America's claim to want cooperation and constructive engagement just more world-destabilizing hypocrisy, that maybe Victoria Nuland has some real acting talent, and more profoundly . . .

NO ONE SHOULD EVER BELIEVE ANYTHING WASHINGTON SAYS OR DOES!

What's new?


[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Plausible Deniability

The Horror and the Shame

As deep-rooted hatred of Russia which spans many decades, and now the neocon agenda of dismembering The Bear and plundering its vast natural resources, accelerate the drive by Western powers to initiate a war that will end all wars  __ because it will probably end the human race __ it would be helpful for the more thoughtful, rational, and considerably better-informed citizens of our country to remind the ranting, chest-beating bullies who seem to be in charge of our misguided foreign policy, of some basic history. These noxious think tank thugs are the charlatans who can be heard accusing Russians of being paranoid, taunting them for foolishly raising a fuss about the U.S. and NATO taking over Ukraine.

Look at the chart above.

Russia has every reason to be concerned about aggression. It's a brutal, horrifying fact of history, not some product of conjecture or brooding anxiety.

Russia has every reason to be concerned about the military encirclement now in place. Troops and weapons are not theoretical uncertainties. They are existential threats.

Russia lost more soldiers and citizens battling the Nazi Wehrmacht than England, Poland, Yugoslavia, France, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Italy and Germany itself . . . combined!

So it is hardly a surprise that Russia gets a bit nervous when NATO troops and weaponry are shoved right up next to its borders, when lunatic anti-Russian fulminating prevails in the Western press, when the vicious campaign of demonizing their much-beloved Vladimir Putin __ making comparisons to Hitler with no apparent irony, no less __ is orchestrated on an unprecedented scale, when unnecessary provocations mount week after week in the form of military exercises and war games, and when insults compete with lies to isolate Russia from the rest of the world.

America could be accused of having an enormous tolerance for shame, except it apparently doesn't have any shame these days. Now in a fanciful re-writing of history __ evidently to bolster its sagging self-esteem and attempt to marginalize Russia with crassly-formulated propaganda __ it has decided that it was the U.S. which defeated Nazi Germany.

Ignore the fact that 9 out of every 10 German troops were killed by the Russian forces in a historic display of military determination and bravery which claimed nearly 11,000,000 of their soldiers.

Ignore the fact that the German army had largely been defeated by the Russians before the landing at Normandy and the Western front assault by the non-Russian Allied troops.

Ignore the fact that 27,000,000 Russians died at the hand of a German nation gone mad.

Just keep repeating the President's favorite word these days __ exceptional __ and repeat over and over the mantra we will be hearing more and more as Americans are stampeded into another morally, economically bankrupting war:  Russia bad . . . America good . . . Russia bad . . . America good . . .

Anyone who is paying attention knows where all this is going. The drums of war beat out a very simple rhythm that even a child can understand.

Anyone who is paying attention also knows why this is taking place.

Anyone who is paying attention knows that yet again, we the helpless pawns of pointless power games, will be required to make the ultimate sacrifice of our precious lives, in the name of imperial plunder and greater riches for the corporate plutocrats.

The problem is . . . very few are paying attention.

After all, we have our own troubles at home:  Most recently Ferguson and Baltimore.

And weighty conundrums:  "To Hillary or not to Hillary, that is the question!"

No, there's not much time to worry about all that stuff happening over there, or sufficient calm to think clearly and consider productive alternative plans, with all the hysterical cries of the warmongers relentlessly poisoning the airwaves and opeds, shouting down the few voices of sanity who attempt a balanced, coherent analysis and constructive conversation.

I still have to wonder . . .

In terms of the few isolated individuals who might actually be paying attention, yet still go along with this march to madness, and the neocon psychopaths themselves who can't wait to chase their self-sabotaging and bankrupt delusions of world conquest and American imperial rule, WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?

Didn't we learn anything from Vietnam?

Didn't we learn anything from Afghanistan?

Didn't we learn anything from Iraq?

I never hear a timidly tendered . . . "Oops."

Not a chagrin-tinged . . . "Sorry about that."

Not even a mildly rueful . . . "Hmm."

Evidently reflection and apologies are for girly-boys or the zombies of the liberal class.

Many of our most respected think tanks now appear to be staffed with students of history equipped with no memory and no conscience. You're either with us or you're against us. Either you hate Russia and despise Vlad the Impaler . . . or you're a Putin boot-licker.

Jingoistic cheer leading driven by testosterone-fueled delusions of empire spews simplistic black-hat/white-hat bumper stickers. The public swoons in Orwellian silence.

Russia bad . . . America good . . . Russia bad . . .

What's another 27,000,000 bodies?

How about a 1,000,000,000 bodies?

Or if this thing goes nuclear . . . 7,000,000,000 bodies?

YEAH!  Now we're talking!

Actually it's kind of the perfect ending.

With horror on this scale, there is no one left to feel any shame.


[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Freedom of the Press

 

My last piece was the longest, most intensively-researched, article I've ever posted here. Called Give Peace A Chance,  it contained a large number of links throughout in support of my various statements of fact.

Beyond some of the very eye-opening information I came across and cited in the piece itself, I had a startling epiphany.

Generally, I see noticeable differences in what is reported "out here" __ as you probably know, I'm an expat living in Japan __ and what I get from the American media.  These are sometimes slight but unmistakable differences in content, but more often of emphasis, as the respective articles understandably are tailored for different audiences.

But this time my realization went far beyond that. I encountered what can only be deemed crude and blatant censorship, a glaring lack of any coverage of specific noteworthy events by any of the standard U.S. news outlets __ the ones most commonly used by Americans.
Let me explain.

Sometimes I am accused of leaning too much on RT, the Russian news site. Personally I find it to be extremely valuable, mostly quite balanced, and a great source for a different take on world events. But since I sometimes get slammed by Russophobes for using that "damn Russkie propaganda rag", I typically try to mix in a lot of different sources when providing support for whatever point I'm trying to make.

Since they have solid __ if often undeserved __ reputations in America, I heavily rely on the Washington Post, New York Times, Forbes Magazine, Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, CNN, Bloomberg, Huffington Post, Time Magazine, and occasionally USA Today.

For non-U.S. reporting I turn to Britain's Guardian, Telegraph and Independent, Reuters, Al Jazeera, and a few Asian online news sites.

What struck me was the number of articles related to the Ukraine crisis, the confrontation with Russia, the frenzy of military exercises throughout Europe, the escalation of the new Cold War stand-off between Russian and the West, and preparation for a possibly massive military conflict between NATO and Russia, which HAD NO COMPARABLE REPORTING in America's main stream media __ I mean nothing!

In other words, an item would be featured in RT, but Google produced no similar article in the American press.

There were numerous examples. But let me mention a few that stood out.

"Over 100 US armored vehicles roll into Latvia, NATO flexes muscles in Europe" was the headline in RT. No mention in the U.S. of what seems like a rather startling development.

You would expect an announcement like "US National Guard sends 12 F-15 interceptor jets to Europe to guard against Russia" to raise some eyebrows. Of course, since none of the major news programs __ at least none that I can find __ mentioned it, eyebrows got the day off.

A month after the Minsk II agreement struck by France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine, which specifically bars introduction from outside countries of material support and lethal weapons, we have "Poroshenko: 11 EU states struck deal with Ukraine to deliver weapons, including lethal", an ominous bit of treachery. While there is mention at an Iranian news site of Russian objections to this, and a link back to the RT article at Israel Foreign Affairs, discussion in major media forums is conspicuously lacking in the U.S. and Europe itself.

How about "US troops in Europe request bigger guns amid Russia anxieties", appearing April 25? Do Americans even know there are U.S. soldiers in countries right on Russia's border preparing for battle? They do only if they read the California Telegraph, a news outlet I never heard of before this.

No wonder very few in America seem aware of what's at stake here, the current magnitude of the tension, the potential for this crisis escalating into World War III, or the possibility of an apocalyptic nuclear exchange between Russia and the U.S.

This is a frightening and dangerous breech of trust between the American people and its news sources. How are people supposed to make informed judgments about what their government is doing in their name without knowing what's going on?

Then again maybe the point is . . . they're not.

Of course, it's much worse than just sins of omission.

The other half of the story is the deception __ the gross distortions and outright lies that sometimes appear.

Sometimes the distortions are so profound, if you were to lay an article written for U.S. public consumption next to one on the exact same topic written by a correspondent from a non-NATO country, you would think they were about two completely different, unrelated matters. Often you get an entirely opposite rendering of what actually happened.

There is, of course, a pattern here. It's one I've seen unfolding and becoming increasingly obvious over the past few years.

At first it surfaced as journalists just respectfully aligning their perceptions and editorial perspectives to official government positions on any matters pertaining to international relations and formulation of foreign policy. Politeness and pandering discreetly replaced asking probing questions and conducting deep-source investigation.

That morphed into advocating and cheer leading on behalf of the government. We saw an abundance of this leading up to the second Iraq war. Press conferences with George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld were like frat parties before a home game.

American media now only mimics the official government line. Rather than actually cover the news, investigate it thoroughly and report it objectively, it merely takes dictation from the official spokespersons for the White House, State Department, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies, including the NSA and CIA. Doing original research, challenging shoddy reasoning, objecting to spurious claims, demanding proof and corroboration, all have faded into a hazy memory of quaint bygone times.

I can only draw one conclusion.

There is indeed freedom of the press in America.

But it's not quite what I understood it to be.

Now it's the freedom to keep Americans in the dark.
It's the freedom cherry-pick from the vast array of newsworthy items and only publish those consistent with the preferred narrative of our government.

It's the freedom to suppress anything which official spokespersons find inconvenient or untimely in their ongoing effort to enforce their manufactured version world events.

It's the freedom to distort and invent facts which support official government policies.

It's the freedom to shape the national conversation in ways that aligns with the official view of developments and incidents.

It's the freedom to shape public perception by using loaded phrases and unrepresentative images, to editorialize while hiding behind a facade of objectivity.

It's the freedom to malign and demonize both national and international figures who the U.S. government has targeted for character assassination and marginalization.

It's the freedom to do balanced journalism, but with a new, different twist. Individual correspondents will balance their desire for career advancement with the demand they write the right kind of articles given the correct spin about a range of "acceptable" issues. News media organizations will balance their need for access to the White House and other high-level officials with the kind of coverage that meets the approval of those they access.

But I will give credit where it's due. Under this new definition of "freedom of the press", American journalists can now surely be saluted for unfailingly and aggressively exercising this time-honored privilege.

"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will in time produce a people as base as itself." --- Joseph Pulitzer

[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]