Guns vs. Butter vs. ButterGuns

In the struggle for our future,

there are two kinds of people in America:

Those who see military spending as an expense,

and those who see military spending as an income.

...We all know who's winning – yes, America's military/industrial complex – who receive more “defense” money than the next 10 countries combined. American taxpayers have been reduced to part-time slaves to pay for an oppressive police state and a military “empire” – that essentially goes to war for multi-national corporations. (We are definitely not getting our money's worth of freedom.)

Moreover, in the long run; everyone loses when our infrastructure suffers, our scientists don't have the resources to help us adapt, and our natural resources get depleted rapidly. (Think about it; nobody wants to live in an apocalyptic world where all we have left are guns.)

We can blame this huge waste of resources on our corrupt government and our auction style elections, but there's more to it.

Recently, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi admitted that Congress is afraid of the CIA.

Recently, Senator Dianne FeinStein revealed that the CIA is spying on the Senate.

And the only rational explanation for (political transparency) candidate Obama's transformation to (staunch spy supporter) President Obama – is that he too, is afraid of (or even blackmailed by) spies for the military/industrial complex.

This isn't the first time an American President has had to deal with a rouge military/industrial complex. In fact, this has gone back as far as President John F. Kennedy.

...On more than one occasion President JFK voiced his fear, to numerous people, that he feared a coup.

...And then, something that looked very much like a coup happened.

 

What was that? Didn't John McCain call the JFK assassination an “intervention?” "Intervention" sounds like an Orwellian term for “coup.” No wonder most of us continue to doubt the magic bullet theory.

But no matter who pulled the trigger(s) to kill President Kennedy, the war mongers regained control – and they got their Cold War – and their Viet Nam.

...Warriors got to be heroes, military contractors got to keep their jobs, and a few merchants of death got even richer.

I highly recommend Robert F. Kennedy Jr's recent article JFK vs. The War Machine.

Now, compare that to the Rolling Stone article Obama vs. The Hawks.

Some things never change.

Positions of power attract the power hungry.

The power hungry tend to be aggressive for power.

Tyrants are by definition aggressive, power hungry people.

Consequently, systems with concentrated positions of power typically creep towards tyranny and wars.

How do we prevent this?

With democracy.

And since American democracy hasn't been preventing tyranny creep, we need more direct democracy.

Fortunately, direct democracy might not be that hard to accomplish indirectly. Just vote for the candidates who promise to make decisions solely reflecting popular opinion.