David Stockman joins Paul Craig Roberts as a premier critic of US foreign and military policy.
Why is there no peace on Earth? Follow the money and politics (military-industrial-governmental complex).
Good historical summary of why there is no peace and won't be until the Machine is dismantled.
On this analysis Stockman's perennial complaint about "unfunded social welfare entitlements pales against the rationale for defunding military adventurism and the neo-imperialism on which it is based.
The current Ukrainian policy farce emanating from Washington is not only a reminder that the military-industrial-beltway complex is still alive and well, but also demonstrates why the forces of crony capitalism and money politics which sustain it are so lamentable. The fact is, the modern Warfare State has been the incubator of American imperialism since the Cold War, and is now proving itself utterly invulnerable to fiscal containment, even in the face of a $19 trillion national debt.
So 101 years after the Christmas truces along the Western Front there is still no peace on earth. And the long suffering American taxpayers, who foot the massive bills generated by the War Party’s demented and destructive policies, have no clue that Imperial Washington is the principal reason.These concluding paragraphs of the long article are the only point at which Stockman introduces his erroneous monetary and fiscal analysis, but it is the logical conclusion of his primarily historical exposition. Hopefully, he will refocus on the the military extravagance instead of his misdirected attack on the welfare state. But it is not likely.
Contra Corner
Christmas 2015—–Why There Is No Peace On Earth
David Stockman
5 comments:
Now, how is "crony capitalism" so much different than clientelism? Aside from startup costs.
good grief! - tilting towards windmills for the most inane reason
The best argument he can muster against the Military Industrial Complex is that it keeps our fiat "unbalanced?"
WTF does "balanced fiat" even mean?
If you're gonna pull an obtuse axiom out of your ass, you may as well ask "why?" As in, "for what reason?"
and THIS is the guy who said that the level of discussion in the highest levels of government is lower than you could possibly imagine ....
soooo ... his suggestion is to punt it exactly 180deg off kilter; go figure
Every day that I wake up and optimistically think that there's hope for mankind, I have to climb over yet another deranged person like this, cluttering the path to logic. They're everywhere ... like getting bogged down in mud flowing across the road.
Do we have to drain the swampland ... that is our education system? So that more citizens get more practice at THINKING on an everyday basis ... about how to apply NEW solutions to NEW challenges? Ya think?
Marriner Eccles nailed it, back in 1951. The problem is in our pattern of thinking.
https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/scribd/?item_id=7744&filepath=/docs/historical/eccles/eccles_19510727.pdf#scribd-open
"The common fault and causes of these failure of the past lies not in our democratic institutions, not in our ability to produce and distribute goods, but in our thinking." [Or, more precisely, in our LACK of clear thinking. ]
"... I venture to say that the trouble lies not so much with these institutions as in our failure to adapt these institutions to the needs of the modern world."
If J&J Sixpack need an analogy, try this one. It doesn't do much good to build & distribute increasingly sophisticated automobiles, if we quit updating the requirements for getting a drivers license.
STockman can't help himself, but to throw in his erroneous understanding of economics. It eats him up that the $19 trillion "debt" is not creating some catastrophe.
The good thing is that it is only in the final two paragraphs. The rest of the long piece is well-researched historically.
More people on the right are now coming out against the craziness — PCR, Lawrence Wilkerson, Pat Buchanan, and now David Stockman. They are sounding like Noam Chomsky on this.
That's true, Tom, but if they keep linking their dawning awareness to the entirely wrong reasons, we'll end up back where we started soon enough.
How many cycles of this does it take, until grandkids don't have to re-learn the same painful lessons that their grandparents learned the hard way, and their parents either forgot or never learned?
When will our electorate notice that the record is stuck, and endlessly replaying the same pattern? (And then do something to break the cycle?)
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