David Swanson - How We Could End the Permanent War State

The Neoliberals, the Neocons, who now call themselves the Liberal Interventionalists, have behaved so badly over the years, crashing our economy, bailing themselves out, or rather, helping themselves to our money, that maybe most people are now cottoning on to the con. The populist right - as represented by people like Alex Jones, the libertarians - like Ron Paul and AntiWar.com - as well various left and liberal groups have all had enough of it. And MMT, the Keynesians, and many other economists are all showing how standard economics doesn't work, and is probably just another con to enrich a tiny few. And now the new trade agreements along with the vulture funds have given US finance an even worse reputation than it already had. Everything stinks!

Bernie Sanders started a new movement, it's going to carry on.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/28/how-we-could-end-the-permanent-war-state/

Nevertheless I am here to suggest to you that, despite the fact that the war state with all its private allies appear to be riding as high as ever, the historical circumstances may now be favorable to a frontal challenge to the war state for the first time in many year.

First: the Sanders campaign has shown that a very large proportion of the millennial generations do not trust those who hold power in the society, because they have rigged the economic and social arrangements to benefit a tiny minority while screwing the vast majority – and especially the young. Obviously the permanent war state’s operations can be convincingly analyzed as fitting that model, and that opens up a new opportunity to take on the permanent war state.

Second: U.S. military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan have been such obvious disastrous failures that the present historical juncture is marked by a low-point in support for interventionism reminiscent of the late Vietnam War and post-war period (late 1960s to early 1980s). Most Americans turned against Iraq and Afghanistan about as fast as they had against the Vietnam War. And the opposition to military intervention in Syria, even in the face of overwhelming media coverage that encouraged support for such a war was overwhelming. A Gallup poll in September 2013 showed that the level of support for the proposed use of force in Syria – 36 percent – was lower than that for any of the five wars proposed since the end of the Cold War.

Third, the very obvious bankruptcy of the two parties in this election have made tens of millions in this country – especially young people, blacks and independents – open to a movement that connects the dots that need to be connected.

With those favorable strategic conditions in mind, I suggest that it is time for a newly invigorated national movement to come together around a concrete strategy for accomplishing the goal of ending the permanent war state by taking away its means of intervening in foreign conflicts

I'm still having loads of problems with the Windows 10 update, so this was the best I could get this article to look today. I shall revert back to the older build soon.