Whether you believe deja vu all over again, that history repeats itself, or that addicts do what their addiction tells them to, I think I can convince you that we have been here and done this before.I mean we have had the guns v butter elections in the past, and it seems we are heading for one again, made certain by the passing of Health Care Reform Legislation yesterday.
What I want to do is look into the background thinking emanating from the major cognitive forces that are at play, by tying in some recent Dredd Blog posts with concurring blog posts in other places which tend to confirm the theory.
Guns v butter debates raged in the Vietnam 60's and in the Reagan 80's.
Historically, when guns are winning and butter is losing, homelessness, job loss, home loss, and war deficits are the norm.
When butter is winning the warsters have to get by on billions instead of trillions, and the middle class and poor can pay their bills.
That brings us to the current war budget state of affairs, where guns have been ascendant for a decade, and as usual, the nation faces financial ruin as a proximate result.
To be fair, MOMCOM is fair like Coach Bear Bryant, she-it treats everyone she-it deals with the same, with equality - she-it treats everyone like garbage.
Pentagonia, capitol of Bullshitistan, well aware of the current political climate, has declared who its greatest enemy is, believing it is health care:
The U.S. military keeps searching the horizon for a peer competitor, the challenger that must be taken seriously. Is it China? What about an oil rich and resurgent Russia?(The Enemy the Pentagon Should Fear Most: Health Care, National Defense Magazine, emphasis added). We have been pointing out this very strange ideology for a while now, using "MOMCOM" symbolism to isolate the militant energy fighting against the middle class and poor in the United States.
But the threat that is most likely to hobble U.S. military capabilities is not a peer competitor, rather it is health care.
The source is a pathetic and intellectually bankrupt think tank, the war colleges.
They had experienced a coup, by moderates within, some time back which led to budget surplus during the Clinton administration, and national prosperity at home, which in turn led to MOMCOM demise as warmongering ebbed.
Then a neoCon insurgency took place which eventually installed Bush II as High Priest In Chief, to spearhead the put down of budget surpluses with a return to the imperialism of war.
The effect was to redirect government budget surplus into the coffers of the one percenter plunder barons (oil barons, war contractors, warster weapons corporations, and their lackies on Wall Street - the banksters), and away from the 99 percenters, the middle class and poor.
Now, in preparation for the upcoming election, the Democrats seem to be advancing an era of butter, while the Republicans resist and prepare to campaign for more guns.
The democrats seem to know they cannot mount a frontal attack against the security fear which the neoCons have instilled in the people, but The National Defense Magazine seems to sense that the democrats are mounting a side and rear attack.
This outfoxing of the fox will do the same thing as a frontal attack, that is, end the wars and bring prosperity back to the suffering middle class and poor people.
If true, this is a brilliant strategy which fits in quite well with the current state of affairs.
If the left and the progressive independents get wind of it, they may well be brought back into the fold.
Dredd,
ReplyDeleteYou're more optimistic than I am. I don't see a little thing like the diversion of tax revenues to health care or the resulting deficits getting in the way of MOMCOM budgets. Politicians on both sides if the aisle seem to have lost all fear of deficit spending, and in the case of the GOP, that fits right into their "starve the beast" (aka bankrupt the government) strategy as well. They're also gonna work overtime to strip the thing before it ever goes into effect, which, given the ineptitude of the Dems, they'll more than likely succeed at doing. It would be nice if the Dems were clever enough to have hatched such a strategy, but I think you give them too much credit by far.
disaffected,
ReplyDeleteCould be, but the military journalists have stated the case I am passing on (with some enhancements).
David Frum, former Bush speech writer, said the republican neoCons were handed their greatest defeat since the 1960's by the Dems yesterday.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so we will revisit the theory in November.
Well, I think the Republican "bloat the beast so we can starve it" approach is going to wind up screwing everyone over. When the Chinese finally crack down and the loans get called and the American dollar crashes, one of the biggest portions of the budget is still the defense budget and that's going to have to get slashed as well, just like education and social security. When social security gets cut, there are going to be a lot of angry AARP voters, particularly if the defense budget gets untouched. They'll care less about a nebulous terrorist threat if they're faced with eating cat food in a tent.
ReplyDeleteHistorically the military budget gets cut when the public thinks the military has begun to digest those it says it is protecting.
ReplyDeleteThat is clearly the case now.
The republicans will be running on a "lets hurt more people and give more to make weapons" ticket this election.
They could actually lose more seats if the democrats keep on a jobs path.