By: Tom Hastings @ Hastings on Nonviolence
Wall Street is certainly a locus of appropriate focus for a movement that hopes to break the cycle of extreme disparity of wealth and income in our world, but the Pentagon may actually be a better place to contend. Why?
Without violence or the threat of violence, the global disparity–which was apparently not much of an issue to the American people until that class warfare worsened and came home–could not long exist. The gun and the bomb makes it all possible. When a thief finds your car unlocked and running and takes it, that is stealing. When he holds a gun to your head and makes you hand over the keys and then he drives off with it, that is robbery. The Pentagon is what makes robbery possible globally, whether it’s robbery committed directly by US troops or robbery done by foreign troops merely supplied by the Pentagon.
The profits of war are not all in war materiels in the arsenals of the branches of the US military. When Congress authorizes “foreign aid” and that aid is bombers, jet fighters, cannons, bombs, bullets and exotic urban fighting weaponry supplied to our “allies,” the war profiteers rake in obscene levels of profit from no-bid and cost-plus contracts. When Israel or Saudi Arabia buys weapons from our Pentagon, those weapons are all made by private contractors and are often produced at higher profit margins than anything else. But even when Congress just gives it away the private contractors profit enormously and in all cases the elites are enriched while the middle class pays for it all. Contractors and the military alike have many lobbyists clamoring for more more more and every time someone suggests a slowdown in Pentagon funding the military handwringers go into high whine, starting with Sec. Panetta.
Since military spending produces the fewest jobs per billion dollars spent, it is the Pentagon that robs jobs from Americans, keeps repressive governments in power elsewhere–usually repressive toward their own 99 percent–and thus is both the engine and the enforcer of the very situation that the Occupy movement is addressing. Some occupations are addressing this, e.g. Occupy Minnesota.
In reality or symbolically, it is time to Occupy the Pentagon. While occupying it, convert it to a peaceforce that can lead the defense of freedom from poverty and liberation from inequality. If it cannot be converted it should be defunded.
Occupy the Pentagon,
Stacey
22 Oct 2011This is an interesting article. I disagree with the comment about our US troups committing robbery. Our troops are of course comprised of individuals and as such are flawed but I have great respect for anyone willing to put on that uniform and serve their country. The points in the article, however, are legitimate. The biggest, most apparent problem I observe is the hundres of Millions of dollars given to Africa that do not benefit the people. We provide aid and the corrupt Government pockets it. We give food and they refuse it because it is “bio-engineered”. Most recently I posted an article about our aid to Egypt that is now being used against the Coptic Christians. I’m sure there will be many other perspectives on this. Some people believe we have no business giving aid to Israel but see nothing wrong with the aid given to rebuild Mosques abroad.
Kathy
22 Oct 2011I respect them all for being willing to put themselves in harm’s way because it’s something I’m not sure I could do unless I truly believed in every cause.
I respect those military members who conduct themselves with honor, grace and dignity, following their moral compass in dangerous situations and in everyday life.
However, I do not repect those individuals who can’t wait to kill, conduct themselves poorly or commit war crimes, tarnishing the long-standing reputation of the military branches. The military is a body comprised of many different individuals. Some are honorable, others aren’t, just like the rest of society. I respect people based on who they are, not what they do. Most of the people I know/ have known are military, and only some of them joined to protect our country, some because of family tradition (as in, well it’s just what guys in my family do) one because of nothing more than a bad breakup with his girlfriend, and the vast majority as a last resort, not to protect the country, but to be able to make enough money to survive. I know of an ex-marine, who went to Iraq recently as a civilian contractor after years of service, he also beats his wife and children, does this man deserve respect? I know someone who’s only in so he can go to college and talks of possibly joining the peace corps, after his enlistment and he’s finished school, so he can help people, does he deserve respect? People are still people, military or not, and they should be judged as such, not as a whole.
Sam
22 Oct 2011The kid in to pay for college so he can join the peace corps deserves respect. I don’t think there is anything wrong with being in it just to fund your education. You are still putting yourself in harms way to be self reliant. =)
Kathy
22 Oct 2011Sporting a uniform does not always warrant automatic respect. – The peace corps guy deserves respect! Sorry if my wording confused you. This is the norm in western- Europe. You serve socially or in the military, in trade off for a free education/ college.