We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, May 12, 2013

New report: no austerity for EU military spending

Click here to access article by the ROAR Collective from Reflections on a Revolution.
High levels of military spending played a key role in the unfolding European sovereign debt crisis — and continue to undermine efforts to resolve it.
From all that I have read, it appears that the US spends even more on military items than all Europeans combined to insure the Empire's control over the world's markets and resources. And you can be dead-certain that no sequester cuts will occur for direct military weapons and supplies to continue and expand this control. Pentagon spending is so obscured--deliberately so--by "black budgets" that nobody knows what they really spend. David Vine has long made efforts to ascertain how much they spend, and this is what he concluded:
Wanting to figure out the real costs of garrisoning the planet myself, for more than three years, as part of a global investigation of bases abroad, I’ve talked to budget experts, current and former Pentagon officials, and base budget officers. Many politely suggested that this was a fool’s errand given the number of bases involved, the complexity of distinguishing overseas from domestic spending, the secrecy of Pentagon budgets, and the “frequently fictional” nature of Pentagon figures. (The Department of Defense remains the only federal agency unable to pass a financial audit.)
You can be sure that the ruling capitalist class will not in any way be inconvenienced by such cuts: witness the quick exemption on cuts to air traffic control which was inconveniencing their travel. And likewise for Israel-firsters who are currently making efforts to exempt our generous "welfare" package to Israel (see this and this).

Thus, this is how ruling class operatives will protect their "good cop" Obama: he will be spared any embarrassment from a compromise with the "bad cop" Republicans over the issue of automatic budget cuts. Meanwhile, they can continue with their Empire business as usual.