Letters to the Editor
Nequals1
Published Letters: 334 Editor's Choice: 7
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Free Market Military Industry
[Read the article: The bipartisan consensus on U.S. military spending]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thank you, Glenn, for writing this.
It makes sense, though, when it's viewed from a free market perspective.
Who are the customers? Any entity that can purchase weaponry, military infrastructure, military services (surveillance, support, combat, control, security and safety) and the development, support, maintenance and operationalization of those commodities. So the entities include the full array of countries, states, public and private governments, and legal and illegal organizations.
Who benefits? Any company, organization, group and individual who produces or who consumes the products and services.
Market Share Might makes right. Ergo, the US maintains total domination of the military market, and thus believes that it self-sustains.
Marketing Aye. There's the rub. The public marketing (which is the major source of funding)is done in the reassuring and fear-mongering terms of security, safety, protection, and freedoms. The marketing to buyers is done via demonstrations (of field use of weaponry, occupations, global surveillance, covert operations and combat operations), direct negotiation, negotiation under the umbrella of diplomacy, and illegal transactions (Iran Contra).
Industry Accountability Publicly, that would be the aspects of military operations that are shared with the public, the information included in the Congressional record, and traditional media reporting. In most general terms, it is the information - accurate or inaccurate - that the general public has had fed to it - and which then forms the basis by which most public opinion is fueled and conditioned - by that industry. Privately, it is the effectiveness of the products and services perceived by the buyer (president, congress, drug cartel leader, heads of state, prime ministers, parliaments, etc.)
Can you see where this is leading?
Resource allocation and spending on military products, services, mission and strength isn't determined by those uncoupled from its business interests. Indeed, it is just those people with great interest in having that industry remain strong and become economically stronger, who are making decisions about the allocation of resources to it.
The same is true in healthcare. The for-profit health insurance industry, which provides zero health CARE products and services, is the major force behind the allocation of health care dollars and the allocation of health care resources. It skims between 30-40% off the top of each and every health care expenditure, and it returns zero returns in terms of health care services or products delivered, in healthcare delivery timeliness and in patient outcomes.
Neither industry will EVER voluntarily give up any power, control or market share.
Why would they? That's antithetical to free market behavior.
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@ Carolyn C
[Read the article: The bipartisan consensus on U.S. military spending]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think we are on the same wavelength here. Your comment is absolutely on target (pun intended). Many representatives and senators have referred publicly to their commitment to their "military industrial" corporate consitutents over their voting constituents. I believe this is one reason why the Dems have become uncoupled from doing the will of we the people in the face of overriding support for withdrawing from Iraq, and from continuing to finance military expenditures for mercenary forces, for passing Constitutional harming legislation such as the Military Commissions Act, the PATRIOT Act and allowing Posse Comitatus to be unleashed.
Until US policy around military mission, investment and resource allocation becomes congruent with actual operations, investments and resource allocation, I foresee nothing different in the US government's continued path of following the PNAC uranium-depleted breadcrumbs.
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@ Jim White
[Read the article: 9/11 Commission: Our investigation was "obstructed"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]For the last seven years, the Bush cabal has systematically dismantled the reputation of our country. In doing that, the legal system has suffered damage that will take decades to repair. Many of us who are concerned about this damage don't care who caused it.
To that dismantling, please add the Department of Justice independence and subversion of the rule of law in order to further Republican partisan interests, undermining the functions of governmental agencies and hurting Americans' health, workplace safety, workers' rights, and consumer product safety.
Don't forget gutting the air passenger safety system and the imminent catastrophic failure of the nation's air traffic controllers to be able to maintain any modicum of air and ground safety. As the controllers say, it's just a matter of when - not if - that two airplanes will occupy the same space at the same time, and a rain of body parts will wake up a somnolent nation to the gutting of the nation's aviation safety system.
In ways large and small, each and every citizen has been impacted by the Bush/Cheney/PNAC maladminsitration and subversion of the Constitution.
By any measure of quality of life: safe shelter, availability of affordable, safe and reliable transportation, access to nutritious foods, free access to potable water, free access to preventive and catastrohpinc healthcare, free access to education, and the percentage of eligible workers who are able to sustain themselves and their families in the workforce - our country fails, and fails again.
We imprison and incarcerate our vulnerable. We demonize our poor, our weak, our elderly and our dependent. We conflate ideologically-created partisan wars with military wars on aggressors. We bully. We intimidate. We rule by force.
And we do it to our citizenry as we do it to any country and entity that gets in the way of our dictators.