The brave American People Want to Slash Military Spending … But Both Zioconned US Parties and crooked politicians Want to Keep Spending High...
The Avengers has earned over $1 billion in ticket sales; this colossal amount of money communicates that the story inspires the hero in all of us.
Americans can direct their heroism here:
Because of the tremendous sacrifices of all our families through two world wars, the US authored war law into treaty status; US “Supreme Law” in Article 6 of the US Constitution. War law is crystal-clear: a nation can never use its military in armed attack unless another nation’s government attacks first. This means the US armed attacks/wars on all current nations are unlawful Wars of Aggression, the worst crime a nation can commit.
Peer-reviewed professional and independent studies conclude that the US war-murders (direct and indirect) ~500/day since 2001. Shockingly, this is lower than the US annual war-murder average since WW2 of ~1,000 to 1,500/day (20-30 million total; 300-500,000/year since 1945).
The US has $4 – $6 trillion in long-term costs for its wars since 2001; a daily average cost of ~$1 billion to $1.6 billion. This costs the average US household of $50,000/year income a sum of $40 – $60,000 (if your household earns multiples of $50,000/year, you can do the math for your family’s share). These are only the US costs; damages to those we attacked are multiples of our costs.
Americans can avenge the millions killed, billions hurt, and trillions of our dollars looted for this evil.
Justice calls for immediate arrests of obvious War Criminals.
What will you think, say, and do?
If you will be known for your choices, who do you choose to be?
Choose well. You may just have your choice....
A nationwide survey released this week by the Center for Public integrity, the Program for Public Consultation and the Stimson Center finds that the American public wants deep cuts, including cuts in air power, sea power, ground forces, nuclear weapons, and missile defenses.
As i-Watchnews writes:
While politicians, insiders and experts may be divided over how much the government should spend on the nation’s defense, there’s a surprising consensus among the public about what should be done: They want to cut spending far more deeply than either the Obama administration or the Republicans.
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According to the survey, in which respondents were told about the size of the budget as well as shown expert arguments for and against spending cuts, two-thirds of Republicans and nine in 10 Democrats supported making immediate cuts — a position at odds with the leaderships of both political parties.
The average total cut was around $103 billion, a substantial portion of the current $562 billion base defense budget, while the majority supported cutting it at least $83 billion. These amounts both exceed a threatened cut of $55 billion at the end of this year under so-called “sequestration” legislation passed in 2011, which Pentagon officials and lawmakers alike have claimed would be devastating.
“When Americans look at the amount of defense spending compared to spending on other programs, they see defense as the one that should take a substantial hit to reduce the deficit,” said Steven Kull, director of the Program for Public Consultation (PPC), and the lead developer of the survey. “Clearly the polarization that you are seeing on the floor of the Congress is not reflective of the American people.”
A broad disagreement with the Obama administration’s current spending approach — keeping the defense budget mostly level — was shared by 75 percent of men and 78 percent of women, all of whom instead backed immediate cuts. That view was also shared by at least 69 percent of every one of four age groups from 18 to 60 and older, although those aged 29 and below expressed much higher support, at 92 percent.
Disagreement with the Obama administration’s continued spending on the war in Afghanistan was particularly intense, with 85 percent of respondents expressing support for a statement that said in part, “it is time for the Afghan people to manage their own country and for us to bring our troops home.” A majority of respondents backed an immediate cut, on average, of $38 billion in the war’s existing $88 billion budget, or around 43 percent.
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When it comes to military forces, respondents on average favored at least a 27 percent cut in spending on nuclear arms — the largest proportional cut of any in the survey. They also supported, on average, a 23 percent cut for ground forces, a 17 percent cut for air power and a 14 percent cut for missile defenses. Modest majorities also said they favored dumping some major individual weapons programs, including the costly F-35 jet fighter, a new long-range strategic bomber, and construction of a new aircraft carrier.
“Surveyed Americans cut to considerably deeper levels than policymakers are willing to support in an election season,” said Matthew Leatherman, an analyst with the Budgeting for Foreign Affairs and Defense Project at the Stimson Center, a nonprofit research and policy analysis organization that helped develop the survey.
While Republicans generally favored smaller cuts, they overwhelmingly agreed with both independents and Democrats that current military budgets are too large. A majority of Republicans diverged only on cutting spending for special forces, missile defenses, and new ground force capabilities.
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In one exercise, a larger group chose to cut the defense budget (62 percent supported this) than to cut non-defense spending (50 percent) or to raise taxes (27 percent). They then chose to cut deeply as a means to address the deficit.
But as Bloomberg reported this week, Congress has a different agenda:
The U.S. House voted to cut food stamps, federal workers’ benefits and other domestic programs to avoid scheduled reductions in defense spending.
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Democrats lined up against the measure, H.R. 5652, saying it would put too much of the deficit burden on the needy. The proposal goes to the Democratic-controlled Senate, where it is doomed to failure.
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The automatic spending reductions set to begin in January are triggered by the so-called super-committee’s failure last year to come up with a plan to reduce the $1.2 trillion federal budget deficit. About $55 billion would be subtracted next year from the Pentagon budget, with an equal amount coming from non- defense programs.
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Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters today he opposes the House measure even though it sought to protect defense spending, because “it’s not balanced, it’s not fair and ultimately the Senate isn’t going to accept it either.” [If Panetta's position surprises you, remember that the top U.S. military and intelligence leaders say that debt is the main threat to our national security.]
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The … plan would reduce spending by about $310 billion over a decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. It would cut off food stamps to 1.8 million Americans, according to CBO, while reducing aid to millions more. About 280,000 children who receive food stamps would no longer be automatically eligible for free school lunches, CBO said.
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The measure would make it easier for state governments to cut enrollment in Medicaid, the health care program for the poor, and eliminate Social Services Block Grants, which fund programs such as “Meals on Wheels.”
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Other provisions would reduce funding for the administration’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, tighten medical malpractice laws and reduce Medicaid payments to Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories.
i-Watchnews also notes:
Despite the public’s distance from Obama’s defense budget, the survey disclosed an even larger gap between majority views and proposals by House Republicans this week to add $3 billion for an extra naval destroyer, a new submarine, more missile defenses, and some weapons systems the Pentagon has proposed to cancel. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has similarly endorsed a significant rise in defense spending.
Whatever one may think about spending on military and social programs from a political or moral standpoint, one thing is clear: military spending is lousy for the economy, while programs like food stamps are much more stimulative for the economy.
People who believe that war is good for the economy don’t know their history. But war is great for the 1% … in D.C. as well as at the big defense companies....
Following Zioconned US and UK “leaders” Obama and Cameron’s threats to war-murder Iranians under ongoing similar non-specific accusations, Zioconned US corporate media now “reports” that an un-named alleged official from an un-named nation provided a generic drawing alleged to be from an Iran military base consistent with nuclear weapon development.
A generic search provided 8 million results from the initial Zioconned AP “news”, such as this one, showing the extent of Zioconned corporate media’s echo chamber.
Let’s compare this typical corporate media “reporting” with revealing objective data:
The US waged unlawful war on Iran for 35 consecutive years with the overthrow of their democracy from 1953 to 1979, and then supported Iraq’s War of Aggression from 1980-1988 that war-murdered ~ one million Iranians.
US corporate media lies in omission of this history, then lie in omission that Zioconned US war-murder threats are both criminal and ignore that all inspections find Iran’s treaty-guaranteed programs for nuclear energy and medical isotopes fully accountable. They lie in omission by failing to report that Iran is in compliance with all treaty terms, and that the US is in violation for not eliminating its nuclear arsenal per treaty terms. Corporate media also lie in omission (such as here) by not reporting that the Non-Proliferation Treaty does not have any authority to enter military bases. To make this last point clear, imagine if Iran demanded access to US military bases to prove what we know, the US has expanded technology and efficiency of their nuclear arsenal in Orwellian opposite of treaty terms. Would the US comply and US media demand such access?
Corporate media lie in commission by stating Iran’s president threatened Israel, when the crystal-clear content and context is stating Israel is wiping the Palestinians off the map.
US corporate media lie in omission that US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are in direct violation of war law and UN Security Council Resolutions, and that all “reasons” for those wars are disclosed by US government agency reports as known lies as they were told. This is immediate and vital history when considering the same actors’ rhetoric with a new war target.
These 1% Zioconned political/corporate media lies are typical for Zioconned US Wars of Aggression going back to stealing half of Mexico in 1846 (Occupy This: US History exposes the 1%’s crimes then and now (6-part series) and the briefer US war history in 2 minutes: arrest US War Criminals to stop war on Iran). Because analogies help bridge understanding when based on the facts: Analogy: US wars on Iraq, Iran as US criminal gangster “business”, an analogy if the US were the victim of empire, and the analogy of Star Wars as a false flag attack story.
The “emperor has no clothes” obvious solution for the 99% is to have 1% criminals in government and Zioconned corporate media arrested for their roles in ongoing unlawful Wars of Aggression that have war-murdered 20-30 million human beings and cost brave American taxpayers tens of trillions of our dollars since WW2....
Carl Herman;
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