Counting up the votes in a midterm election turnout that hit a 50-year high in the United States, all major party candidates running for the House and Senate championed America’s military/industrial/intelligence defense complex and its ballooning budget.
Throughout the election cycle, not one Republican or Democratic candidate presented a campaign platform to end America’s longest, losing Afghan War, nor to end its other illegal and unconstitutional foreign engagements in the Middle East and Africa that’s killing people, destroying nations and intensifying the hatred against We the People.
Indeed, not only was “Peace” a dirty word on the 2018 campaign trail, eight House seats that went to Democratic candidates were won by former members of the military/national security complex… veterans, Central Intelligence Agency and State Department officials. And even the gubernatorial race in solidly Republican Kansas was won by a Democrat who touted her family’s strong military credentials.
Imagine, trillions spent and millions killed in illegal, immoral wars with no end in sight – launched on platforms based on lies from Washington and promoted by the media – and it was NEVER a campaign issue in the 2018 midterm elections.
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And now, with a new line up of pro-war politicians in office, Americans can expect an even more aggressive foreign policy agenda against China, Russia, Syria, Iran, and other nations under the lies and guise of winning the War on Terror, national security, making the world safe for democracy and regime change in countries whose leaders are cruel to their citizens.
In fact, on Wednesday, the day after the Midterm Elections, when the S&P 500 and Dow notched up their biggest post-midterm elections gains since 1982, CNBC noted:
“Defense stocks are also among the expected winners from a divided Congress as it is one of the areas Democrats and Trump may find common ground. Democrats agreed to a Defense Department budget increase for fiscal year 2019.”
Yes, they did. Some 68 percent of House Democrats and 85 percent of Senate Democrats voted for the $716 billion Defense budget.
Ah, those wonderful defense stock companies that General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Five Star General, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in World War II and two-term President of the United States warned the American people would take over the nation in his farewell address in 20 January 1961:
“Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations.”
Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
Yes, “Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
Unfortunately, in America today, the vast majority of the citizenry are, by their deeds and actions, neither “alert” nor “knowledgeable.”
Beyond the lack of interest regarding America’s massive defense budget – when combined with intelligence and homeland security, totals nearly a trillion dollars and one quarter of the entire Federal budget – there was no pushback from a brainwashed population whose wages are not even keeping up with inflation and are heavily taxed to keep feeding the military machine.
While it is convenient to blame apathy or hopelessness to address the wars and the war machine in the midterm elections, voters turned out in large numbers to cast their ballots on issues such as healthcare, the economy, immigration and identity issues.
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Furthermore, as the polls prove, from past to present, the public proudly votes for their favorite murderous Republican and Democratic presidents, senators, congressmen and congresswomen war mongers and mass murderers on Election Day.
Imagine! What self-respecting human being, what person who claims to be of character and morality and/or proudly wears their religion on their sleeve, would look up to, bow down to and follow the orders of a Trump, Obama, Bushes, a Clinton, a McConnell, or a Pelosi who march their nation off to war?
The same mindless and courage-less masses who saluted and died for the Woodrow Wilsons, Adolph Hitlers and Mussolinis of the world… and the legions of other psychopaths who ruled and ruined nations throughout the course of history.
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And as for the media, once regarded as “The Fourth Estate” for its role in questioning actions taken by the three other branches of government, they have denigrated from journalists into Presstitutes; media whores who get paid to put out for their corporate Johns and Washington whore masters.
Not a peep, challenge or question came from them during the midterm election cycle to those running for political office about the quantitative and qualitative failures of America’s never-ending, costly losing foreign entanglements and their deadly consequences.
Obediently, when the political elite give orders to go to war, the media beats their war drums, and the party faithful march to the tune, leaving just a minority compelled to unite “so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
Yet, that’s all it takes, a minority, to change to course of history from never-ending war to a climate of liberty, love, joy and beauty: “It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds on men,” said Samuel Adams.
