$1 trillion for F-35 fighter but Medicare must go

Peacemakers?

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, Retired

I remember the excitement in the air in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse; we get to save all that money that was spent on defense.   Reagan had increased the US military budget to a level 43% above the total cost at the height of the Vietnam War and at the cost of tripling the national debt. Reagan was responsible for the production of the MX Peacekeeper missile.  Such a bizarre name for a weapon of mass destruction and slaughter reflects the brutal nature of capitalism and its most powerful figures.

The billions a year Reagan was spending on arms was a major contribution to inflationary pressures during the 1980's and was not the cause of the collapse of the totalitarian Stalinist dictatorship in the Soviet Union. It was a factor as the US was supplying Osama bin Laden and the Mullahs in Afghanistan with weapons and money in their war against the Soviet occupation there. 

But now we can benefit from the peace dividend many people thought as the money spent defending the world against communism, the most serious threat to our freedoms, was over.  But to any serious observer, the struggle against the Stalinists had nothing to do with freedom other than the freedom of capital to travel throughout the world unfettered in its search for profitable ventures; a religious fanatic like Bin Laden was a US ally as long as he continued to support capitalist globalization and the rights of capital.  The 7th century mentality of Bin laden and the Taliban, including their brutal torture and murder of women was not an obstacle to a friendship with the folks in Washington as long as profits were sacrosanct.  Up until 1999, every Taliban official was on the payroll of the US government.  Did you get to vote on that issue?

The Soviet Union though was different, it was an an alternative economic formation to the so-called free market albeit a distorted and brutal one, but a serious enough threat nevertheless.

But then came new bogeymen.  Panama, Grenada, the Somali "Warlords" (remember General Aidid).  It's relationship with the the Soviets, and later with the US enabled Somalia, a tiny country in the horn of Africa, to host the largest army on that continent.  Then Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Iraq again, then Afghanistan.  It seems that the peace dividend went out the window.

Now, as US capitalism wages war on the people's of the world in its struggle against its rivals for control over the world's resources, it is forced also to intensify its war against its own working class. It appears that the "Communists" weren't the greatest threat to our freedoms after all.  The attacks on US workers and the middle class are unprecedented. The gains of a century or more of struggle are being eliminated.  Medicare is under threat, social security is too expensive. There is not enough money for education, decent transportation or health care for the a huge section of US society.  One in seven face  hunger repeatedly.  As we wrote in an earlier blog, a recent study finds that almost half the population couldn't raise $2000 for an emergency within a 30 day period.

The US economy is a mess and the political system is broken except for the billionaires that use it to feed at the public trough. These same billionaires and their political representatives in the two capitalist parties they control fund universities that workers will no longer be able to afford to attend in order to teach the merits of free enterprise and capitalism.

And as they dismantle the benefits workers have won over the years and drive wages, benefits and working conditions down to the levels of Vietnam and Pakistan with the assistance of the heads of organized labor, the taxpayer is asked to fork over more more money for "defense".  The tab for the F.35 Joint Strike Fighter, the latest and most efficient project of the unelected thugs that govern US society is expected to surpass $1 trillion dollars over the next 50 years not including the $385 billion the taxpayer will have to pay for purchases of these gems up to 2035 says the Wall Street Journal.  The US taxpayers will fork over the cash to produce one model of this weapon of mass destruction for the Navy, one for the Army, one for the Marines.  Like jeans for different age groups, perhaps they would all like different colors too.

US capitalism fuels the global arms race and is perhaps the most destabilizing force on the planet.  It supplies close to 50% of the world's weapons of destruction.  Along with Russia, it is the largest supplier to the developing world. The recent $60 billion dollar sales of aircraft and military hardware to the murderous anti-democratic regime in Saudi Arabia approved by Obama and the US Congress is a tragic example of the complete bankruptcy of capitalism historically, it cannot take society forward. Antony Adolf makes an excellent point about the Saudi deal when he writes:
"...anyone who gets that much for selling weapons is an arms dealing warmonger of historic significance, worse than a gang member who sells another a revolver a few million times over."

US capitalism provides weapons to some of the most repressive and war-torn countries in the world, it is the greatest suppressor of human rights and obstacle to peace on the planet.  US capitalism is a weakened and declining influence on the global stage but is still the most powerful military force.  It drives the arms race and its rivals, particularly China and Russia will be forced to beef up military spending to compete.  All nation states must be able to defend their interests militarily; it is not an accident the US bombed Iraq in to antiquity and not North Korea, nuclear weapons are a deterrent to a degree there's no doubt.

This may seem like a pessimistic scenario and it is, except there are alternatives.  I cannot imagine what it must be like for young people seeing the world as they do and wondering what sort of future awaits them.  The BP disaster, the nuclear catastrophe in Japan.  But these are products of capitalism, of an economic system and the political superstructure that arises from it.  These, like Katrina, were not natural disasters; they are social products as much as hunger, starvation and disease are social products. Social systems can change, and in our case, must change.

Lockheed Martin and the owners of it, the producers of the F-35 and many of the weapons of mass destruction that the US sells around the world is a criminal organization run by a violent gang. One of their equivalents at the Pentagon says of the F-35 that it is expensive but he sees "no better alternative".

We reject that view.  The alternative is to work in collective harmony, not competition with the workers of the world to produce the necessities of life. Capitalism is a ruthless state of permanent warfare.  Capitalists have to compete to keep the system afloat and the accumulation of capital uninterrupted. 

Throughout the world there are huge uprisings against repression and for democratic freedoms and rights.  The Arab masses are an inspiration to us all.  But workers in Bangladesh, Turkey, China and throughout the world are fighting back.  Even here in Wisconsin and among the youth last year we saw some major developments. As workers move in to struggle we naturally come up against capital on all its forms that encourages us to question the world in which we live and look for alternatives. Our alternative is a world federation of democratic socialist states. The finance industry, the factories, the dominant means of production must be taken in to public ownership under democratic workers control and management and a rational planned system of production developed that is based on human/social need and not profit is the solution to this catastrophe that now exists.

Throughout the US there are attempts to oppress youth rights by instituting gang injunctions and other means that control the movement of youth and confine them to certain areas. The issue of street gangs is also a by product of the failure of capitalism to offer our youth a future. The youth have the most revolutionary potential so jail and confinement of some sort ins necessary.

As Adolf states in the above quote, these arms dealers and their friends in the Pentagon and Congress are a million times worse than some gang member selling a gun in the streets.

It's time we clamped an injunction on the politicians of capitalism, their friends at the Pentagon and their whole rotten system.