Military Industrial Empire Thrives on Turmoil

Anthony Freda Art

PA Farruggio

You can call it karma or blowback, whatever makes you happy. The bottom line is that what America is now facing both internationally and domestically is all due to being a military industrial empire. The protesters in the streets overseas are in countries that most of us here at home would have difficulty finding on a map, for goodness sake!

The majority of those folks are not out there because of some inflammatory YouTube film. Perhaps the ultra fanatical Islamists may wish to have that the rallying point of the protests … to then better control their fellow citizens. No, the film most likely unleashed centuries-old rage and frustration with the United States’ imperial designs.

I mean, just how stupid do you think most hard working foreigners are … regardless of skin color, nationality or educational level? Our nation bombs the hell out of their homes and villages. We send our military to occupy their country, or those of neighboring ones, and install puppet governments. American and European corporations operate offshore in these places, sometimes with local surrogates, and they exploit the working stiffs. Plain and simple.
A sneaker that Nike sells in excess of $150.00 is made by a worker who earns what … one or two American dollars? American and European banks and investment firms screw the locals out of their money and we wonder why the outrage? Get real!

The Versailles Treaty, better known to the Germans as the Diktat, took away their resource-rich Ruhr Valley, as well as the port of Danzig, among other things. They forced the German government to pay high reparations, which then helped to instigate financial crises during the 1920s. This all made it that much easier for the extremist Nazi party to gain control in 1932. History will show that this alone was not the only reason for their success, yet it was to this writer a key underlying one.

We can look here at home in America and see the consequences of bad karma or blowback. We literally took most of our current Southwestern areas away from Mexico with jingoism like 'Remember the Alamo; coupled with superior military strength.

Now, generations later, almost with textbook karma, our nation faces the problem of illegals coming over the border … to the places where their great grandparents may have once resided. We also have Native American tribes owning gambling casinos on lands that were expropriated from their ancestors through massacre and repression.

Currently, the United States, the country that this writer loves and cares about, has over 800+ military bases in over 100 countries, costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars per year. We occupy two sovereign nations for going on 10 years, at a cost of perhaps 100+ billion dollars annually.

Our economy is in a depression not a recession (drive around your town or city and look at the slew of boarded up Mom and Pops and foreclosed or abandoned homes). Cities are either entering into bankruptcy (Stockton, California, population of approx. 300,000) or cutting back severely on basic services. How many cuts in the police, fire, libraries, and schools … until most out there begin to connect the dots?

Is it not time for the working stiffs of our nation, the so called 99%, to get out and shout out to the government and the corporations: Get the military occupations, the bases and the factories the hell out of those places! Let us take the hundreds of billions in savings from these actions, revenue share with our states and cities and open new plants and factories here at home, restoring our economy … and our nation’s prestige!

Philip A Farruggio is son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC longshoremen. He is a free lance columnist. Since 2010, Philip is a spokesperson for the 25% Solution Movement to Save Our Cities by cutting military spending 25%. Philip can be reached at paf1222@bellsouth.net

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