Robert Koehler: Stopping Orwell's Nightmare/ WARS!

[KoKo]

Robert Koehler: Stopping Orwell's Nightmare
by Robert C. Koehler | May 28, 2010 - 9:03am | permalink

The God of War doesn't dine on raw shank bone or bellow orders quite like he used to. When he talks to Congress, say, it goes more like this:

"And, oh, while you're up, I'm going to be needing, uh (cough, cough) . . . $159 billion this go-around, you know, for the troops. Thanks."

It works.

With the war on terror in its ninth year and disappearing from even the pretense of national debate, let alone outrage and protest, and with the President of Hope prosecuting it so quietly most of us no longer notice, we could be at an eerie national transition point, beyond which war is no longer controversial or a big deal but just the way things are: "normal," like background noise. And the enormous transfusions of cash it requires -- well, nice people don't talk about it.

Then along comes Alan Grayson, freshman congressman from Florida, who has some fresh ideas about how to forestall this Orwellian transition. He introduced one of these ideas in the House last week. It's called H.R. 5353: The War Is Making You Poor Act. It's steeped stunningly in common sense and common knowledge, appeals in a blatant, teabagger sort of way to self-interest and everyman's taxation phobia -- and strikes me as the focal point, almost Gandhiesque in the clarity of its outrage, of a reborn movement to end our wars in Asia and halt the spread of American hubris.

"The purpose of this bill is to connect the dots, and to show people in a real and concrete way the cost of these endless wars," Grayson wrote. "War is a permanent feature of our societal landscape, so much so that no one notices it anymore."

H.R. 5353 directly addresses the war's current "emergency" spending bill, which is about to come up for a vote and will -- of course! of course! -- pass as usual, with little debate, with perfunctory media mention. The current White House request, part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 2011, is for $159.3 billion.

The War Is Making You Poor Act plucks that number out of anonymity and screams, "Wait a second!" This is an enormous amount of money, almost beyond calculation, and we must not make a decision about it transfixed in financial numbness.

MORE at.....
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-c-koehler/29086/robert-koehler-stopping-orwells-nightmare

[Vinnie From Indy]

1. Bravo!

Absolutley and completely correct.

I also have no doubt that a chunk of that money is used by the MIC to pay people to monitor, post and attempt to distract people on places like DU. This post was unrecc'd immediately. That really does not matter because more and more Americans are focusing because of the economic pain of their lives in our modern world.