Reply #14: When was the last time the Dept. of Defense "defended" us?

[Peace Patriot]

Korea, maybe? (arguable.) WW II? Hell, they couldn't even defend our nation's capitol on 9/11. They couldn't even defend the fucking Pentagon!

We can have a perfectly adequate defense with 10% of the current Dept. of Defense (known) budget, with one provision: No more wars of choice!

Defend our shores. That's it. Dismantle the gazillion bases we have around the world. Fire every goddamn, no-bid, cost-plus Corpo contractor. Let GI's cook their own food, and build their own pontoons. Cut the military budget down by 90%, to a true defensive posture. Problem solved.

TOTAL problem solved--the entire, Bushwhack, humorously termed "conservative," TEN TRILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT, gone.

We're spending SIX BILLION DOLLARS on a military boondoggle in Colombia--a country where the military and its closely tied rightwing paramilitary death squads have murdered 40 union leaders this year alone, and many other innocent people. The government is run by fascist thugs and major drug traffickers, in league with death squads. SIX BILLION DOLLARS.

MORE billions are going to Mexico--jokingly intended to stop the never-ending stream of drugs onto our streets.

The corrupt, failed, murderous U.S. "war on drugs" alone could take care of half the deficit--and we'd all be a lot healthier and more drug- and gangland killings free, as well.

75% of the people in our prisons are in there, for very long prison terms, on minor drug offenses and other victimless crimes. Free those prisoners in an amnesty, with some help to get their lives together! Save multi-billions more.

Almost everywhere you look in this sick country--sick from a fascist coup--you can find billions and billions of our tax dollars being wasted on pointless, and often extremely destructive, "conservative" THIEVERY. But the Pentagon probably takes the cake for the most corrupt, destructive, horrible boondoggle of them all. We don't need 90% of what they are and do. And that 90% is a standing temptation to tyrants to go to war for no reason--for ego, for profit, for oil.

I absolutely love your idea. Take it out of the Pentagon budget. Unfortunately, though, it's not the amount that is the driver here, but the POWER to freely loot us ad infinitum. It is not a dollar amount issue. It is a power issue. This is a coup d'etat--much like the one that occurred with the "trade secret" voting machines during the 2002 to 2004 period. In that case, what they sought and obtained was the permanent ability to steal our elections, invisibly, forever more. In this case, it is intended to be a permanent new government power to loot us blind, forever more. The $700 billion is only the beginning. It is a bottomless pit.

We now have a situation in which there is hardly a member of Congress who can prove that he or she was actually elected. Our election system is nearly 100% non-transparent. Voting, which should--of all things--be 100% transparent, is now the opposite.

Poulson's proposal--to simply turn the federal treasury over to him--with not even the slightest oversight, so that he or some other Corpo commissar can continue to bail out the worst, most thieving practices in banking and finance, using a magic drinking glass that never empties--is very similar to the election system, whereby the Bushwhack Corpos who own and control the 'TRADE SECRET' code in the voting machines, can keep churning out Congresses with single digit approval ratings, and presidents like Bush who make a chimpanzee look intelligent.

They may let Obama win (for their own nefarious reasons). They may not. The point is they have power to elect whomever they wish--and they have the Corpo lapdog press, as well, to write the lying "fuzzy math" narrative that shuts down peoples' brains.

I'm all for your plan--but first, we have to get our voting system back into the PUBLIC VENUE. That is still possible--but I don't know for how long--at the state/local level. Not easy, but possible. We are without defenses against whatever fascist coup they want to pull next. Our only defense is democracy, and we must get its bottom-line condition--PUBLIC VOTE COUNTING--back.