“Our Democracy”

The Russia-Ukraine War  

Winston Churchill is credited with saying “Never let a good crisis go to waste” in the mid-1940s as the world approached the end of WW 2. Churchill was supposedly referring to the alliance between himself, Stalin and Roosevelt in their defeat of the Nazis, promoting the idea that it is possible to create opportunities in the midst of a crisis.

Modernly, this idea has been flipped on its head as propagandists and warmongers use it to promote their agendas. Nowhere is this more evident than in the jingoism surrounding the war in the Ukraine.

The House passed a “Ukraine Aid” package yesterday. It includes $6 billion for security assistance, including training, equipment, weapons and support; $8.7 billion to replenish stocks of U.S. weapons sent to Ukraine, and $3.9 billion for European Command operations. In addition, the legislation authorizes a further $11 billion in Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows the president to authorize the transfer of weapons and “services” (read intelligence info and U.S. advisers in this proxy war against the world’s largest nuclear power) from U.S. stocks without congressional approval in response to an emergency. Biden had asked for $5 billion. It also authorizes $4 billion in Foreign Military Financing to provide support for Ukraine and other countries affected by the crisis. [emphasis mine]

This bill is a payoff to U.S. arms manufacturers. That’s why it was rushed to the floor for a vote in the House before our representatives could even read the bill. This is how “our democracy” works.

Here is how the great Glenn Greenwald puts it:

It is difficult to put into context how enormous these expenditures are — particularly since the war is only ten weeks old, and U.S. officials predict/hope that this war will last not months but years. That ensures that the ultimate amounts will be significantly higher still.The amounts allocated thus far — the new Biden request of $33 billion combined with the $14 billion already spent — already exceed the average annual amount the U.S. spent for its own war in Afghanistan ($46 billion)....

“While Washington depicts Russia as some sort of grave and existential menace to the US, the reality is that the US spends more than ten times on its military what Russia spends on its military each year....

“While it is extremely difficult to isolate any benefit to ordinary American citizens from all of this, it requires no effort to see that there is a tiny group of Americans who do benefit greatly from this massive expenditure of funds. That is the industry of weapons manufacturers. So fortunate are they that the White House has met with them on several occasions to urge them to expand their capacity to produce sophisticated weapons so that the U.S. government can buy them in massive quantities.”

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/biden-wanted-33b-more-for-ukraine?s=r

Here is what Chip Roy (R, Texas) thought of the methods used to bring the bill to the House floor:

Excerpt from Chip Roy's House speech

Simply stated, “our democracy” is working for the military-industrial complex. Rabble-Rousers like Roy are inconvenient anti-war mouthpieces.

Moreover, The U.S. military is running the war in Ukraine for “our democracy”.

Update: Sen. Rand Paul today blocked the bill in the Senate, so it's temporarily on hold.

On Tuesday, CNN said

The US intelligence community believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine is likely to become "more unpredictable and escalatory" in the coming months," said the Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines."

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/10/politics/haines-ukraine-russia-hearing/index.html

This is how "our democracy" works. Floating trial balloon stories prolonging a war to prepare the country for more conflict, and more spending for the warmongers. Great, aint it?

Meanwhile, on the Home Front

The cabal that rules the US likes foreign wars, but it doesn’t like parents showing up at school board meetings, mothers who are concerned with mask mandates and forced vaccinations of their children, and others who engage in real participatory democracy. In March, Merrick Garland, the Attorney General, issued a memorandum to the FBI about the threat of moms and dads participating in school board meetings.  

The DOJ urges reporting “threats of violence” against school board members or public-school staff to the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center (NTOC) via its national tip line (1-800-CALL-FBI) or online through the FBI website.”

https://nsjonline.com/article/2021/10/us-attorney-general-directs-fbi-to-investigate-parents-protests-of-school-boards/

Yeah, because moms and dads speaking up at school board meetings are a big threat, but the control of our southern border by murderous, fentanyl-running, human trafficking Mexican drug cartels are not even worth mentioning.

Why is the federal government inserting itself into what should be a matter for local and state law enforcement? Because the goal of “our democracy” is a totalitarian state where democracy doesn’t exist. The wormtongues in our government, their corporate lackeys, and their running dogs in the media say the exact opposite of what they mean.

It is no surprise that the corrupt elites who rubber stamp the policies of “our democracy” consider true democratic participation in the nation’s political life to be a threat. The next time you see one of these shills (who always find their way in front of the cameras on the nation’s “news” networks) pontificating on CNN or MSNBC or FOX or any of the major networks, notice how many times they mention the code words “our democracy.” I have noticed this now for months.

It’s how the corrupt ruling class, who regard themselves as our overlords, refer to themselves.

All of this when mothers cannot get formula for their little babies.

There isn’t enough money or effort to feed our children, but there’s plenty of money and effort to feed the war machine, even though the U.S. government is over $30 trillion in debt. How will this $40 billion dollar spending bill – much of it going to arms manufacturers (excuse me, “defense” contractors) – be paid for? The Fed will print more money, further driving up inflation.

And it’s not a Democrat or Republican issue. My congressman, a Republican, voted for this $40 billion unfunded bill. He never even read it. He was too caught up in the frenzy about the Russia-Ukraine war to bother.

The product of war is death. The result of not caring enough to ensure a supply of baby formula is death. Instead of taking sides in a war, instead of appropriating more and more money for war, what is needed is compassion, tolerance, transparency, and peace.