The proposed federal budget for fiscal year 2023 continues to take our country in the wrong direction. This massive proposed budget would continue to keep military spending at 37% of the current federal spending with $1.7 trillion being dedicated to past and present military expenses.
Clearly, there are no winners in the terrible war in Ukraine — except one: U.S. and British military contractors who will carry their increased profits all the way to the bank. Big Campaign contributions. 700 lobbyists. Militaristic think tanks. Government advisory boards. Hiring 1700 former Pentagon officials and stacking the government with their own people. These military contractors have numerous ways to determine Pentagon budgets, shape our foreign policy, create war fever, and pick our friends and enemies.
The hearing comes as high prices are squeezing working-class Americans, while corporate profits rise. As inflation rose by 7 percent in 2021, corporate profits increased by 25 percent to reach nearly $3 trillion – a record high. CEOs and shareholders are benefiting heavily from these profits; last year, S&P 500 firms spent more than $900 billion.
What are the implications for humanity as a whole?
Incidents like these are a recurring nightmare for Black people. But it is especially tragic in a city where an effort to replace the police force with a Department of Public Safety informed by a public health approach was voted down amidst exaggerated rhetoric warning about the impact of “defunding” on public safety.
"The war industry did not intend to shrink its power or its profits. It set out almost immediately to recruit the former Communist Bloc countries into the European Union and NATO. Countries that joined NATO, which now include Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia were forced to reconfigure their militaries, often through hefty loans, to become compatible with NATO military hardware."
"Detaining immigrants is a big and profitable business whose product is human misery. It is estimated that over 75 percent of detainees are detained in for-profit detention centers."
Chris Hedges, Veterans for Peace, Abby Martin with Brian Becker, Robert Parry on Nuland, Ralph Nader, Jeff Cohen, Medea Benjamin
What is truly diabolical is that, while constantly accusing the Russian bear of plotting to expand, the whole policy is directed at goading it into expanding! Because then we can issue punishing sanctions, raise the Pentagon budget a few notches higher and tighten the NATO Protection Racket noose tighter around our precious European “allies.”
"The U.S. continues to fuel the Saudis War on Yemen. Join us to understand this conflict and ways to end U.S. involvement with two knowledgeable and committed activists."
Preemptive war, whether in Iraq or Ukraine, is a war crime. It does not matter if the war is launched on the basis of lies and fabrications, as was the case in Iraq, or because of the breaking of a series of agreements with Russia, including the promise by Washington not to extend NATO beyond the borders of a unified Germany, not to deploy thousands of NATO troops in Eastern Europe, not to meddle in the internal affairs of nations on the Russia’s border and the refusal to implement the Minsk II peace agreement. The invasion of Ukraine would, I expect, never have happened if these promises had been kept. Russia has every right to feel threatened, betrayed, and angry. But to understand is not to condone. The invasion of Ukraine, under post-Nuremberg laws, is a criminal war of aggression.
"It is her big vision that inspired so many people. She insisted we not compromise our definition of freedom. No one should be thrown under the bus, she argued."
