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In reply to the discussion: Pentagon can't account for 8.5trillion in the last decade and a half.... [View all]freshwest
(53,661 posts)18. How? It's called privatization. The information is proprietary and not public for all intents. Small
government shills push the mantra 'government should be run like a business because it's more efficient.'
First, government and its budges are moral agents to protect equality and help everyone, not just the profiteer. Businesses are about distributing the wealth created by their employees to their boss. It is not about rights or equality or human needs or anything else. It's about profits. Period.
The efficiency they claim to be able to create, is done by a profit and loss sheet way of accounting. In that way of thinking, the elderly, poor, disabled or otherwise vulnerable are not profitable. They should be eliminated from the ledger. If they have to die to get off the books, fine. A person's value or the value of any living thing, or the world that supports us all, is measured in terms of profit.
A book by a sheep herder, called 'A Shepherd Looks At The 23rd Psalm' has a comparison that may ring true here. He describes what he did a sheep herder who kept his flock healthy in order to gather their fleece. It entailed a lot more work than I imagined, keeping after their daily activities so they did not accidentally kill themselves, had the right food to keep them healthy, and protected them from predators.
Think about that analogy in terms of government for a moment. He only wanted the fleece and let the sheep do what they pleased. They were allowed to 'rest in green pastures and lay beside the still waters,' to enjoy their lives.
In contrast, he described his neighbor, who raised sheep for meat, that is slaughter.Those sheep had lousy pasture and said he saw them gather at the fence, looking with longing at the pasture he grew for his flock.
They were not given any of the healthy feed or the medical care he gave his sheep, relieving them of parasites, and their fur was matted and filthy, their forage just enough to keep them alive. If they died from lack of care, they would still satisfy his intent, as they were all to end up as mutton anyway.
The sheep herder being of a religious bent, saw this in terms of a parable. The Good Shepherd is the name for Jesus. Whether he was telling the truth about all this, IDK. But by the terms he used for the man who raised mutton were not generous, saying that he was into weighing the their flesh for profit.
This is the difference in forms of government, as well. As far as the GOP is concerned, many people in this nation and world do not yield them profit, thus they should be put off the Earth, essentially. All of their philosophy points to this.
And back to the defense industry. It claims that they are hired by the people to protect them from this or that, which since WW2 has not been the case. And they are killing the public with their greed. No efficiency of any kind is being done by them, unless Reagan's plan of running up the bill for defense to END social spending is called efficiency. Of the worst kind, because it will kill people they consider to be of no worth.
It's not really any different than what the Nazis did in terms of efficiency. They worked people to death, literally. No health care, minimum housing, clothing and food, no respect for the condition, and most certainly no plan for retirement or a pension, huh?
They push privatization because it's better for them and not because it's a good deal for the tax payer. And we cannot forget that the private sector has made fortunes off the defense industry. They always have. Even Lincoln warned us of this.
The largesse these firms get from the tax payer is a also bribery, a form of pay for votes from the workers who they hire, who will vote for more wars, more defense spending, and also they will vote to cut social spending on all other groups in society but their own.
The hypocrisy of the GOP going to protest the shut down of the WW2 park was emblematic of their priorities. The cuts to vets and active duty service people, the disabled vets, they did not protest. They protested what to them was a method of getting public support due to those who died, to keep up the myth they are in the business of defending the USA. They aren't. Rather complex, but in the end, disgusting and self serving. A joke on all of us.
JMHO.
First, government and its budges are moral agents to protect equality and help everyone, not just the profiteer. Businesses are about distributing the wealth created by their employees to their boss. It is not about rights or equality or human needs or anything else. It's about profits. Period.
The efficiency they claim to be able to create, is done by a profit and loss sheet way of accounting. In that way of thinking, the elderly, poor, disabled or otherwise vulnerable are not profitable. They should be eliminated from the ledger. If they have to die to get off the books, fine. A person's value or the value of any living thing, or the world that supports us all, is measured in terms of profit.
A book by a sheep herder, called 'A Shepherd Looks At The 23rd Psalm' has a comparison that may ring true here. He describes what he did a sheep herder who kept his flock healthy in order to gather their fleece. It entailed a lot more work than I imagined, keeping after their daily activities so they did not accidentally kill themselves, had the right food to keep them healthy, and protected them from predators.
Think about that analogy in terms of government for a moment. He only wanted the fleece and let the sheep do what they pleased. They were allowed to 'rest in green pastures and lay beside the still waters,' to enjoy their lives.
In contrast, he described his neighbor, who raised sheep for meat, that is slaughter.Those sheep had lousy pasture and said he saw them gather at the fence, looking with longing at the pasture he grew for his flock.
They were not given any of the healthy feed or the medical care he gave his sheep, relieving them of parasites, and their fur was matted and filthy, their forage just enough to keep them alive. If they died from lack of care, they would still satisfy his intent, as they were all to end up as mutton anyway.
The sheep herder being of a religious bent, saw this in terms of a parable. The Good Shepherd is the name for Jesus. Whether he was telling the truth about all this, IDK. But by the terms he used for the man who raised mutton were not generous, saying that he was into weighing the their flesh for profit.
This is the difference in forms of government, as well. As far as the GOP is concerned, many people in this nation and world do not yield them profit, thus they should be put off the Earth, essentially. All of their philosophy points to this.
And back to the defense industry. It claims that they are hired by the people to protect them from this or that, which since WW2 has not been the case. And they are killing the public with their greed. No efficiency of any kind is being done by them, unless Reagan's plan of running up the bill for defense to END social spending is called efficiency. Of the worst kind, because it will kill people they consider to be of no worth.
It's not really any different than what the Nazis did in terms of efficiency. They worked people to death, literally. No health care, minimum housing, clothing and food, no respect for the condition, and most certainly no plan for retirement or a pension, huh?
They push privatization because it's better for them and not because it's a good deal for the tax payer. And we cannot forget that the private sector has made fortunes off the defense industry. They always have. Even Lincoln warned us of this.
The largesse these firms get from the tax payer is a also bribery, a form of pay for votes from the workers who they hire, who will vote for more wars, more defense spending, and also they will vote to cut social spending on all other groups in society but their own.
The hypocrisy of the GOP going to protest the shut down of the WW2 park was emblematic of their priorities. The cuts to vets and active duty service people, the disabled vets, they did not protest. They protested what to them was a method of getting public support due to those who died, to keep up the myth they are in the business of defending the USA. They aren't. Rather complex, but in the end, disgusting and self serving. A joke on all of us.
JMHO.
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Pentagon can't account for 8.5trillion in the last decade and a half.... [View all]
Lobo27
Nov 2013
OP
They stacked 100 dollar bills on pallets and shipped them to our enemies, trying to buy "friends."
blkmusclmachine
Nov 2013
#5
And they're trying to steal it out of your Social Security Net, via the "Grand Bargain."
blkmusclmachine
Nov 2013
#7
A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money
Major Nikon
Nov 2013
#11
That's right, of course. But, whenever I see DoD figures, I remember that Robert Fulghum quote.
Fridays Child
Nov 2013
#22
If you can't account for it, then it fits perfectly under the meme, which includes incompetence
Major Nikon
Nov 2013
#29
How? It's called privatization. The information is proprietary and not public for all intents. Small
freshwest
Nov 2013
#18
The story is rather more careless with its claims than the DoD is with its accounting
bhikkhu
Nov 2013
#21
If they turned these on full power in port, the damage would be incredible.
AtheistCrusader
Dec 2013
#39
Exactly. Imagine being berthed next to an aircraft carrier and turning this on
jmowreader
Dec 2013
#40