The entire procurement process is broken. Companies like Boeing try to spread contracts all over the country so that it becomes a huge jobs program and what is the result? The damn parts don’t fit and the plane (or rifle or helicopter or whatever) doesn’t work as designed. Now, I could care less if these things drop out of the sky (just the cost of doing business when you deal in death), except for the obscene waste of money that is far better utilized elsewhere.

It’s obvious that you have no control over your military, as the Government would seem to be in its pocket as it has always been, forever.
Until you elect a Government dedicated to cutting back on the military’s enormous appetite for new fangled weapons(it’s Christmas every day for these people), then grin and bear it.
However, if you do manage to get it together and elect such a radical Government, beware of the real possibility of a “coup”, and among the reasons given will be one along the lines of: ‘preventing a communist takeover of our democratic way of life’.

Ah, Boeing. I was born in Seattle, went to school at the U.W. and know full well the place Boeing takes in the local scheme of things.

Seeing the headline in the N.Y. Times though, my only thought was surely it’s not conceivable that a contract of this size could have been awarded to other than a contractor with employees in as many Congressional districts as is humanly possible?

I thought not.

Thirty-five billion? Well, what the hell, our school system hasn’t produced a decent crop of engineers in decades, we can always hire better educated and more
motivated folks from overseas. Or, in a pinch, build the damned things over there and save the airfare.

Is it not true that Boeing are getting this home pork barrel treatment because in the overseas civilian market they can no longer compete with Airbus? Or has someone already said this? Obvious I would have thought. I seem to hear Boris Karloff’s spine chilling laugh.

The bill is a start, but I fear that it might actually slow down the process of major reform.  The bill gives candidates a choice, which it must, due to the SCOTUS decision that money equals speech.  And it doesn’t/can’t do anything to restrict corporate ads, given the Citizen’s United SCOTUS decision.  Those who don’t choose to use the public financing could still spend huge amounts that swamp what the bill provides.  And the public-financed ads would be swamped by the ever-growing number/kinds of ads that corporations pump into campaigns.  Unless all candidates use the process in the bill, we’re still left with big money controlling the message.  That can only be changed with an amendment or with SCOTUS reversing itself.

We can work toward BOTH an amendment and reversing the SCOTUS ruling:  Work toward a constitutional amendment that states only people are people and money is not speech. Then, have all elections run with a set, finite amount of money given to all candidates who collect enough signatures on a petition.  The money would come out of our taxes.  IMO, that would be one of the best uses of taxes!  Also have strict term limits and don’t allow pols or their staff to work for lobbying firms after they leave office.  I believe left, right, and center can agree on this, if we keep our sights and our rhetoric on the “bottom line,” rather than bickering across the political spectrum. There are several websites that are dedicated to this goal.  Hightower lists them at http://movetoamend.org/news/hightower-8-ways-were-making-america-better-place. 

Regarding the Supreme Court.  We can work to impeach Justice Roberts and those who are twisting the intent of our Constitution.

TL: http://fairelectionsnow.org/about-bill

Thanks for the link.

I am sending it off to the Democrats Abroad headquarters in Paris to ask what they plan on doing about it - and I will bring it up for discussion at our local chapter.

Others, here, have the choice. Either we spectate at the sport of politics (like bitching-in-a-blog) ... or we pick up the ball and run with it.

Note that the former option above is for the faint-of-heart and that latter definitely not.

Absolutely *NOTHING* will fix our system without getting to the root: political corruption. Politicians sharing in the booty by taking campaign bribes, and then rolling over to the industry that wants in the taxpayer’s pockets. The recent “crisis commission” blamed everyone except the nation’s board of directors—our CONGRESS—even when the politicians are 100% to blame.

The key problem is the way we finance elections. There are only two kinds of money: public and private. Private money got us here and nothing will change until we get these legal bribes out of politics. But a fix is vigorously opposed by the political elite that benefit from the existing corruption.

Nothing else matters, regardless of your issue. Nothing is going to change until we have public funding of campaigns. Politicians spend taxpayer dollars because they ARE PAID to spend taxpayer dollars, and robbing the SSI fund and Medicare (as just two examples) gives them the cash needed to attract campaign dollars.

Our problem is NOT government, and it is not R’s or D’s. It *IS* that government is owned by CEOs and corporate interests that want in the taxpayer’s pockets. The 2010 elections were funded by just 1% of Americans, when they should be financed by 100% of taxpayers. And at $5 per taxpayer it would be a bargain. Even at 100 times that.

CEOs want short-term profits to increase their already massive salaries, and are willing to share those profits with the politicians that made it all happen. Thus NAFTA and other laws are passed that enable outsourcing to countries with wage scales one-tenth ours. Or are repealed (like Glass-Seagall) to enable the Fat Cat bankers to rip off the public. And all while deregulation crashes our country, China and India flourish.

In addition to public funding of campaigns, politicians must also (a) be put on a pay-for-performance basis, where if deficits or pork barrel and special interest spending go up, their pay goes down, and (b) they must put their own wealth in a blind trust that blocks political insider trading (which today is rampant). They must also get their health care from Medicare and their retirement from Social Security, and receive it only when they reach 67 or 69 or whatever age the rest of us qualify.

As a former CEO my company would not have survived if I had an employee or board of directors who took money on the side and gave away company assets in return. Our country can’t survive this corruption either.

So the voters change nothing. We elect a new group of politicians and the Fat Cats simply re-direct their bribes as we continue down our spiral. But the problem is that all of these changes must be made by the foxes themselves (congress).

The public’s choices are simple: a 100% turnover of politicians until the above fixes are made, or a national revolution is inevitable. And all because our politicians refuse to stop the bribery they benefit from, and the public refused to stop it.

If politicians are going to be beholden to their funders, those funders should be the taxpayers. We MUST demand that our senators and representative pass the bill at: http://fairelectionsnow.org/about-bill

Jack Lohman …
http://MoneyedPoliticians.net

What are the Reps favorite words about government?
‘waste’, ‘fraud’ and ‘abuse’.
Let’s clean the dirtiest house - the Pentagon before we disenfranchise those lazy seniors under the rubric of ‘fiscal disicpline’ (chortle).

WE CAN DO BETTER

PH: ... it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.

Well put.

But when will Americans waken to the challenge? It is not in taking small half-steps to an destination that you get there.

Which is why I keep harping about a Progressive Agenda, one that sums up the needed reforms and packages them within a Social Democrat Party to implement them.

Electoral Campaign Financing is certainly one of the more important reforms, as you so rightly indicate.

There are others, however. For instance, a Public Health Care option that reduces overall HC-costs and make them affordable not only for its patients but for the Treasury as well.

POST SCRIPTUM

A Social Democrat Party is a sub-set of the Democrat Party that accentuates reforms that are absolutely necessary to bring America back from the precipice.

We are about to go over a cliff. The disparity between the Upper Class and the Middle and Lower Classes is of such a size as to possibly engender social unrest. In fact, it is not impossible that Crime and Delinquency may be fueled by the apparent disparity. How’s that?

We have created a cultural set of values that extols the accumulation of capital. (Which can be called the Millionaire Wannabe Generation.) We no longer are a nation that is quite happy to recover from the Great Depression (as we were at the end of WW2) in the 1950s.

We are two generations beyond that and upon a cusp that is precipitously pointing to a “Winner take all” nation. Meaning, quite simply, this: On the Highway of Life there is no speed-limit, so both career accidents and road-kill are an acceptable outcome.

Or, immorally, how I obtain my riches (and the consequences of my actions) is immaterial. It is irrelevant because only achievement matters. The rise of the Financier Class is ample proof thereof.

We are increasingly turning into a nation of clear Winners and Losers. Which is not only unfair but unacceptable.

We can do better because we deserve better. Where there’s a will, there’s a way - providing that we can create a collective will for change.

Lafayette; Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I guess I’m not a
very good American, since I see the European model of
social equality as something to aspire to, and the
general trend in the US seems to be more and more to
the opposite conclusion.

I’m afraid that I’ve become far too cynical to want
to fight any more. Why bother? The progressive
movement has been triangulated out of any discussions
by our Democratic President, just as we were in the
Clinton years. There are no organizations in seats of
power on our side, because fighting for those without
voice or power doesn’t make anyone rich or powerful,
and in today’s environment, it brings contempt and
destructive criticism instead.

DICHOTOMY

trog: I believe that those polls showing support for education is merely cheap talk, as their actions contradict their stated opinions.

You may well be right.

Responding to a Pew Research poll (from which I took the fact that Americans priortize Education as a Public Service) is one thing and - apparently - going to vote in a local or national election seems another.

I cannot understand or explain the apparent dichotomy between the two polls, but the results show marked differences.

A PROBABLE ANSWER

Politics has become emotive? The general public vote with one overriding factor in mind once and then another the next time. Emotions are highly variable passions.

They voted for Obama with a clear expression of “Change Needed!” But what change? Certainly, no far reaching lurch to the Left.

I am writing from Europe, so my appreciation of Public Services is far greater than that of, say, my family stateside. I can see immediately when I talk to them.

Americans do not have a European sense of Public Services bounded to just Police, Education, Firefighters, Homeland Security & Defense, a Judicial System. It goes much, much further.

Which is the reason that Europeans expect so much more from their governments AND are willing to accept higher taxes to pay for them.

But, in doing so, Europeans have a lower incidence of Income Unfairness as expressed by the Gini Index here. Look for yourself at the Index. It shows America around 45% and most European nations between 25 and 35. Meaning much more Income Fairness in Europe.

Yes, Europeans tax the piss outta the Rich. But, that is the way it should be if one wants a nation that is more collective in nature. That is, where the well-being of the largest population possible is more important than that of a select minority of people who were lucky/smart enough to earn exaggerated fortunes.

America is still dazed by the notion that freedom means the individual ability to get amazingly rich. One watching a bit of American TV understands quickly who are heroes are—they are the rich.

MY POINT

We neither need nor want Communism to make everyone equal. But we must diminish the gross disparities between the patrimony of a select minority vis-a-vis the rest of the population.

Which would be an objective of a Progressive Agenda.

But when will Americans wake up to that notion? Not anytime soon, I figure ...

expat,

Anybody not making plans for leaving the sinking ‘merican ship asap is a fool.

I am not about to drag up and flee.

Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.

We need some old style revolution here at home just like what is going on in the middle east.  Enact laws to require paper ballots, term limits and campaign reform.

Perhaps the situation in Wisconsin will provide the impedus to start a revolution rolling here at home.

Lafayette: (Fortunately, poll studies show that
Americans understand this necessity.)

Then why do they elect representatives to the state
legislatures that work to reduce education funds and
support tax structures that reward wealthy
communities while forcing less-well off sections to
do more with less? Why do citizens almost invariably
vote “NO” to taxes to help the poor school districts
attract good teachers/administration leadership?

I believe that those polls showing support for
education is merely cheap talk, as their actions
contradict their stated opinions.

SOME FACTS

tom: The frame will be new and the cockpit will be state of the art.  Let you go overseas and need a fillup over the ocean.  Get your facts right.

Why should any aircraft have to fill-up over the ocean?

If we are talking military strategy by which Americans are shifting large amounts of material for some war on the border of Europe, than we can pre-position that material. It will be available one helluva lot quicker than trucking it across the Atlantic. (Ditto the Philippines for the Far East Theatre.)

Uncle Sam would need to airlift personnel over, but for it to do that it needs:
- Some commercial airliners (of which there are plenty available), and,
- Permission from the local government to stage troops / supplies within their geography. (As we did in Saudi Arabia for the Gulf War.)

MY POINT: Putrid Smell

Locking out Europe on this contract, I say, was stupid. At the very lease, we could have shared it 30% Airbus and 70% Boeing - or some such arrangement.

Stupid is as stupid does. I don’t follow the Obama Administration on this one. We’ve shut out the Europeans already once already on this air-tanker contract. Now we slap them in the face a second time?

We are demonstrating Gross Ineptitude with a good ally that we may well need one day.

This decision has the putrid smell of lobbyists all over it.

BRINGING THE PORK HOME?

Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell was cheered by the crowd when she said, “there could be no better economic news” for the region and “Boeing will maintain their superiority in making the best airplanes in the world.” She and fellow Democratic Sen. Patty Murray were hailed by “workers shout[ing] `thank you’ and ‘my children thank you.’ ”

Just the sort of American claptrap from politicians that makes its people think that EVERYTHING Uncle Sam does is “superior”.

The facts are somewhat different. In fact, Boeing and Airbus (European) share equally the world market for commercial airliners. 

HISTORY

Boeing had a great stroke of luck when it lost a major DoD contract for a “heavy-lifter” aircraft, at the time (1963) known as the C-5 Galaxy. It went on to develop the 747 as a commercial airliner, which helped solidify its lead in the airliner market. About a thousand 747s have been built.

TODAY

We are now four decades beyond that event and the market for commercial airliners has changed substantially.

In fact, Boeing and Airbus (European) share equally the world market for commercial airliners. See the latest airliner delivery figures here.

MY POINT

The selection of Boeing over Airbus is a bit strange, if one considers domestic employment alone. Airbus would have subcontracted construction of its model to Northrup in the US. The aircrafts engines would have come from either GE or Pratt & Whitney.

So, what happened? Only the lobbyists can tell us. It would seem that splitting the contract would have been a good alternative, if costs were similar. Because this sort of decision is going to shut American companies out of European defense contracts for a long time to come, which is almost assured.

Supposedly, the contract was finally decided upon one key factor: that of long-term costs of operation of the tanker fleet over the next four decades, where Boeing was the cheaper of the two alternatives.

But as this article points out, will we need refueling tankers that for out into the future? If not, then the DoD is doing with this contract that which it has done with all its contracts in the past - it is fighting tomorrow’s wars with the tactics of the last war.

It would be nice to see the decision’s justification corroborated by the factual studies that were done by both Boeing and Airbus as regards lifetime operating cost-analyses. Meaning, they should be publicized.

POST SCRIPTUM: Brave New World of Globalization

To think that America is “superior” to Europe in the develop of commercial airline technology, or in any other is, is hogwash. Such superlatives are no longer applicable; Europe has an enviable record of technological development. And it remains, despite this contract, a steadfast American ally.

BUT, as I never tire of saying, we are transitioning from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. America has a great need to enhance its workforce skills. This can only happen by a reformation of all levels of our national education system - meaning primary, secondary and tertiary. (Fortunately, poll studies show that Americans understand this necessity.)

Our Brave New World of globalization is one that is no holds barred. We need to be the amongst the best, because telling ourselves that “we are the best” just doesn’t hold water any longer.

We’ve been sitting on our laurels for far too long.

Anybody not making plans for leaving the sinking
‘merican ship asap is a fool.

Yeah, but there’s a lot of us who would gladly leave,
but haven’t the wherewithal to manage it.

madisolation:  Try the massive letter-writine, phoning, office-visiting first—by the millions, and see what happens.  Perhaps the main reason things have sunk so low is that the people have willingly given up their power to make themselves heard.  If only a few people do it, it means little.  If millions do it, it means a lot.  Now that we have the Internet, fewer than ever will make themselves heard.  It’s just too much trouble to find the email addresses, fill in the stupid blanks, compose and click.  Especially when you don’t get any answer; you feel like a nobody, which is of course the reason you don’t get an answer. There are not enough people to make an answer necessary.  Try picketing local offices?  Alone?  No, with neighbors and friends?  Really?  Sure, why not?  Too much trouble?  Etc.  etc.

madisolation:  Try the massive letter-writine, phoning, office-visiting first—by the millions, and see what happens.  Perhaps the main reason things have sunk so low is that the people have willingly given up their power to make themselves heard.  If only a few people do it, it means little.  If millions do it, it means a lot.  Now that we have the Internet, fewer than ever will make themselves heard.  It’s just too much trouble to find the email addresses, fill in the stupid blanks, compose and click.  Especially when you don’t get any answer; you feel like a nobody, which is of course the reason you don’t get an answer. There are not enough people to make an answer necessary.  Try picketing local offices?  Alone?  No, with neighbors and friends?  Really?  Sure, why not?  Too much trouble?  Etc.  etc.

“...to make phone calls or write letters to officials and/or editors. Their belief that it “won’t do any good” is their excuse for not doing it.”
I think the time for letter-writing is over. Look at Wisconsin: that doofus Governor isn’t giving an inch, even as the crowds get bigger and bigger. What good do you think a letter to Senators and Congressmen, far away and inside the wealth bubble, in Washington is going to do? We’ve got to go all Egypt on ‘em and rid ourselves of them. We have to chase them from office, if need be. We have to scare the pants off of them and subject them to ridicule. We have to fight them before they take everything away.

Robert Scheer provides (probably without any conscious knowledge or intent) yet another grim snapshot (look to any other article or news-story here or anywhere else today for an entire virtual “album” of similarly horrifying word-(and actual-)pictures) of what the “civilization” disease process looks like in its terminal stages.  The present biological “bankruptcy,” brought-on by thousands of years of massive organic dysfunction among the domesticated part of Humanity (damned near all of us, at the moment), is showing-up in every aspect of their very own increasingly miserable half-lives within the eCONomic CON-TRAPtion that is the retro-viral tormenting entities’ “operating-system” here.

Nobody born-into and still-stuck-inside the “global” gulag has even a clue about how to address, to any genuine mutually benefical effect, its now-completely-institutionalized industrial-strength abuses and depredations….even as these are finally visited increasingly upon the subjects/citizens/inmates of the OVER-developed nation-state cell-blocks….the arrogantly “self”-proclaimed “first-world”-ers.  Until relatively recently, these comfort-and-CONvenience-addicted damned fools remained slap-happpily CONvinced that such awful things would always be the divinely-ordained lot of only the lesser breeds, and never befall their own privileged too-precious “self.”  Since in actual Natural Fact, though, absolutely nothing with any truly remedial efficacy is even available within the rule-of-fear/reign-of-terror CONstruct itself, their futile exercise of resorting reflexively to yet another dose of the hair-of-the-god that’s killing ‘em (such as this article describes) is unfortunately pretty-much all these organically poverty-stricken domesticated peoples can think (or even imagine) to do….which, of-course, can only make an already intolerably CONdition even worse.

There is still accessible to our tame Sisters and Brothers, however, a Living Way to a genuinely viable alternative.  It is inherent in the Living Virtue of Organic Functional Integrity.  They can recover a sufficiency of this biologically essential attribute by getting free from the seductively “self”-satisfying solitary-CONfinement of their artificially “individual”-ized “self,” coming together instead as Natural Persons into our Natural Organic Form of genuine Human Communities, and fulfilling attentively and respectfully Humanity’s given Organic Function in our Mother Earth’s Living Arrangement….as a vital component in Her natural immune system.
 
Some of us surviving free wild Turtle Island Natives here in Indian Country call this The Tiyoshpaye Way….some The Beauty Way. 

ALL TOGETHER….NOW!!!!

HokaHey!

Felicity, the folks gaining from these bloated contracts with the government ( the private, for profit companies ) are the ones earning their return for bribes, gifts and supporting campaigns. 

The private security firms and about making money, and if any of our interests were found there, we’d be defending the siphoning of Amerika… but we are the ones being sifted, so of course we are outraged.

But the dole keeps being payed out… Madoff did say the entire U.S. government is a ponzi scheme.. and he ought to know how those are run and done… he’s an expert.

Well, this is the same government that continues to
award contracts to firms in the military/industrial
complex that recently have defrauded (proven) the
(same) government now awarding them new contracts.

Of course, no explanation of this bizarre and
apparently rampant practice has been forth-coming. 
(And I continue to wonder why we hire private security
guards for foreign duty paying them $1222/day when we
can pay a sergeant $41/day to do the same job.)

hark asks the most important questioin:
  “Why can’t we have a jobs program that delivers something useful to society,”
  And the answer is ..... well, for one thing, the American people refuse to unite around any one imporant issue, organize together by the millions, and act together even to get together with their neighbors, to make phone calls or write letters to officials and/or editors. Their belief that it “won’t do any good” is their excuse for not doing it.
  It’s called “rugged individualism” and it destroys social conscience and democracy, and instead builds selfishness, ignorance and lack of cohesion.  Corporatists love it!  Governments love it. Manipulators of all types love it.

****************

My, my. We’re really off to a rollicking good end to spending.
The trash that mostly represents the people who elected them
are just bursting with great ways to save and stop spending,
unless it puts more money into corporate welfare.

And of late, I don’t seem to remember seeing or hearing of ANY
congressional who objects to the tea party’s strange way of
controlling spending. Guess those ‘gifts’ from the lobbyists just
can’t be refused.

Guess we shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth,
$4,000,000,000.00 were cut from a spending bill somewhere.

Even Reagan talked about a peace dividend. He just did not specify that it was for cronies and insiders, not the people. As someone locally said about the insider theft of a military base “the devil is in the details”.

“No one will be able to maintain defense as a top priority now. This is neither ideology nor opinion. The coming technology of light renders present defense requirements obsolete.”
- World Teacher Maitreya through an associate as reported by Share International

Well this is how business works of course, in the US.  It’s all a simple disguise for stealing tax payers money and giving it to the super rich.  It’s not complicated.  The rich buy the politicians (from “both” parties) and the politicians steal the money from the workers and hand it to the rich.

Class warfare.

FRTothus: “I’d really like to see more “followers”
of the peoples’ will in public office, people who are
not successful business people or have done well in a
law practice,...”

While I too have grown deeply distrustful of our
representatives in government, this “anti-elitist”
talk is exactly what brought so many desperately
delusional Tea Party-endorsed candidates into
Congress. This round in the House, and I predict
still more of them seated in the Senate in ‘12.

Add to this, the likely 5+ years of watching Obama
triangulate the liberals completely out of the
picture, as he has so successfully accomplished so
far, and you get an idea of just how cynical I’ve
become. There’s no money in fighting for the
powerless/voiceless, so we can expect much more
Overton Window pushing rightward to proceed.

Are we now finished with having to listen to Boeing bitch about how Airbus is funded by those evil, socialist, European governments?

Wake up conservatives! The entire US air-space industry and military industrial complex is funded by the US government, through the pentagon. They account for millions of american jobs (yes, millions) So who says that an unregulated private industry creates the most jobs? Bullshit! They pale in comparison to the spending power and job creation capacity of the public sector.

“Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, this is the war room!”

If Maria Cantwell really cared about jobs, she’d quit supporting all those NAFTA deals she’s voted for since Clinton was president.

Spending the fabled peace dividend while austerity
measures are enforced for everyone else.  USA!

Who elects these clowns?

I must say I am sick to death of “leaders”.  I’d
really like to see more “followers” of the peoples’
will in public office, people who are not successful
business people or have done well in a law practice,
but someone who represents workers and their
interests, which means saying no and being
disagreeable to compromise everything away.

In the case of this Robert Scheer article, the photo for this, on the right, speaks volumes.

Finally they will stop playing those EADS and Boeing commercials in Washington DC 24/7 designed to sway the congresscritters one way or another.

It is our governments desire for an empire outside of American which creates the need for these global gas stations. 

No other use besides a preparation for war.

Thanks Robert, great article as usual. It’s like Boeing goes hand in hand with a
Chevy and Mom’s apple pie. Amen.